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Post by Los Leandros on Sept 5, 2011 11:23:02 GMT
They're at it again. In response to the Vaticans excellent riposte to " Inda " & co., the old bigoted jibe about angels & head pins is being resurrected. Not only Gilmore ( whose ignorance in this regard one takes for granted ), but the Examiner has rowed in with the ill-informed insult. I dont know why the Vatican is bothering to engage with this vile/bigoted junta ; Inda & gang are devioid of any kind of credility. You could'nt conceive of Barack Obama or David Cameron undulging in such cheap anti-Catholic populism. Come back Bertie, all is forgiven !.
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Post by Cato on Sept 24, 2011 19:52:01 GMT
The 'head-of-the-pin' thing even annoys me. It is an old slur on the scholastic philosophers and it is a gross distortion of the achievements in philosophy at that time (and the mini-renaissance of the 12th century).
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 29, 2011 10:33:29 GMT
Good point, Cato. It was simply a way of debating whether space is infinitely divisible - a question of physics rather than metaphysics.
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Post by Los Leandros on Sept 29, 2011 11:04:08 GMT
cato, not sure if you read, " The Victory of Reason : How Christianity Led To Western Success " , by Prof. Rodney Stark. He totally validates your point, by illustrating that theology is the father of the sciences. Again, your point is well made.
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Post by Cato on Sept 30, 2011 10:14:25 GMT
I have read it and agree with some of his conclusions. However, the blending of philosophy and theology (fruitful in some respects) makes it somewhat difficult to either credit one or the other for the progenitor of science, and indeed the ancient Greeks had many 'scientific achievements to their name that we sadly lost to Europe in the Dark ages (and no, I do not childishly blame the Catholic Church for that). My own opinion is that the teachings of Augustine and others around that time did do some damage to the 'western mind' but they did not have access to the totality of the Greek miracle.
Once the middle ages received the greater abundance of that Greek inheritance, it was Catholic thinkers like Alberto Magnus and his great student Aquinas that repaired much of that damage and I think prodded the western mind back onto the rails.
Sadly, Aquinas and many other of the scholastics tend to get overlooked now and sometimes the story of philosophy almost seems to have this huge gap between Aristotle and Descartes as if nothing of note happened in between. This is most unfortunate.
While some of the more extreme protestant sects are anti-science, it is to the credit of the Catholic Church that on the whole (with a couple of exceptions, but not as many as modern writers would have one believe) has been pro-science and seems confident enough dealing with it.
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