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Geocentrists Convene To Discuss How Galileo Was Wrong
rollcall writes "'Galileo Was Wrong' is an inaugural conference to discuss the 'detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe.' The geocentrists argue that 'Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the [Catholic] Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.' I, like many of you, am scratching my head wondering how people still think this way. Unfortunately, there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons."
I hope there is live blogging from the conference.
Unfortunately, there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons."
If your mechanic thinks that "The Little Mermaid" was a Shakespearean drama, that really doesn't affect his ability to fix your car. Same with this.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Now if you take the Bible as the literal truth, as so many do, this is to be expected.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
In the rest frame of the Earth the entire universe revolves around it.
Why do the websites of lunatics always seem to be based on the same template from some horribly awful site made for Mosaic in 1995? Does crazy dictate design? Or does each wackjob just copy the code from the previous wackjob? Or maybe these sites are all made by the same escapee from the insane asylum? Maybe they are still in the asylum, and the computer in there is running Windows 3 on a dialup modem?
90% of the world believes in God(s), and there's nothing but imaginary evidence for that, too.
But by all means mock the fringe dimwits who don't actually negatively impact society.
At the risk of starting a shitstorm, see the people who believe the Holocaust never happened. If an idea exists, it's likely some entity believes in it and will find/shape evidence to support it.
There's no preferred point of reference, so you could just as well say that the Sun revolves around the Earth as vice versa. It's not like the Sun is a fixed immovable point around which everything revolves either, at least once you get beyond the solar system. Nor is there any other single fixed immovable point. You can pick any fixed immovable point you like and construct a model to match it. (The big problem with a geocentric model is retrograde motion--that is, the planets appear to go backwards from time to time.) The thing is that it's a lot simpler to look at it from the point of view that that the Earth goes around the Sun--both conceptually and mathematically, which is why astronomers do so when they are looking at the solar system. But it is possible to construct a description of the universe in which the opposite is true that is consistent, just damned inconvenient and not very useful.
So, in that limited since, Aristotle was as right as Galileo. Galileo just happens to be more useful.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Yes, truly religion is the root of all ignorance, and -- thanks to its staunch atheism -- Soviet Russia was a scientific paradise.
Oh, wait ...
Wow. I've heard of stretching things a bit, but most of these are completely ridiculous interpretations of similes, metaphors, and other language patters.
It's like if I wrote down "I have told you innumerable times that the Earth is round" and some idiot 3000 years later assumes I truly spent most of my waking days saying "the Earth is round."
Amazing.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I suspect that 18% are just incredibly daft, and can be led into answering a question such that they appear to support geocentrism.
"Do you think the Earth is the center of the universe?"
"Uh, yes?"
"Might the Sun not be center of the universe?"
"Uh, oh yeah, sure, yes."
"Atheism" is about the belief in god(s), which is not necessarily a required component of a religion. If Buddhism (which is neutral on the topic of gods) and Scientology (which believes in alien clams that build DC-10s inside volcanoes, or something) qualify as religions, I don't see why Soviet "Communism" doesn't.
Of course, by this interpretation, the Communists (or "Communists", since the USSR had few actual Communists) didn't purge "all the morons^religious nuts." They merely purged the heretics.
"Loosely," of course, meaning "blatantly ignoring context and treating obvious similes and metaphors as literal statements of fact." I suppose the author would also assume that any poet or author through the centuries who has ever used the phrase "ends of the earth" also believes in their heart that the earth is not spherical?
I'm unmoved by your link. Naturally, the only possible interpretation of that statement is that I'm claiming to be permanently physically stationary, relative to everything else.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
So the death camps with Zyklon B showers, tons of discarded shoes and clothes, with photos of inmates and a wealth of other things left there, is not objective enough for you? You can go and see them for yourself, you know. Arbeit macht frei and all that.
But isn't 'yes' the correct answer anyway? Or at least the centre of the visible universe since you can only see as far as light could travel since the Big Bang and that distance is the same in all directions from whatever point you happen to be observing from...
What the crazies are pushing and deliberately confusing the truth with is that everything in the universe orbits the earth which is just wako...
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Because not collecting stamps is not a hobby?
That would be insightful, except for the fact that there are a large number of people who "blatantly ignore context and treat obvious similes and metaphors as literal statements of fact" in other parts of the bible as well.
Is this an accurate description of your opinion?
Atheism: not a religion.
Being an atheist who argues on forums who argues that it is immoral and/or illogical to believe in god and does this, that, and the other thing (fill it in as you will): religion.
Fair enough, but then I don't see why atheism (as practiced in OT discussions on countless bulletin boards, if you prefer) shouldn't qualify as a "religion" as well.
Religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
Atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods
These are contradictory - you can't believe in gods and at the same time lack belief in gods. Hence atheism is not a religion.
Most of modern science is the result of hundreds of years of research by people who were religious to some extent.
Yes, because people had less of an understanding back in the day of how stuff actually works. Being religious was also compulsory in those days. Bach, one of my favorite composers, glorified god in his music while he was fooling around with maidens in wine cellars and beating up his musicians in street fights.
Anyway, back to your point. Religion is stifling "modern science" rather than advancing it forward. We all know what happened to Persia after Islam, and about Europe in the dark ages, etc. I think it's safe to say that the world as a whole would be much more advanced if magical thinking was abolished somewhere in its history.
Religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
Atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods
These are contradictory - you can't believe in gods and at the same time lack belief in gods. Hence atheism is not a religion.
While I would not argue that atheism is a religion, the point the GP(...P) made about certain religions not believing in a god or multiple gods results in your definition of Atheism not being exclusive of religion.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
That is simply not true.
Of course, religion did play a big part throughout history, and it even helped human kind advance a very long time ago. But saying that religion helped man get organized, leave by a certain set of rules, and develop the wheel millions of years ago is one thing, and saying that it still does that today is just plain stupid. Religion has been nothing but our biggest problem for at least 3000 years.
Remember, even in the golden days of Greece, religion was already trying to murder science.
And, really, why am I supposed to treat religion different from other mental diseases?
You wouldn't dare take seriously a scientists that was also an astrologist, or one that claimed aliens visited him daily ... then why do we accept those that believe in that creepy guy in the sky? It's certainly just as crazy as all those guys that keep their head wrapped in tinfoil to prevent the government from controlling their minds, and we love to lock those away at mental institutions. Instead, we grant tax exceptions to those that believe in the crazy guy in the sky. But beware, the rule of thumb is: if your guy in the sky is green and lives in a starship, you get locked away. If your guy in the sky has a badass beard and a jewish son, you get a tax exception. Just remember that, it might come in handy if you ever choose to become schizophrenic.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
But saying that religion helped man get organized, leave by a certain set of rules, and develop the wheel millions of years ago is one thing, and saying that it still does that today is just plain stupid.
Actually, they're both equally stupid, which is why I didn't say either of those things. RTFP.
You wouldn't dare take seriously a scientists that was also an astrologist, or one that claimed aliens visited him daily
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies
And, really, why am I supposed to treat religion different from other mental diseases?
Because it is not.
My mother is very religious. She attends mass every Sunday, she's a roman catholic so she believes in God, Jesus, Virgin Mary, the apostles and the saints. Yet she doesn't believe the Sun goes around the Earth, or that the Earth is the center of the Universe, or that we actually came from Adam and Eve. She's a smart, balanced, and certainly not mental diseased person. I think what you should consider a mental disease is fanaticism. Over anything. Specially religion. That's what really distortion reality for some.
How is believing in two inconsistent theories of the universe view not the sign of a mental illness?
If you believe that somehow your deity is not affected by the laws of formal logic, but simultaneously believe in science, which is based on the faith (for it is faith) that underlying all things is a universal set of rules which can be expressed using math, you are believing things which cannot simultaneously be. You are then forced to train yourself in doublethink -- and people do that: they terrify me. Basically forcing yourself to be schizophrenic is not a sane attitude. That is "being religious".
Now some are more honest, they just don't want to think about it, and will become angry when pointed out that their view of the Universe is absurd. This is infuriating, but not the sign of mental imbalance. These people may think of themselves as religious, but they will probably become either non-believers or religious depending on what people around them pretend to think.
Fanaticism, to me, is not a mental illness. It is just people who have picked the religious view of the Universe and stuck with it. They are logical and consistent. This is why religion is in essence dangerous: because if you are just religious, you are trained in doublethink, and if you are really consistent, your are a fanatic.
"Atheism" is about the belief in god(s), which is not necessarily a required component of a religion. If Buddhism (which is neutral on the topic of gods) and Scientology (which believes in alien clams that build DC-10s inside volcanoes, or something) qualify as religions, I don't see why Soviet "Communism" doesn't.
Of course, by this interpretation, the Communists (or "Communists", since the USSR had few actual Communists) didn't purge "all the morons^religious nuts." They merely purged the heretics.
WTF am I reading?
Insightful, Hardly....
Atheism is an absence of faith, not another type of religious belief. FULL STOP!
In Sam Harris's words:
"We do not have a need to invent words for people who are non-astrologers, or people who don't believe Elvis is still alive and living in the Mid-West."
I cannot comprehend how the US has a religious majority, as Western Europe does not,taking into account we have both availed ourselves of the scientific discoveries (You know, testable theories, not faith based ideas) of the last 500 years.
I know when people ask me questions in a survey, there comes a point in time when I begin to get bored, and another point in time very near to that when I begin to answer questions either randomly or in an intentionally absurd manner just so I can get some revenge over having them waste my time. If the writers of the survey know something about how to incur that attitude hey could be intentionally skewing the results by placing the questions in the portion of the survey guaranteed to have the most people answering randomly. Then again, maybe I should just not take surveys...
Technically true as Man will never fly until we build large enough habitats on the moon and start genetically engineering people to have wings. Bat wings would probably be easier than bird wings.
If we're picking our axioms, then why can't we choose to believe in a universe which operates on a universal set of rules unless its workings are altered on a case-by-case basis by some being existing outside of those rules? That would sort out the inconsistency - you can get general rules like gravity, electromagnetism etc. but also leave room for "acts of god" which may not be subject to such rules.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
That is actually the closest I have seen to a sensible response to this. Slashdot needs a way of marking stories "flamebait".
Follow the links throught to Robert Sungenis's site. He is a complete nut case. He is a creationist, probably anti-semitic,conspiracy theorist. The "news alert" links on the front page of one of his sites include one to a site that claims that the Vatican has been infiltrated by "satanic cults".
Why is this even worth discussing?
You mean the dark ages where fear of heresy stifled secular innovation, or the dark ages where the core of hellenic, roman and islamic learning was preserver in monasteries while the kernels of the renaissance and the core of modern thinking and the scientific method was born between the rabbinical, islamic and christian scholars of the convivencia,?
By your tone, I'm not so sure 'we all know what happened to Europe in the dark ages' - one thing I know is that the foundations of *non-magical thinking* were preserved by the clerical population, not the secular one. Any reasoned study of the Inquisition (the catholic institution, not the spanish one under secular authorities) would be a good exposition of how the simplistic is the idea that removing religious authority out of the picture would suddenly make intellectual advancement flourish.
I say this not as a 'believer' but as someone who divorced himself from a religious tradition for very similar naive intellectual pride - only to rediscover later that much of the scientific and philosophical heritage that I so prized was due to the intellectual traditions that were preserved, cultivated and brought unto the world by brilliant scholars from religious traditions and dispositions.
You can disagree with them all you want (for what's it's worth, I do), but if you feel "it's safe to say the world as a whole would be more advanced" if they had not been there, I'd have to say you have a poor understanding of history.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Maybe I'm criticizing where I need not to, so if this wasn't your in-built bias leaking through, and I just read you the wrong way... my apologies.
That aside:
hey asshole! Nice biases there!
You can safely assume that most truly rural folks -- you know, the farmers who depend on accurate predictions governing the sun and weather -- know a heck of a lot more about what the sun and earth do relative to each other than their urbanite counterparts -- who's knowledge of the cosmos is typically limited to how fashionably their scarves revolve around their fashionably-stubbled necks.
You will find stupid people wherever you find failure. Not just in rural places, not just in urban places, not attached to any race or age or nationality or anything else.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Very good. Thank you.
More people should take a longer and more precise view of history, such as yours.People should realize that religion and science are two sides of the same nature, our inquisitive mind, which evolved along with millions of neocortical columns relatively quickly such that we became able to ask such questions as "What the fuck is that?" and "Why am I here?" The same impulse that drives science drives religion . That doesn't make science and religion equivalent as modes of explanation, but it does connect them.
Religion may seem like a silly vestige of prehistorical and ancient mythologizing. It may seem like a leftover piece of our brains that we should have learned to think around by now. But science is no less hardwired into our brains than religion. It's all about explaining experience. Some of us do it more with our left hemisphere than our right hemisphere, and situations where it's not lateralized so neatly blur the line between complete and incomplete explanations even more.
The Catholic leadership is pretty good about astrophysics and evolution;
they're just lousy about anything relating to sex.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Religion is not stifling science. Idiots are. It just so happens that some (maybe even many) of them happen to also be religious.
Actually, no. I don't think even the idiots are because science is still advancing faster than they can attack it. I mean, more than 80% of people know better. Assertions to the contrary aside, I am not of the belief that we need to worry about the remaining ones.
Except that large majorities of people are wrong about universal facts all the freaking time. Sheer numbers don't make a valid source of experimental validity, unless their claims are based in evidence. Mass faith is still faith. Nothing against it, but atheism doesn't stop being rational just because most people aren't atheists.
You do remember that this article started with a discussion of geocentrism, right?
I don't think it's as inconsistant or 'scary' as you think.
I believe in God, and I also believe in his work (science). My experiences and my heart have lead me to my beliefs. When I reflect on what's important in my life, I don't really pay much attention to things I can measure or quantify with numbers - science has it's place, but science itself doesn't even attempt to make any guess as to how 'science' came to be in the first place.
That's not to say I don't enjoy looking at the numbers we do have - I think God would definitely like us exploring how the universe works; physics has always been a passion of mine. But I've felt God's presence many times, and feel I have a close relationship. You may call me schizophrenic for that - and I can understand that, if you are only considering what you can measure. To me, that sounds a little incomplete - considering the nature of human life.
People just don't like to look inward very much - drawing the conclusion that what we can measure is somehow enough evidence to make staments about things we cannot measure.
Maybe I have a chemical imbalance in my brain that is causing me to feel connected to God. Maybe everyone who believes in God has this same imbalance. Or maybe the imbalance is found in non-believers?
Disclaimer:I do believe 'religion' is the cause of untold amounts of suffering. Religion is not God - religion is a (mostly)corrupt human ordeal.
I think your view on atheist is completely wrong. I would love for their to be a god. More importantly, I'd love for there to be a loving, kind, forgiving god who cares about it's subjects.
I am an atheist because I refuse to spend my time on something that can not be proven, has no quantifiable useful value to me, and is championed but a bunch of men who for the most part are no better then psychics who claim to speak to the dead. There is no compelling evidence that would require me to take this more seriously then I do santa claus or those christian leaders telling every generation that their generation is the 'end times'.
I also came to my conclusions at a young age. I was punished for them. I was raised catholic, but allowed to read. I read all about mythology because I loved the stories. Eventually it dawned on me that if all those gods were not real and thousands (probably millions) believed in them, then it stood to reason that my god was just another story and that one day people would read the bible like I read stories about Zeus. I brought this up to my parents and my priest and instead of answered with some kind of evidence, I was told that thinking like that would be the path to hell.
It's not that I don't want to accept the stories. I would love for there to be a wonderful afterlife with my family instead d of the unknown. The unknown is fucking terrifying! There have been nights (after a few drinks) when I've talked with people about death. Those nights sometimes lead to sleepless thought about the fear that when this life on earth is over that I am gone. That all that will be left is what I've done here and that is almost nothing. Even eternal punishment would be better then just being gone (Such is the desire for life).
Show me a shred of real evidence that supports god and I'll believe. You must however accept that proof does not mean I'll worship god. If it is the christian god I would rather burn in hell. That god is a hateful, spiteful, jealous god and nothing in the bible has shown me any reason to give him my respect. I'm fully willing to sit down with anyone who has new and useful evidence to the existence of god and how it can benefit me (and let's face it, the worship of gods is all about benefiting one's self). I am not however interesting in creating lies to make myself sleep better at night.
While the Galileo fiasco was not one of the Catholic Church's finest hours it was note because the Church was anti-science. For all of the Dark Ages the Church's monasteries is where all of the scientific learning was happening in Europe. They rediscovered the ancient writings of the Greeks which were preserved in the Islamic world. The study of Heliocentric was encouraged by the Vatican. The rub with Galileo was instead of just making scientific theories he then moved to try to interpret the scripture which is what got him into trouble.
The whole reason science started when it did in all of human history is because of the was Christians looked at the world. Other faiths had active Gods where if you didn't do certain things the sun wouldn't rise or the spring wouldn't come. For the first time with Christians you had an idea of a hands off God. He created the universe and pretty much lets it run according to the set of rules he made. What this did was allow people to try to discover the rules that God set up to run the universe. This was the birth of science. The Church all during the dark ages said that when empirical scientific results conflict with the interpretation of the scripture that it is the interpretation that must be changed because reality is what it is.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Atheism is not the lack of belief in God, for that would make my cat an atheist. Atheism is the belief that God does not exist.
If there was no religion the Library of Alexandria would still be standing.
That's first assuming the story of Julius Caesar accidentally burning it down is untrue. It is also an incredibly large assumption that it would continue to exist for 2000 years and that no one would attempt to conquer Alexandria.
But even more, it's quite possible that without religion, it would not have been built in the first place. That library was also a temple to an Egyptian god, though the contents of the library were not specifically religious texts. The Ptolomies (the library was built at the beginning of that dynasty) helped increase their power through the acceptance of the Egyptians' religion, and by at least appearing to respect and even observe it. Maybe if the Egyptians were not religious they would not have been conquered by Alexander. If religion did not exist, perhaps Alexander would not have created Alexandria. Heck, he might not have ever had any power to begin with. Maybe he would not even have been born.
For the record, I do agree with much of your post, but condemning someone for a poor understanding of history and then attempting to suggest that you can divine the consequences of removing an immense aspect of human history, especially one so influential as all religion, ever ... Well, that is not insightful in the least (as a few moderators seem to think) but it is incredibly ignorant and unbelievably arrogant.
We all believe in a lot of things that can't be proven. The logical positivism / Popperish notion that only scientific knowledge is valuable is one of the greatest fallacies that everyone seems to believe on Slashdot. Entire swathes of human knowledge cannot be proven scientifically. Math, History, the Arts. If you look at what the early Christians were doing in their writings, they were using logic and evidence to convince people to convert - Gentiles, especially, had no reason to care about what this random Jewish guy was doing, yet they converted anyway. Why? Logic and evidence. What evidence? "Go talk to the people who've seen these things, and ask them." It seems very odd that the religion would be founded on a lie when they're encouraging people to find out for themselves what happened.
I don't think everything has to be prove, however if you want me to change my entire life on the word of some guy, you better damn well have some heavy proof! I have very little faith in anything. I do hours of research before I make simple purchases. I'm not going to waste countless amounts of time, money, and happiness on the off chance some nut job is right. I've seen no useful benefits from worship a god and have seen many hardships.
The reason the people of the bible told everyone to go look for themselves is because they knew they wouldn't bother. This is why urban legends take off. Just go ask my uncle's friends sister who knew a guy who had earwigs lay eggs in his brains. People are gullible, this is why we have faith healers, psychics and magicians. We want explanations for things, we want something to blame our lot in life on. It's much easier to blame god's will then to get off the couch and make something work for us. Further more the facts just don't add up. But this really isn't the place to write that giant list of reasons why any deductive reasoning would lead you to the conclusion there is no gods. Hell, just the fact that some all powerful, all knowing being would creation us, give us free will, then get pissed we exercise it doesn't hold water. He was all knowing, he knew what would happen. Hell I think a child would know what would happen.
Catholic, eh? Not surprising, honestly. =)
Or another way of looking at it is that humans have been having these sorts of experiences with the numinous for a long time, and have been trying to capture it in different ways. I'm not a theosophist, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.
Yet in many religions making the wrong choice damns you. So until there is universal agreement in the one true religion how can I pick between odin, zeus, cuthulu, and jesus? If I don't pick jesus and he is the one true god, I'm damned to hell for thinking otherwise. WIthout any evidence to base my decision on, I have to go with personal experience. That being there is no such thing as gods. If they did exist and really wanted me to do something, I suspect they would tell me. If they don't feel the need, they must really not care.
Ok, since you mention the question of life after death. Why do you think it's so, that death is it - Nothingness? While it seems impossible for 'us' to ever arise from nothingness again, the only evidence that we have is that it IS possible. Before we were born, we did not exist. And yet - now we do. It seems better to say that it is more likely to happen again than to say that it is impossible.
I don't know what death is. Which is very fucking scary when you really think about it! I could be wrong (all intelligent men accept that they could be wrong) and thus burn for eternity for simply not worshiping a being that refuses to interact with me. I have no evidence that shows me people exist after they die. I do however have much empirical evidence that there is no afterlife. For example the houdini seance where houdini has yet to come back from the grave to prove there is an afterlife.
People see patterns anywhere there is not
The Church all during the dark ages said that when empirical scientific results conflict with the interpretation of the scripture that it is the interpretation that must be changed because reality is what it is.
Related, some good advice from St. Augustine of Hippo (5th century CE) on why Christians shouldn't go around uneducated :
"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion."
I just which more of them took it to hart these days.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.