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Most of the pioneers of science and rational thinking were religious. One can believe in one thing based on logic and evidence and still have beliefs that aren’t as well grounded. Newton was a genius and paved the way for so many things, yet dabbled in the mystics and alchemy. Doesn’t downplay his science work.
Most of them were forced to be religious or they’d be burned alive as heretics.
How many were actually atheists? Id wager most
Also, for a long time one of the only ways a non-rich person could get an education was by joining the clergy
It turns out that taking 10% of an entire community’s wages can fund so much more than extravagant buildings… like, an education!
Yep.
If you weren’t doing science under the church, the church was rarely happy someone was doing science.
Everything had to be approved by the church at every step. Not just science, but often art as well.
I really wonder what scientific discoveries the Vatican has stored away in their vaults
Probably something, but likely nothing more advanced than what we currently have.
Imagine the world we would live in if the dark ages never happened…
Perpetual motion puppies.
Maybe deists, not necessarily convinced of the Christian god but thinking there could be something in control.
I bet some of the non devout were agnostic deists, believing in general “intelligent creation”.
Some of these folks view the pursuit of knowledge on the universe as understanding God’s designs.
Catholics don’t have a problem with science in fact the belief is that it is a sin if you have a talent given by God and waste it.
The problem are the Christian sects that decided to interpret the Bible literally that led to these conclusions.
Especially once you get into genetics and evolution. A lot of those theories directly contradict creationist theories.
Most people in history were religious.
Yep, for most of history what we’d call “science-ing” was done by people called natural philosophers, people who blended early scientific thought with questions of theology (ex. “How can I understand what God built outside our planet?”)
They don’t know the difference between:
because
vs
despite
Counter point: Galileo.
And Giordano Bruno
I was not aware of Giordano Bruno. 😮
Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno’s pantheism was not taken lightly by the church,[2] nor was his teaching of metempsychosis regarding the reincarnation of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned alive at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori in 1600.
The Roman Inquisition still exists, though they have gone through a few name changes and are now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. They have the same goal, but they don’t have as much power so they can’t get away with murdering people anymore.
That’s an impressive list! And the last person listed only died two hundred and thirty years ago!
The Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre, who died in 1966, discovered the Big Bang.
Werner Heisenberg, died in 1976, on of the creators of quantum physics, was Lutheran.
Ernest Walton, who died in 1995, proved that E=mc², was Methodist. Nobel prize in physics.
John Eccles, Nobel prize in Physiology, who died in 1997, was a devout Christian.
Just to name a few… That doesn’t prove anything, but yes one can be scientist, and a good one, and believe in God.
The Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre, who died in 1966, discovered the Big Bang.
In Steven Hawkings’ book A Brief History of Time, Hawking described meeting with the Pope and the Pope told him how the Big Bang theory was great but don’t go searching for the cause of the Big Bang.
I think that perfectly illustrates the difference between scientists who are religious and the Church itself.
It shows a lack of imagination considering brane theory posits the big bang event was a natural event in a larger manifold and Hawking suggests the axis of time we know started with the big bang. There is no before for anything to exist, including God.
That’s the kind of talk that would have gotten you burned at the stake.
If the Republican Party takes over and makes (a specific version of) Christianity a state religion, it may yet still.
The Church (we should even say “the Churches”) is a very complex structure. However you’re partly right, and as an institution, the Catholic Church tends to be quite conservative, but it’s still better than most Evangelical Churches, which are against science altogether…
Still, I have read an article (I can search it if you are interested) that showed that 30% of professional scientists were affiliated to a religion. It’s far less than the general population, but it’s not nothing; religion and science can work together, as long as both stay in their line.
religion and science can work together, as long as both stay in their line.
That sounds like the exact opposite of “working together”
Bad choice of words, you’re right ^^. Science and religion work together like two workers on an assembly line. One takes care of screwing, the other of nailing; if the nailer tries to screw with his hammer, it’s not going to work… when people read the Bible to look for biological or astronomical truths, that doesn’t work either.
One takes care of screwing
I can agree the church certainly has screwed a lot of people over the years…
You’re really throwing out some softballs here dude 😆
Ahaha indeed!
I think the whole Galileo Galilei affair demonstrates the attitude of the Church before and after the fact. Didn’t the RCC finally forgive him (irrespective of admitting he was correct) in the 1990s?
Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître a Belgain Catholic priest and cosmologist who hypothesized the primeval atom beginning of the universe, now the Big Bang Theory
Pope Pius XI was so impressed and glad to have a scientific theory that informed a beginning of the universe (where God could be inserted) that he gave Lemaître a promotion… right out of the astronomical department.
Lemaître, who was a much better scientist and mathematician than he was a bureaucrat petitioned his way back into astrophysics, not amused by how God works in mysterious ways, sometimes.
Jimmy Carr has a great perspective on the church. Preblack plague the priests were the smartest people in the village.
Post black plague the churches took anyone with a pulse. The Renaissance gave education and wealth redistribution organically to topple monarchies.
I mean, this is Catholic, a specific branch of Christianity. Fundamentalists like Jack Chick think that Catholicism is devil-worship, but I’m sure these people would be like, “yeah, he’s a weirdo, but I wanna laugh at atheists, not actual crackpots!”
