this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 71 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Most of them were forced to be religious or they'd be burned alive as heretics.

How many were actually atheists? Id wager most

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Also, for a long time one of the only ways a non-rich person could get an education was by joining the clergy

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

It turns out that taking 10% of an entire community's wages can fund so much more than extravagant buildings... like, an education!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I really wonder what scientific discoveries the Vatican has stored away in their vaults

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Imagine the world we would live in if the dark ages never happened...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Perpetual motion puppies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Probably something, but likely nothing more advanced than what we currently have.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Maybe deists, not necessarily convinced of the Christian god but thinking there could be something in control.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Especially once you get into genetics and evolution. A lot of those theories directly contradict creationist theories.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Most people in history were religious.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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?")

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago

They don't know the difference between:

because

vs

despite

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's an impressive list! And the last person listed only died two hundred and thirty years ago!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's the kind of talk that would have gotten you burned at the stake.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

If the Republican Party takes over and makes (a specific version of) Christianity a state religion, it may yet still.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

religion and science can work together, as long as both stay in their line.

That sounds like the exact opposite of "working together"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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 😆

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Ahaha indeed!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

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?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

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!"