Originally Posted by ItinerantLurker

I've watched it - it's a cacophony of errors and falsehoods that preys on people's ignorance.

I half-expected you or namith to say that. Ok...write it all off if you will, along with the science that has been presented and black-balled before the global-warming powers-that-be.

If you think there aren't ideologies or political persuasions that shape the data-sets that get accepted or rejected into scientific communities, your ignorance may provide you your bliss. Bliss has it's uses, I get that.

Originally Posted by ItinerantLurker

May want to check yourself before you wreck yourself there - most of those German eugenicists were, in fact, Christians who were explicitly rejecting Darwin's theory of common descent and instead drawing justification from the divine separation of the races.



No doubt the church has done some amazing things, but these really great things do not wipe away century upon century of oppression.



That's a nice piece of revisionism. So it was fellow scientists who must have taken an elderly Galileo to tour the many devices of torture employed by the inquisition. It must have been fellow scientists who responded to his work with the formal statement that,

"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both psychologically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith."

Oh wait, that was the Church's formal declaration to which Galileo responded,

"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still. . .I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations."

From the primary sources of the time, then, it would appear that the bolded section above was the actual issue, rather than some professional dispute among "fellow scientists" that the church sorrowfully took part in. Indeed, Galileo's recantation, he makes it absolutely clear that the dispute is one between science contradicting theology and not, as you seem to imply, one of science contradicting science.

"Because I have been enjoined, by this Holy Office, to abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the center and immovable, ...I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies...contrary to the said Holy Church."

Science is biased towards theories which consistently explain evidence and against theories which are contradicted by evidence. The fact that scientists are unimpressed by climate change skeptics and/or creationists is not a flaw in the way science works - it is due to the lack of supportive evidence for those positions and the plethora of evidence which contradict them.



Curiously, neither does making bald assertions that are unsupported by evidence.




Lurker

I guess you havent heard of Rev Foscarini then. No matter, because that would clash with dogma. I wonder how all the Christian scientists were able to resolve the issue? You know, people like Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, Gauss, Maxwell, Planck, Pascal, Napier, Gallileo (yeah, he was a Christian..), Boyle, Bayes, Euler, Cauchy, Faraday, do I really even need to go on?

I guess they were simple, feeble-minded individuals who couldnt think outside of anything but their environment - and these Christians had really no contribution to science or mathematics, I assume because of their belief in God prevented them from discussing the truth.

C'mon man... To deny that science was based on men who despite Christianity were able to observe the world is false. Newton alone transformed science and mathematics as a CHristian!

namith doesn't seem to understand, outside his own very limited understanding.

Maybe you'll read these resources

Bible Prophecy Truth > Home
CARM - Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics

All the science, evidence, proof you need nicely summarized in 3 links.

With their latest tactics Namith and Lurker need to learn of one Friar Albert Mangus, who in the 12th century showed that science and religion were compatible. Or perhaps another Friar - Roger Bacon who invented the scientific method. Acknowledging this requires some serious intellectual honesty.

Originally Posted by misesfan

Christians did fight the Reich.

Of course Christians fought the Reich. No one is saying otherwise. What I'm trying to tell you is that those scientists who most influenced Germany's racial policies were Christians who rejected common descent. That is an unavoidable fact.




Lurker

Originally Posted by s.i.e.

I half-expected you or namith to say that. Ok...write it all off if you will,

I certainly did not "write it off". When I initially heard about and saw the film I was a solid supporter of Intelligent Design. What I came to realize, however, as I delved into its claims was that it was undeniably and simply wrong.

along with the science that has been presented and black-balled before the global-warming powers-that-be.

More bald assertions. Do you have an example? We could start a new thread on it if you'd like. A lack of knowledge is something I can help you with; a desire to be wrong is not.

If you think there aren't ideologies or political persuasions that shape the data-sets that get accepted or rejected into scientific communities, your ignorance may provide you your bliss.

Certainly ideologies and politics influence scientists, but the process of science is built to be largely self-correcting by focusing so much importance on evidence. The failure of movements like Intelligent Design and skeptics of climate change is not due to ideology and/or politics - it's due to an utter lack of evidence supporting them.





Lurker

Originally Posted by misesfan

I guess you havent heard of Rev Foscarini then. No matter, because that would clash with dogma. I wonder how all the Christian scientists were able to resolve the issue? You know, people like Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, Gauss, Maxwell, Planck, Pascal, Napier, Gallileo (yeah, he was a Christian..), Boyle, Bayes, Euler, Cauchy, Faraday, do I really even need to go on?

I guess they were simple, feeble-minded individuals who couldnt think outside of anything but their environment - and these Christians had really no contribution to science or mathematics, I assume because of their belief in God prevented them from discussing the truth.

C'mon man... To deny that science was based on men who despite Christianity were able to observe the world is false. Newton alone transformed science and mathematics as a CHristian!

You appear to have moved your goal posts from "Christianity has a history of impeding knowledge that contradicted certain interpretations of scripture" to "No Christian has every contributed to our knowledge of the world."

Individual Christians have certainly made amazing scientific contributions. What I'm pointing out is that, while many Christians have found a way to reconcile science with faith they most often do so not by trying to use scripture to inform reality, but by using reality to inform their understanding of scripture. Unfortunately, most Christians throughout history don't seem to have particularly liked this approach and so Christianity has a very long and tragic history of suppressing knowledge and inquiry.

It was not until we followed Galileo's advice that, "in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations." that the scientific revolution began. The Christian church cannot claim responsibility for a movement towards empiricism and away from mysticism that it fought from the outset and, in truth, is still trying to fight today.




Lurker

Originally Posted by misesfan

With their latest tactics Namith and Lurker need to learn of one Friar Albert Mangus, who in the 12th century showed that science and religion were compatible. Or perhaps another Friar - Roger Bacon who invented the scientific method. Acknowledging this requires some serious intellectual honesty.

As I've explained before, science and religion certainly are compatible, to me that is a non-issue as long as religious adherents grant that either reality must inform their understanding of that faith or reality is inherently deceptive. What I'm more interested in is how any given religion can build a convincing case for its legitimacy in a universe that doesn't seem to provide us with any evidence for a particular deity.

I can certainly grant that God could have set up the natural laws that allowed for the expanding energy from the big bang to settle down into matter, planets, plants, and people. What I want to know is how those people are to really determine what god is responsible for those laws, and what it really is that we're supposed to do with that knowledge.




Lurker

Originally Posted by ItinerantLurker

Of course Christians fought the Reich. No one is saying otherwise. What I'm trying to tell you is that those scientists who most influenced Germany's racial policies were Christians who rejected common descent. That is an unavoidable fact.




Lurker

Ernst Rudin was a Christian? The psychiatrist who wrote the short book "Permission to Destroy Life Devoid of Value." I dont think Jesus stated this principle. In fact, I do not think that this is found anywhere in the Bible. Ernst Rudin was drafted into Expert Committee of Population and Racial Policy. He was never convicted of war crimes and allowed to continue practice after the war. Outrage is not a word strong enough to show my contempt for this evil man.

Alfred Ploetz was a Christian? Hmmm - since his main claim to his religious upbringing was his circle of friends who enjoyed the works of Darwin and Haeckel, somehow I doubt it. He is author of many racial hygiene textbooks in Germany, including 'Racial Hygiene Basics' and so forth. He was an accomplice in the '33 programme with Rudin in which racial purity was given a scientific veneer in the name of eugenics. When he died at the age of 79 Otto Freiherr praised "his inner sympathy and enthusiasm for the Nazi movement. (He died in 1940)

Hans Gunther was a Christian? Perhaps when the "Jewish problem" at Wansee was being discussed, a Christian might object. This man thought the meeting, 'rather boring.' Never brought to trial of course, but what does 7 million deaths of innocent men, women and children really matter to someone who thinks their race makes them superior?

Shall I continue? Alfred Rosenburg - this pussycat didnt escape the gallows because he was a minister of eastern territories and the Soviets didnt take kindly when they were executed en masse. Of course, he rejected Christianity - his membership in the wierd Thule society was more akin to your beloved pagans than Christians.

Or how about Eugen Fischer? He sterilized children even before the Nazi's were in power with his eugenics experiments. During the war years, with plentiful human subjects to perform experiments, he was able to enunciate the Fischer-Saller scale - it tells us how likely a person will be born with blonde hair. Hey - science is about the results right? I wonder if this theory was self-corrected...

I must laugh, or else I will become cynical at people who want to blame Christ for evil, even when this evil is obvious at its source. You can make every argument you want to blame Christians for eugenics, but you would be wrong sir.

No other religion on the planet believe that all men are equal and free under God, and promotes liberty at the hand of the tyrant.

Originally Posted by ItinerantLurker

As I've explained before, science and religion certainly are compatible, to me that is a non-issue as long as religious adherents grant that either reality must inform their understanding of that faith or reality is inherently deceptive. What I'm more interested in is how any given religion can build a convincing case for its legitimacy in a universe that doesn't seem to provide us with any evidence for a particular deity.

I can certainly grant that God could have set up the natural laws that allowed for the expanding energy from the big bang to settle down into matter, planets, plants, and people. What I want to know is how those people are to really determine what god is responsible for those laws, and what it really is that we're supposed to do with that knowledge.




Lurker

I must say, thank you, sir. I think I was attributing to you more malcontent than was justified. ;)