Why Arrogant "New Atheists" Annoy Me

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That's cute, but one of those definitions is for a noun and the other is for an adjective...

I mean primary definitions for each classification, ie primary for noun, primary for adjective, etc

Names of colours can be used as both adjectives and nouns. ("That paint is too blue. Add some orange")

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

Names of colours can be used as both adjectives and nouns. ("That paint is too blue. Add some orange")

OK, I'll use the adjective when it's required and the noun likewise.

I like the color blue. "Blue" and "color" are appositives; they are both nouns referring to the same thing: the somewhat abstract idea of a specific color.

I like the blue color. Now "blue" is describing/qualifying the noun "color" and is therefore an adjective.

 

[Apologes]

You tried and failed.

I put the argument out there and your response was to incredulously dismiss it. Provide a sound objection and then you'll have the right to say I failed.

I think you’ve forgotten what the discussion you jumped into was about. @Augustus claimed that Roman allusion to religion was just rhetoric; I’m pointing that when they said “the gods are with us,” to the it wasn’t just rhetoric; they thought it was literally true because - in their minds - they had asked the gods for their opinion of the situation and the gods had given them a response.

Well, think again. I didn't attempt to defend the claim that it was "mere rhetoric". Your words in the following paragraph make it apparent that you didn't really understand what it was that I was saying:

... though in fairness, I don’t see how you could have ever succeeded at arguing that people performing religious rituals to receive communications from their religion’s gods and then carry out what they perceive as their gods’ will isn’t religious.

I never said the rituals weren't religious. I said that justifying non-religious motives via religious rituals isn't enough to label a war as religious. Here's a good chunk of my original post (which you refused to address) which shows what I actually said:

Besides, it wasn't all that uncommon for people in the ancient world do see divine action in the ruling bodies but the religious undertone was really just a contingency which may have helped people be more willing to go to war, but it was hardly the deciding factor. Given how there was no real separation between the government and religion (priests would often serve as advisers and what not) even the most mundane things could have religious connotations. Religion was (and still is) after all one of the fundamental aspects of a civilization. The tale you mention is more of an example of religion (being a part of a given civilization) being reflected in the tasks that civilization undertook rather than being the thing that drove the civilization to undertake that task.

and again, I lay out the criteria for a war being religious:

What really matters here is not whether a non-religious motive could be painted in religious colors so as to make it more appealing, but whether a religious motive could have caused the conflict in question in the absence of any non-religious motives.

I find it ironic that you're acting like I said something out of ordinary when the fact is, most wars in history weren't religious and that includes those in which rituals you mentioned were used with the specific battle you mentioned not considered a religious war. Really, you're the odd-ball here, not me or Augustus.

 

[Augustus]

Early deists were theists, that necessarily means the philosophy of deism would incorporate a lot of the same things theism did. I am aware that some were called Christian deists, and that some considered themselves Christian deists, but the reality is that you cannot be a Christian deist. Christianity and deism are mutually exclusive

My point was that if you want to see Descartes as a deist (which is highly questionable) it makes little difference as he was still significantly affected by a Christian moral and intellectual worldview. People who became deists changed only a small part of their worldview, they certainly didn't reconstruct it from the ground up.

I looked him up just to see what else he'd written and it appears he is a proponent of the idea that Islam is/was a serious contributor to the European Renaissance, in other words he sounds like an Islamic apologist of sorts.

Arabic scientific advances did contribute. Why wouldn't they have?

Also it contributed in an unintended way when the Turks conquered Constantinople many Orthodox scholars fled to Europe bringing with them many Greek/Arabic texts (which the church then translated and spread).

Neither I nor Tyson are suggesting that there weren't scientific contributions "post al-Ghazali", but there is a noticeable reduction in the contributions of Muslims after the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 where lots of scientific literature was lost due to the sacking.

They lost a lot of their knowledge and contributing scientists at that time, and like Tyson said, with al-Ghazali's silly belief about the use of numbers, Islamic science never fully recovered.

Things I am very confident about being true: Tyson has never read al-Ghazali, he doesn't understand much about Arabic philosophy of the Golden Age, he doesn't understand Islamic theology, he is not knowledgeable about Medieval Islamic history.

Note he didn't quote or provide any context for that information. A) Did he say it? B) If so what was the context?

What al-Ghazali did say:

We are not interested in refuting such theories either; for the refutation will serve no purpose. He who thinks that it is his religious duty to disbelieve such things is really unjust to religion, and weakens its cause. For these things have been established by astronomical and mathematical evidence which leaves no room for doubt. If you tell a man, who has studied these things — so that he has sifted all the data relating to them, and is, therefore, in a position to forecast when a lunar or a solar eclipse will take place: whether it will be total or partial ; and how long it will last — that these things are contrary to religion, your assertion will shake his faith in religion, not in these things. Greater harm is done to religion by an immethodical helper than by an enemy whose actions, however hostile, are yet regular. For, as the proverb goes, a wise enemy is better than an ignorant friend...

As regards Mathematics, there is no point in denying or opposing it; for Mathematics includes Arithmetic and Geometry, and these two sciences are not in dispute here (Incoherence of the philosophers)

From what I can gather from Western scholars who are experts, it is a misrepresentation of his philosophy. The aspects of philosophy he had an issue with were reasonably limited rather than an outright attack on philosophy and science in general, and didn't extend to important areas such as logic. Also, because he discussed philosophical ideas in order to refute them, he actually had the unintended effect of making them more widely known. He also had to use philosophical reasoning in order to refute them

And even if he did aim to 'kill' philosophy/science, he completely failed, as it kept on going (some have argued it actually increased). 100 years after Ghazali you had Averroes for example, and he's one of the most famous of all. Scientific discoveries were also being made in the Islamic world for many centuries after his death in fields like mathematics, astronomy and medicine, even though it fell behind Europe due to sociocultural, economic and educational developments there.

You also have the centre of the Muslim world moving to the Ottoman Empire, who invested a lot more in military technologies and infrastructure than 'unproductive' scholarship.

Amid such highly complex sociocultural, economic and historical issues trying to place a significant blame on a single theologian, who he hasn't read, and he don't understand seems like very poor, ideologically motivated 'scholarship' to me.

If the foundation of science depended on Christianity, then why-oh-why didn't science develop and flourish during the Middle "Dark" Ages at the height of Christian power and influence? They had centuries to invent or advance astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, but they didn't.

Actually, they did...

Again, your understanding is wrong. No one uses the term dark ages anymore, mostly because it makes people misunderstand the era like you are doing. Your view of these issues used to be common, but has been completely rejected by scholars over the past 50 or so years.

European science in the Middle Ages - Wikipedia
Oxford Calculators - Wikipedia
etc.

Another poster, Vouthon, covers related stuff in this thread with many sources. Meaningful Atheistic Lives

In a similar vein, if all it took was reading the Greeks to create modern science, why didn't the Greeks create it themselves? (intellectual elitism so few educated people, overconfidence in reason hence an intellectualised version of science, etc.)

Renaissance means 'rebirth' and represented a cultural movement based on humanism to regain ancient classical sources that the Church had long suppressed or ignored.

Why do you think so many clerics and friars were important scientists in the Middle Ages if the church was supressing these texts? Why did churchmen seem to have the best access to them?

By suppressed do you actually mean saved, restored, translated, installed in the curricula of universities and made as a prerequisite to study theology?

For example Toledo School of Translators - Wikipedia


John Heilbron, no apologist for the Vatican, got it right when he opened his book The Sun in the Church with the following words: “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and probably all, other institutions.”4 Heilbron’s point can be generalized far beyond astronomy. Put succinctly, the medieval period gave birth
to the university, which developed with the active support of the papacy. This unusual institution sprang up rather spontaneously around famous masters in towns like Bologna, Paris, and Oxford before 1200. By 1500, about sixty universities were scattered throughout Europe. What is the significance of this development for our myth? About 30 percent of the medieval university curriculum covered subjects and texts concerned with the natural world.5 This was not a trivial development. The proliferation of universities between 1200 and 1500 meant that hundreds of thousands of students—a quarter million in the German universities alone from 1350 on—were exposed to science in the Greco-Arabic tradition. Michael H Shank (all above quotes from Gallileo goes to jail)

The Renaissance and the period of the Enlightenment came as a result from people beginning to reject certain religious beliefs.

Scholarly evidence for this?

It resulted in the first concepts of secularism and the blasphemous idea that one does not need religion at all for workable investigations into nature.

Again wrong, covered in the thread I linked to earlier with source material.

Things that make you go hmmmm...

a) Vast majority of people with an emotional hostility to religion - "conflict thesis FTW!"
b) Vast majority of history of science scholars from diverse religious/non-religious backgrounds - "conflict thesis cannot possibly be maintained in light of the evidence"

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Well, think again. I didn't attempt to defend the claim that it was "mere rhetoric". Your words in the following paragraph make it apparent that you didn't really understand what it was that I was saying:

Sounds like you're the one with a musunderstanding here. When you argued against my position, I took this to mean that you were taking a position contrary to mine.

But if, as it seems now, you were arguing against a position I never actually held, and you don't disagree with the point I was actually making, we're done here... right?

 

[Augustus]

I think you’ve forgotten what the discussion you jumped into was about. @Augustus claimed that Roman allusion to religion was just rhetoric;

What I actually said was:

"Lumping together motivational rhetoric for people already engaged in wars with wars fought over religions is silly."

Motivational rhetoric - language chosen to motivate people

"Fight out of love for your family!" is motivational rhetoric, even if it is perfectly true that you love your family.

Do you really believe that the Punic Wars were fought because of religion, rather than a regional power rivalry though?

Do you believe that Caesar's Civil War, fought between people with the same religious beliefs and practices, was a war over religion too?

Sounds like you're the one with a musunderstanding here.

@Apologes was expanding on the point I made, that simply referring to gods, or partaking in a religious ritual while already involved in a war started for other reasons doesn't turn it into a religious war.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What I actually said was:

"Lumping together motivational rhetoric for people already engaged in wars with wars fought over religions is silly."

Motivational rhetoric - language chosen to motivate people

"Fight out of love for your family!" is motivational rhetoric, even if it is perfectly true that you love your family.

Do you really believe that the Punic Wars were fought because of religion, rather than a regional power rivalry though?

Do you believe that Caesar's Civil War, fought between people with the same religious beliefs and practices, was a war over religion too?



@Apologes was expanding on the point I made, that simply referring to gods, or partaking in a religious ritual while already involved in a war started for other reasons doesn't turn it into a religious war.

And the point I was making is that the Roman approach (i.e. "don't attack until the gods are with us. The augurs are unfavourable, try again tomorrow. The augurs are unfavourable, try again tomorrow. Okay - NOW the augurs are favourable, so the gods are with us.") is not just "motivational rhetoric" like people might use "God is with us" today.

And yes: all of those wars were religious in the sense that religion was used to encourage and support the war.

I'm not playing this game with you of the ever-shrinking goal as you move the goalposts. You were unjustified when you first argued that a war had to solely be motivated by religion to be "religious;" you're even less justified in your most recent twist: that it also has to be motivated by a religious difference between the two factions.

 

[Augustus]

And yes: all of those wars were religious in the sense that religion was used to encourage and support the war.

So they're also all family and friends wars?

I'm not playing this game with you of the ever-shrinking goal as you move the goalposts.

When someone corrects your misrepresentation of their point, this is not 'moving the goalposts'.

You were unjustified when you first argued that a war had to solely be motivated by religion to be "religious;"

I'd say a religious war means a war that has religion as its primary cause. This is a standard, scholarly definition.

you're even less justified in your most recent twist: that it also has to be motivated by a religious difference between the two factions.

I'd say that when 2 groups with the same religious beliefs fight each other, the primary cause of that war is not religion.

It's a bit odd you find people using standard definitions to be somehow devious for disagreeing with your highly unorthodox and poorly reasoned views.

Religious war - Wikipedia

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

My point was that if you want to see Descartes as a deist (which is highly questionable) it makes little difference as he was still significantly affected by a Christian moral and intellectual worldview. People who became deists changed only a small part of their worldview, they certainly didn't reconstruct it from the ground up.

I said I saw him as the first deist because "he began the process" of thinking outside the box; he called himself a Catholic, sure, but his intellectual exercises led the way for others to follow.

Arabic scientific advances did contribute. Why wouldn't they have?

Of course they contributed, but the claim is that they were instrumental to making Europe enter it's Renaissance and Enlightenment, at least that's the way apologists try to make it appear. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What al-Ghazali DID say:

Here is the context and comments from al-Ghazali that caused the furor... There were two books he wrote, "Incoherence of the Philosophers" and "Deliverance from Error", which were a rejection of major parts of philosophy.

From his book "Deliverance from Error"

"Mathematics tend, however, to produce two bad results. The first is this: Whoever studies this science admires the subtlety and clearness of its proofs. His confidence in philosophy increases, and he thinks that all its departments are capable of the same clearness and solidity of proof as mathematics. But when he hears people speak of the unbelief and impiety of mathematicians, of their professed disregard for the Divine law, which is notorious, it is true that, out of regard for authority, he echoes these accusations, but he says to himself at the same time that, if there was truth in religion, it would not have escaped those who have displayed so much keenness of intellect in the study of mathematics.

Next, when he becomes aware of the unbelief and rejection of religion on the part of these learned men, he concludes that to reject religion is reasonable. How many of such men gone astray I have met whose sole argument was that just mentioned. And supposing one puts to them the following objection: "It does not follow that a man who excels in one branch of knowledge excels in all others, nor that he should be equally versed in jurisprudence, theology, and medicine. It is possible to be entirely ignorant of metaphysics, and yet to be an excellent grammarian. There are past masters in every science who are entirely ignorant of other branches of knowledge. The arguments of the ancient philosophers are rigidly demonstrative in mathematics and only conjectural in religious questions. In order to ascertain this one must proceed to a thorough examination of the matter." Supposing, I say, one makes the above objection to these "apes of unbelief," they find it distasteful. Falling a prey to their passions, to a besotted vanity, and the wish to pass for learned men, they persist in maintaining the preeminence of mathematicians in all branches of knowledge. This is a serious evil, and for this reason those who study mathematics should be checked from going too far in their researches. For though far removed as it may be from the things of religion, this study, serving as it does as an introduction to the philosophic systems, casts over religion its malign influence. It is rarely that a man devotes himself to it without robbing himself of his faith and casting off the restraints of religion.

The second evil comes from the sincere but ignorant Muslims who thinks the best way to defend religion is by rejecting all the exact sciences. Accusing their professors of being astray, he rejects their theories of the eclipses of the sun and moon, and condemns them in the name of religion. These accusations are carried far and wide, they reach the ears of the philosopher who knows that these theories rest on infallible proofs; far from losing confidence in them, he believes, on the contrary, that Islam has ignorance and the denial of scientific proofs for its basis, and his devotion to philosophy increases with his hatred to religion."

This was interpreted by people into "math is the work of the devil, because math makes people think and thinking is bad since it tends to lead people away from Islam..."

And even if he did aim to 'kill' philosophy/science, he completely failed, as it kept on going (some have argued it actually increased). 100 years after Ghazali you had Averroes for example

Again, as I said in the last comment, neither Tyson nor myself are saying that, post al-Ghazali, no scientific advances were made in the Islamic world. Al-Ghazali died in 1111, Averroes lived between 1126 and 1198. Again, the sacking of Baghdad was in 1295 and that is when the Islamic world lost a lot of it's science, and because of the way in which Muslims read al-Ghazali, the Islamic sciences never recovered. It's just that quotes like the one I gave above by al-Ghazali began a process of anti, scientific ideas based in Aristotelianism, and pro, ideas based in Islam.

RE scientific advances during the Middle "Dark" Ages. Along the same lines as the argument about al-Ghazali... Nobody is claiming that no scientific advances took place, that Christian scientists during this period didn't make some discoveries. It's just that in the same way that "Math is the work of the devil" helped to end scientific advances in the Islamic world, early Christian beliefs that faith is more important than reason kept science to a minimum in Christendom.

RE education in the Middle "Dark" Ages, the early church educated their male clergy only, but the majority of women, the poor, and serfs remained ignorant. The first schools didn't appear in Europe until around 400 years after the beginning of the "Dark Ages", I consider the death of Hypatia in 415 at the hands of a Christian mob the beginning of the "Dark Ages". King Charlemagne started the schools, and over time the schools fused with the church to become cathedral schools, but these schools taught mostly to male students for careers in the church, NOT FOR SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS INTO NATURE. Degree-granting universities didn't appear until CENTURIES later...

 

[Apologes]

And the point I was making is that the Roman approach (i.e. "don't attack until the gods are with us. The augurs are unfavourable, try again tomorrow. The augurs are unfavourable, try again tomorrow. Okay - NOW the augurs are favourable, so the gods are with us.") is not just "motivational rhetoric" like people might use "God is with us" today.

And yes: all of those wars were religious in the sense that religion was used to encourage and support the war.

I'm not playing this game with you of the ever-shrinking goal as you move the goalposts.

You say he's moving the goalposts yet you just replied to my other post claiming that you aren't taking the position I criticized only to endorse it here (again). If anything is moving goalposts and playing (semantic) games then this is surely it.

 

[Apologes]

I said I saw him as the first deist because "he began the process" of thinking outside the box; he called himself a Catholic, sure, but his intellectual exercises led the way for others to follow.

Thinking outside the box has nothing to do with deism in particular. If you're looking for reasons to call Descartes a deist, this isn't a good place to start considering how people have thought like this long before him.

RE scientific advances during the Middle "Dark" Ages. Along the same lines as the argument about al-Ghazali... Nobody is claiming that no scientific advances took place, that Christian scientists during this period didn't make some discoveries. It's just that in the same way that "Math is the work of the devil" helped to end scientific advances in the Islamic world, early Christian beliefs that faith is more important than reason kept science to a minimum in Christendom.

On what basis do you assert that? Where is your evidence that without Christianity there would've been scientific progress on a greater scale at that time? How do you know it wouldn't be even worse?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I explained why that reasoning doesn't work. If you want to redefine religious war to mean any war in which religion was mentioned instead of reserving the term for wars in which religion was the main and driving factor just so you could say all wars were religious then be my guest. Just don't expect people who follow normal definitions to play along with those mental gymnastics.

Any time a soldier more willingly goes to war because he thinks his god wants him to do so, religion has fueled a more violent world. God and country. Religion and patriotism are two means of getting people to sacrifice themselves, their children, and their treasure for wars that serve them not at all.

Have you ever noticed how similar the two are? You know, they died for your rights and He died for your sins, flags and crosses, fallen battlefield heroes and martyrs, sacred documents on parchment, founders and patriarchs, traitors and infidels, chosen people and manifest destiny. Same thing.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

Thinking outside the box has nothing to do with deism in particular. If you're looking for reasons to call Descartes a deist, this isn't a good place to start considering how people have thought like this long before him.

I don't say that thinking outside the box has anything to do with deism... Thinking outside the box means instead of using religion or faith as the genesis of an intellectual endeavor, which was the norm in those times, use something else, like reason...

I only call Descartes a deist in a tongue in cheek way. He called himself a Catholic, I consider him a Catholic, but he was beginning to see the light methinks...

On what basis do you assert that? Where is your evidence that without Christianity there would've been scientific progress on a greater scale at that time? How do you know it wouldn't be even worse?

Just look at what happened in the Renaissance... People stopped using religion and faith as the basis of knowledge and began to use reason. It stands to reason that if Christians had done this earlier, scientific advances would have proceeded apace.

 

[Stevicus]

Wow, I sure got behind on this thread, by about 5 or 6 pages. A lot of discussion about New Atheism.

Reminds me of the New Jan Brady:

 

[Augustus]

Again, as I said in the last comment, neither Tyson nor myself are saying that, post al-Ghazali, no scientific advances were made in the Islamic world. Al-Ghazali died in 1111, Averroes lived between 1126 and 1198. It's just that quotes like the one I gave above by al-Ghazali began a process of anti, scientific ideas based in Aristotelianism, and pro, ideas based in Islam.

That al-Ghazil had issues with certain aspects of Aristotlian and Neoplationist philosophy is well known, that this in any way contributed significantly to ending the golden age should not be taken on faith alone because it seems to fit a narrative.

Another scholarly views on the issue:

http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/Viewpoint_ragep.pdf

(As an aside, the rejection of Aristotelian science was an important step towards the creation of modern science.)

The first schools didn't appear in Europe until around 400 years after the beginning of the "Dark Ages", I consider the death of Hypatia in 415 at the hands of a Christian mob the beginning of the "Dark Ages"

If you say they burned down the Library of Alexandria too you can get a full house of classical myths

Historical understanding of this issue has been updated somewhat since Gibbon wrote about it in the 18th C:

Easier to treat than the case of Tertullian v. Augustine is the case of Hypatia (355–415) v. Cyril, Christian bishop of Alexandria (d. AD 444). This tale, which easily surpasses that of Tertullian for drama, accuses Cyril of engineering the murder of the brilliant mathematician and philosopher, Hypatia. The story has many different tellings, but the gist of it is that a mob of Christians, acting on instructions from Cyril (the future St Cyril), brutally murdered the charming Hypatia, whose only crime was her pursuit of classical learning. As told by Edward Gibbon, ‘On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of . . . a troop of savage and merciless fanatics,’ thereby vividly demonstrating the depth of animosity in the Christian community towards classical learning. Unfortunately for the tale and its defenders, the only recent, reliable piece of serious scholarship on Hypatia concludes that her killing was ‘a political murder, provoked by long-standing conflicts in Alexandria’ and had nothing to do with either pagan philosophy or Christian belief.19

from: The Cambridge companion to science and religion

Or historian of science David C Lindberg:

The story of Hypatia’s murder is one of the most gripping in the entire history of science and religion. However, the traditional interpretation of it is pure mythology. As the Czech historian Maria Dzielska documents in a recent biography, Hypatia got caught up in a political struggle between Cyril, an ambitious and ruthless churchman eager to extend his authority, and Hypatia’s friend Orestes, the imperial prefect who represented the Roman Empire. In spite of the fact that Orestes was a Christian, Cyril used his friendship with the pagan Hypatia against him and accused her of practicing magic and witchcraft. Although killed largely in the gruesome manner described above—as a mature woman of about sixty years—her death had everything to do with local politics and virtually nothing to do with science. Cyril’s crusade against pagans came later. Alexandrian science and mathematics prospered for decades to come.2

but these schools taught mostly to male students for careers in the church, NOT FOR SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS INTO NATURE.

And people with careers in the church were among the most prominent in making scientific discoveries.

How does this chime with the church 'repressing' science? They couldn't even stop their own 'employees' from being abnormally productive, translating large numbers of Greek/Arabic texts with church funds, etc.

Degree-granting universities didn't appear until CENTURIES later...

But still in the 'dark ages'...

And the medieval university didn't appear anywhere else in the world before that, and when they did appear it was with the help of the church. And they forced people to study natural philosophy, logic, etc.

This isn't really repressing science and keeping people away from forbidden Greek knowledge is it?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'd say a religious war means a war that has religion as its primary cause. This is a standard, scholarly definition.

This is the sort of arbitrary narrowing that I was talking about: the impact of religion on war is much more than just "religious war."

When a ruler uses religious manipulation to get his people to fight, religion is a factor in the impacts of that war.

When religious ritual is used to put an "imprimatur" on a war, religion is a factor in the impacts of that war.

When a ruler engages in a war for nothing more than conquest, but he owes his power - including his ability to wage war - to "the divine right of kings," religion is a factor in the impacts of that war.

Any time we could say "if but for religion, this wouldn't have happened," the "this" is an impact of religion.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

That al-Ghazil had issues with certain aspects of Aristotlian and Neoplationist philosophy is well known, that this in any way contributed significantly to ending the golden age should not be taken on faith alone because it seems to fit a narrative.

Another scholarly views on the issue:

http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/Viewpoint_ragep.pdf

(As an aside, the rejection of Aristotelian science was an important step towards the creation of modern science.)



If you say they burned down the Library of Alexandria too you can get a full house of classical myths

Historical understanding of this issue has been updated somewhat since Gibbon wrote about it in the 18th C:

Easier to treat than the case of Tertullian v. Augustine is the case of Hypatia (355–415) v. Cyril, Christian bishop of Alexandria (d. AD 444). This tale, which easily surpasses that of Tertullian for drama, accuses Cyril of engineering the murder of the brilliant mathematician and philosopher, Hypatia. The story has many different tellings, but the gist of it is that a mob of Christians, acting on instructions from Cyril (the future St Cyril), brutally murdered the charming Hypatia, whose only crime was her pursuit of classical learning. As told by Edward Gibbon, ‘On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of . . . a troop of savage and merciless fanatics,’ thereby vividly demonstrating the depth of animosity in the Christian community towards classical learning. Unfortunately for the tale and its defenders, the only recent, reliable piece of serious scholarship on Hypatia concludes that her killing was ‘a political murder, provoked by long-standing conflicts in Alexandria’ and had nothing to do with either pagan philosophy or Christian belief.19

from: The Cambridge companion to science and religion

Or historian of science David C Lindberg:

The story of Hypatia’s murder is one of the most gripping in the entire history of science and religion. However, the traditional interpretation of it is pure mythology. As the Czech historian Maria Dzielska documents in a recent biography, Hypatia got caught up in a political struggle between Cyril, an ambitious and ruthless churchman eager to extend his authority, and Hypatia’s friend Orestes, the imperial prefect who represented the Roman Empire. In spite of the fact that Orestes was a Christian, Cyril used his friendship with the pagan Hypatia against him and accused her of practicing magic and witchcraft. Although killed largely in the gruesome manner described above—as a mature woman of about sixty years—her death had everything to do with local politics and virtually nothing to do with science. Cyril’s crusade against pagans came later. Alexandrian science and mathematics prospered for decades to come.2



And people with careers in the church were among the most prominent in making scientific discoveries.

How does this chime with the church 'repressing' science? They couldn't even stop their own 'employees' from being abnormally productive, translating large numbers of Greek/Arabic texts with church funds, etc.



But still in the 'dark ages'...

And the medieval university didn't appear anywhere else in the world before that, and when they did appear it was with the help of the church. And they forced people to study natural philosophy, logic, etc.

This isn't really repressing science and keeping people away from forbidden Greek knowledge is it?

I saw a great movie growing up called The Name of the Rose, starring Sean Connery, which was a "to the screen" portrayal of a book written by Umberto Eco.

In the movie, two monks, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. Upon arrival, the monastery is disturbed by a suicide. As the story unfolds, several other monks die under mysterious circumstances.

William is tasked by the monastery's abbot to investigate the deaths, and fresh clues with each murder victim lead William to dead ends and new clues. The protagonists explore a labyrinthine medieval library, discuss the subversive power of laughter, and come face to face with the Inquisition, a path that William had previously forsworn. William's innate curiosity and highly developed powers of logic and deduction provide the keys to unraveling the abbey's mysteries.

So the deaths of these people was ultimately found to be at the hands of one of the other monks in the Abbey who killed these people by poisoning them because they were dabbling in literature that the killer deemed detrimental to the faith of people.

Anyway, the point is, yes, the Church collected books and kept them in monasteries, but at first they did so only because they considered some books to be heretical and, like with al-Ghazali's injunction for Muslims to be wary of advanced maths, they didn't want people to be educated in topics that could lead them away from Christianity.

The educating that went on in these monasteries, for the clergy, wasn't advanced theoretical studies of science... It was just the basics of mathematics and other hard sciences, basic rote memory stuff, basically just what the church wanted them to know, and then it was on to the religious teachings, etc

Yes, the church wanted priests and pastors with well rounded educations, but only to use as a cudgel against the laity.

Look at it like this. As I said, the church educated men only, to be church and community leaders. The laity didn't have access to these educations, so the idea is that when the laity come to the clergy with questions, the advanced educations the church leaders had, relative to the ignorant laity, would make it easy to keep the simpletons in the laity in line.

To wit, when I was an ignorant youth sitting in a class and asking questions, usually the teacher would, in their reply, wow me with the depth of their knowledge and I would then tentatively accept what they said as true with the idea of doing more research.

If an ignorant person in the Middle "Dark" Ages were to go to an educated church leader and ask questions about their faith, I'm sure the depth of knowledge the church leader had in the sciences, in history, religion, et al would put them back in line and assuage any doubts they might have about their religion, or whatever other topic was at hand...

RE Hypatia and how she died... Yes, she died because of local politics, but it was Cyril and his cohorts who poisoned the populace with claims that she was a witch who had beguiled the Christian, Orestes, and kept him from reconciling with Cyril...

But its not that she was killed that's important, it's that her school of science died as a result of it. Yes, I'm sure it continued for a while after her passing, but because early Christianity was more focused on faith instead of reason, her loss and her school's decline as a result of that, helped and contributed to bringing about the Middle "Dark" Ages.

And people with careers in the church were among the most prominent in making scientific discoveries.

How does this chime with the church 'repressing' science? They couldn't even stop their own 'employees' from being abnormally productive, translating large numbers of Greek/Arabic texts with church funds, etc.

Well, duh! If only men are allowed into these schools to get a good education, and those men go on to be church leaders, leaving the rest of the populace (other men, women, kids) ignorant of a good education, it stands to reason that people with careers in the church would be the only people making real discoveries.

The church repressed sciences that might lead people to a lack of faith.

"You want to figure out how god created life? We know how he created it, with a word. Go study something else"
"You want to figure out how man came to exist? We know how he came to exist, with a word. Go study something else"
etc...

The church repressed people, other than those they let into their club, from getting a good education.

 

[Augustus]

When a ruler uses religious manipulation to get his people to fight, religion is a factor in the impacts of that war.

They hoi polloi generally didn't have a choice. They were made to fight by someone higher up the food chain, or it was their job.

But when they did, unless religion is the specific reason they are going to war, then it is as much a factor as:

Family, friends, children, enlightenment values, reason, humanity, liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, progress, human rights, home, history, the flag, countries, the people, the party, the republic, the leader, the future, goodness, justice, honour, progress, happiness, our way of life... *delete as applicable

Any time we could say "if but for religion, this wouldn't have happened," the "this" is an impact of religion.

In general, it would have happened in pretty much exactly the same way regardless, outside of religious wars.

The king had 'divine right' or the king had the biggest stick.

They believed in god or they believed in enlightenment values/liberty/whatever.

etc.

 

[Milton Platt]

This thread. Don't think I'm allowed to be more specific than that though

In general, almost all New Atheists believe in the conflict hypothesis. Almost no scholars of the history of science believe in the conflict hypothesis.

The link between religion and violence is another one where New Atheists differ markedly from scholars.

etc.

Yeah, the thing about wars and religion can get overstated. I guess the underlying thing to remember is that wars have been fought because of religious beliefs (and are going on to this day) but there has never been a war in the name of atheism, as far as I know. But then, if I knew everything, theists would be worshiping me.....LOL. As to the actual numbers, I think that would be difficult to pin down with accuracy. I will leave that to the historians and statisticians.

 

[Augustus]

RE Hypatia and how she died... Yes, she died because of local politics, but it was Cyril and his cohorts who poisoned the populace with claims that she was a witch who had beguiled the Christian, Orestes, and kept him from reconciling with Cyril...

But its not that she was killed that's important, it's that her school of science died as a result of it.

Well there had been over 20 years of heightened communal violence, killings and torture committed by Pagans, Christians and Jews leading up to this point. And while the killing was certainly an atrocity, and Cyril was a total ****, Orestes was far from blameless in the dispute.

Anyway, it wasn't a school of science, but of Neoplatonist philosophy which was more like a religion. Mathematics and astronomy/astrology were linked to Neoplatonism, although often in a mystical way rather than how we conceptualise modern science. While she was well respected, and obviously highly intelligent, neither her or the school were particularly important or innovative in the grand scheme of things. Philosophical schools opened and closed continually, and as noted before this episode didn't 'end' science in Alexandria.

Her legacy was enhanced by hagiography, and anti-Catholic polemics in the enlightenment era, most notably from Edward Gibbon. A lot of conflict thesis myths were born around about this time and prove enduring despite their rejection by modern scholars.

Anyway, the point is, yes, the Church collected books and kept them in monasteries, but at first they did so only because they considered some books to be heretical and, like with al-Ghazali's injunction for Muslims to be wary of advanced maths, they didn't want people to be educated in topics that could lead them away from Christianity.

The church aimed to repress science by preserving and copying it at great expense just so they could keep it in a library so other people couldn't access it?

And they didn't want people to be educated in it, but gave ample opportunity for their own people to be educated in it?

The monastery played a large role in the preservation and continuation of science throughout the Middle Ages. The largest part of their contribution was keeping the textual traditions of philosophers the likes of Aristotle and Plato alive in the transition from the height of Classical learning into the Middle Ages. In between prayer, meals, and sleeping, monks engaged in various labor activities in accordance to the Benedictine Rule. These activities ranged from gardening to copying texts... Much of the great libraries and scriptoria that grew in monasteries were due to obligation of the monks to teach the young boys who came them having been committed to the monastic life by their parents.[9]

There is often cited a stigma associated with religion and classical education that reflects on the medieval monastery and its contribution to the continuation and contribution to the educated world. While this thought of discord between religion and classical learning does contain truth, it is greatly exaggerated by many. The result of this is the accusatory finger pointing toward religion for the suppression of classical learning and education. There is evidence of the monastery, and therefore religious, engaging in classical education... it is vital to remember that the study of classical and secular text did exist in monasteries. The idea that many great texts of the Classical period would have been lost without the dedication of the monks, is a very real one. It may even be said that they saved many of the Classical Greek texts from extinction.[11]

Well, duh! If only men are allowed into these schools to get a good education, and those men go on to be church leaders, leaving the rest of the populace (other men, women, kids) ignorant of a good education, it stands to reason that people with careers in the church would be the only people making real discoveries.

Remember, you are arguing that the Church was repressing science, at the same time as its employees were advancing it. Seems they must have been mighty incompetent.

Also, you seem to think that man on the street would have been getting a good education if it wasn't for that dastardly church keeping them in darkness. You got an education if you could pay for it, that was true the world over.

The only chance for most of the male populace to get an education was via the Church.

Quote from earlier:

No institution or cultural force of the patristic period offered more encouragement for the investigation of nature than did the
Christian church. Contemporary pagan culture was no more favorable to disinterested speculation about the cosmos than was Christian culture. It follows that the presence of the Christian church enhanced, rather than damaged, the development of the natural sciences.

The church preserved, copied translated and transmitted scientific/philosophical texts and gave more people a chance to study them than would otherwise have been the case. This increased exponentially in the late Middle Ages with schools/universities.

Never let the facts get in the way of a comforting bit of prejudice though.