From: kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l)
Subject: Re: Lifestyle Choices and Secular Reasoning 
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 06:10:57 GMT

mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas) writes:

>In article <C0Ax5F.9K6@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:
>> Historians agree that western science was defined and structured by
>> Christian concepts, beliefs, and attitudes.  Without Christianity, western
>> science, as such, would simply not exist.  

>  I don't suppose you could make a list of those "Christian concepts,
>beliefs and attitudes" which Science is so precariously hinged on?
>A couple names of that vast majority of historians might be nice too.

Sure.  Richard Burkhardt is certainly one who would not argue with the
defining emphasis the Church had on science.  Wayne Santoni is another.
I am a third.  Actually, pick up nearly any history of science text
and you'll get the same treatment.  Try it.
Defining concepts: History as a non-cyclical entity, with a definable
beginning and end, which proceeded in a logical, measured order and 
purpose.  Before Judaism, the non-cyclical entity part simply didn't exist.
Judaism provided a purpose (salvation) but Christianity sharpened that
purpose and put it on the boiler, so to speak, with the promise of
immanent return.  

>> It is only in the last
>> 100 years that science has developed this peculiar aversion to religion.

>  Perhaps because mysticism and objective metaphysics are diametrically
>opposed to one another?

No, but a lousy guess anyway.

>> Certainly, one can point to instances in which religious authority 
>> fought certain concepts and ideas that later turned out to be correct.

>  Gad, can you say understatement?

>> However, they performed no better or worse than did (or does) the established
>> scientific community today in terms of accepting radically new, correct,
>> ideas.  

>  Oh. I guess the 1800 years of dark ages are pretty equivalent to the
>5 to 10 years that, say, quantum mechanics was in doubt in the physics
>community. 
>  Dream on.

If you had a clue about history, you would realize the enormous absurdity
of the assumptions bound up in the comparison you just made.

>> To say that religous reasoning is an oxymoron, or that secular
>> reasoning is somehow superior, is to profess an ignorance so profound that
>> it boggles the mind.

>  A rather dubious presumption that a mind could be boggled when it has
>been reduced to a mass of protoplasm via the destruction of objective 
>reason, but do elucidate. Why should I give any credence to mysticism
>of any kind? 

>> Certainly, many deaths have been done in the name of religion.  I will 
>> merely point out that more people have died in "secular" wars than in
>> any combination of religious wars you care to name.  If you wish to 
>> compare infinities of violence, "secularity" will not come out the better.
>> I would furthermore argue that this violence is much harder to justify
>> and continue using Christianity as the foundation than it is using
>> secular reasoning.  Genocide is much simpler to reason away to your 
>> fellow man than it is to the unwinking eye of God, as Hitler, Stalin,
>> Hussein, and Pol Pot have already shown.

>  So two wrongs make a right? Is that what your trying say here?
>And Hitler didn't have any religious inclinations? That'll be news
>to the many millions of Jews who died at Dachau and Auchwitz.

>  You have a severe case of Darkagelustitus. See a witch doctor, or
>the xtian equivalent, a faith-healer.
>-- 

>		Michael Thomas	(mike@gordian.com)
>	"I don't think Bambi Eyes will get you that flame thrower..."  
>		-- Hobbes to Calvin
>		USnail: 20361 Irvine Ave Santa Ana Heights, Ca,	92707-5637
>		PaBell: (714) 850-0205 (714) 850-0533 (fax)
-- 

Steve Kellmeyer 
kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
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