Continued from a YouTube debate

[godarewe]

For those of you just joining here's a little background:

WTFAANU and I had been having a discussion on youtube. Bluerock and WTF had been having a separate discussion. I am merging the two discussions here in this thread.

WTFAANU is a devout roman catholic.
GodAreWe does not belong to any current institutionalized religion and is the starter of this thread.
Bluerock - I'm not familiar with his religious orientation.

The debate posted below was between Blurock and WTFAANU I am joining in this debate/discussion between the two.

To read their whole debate follow this link:
youtube.com/user/WTFAANU

Note: The reason why I posted it here is because Youtube is not the best place to have discussions since YouTube only allows a certain amount of characters in a reply - meaning you'd have to break stuff up into many replies if you have a long one.


CONTD…..


WTFAANU

WTFAANU (3 hours ago)
The scientists you speak of were not killed because of their findings-indeed, their findings were promptly utilized by the church, once they had proven to be true. Example; Galileo was not condemned for his scientific theories; he was condemned because he was, among other things, an arrogant dick who made it a point to **** off the church with heresies. When the church called him in to discuss his findings, he did things like deliberately arrive late for the meetings, insulted the various church officials about their intelligence, and so forth. As another example of his D-baggery, he was renowned for stealing his inventions from other scientists, like how he stole the telescope from Hans Lippershey, who invented it in 1608.



"he was condemned because he was, among other things, an arrogant dick"
Surely you're not saying that the church executed Galileo merely for being 'a dick'. You are making the church more evil than the deeds it has done.

To be late to meetings, to question/insult the church officials about their intelligence and to take credit or steal an idea of someone else's inventions does not justify killing another human being.



"The scientists you speak of were not killed because of their findings-indeed, their findings were promptly utilized by the church, once they had proven to be true."

Their 'findings' were at that time against the teachings of the church and were labelled as heresies. And as you also stated - they were killed because of heresies. So in fact yes they were killed for their findings.

This was at that time when the church was so certain that the earth was at the center of the universe. A time when the church was at the height of its power. When science was at its infancy hindered in growth by the fear of persecution and execution by the church.

And yes the church utilized the scientists findings eventually - but only after a long long time, when the TRUTH cannot be denied, and only after a long long list of people were executed. After all that massacre they realized that 'Oops yes what these scientists were saying was true after all'.

This very thing now is happening with the Catholic church and condoms. Have you seen news about and their big blunder in Africa.

The very essence of religious faith is to believe with outmost certainty in the teachings of the bible and the church despite of new information available in the fear that you might 'fall out' of religion and face eternal condemnation.

Instead of going in with an open mind, religious faith requires you to be absolutely certain of your point of view, an unbending, infallible stance that cannot be moved or changed. To ignore the facts and the figures and to rely on 'religious faith'. To stop thinking and just believe.

This was the same certainty the priests had with Galileo and other scientists with their thinking and findings and the same stance that the church is taking on condoms.

 

[WTFAANU]

1) You are correct; being a dick is no excuse for interrogation and murder. I apologize if I sounded like I approved of such things. Also, I made a mistake; although Galileo was interrogated, he was not actually killed; he was put under house arrest.

The point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make is that the mainstream Catholic church has rarely, if ever, opposed scientific innovation. In fact, the church and science have usually gone hand-in-hand throughout the church's history. As proof, the Pope actually has long had a collection of various clergy who are exclusively devoted to integrating new scientific innovations into Catholic theology. I was lucky enough to meet one of these clergy during a sci-fi convention; he was one Brother Guy, the Pope's chief astronomer, and he was hosting a panel about how life might exist on other planets.

Galileo's case is one of a few highly-placed clergy allowing personal animosity to interfere with proper investigation and trial. For what it's worth, I don't approve of their judgment on that case.

2) Here is where I need to elaborate on a few points of past and present church doctrine. As you probably know, one of the church's main edicts is "Give unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and give unto God that which belongs to God." This means that, regardless of the rules of the Catholic church, the Catholic church does not have the right or the ability to convict and punish people with the secular law; if they infringe on the Catholic church, they will be tried and convicted with Church law.

Two examples: When Nanci Pelosi said that the Catholic church was not opposed to abortions, the Catholic church promptly corrected her, and she admitted her mistake and backed down. At this point, there were many Catholics who demanded a stronger punishment(i.e., impeachment, imprisonment, etc.); I was actually at a seminar taught by Father Knight when someone brought this point up, and Father Knight flat-out told him to stop. (paraphrase) "What Ms. Pelosi did was wrong, but the Catholic church will not use secular law and punishment to condemn her. When confronted on this issue, she recanted; there is nothing more to be done."

On the flip-side, Ted Kennedy was a flat-out heretic. Though he professed to be a Catholic, he used his political career to support every anti-Catholic stance that he came across, like abortion. It was only many years after this began that he was asked to stop receiving Communion.

Despite cases like Galileo (which, as I mentioned, were more cases of personal animosity than actual Church hindrance), the Church in general has taken a similar stance on science. The innovations of science are not subject to Church oversight, until they directly infringe on Church doctrine. As proof, the Catholic church has no objection to the various new war technologies being developed around the world, aside from the standard condemnation of war in general.

3) "religious faith requires you to be absolutely certain of your point of view, an unbending, infallible stance that cannot be moved or changed"

This is true; however, you are missing half the equation. According to Catholic doctrine, the true practice of religion requires two things: faith and logic.

Here is a mnemonic for us to use: "Faith is the strength, logic the precision".

Faith is what we use to sustain us through life's trials, the rock we stand on when all else has failed. This is why faith must be unwavering. Logic, however, is what we use when determining how we apply that faith to life. When something happens that challenges out faith, we use logic to address and fix the problem; much like I am using logic to hold this civilized debate.

Faith without logic is the fanaticism that creates atrocities in the name of God. Logic without faith is weakness that will crumble at the slightest opportunity.