Your rejection of his arguments seems to me just as likely to be colored by your perspective as his acceptance of them may have been colored by his conversion.
I don't think so. Just because arguements are lousy doesn't mean their conclusions are wrong, and just because I think his apologism is lousy doesn't mean I think all of his conclusions are wrong.
From all available historical accounts, Jesus was respected as a teacher and perhaps even a prophet, even by those who were not his followers. (Both Jewish and Islamic tradition regard him as a very noteworthy ethicist, etc.)
Not sure if you mean this to be your arguement or Lewis', but it is highly misleading. Not all historians agree on this, and certainly not all Jews (and some Muslims, though Jesus IS religiously validated in their tradition). In a way, Lewis is trying to refute exactly these people: that respect Jesus but don't think he's God. But Lewis entirely ignores that many of these people have much more complex reasoning than simply praising Jesus as a great ethical teacher: many, like Jefferson, did so only after rejecting certain aspects of Jesus' claimed teaching and acts that they DID find to be immoral and nutty. In addition, almost none of Christ's ethical teachings are original to him. Indeed, the one major contribution he made has: eternal suffering for unbelief: precisely the teaching that many people who like his other teachings, consider a moral abomination.
Yet, he claimed to be God. Not just "a god," which would not be all that noteworthy. He went into a Monothiestic culture and claimed to be the One-And-Only divine being.
First of all, this is not as obvious as Lewis claims it is. Jesus' claims about his own divnity are controversial, not straightforward, Lewis' reading is hardly the plain or only one.
Now, when somebody makes a remarkable claim like this, there are really only three possible conclusions you can draw:
This set of carefully constrained options is begins the very weak line of argumentation. It's also possible, for instance that he was misquoted, or that he was misunderstood, possibly by later followers who needed to create a new theology about him and his life to rescue his teachings after his death.
Lewis pointed out that anybody who actually believes himself to be God, and isn't, is a complete nut.
Except this relies upon, yet again, a very closeminded concept of sanity. It's perfectly possible that a person could have some brilliant beliefs, and some delusional ones. It's perfectly possible that their views develop over time.
When we examine the record of Christ's words, deeds, and how people and society reacted to him, it looks like the chance of him being a nut can probably be ruled out.
Why? Many people in the Gospels clearly thought he was a nut, and there is plenty of behavior that would most certainly be nutty IF he wasn't in fact god, which would assume Lewis conclusion. The NT gives these interpretation into his actions: but that simply begs the question we are supposed to be considering (for instance, the killing of the barren fig tree, which is certainly loony unless you first assume that its a metaphor for Israel). The liar arguement works the same way: by pleading ignorance as to why and how someone could possibly do that. And the plain of the matter is that MANY people, even in Christ's time, did that. In fact, the lord/liar/lunatic arguement could be used by anyone to argue that countless other professed gods were real gods, or indeed that countless non-Christian religious phophets were real phrophets.
So, that's the gauntlet that Lewis threw down: Jesus is either Lord, lunatic, or liar.
But the guantlet is a tricked out situation. Most real people, even the greatest, are a mix of lunacy, lying, and powerful insights. Lewis' arguement requires that we forget that, not to mention the usual ignoring of the possibility that Jesus's followers developed their theology of his teachings over time. But regardless of ones opinion on this, the fact that Lewis ignores this possibility invalidates the force of his deductive arguement, even if we grant the fantasy view of human psychology that he thinks rules out the liar/lunatic arguement.
---I went to high school with a number of students whose IQ was well above 160, and I have seen many students in private school who where dumber then bricks.---
Which proves... what? We are talking about averages and trends, not being able to pull out some individual examples.
Describing atheism as a worldview is like describing "non-tennis playing" as a sport. I'd also distinguish Tolkien's works from Lewis' Christian allegories. Tolkien despised the use of obvious allegory, Lewis embraced it. Calling them both "Christians" doesn't do justice to their complex opinions on the matter of its relation to fantasy fiction.
---You should remember that a "brilliant man like Lewis" did take those arguments seriously at one point despite the fact that they are Christian.---
I think you are confused as to what I said. What I said was that many of the sorts of arguements Lewis makes in MC are not arguements I think he would have thought were sound or honest if they had been put to him in a non-religious context, with non-religious conclusions. By 'those arguements' I meant the ones in MC, not the "atheist arguements" Lewis says he made when we was younger (as you might be able to tell, I'm actually a little skeptical of his discussion of his atheism to begin with, which was fleshed out only when the need for apologism arose). The arguements he supposedly made as an "atheist" are indeed goofy and unconvincing: but so are many of the arguements he made as an apologist.
---He was an avowed athiest looking to disprove Christianity when he converted.---
They are not just watered down: they are _deceptive_, such as his lord,liar,lunatic arguement.
---If you are really interested in a "serious" work of his, try The Problem of Pain. That will get your thinker thinking.---
It does, but I have the same criticism: excellent when talking about how Christians can deal with their own worldview, but insultingly bad apologism.
---it was patently clear that he had no desire to be a Christian in his initial searchings.---
I didn't say he did, and that's not at all the point in regards to the soundness of the arguements. Besides, Lewis wasn't convinced by arguements, but rather by is own personal experience/revelation. His apologism came later, defending his new worldview.
---Since public schools spend more on average per pupil than private schools---
Most private schools also have other large sources of income available (like endowments) that public schools do not. Nor do they generally have to spend money on things like books (parents buy them), disciplinary programs (they have a much better behaved and more intelligent students), etc.
But if _every_ school became a private school, the amount of money spent ont he average student might be more or less than the current average public school student. But you can't just assume that a figure from the current system will be reflected in a completely new system.
I'd really like to see Prydain on the big screen, but it probably doesn't have the popularity required to sustain doing every book in the series. The alternative would be "inspired by" amalgamations like Disney's The Black Cauldron (which was okay as a kids film, and heck got me reading the books and indeed reading in general).
I agree on LOTR: I feel many of the changes cannot be justified by a different media: they seemed far more like "a different market." The movie was good, but it gutted some of the most important themes and key interchanges not simply to save time, but to replace them with some rather pedestrian dialouge. How could anyone not include the interchange about Sauruman's cloak of many colors, the white page overwritten, and the path of wisdom? It was replaced with fairly dull bad guy taunts good guy dialog.
In Narnia? Even if so, how is just reading these books supposed to prevent kds in school from doing bad things? That's what you were talking about: not actually changing schools to better accord with Lewis' opinions.
---C. S. Lewis writes about the coming of the "experimental schools" (I forget what the exact term he uses for them is) that are mixed gender instead of segregated. He mentions the increase in problems of violence and harassment that appear within those schools.---
Wait a minute: now you're bypassing an entire line of assumptions and claims simply by referencing Lewis' opinion. Even if it were demonstrable that schools are worse now (and that's far from a settled question), that doesn't in the least demonstrate that gender is to blame.
---Before reading that particular series of passages, I did not even/know/ that western civilization had had gender segregated schools, I had just assumed that the way things are right now (rather shitty) is the way they had always been.---
I would guess that neither nor Lewis had much of an idea about "the way things were before" in regards to their "shittiness," and even less as to WHY schools of any period are the way they are.
---The only time that anybody ever hears of 'girls' or 'boys' schools is in reference to private schools that are considered 'old fashion' and 'outdated' and that 'young people' (they are called KIDS folks, children, NON-ADULTS) do not learn how to 'socialize' (read: screw) properly when attending them.---
Nonsense: gender segregated schools have been a hot topic, and there are many successful schools.
Though, come to think of it, don't trust me on them being good or not: I was like seven when I saw them... back then I thought He-Man had great dialouge.
I suppose one's opinion of his apology work depands on if they think his arguements are much good. Mere Christianity is sort of a split for me: aspects that speak positively about Christian experience are very good and important, but the parts where he makes substantive arguements _for_ Christian beliefs really irritate me, because they are so transparently misleading: making arguements that a brilliant man like Lewis would never take seriously if the conclusions weren't Christian. That's probably why I'd put Screwtape letters well above MereChristianity: it's much livier, and spends much less time trying to push sloppy conversion arguments, instead speaking to the struggles and challenges Christian's faith faces from a unique and entertaining perspective.
Actually, there ARE movie versions already, if you are eager to see some right now instead of waiting. I think they were PBS or BBC productions though, and it was more than a decade ago. But I remember them being fairly good.
---Narnia has been banned from my local school district do to 'religious' content.---
Which district is this? Seems pretty whack of them: do they also ban T.S. Eliot's the Wasteland? Lewis's book isn't even singualrly Christian: though I could see how class discussion (which is what classroom interaction would involve) couldn't avoid but talk about the Christian allegory, and maybe its that discussion that they fear.
---I do think that some of C. S. Lewis's works should be mandatory reading though if just to show students that things do NOT have to be the way that they are.---
Isn't this what MOST fiction, especially fantasy fiction, "shows." Not that I agree with banning Lewis from assingments, but this comment seems a little silly.
---People must be reminded that it IS possible to get through schooling without punching and fucking your way from one class to the next.:(---
You're confusing rights libertarians (small "l") and conservatives. Some libertarians are conservatives, but not all conservatives are libertarians. Conservatism isn't always directly about just running around protecting our rights from the government: it's about protecting a certain set of values (which only sometimes, not always, includes protecting certain traditional rights that people claim they have) and maintaining a stable social order. Sometimes this means a larger more intrusive government, sometimes a smaller less intrusive government. Some of the traditional civil rights certainly are imporant to these values, but they aren't the ONLY thing on the table, and they don't always trump what are seen as major threats to the conservative vision of America.
The problem with this sort of declaration is that it falls prey to the True Scotsman fallacy. sure, you think the Catholic Church is an agent of Satan: but that's only the case if we assume beforehand that you've got it right, and they're mistaken. So criticisms of this sort simply beg the question of what interpretation IS right to begin with.
I'd also note that the modern Catholic Church is far more tolerant with regards to religious ideas than you are. Does this demonstrate that they are closer to what you believe to be the foundations of Christianity than you?
---In the end, something must be an axiom, unquestionable.---
Axioms are not really truths: they are simply common assumptions. I don't think that it is TRUE that I exist, but it doesn't get me anywhere to deny it, and for most things, most discussions, no one is interested in questioning the matter.
So, in other words, don't confuse the fact that we need axioms to underly all truth with the idea that there must be "true" axioms out there somewhere: there is no such assurance. Axioms aren't true OR false in that way.
---When such ambiguity exists, an argument is resolved by appealing to Church Tradition, and that reports to us that she remained a virgin.---
Where does Church Tradition come from, and how can it be in any way distinguished from just more opinions (albiet older ones) about the exact same ambiguity?
---"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."---
---Christianity is founded on tolerance. We do not oppose any other religion or movement---
Wait, first you know nothing of Christianity being a religion... and now you're speaking for all Christians about what you do or do not do to "other religions or movements"?
That Chritianity is founded on tolerance is your particular take on it. But there is nothing inevitable about this interpretation: other believers see things differently, and non-believers see lots of both tolerance and intolerance in even just the Bible passages.
---Christianity is the oppressed and the intollerated.---
Come on: this is an off the wall claim. All sorts of groups are oppressed and intollerated at various times. Christianity was born during a time when it (being a minority, though this didn't stop inter-sect persecution) was, but when it became a majority, turnabout became fair play. Sometimes Christians are persecuted, sometimes Muslims are persecuted, sometimes atheists are persecuted. Christianity has no special claim on being singled out for persecution, especially not when for most of the last two centuries in the West, it's been doing the persecution. This doesn't mean that Christianity is, in every form, bad, but having been persecuted also doesn't prove that it, in any form, is specially good.
---we just show the truth.---
That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? You think your claims about Christ and so forth are true: others aren't convinced. So, here we are.
I can prove anything to you... as long as you accept as proof what I say is proof!
But in fact, I don't need to even do that, because deep down in your heart, you know that the truth I am claiming is true, is true. You are just trying to find a way to deny it.
I'm getting a little tired of this argument. Just because there was something called "Dogma" that was instituted by the church, doesn't mean that it couldn't have had, and didn't have dogmas beforehand, particularlly in thinking that the church is infaliable. That it wasn't officially declared in one of the gazillion letters the church sends out is irrelevant: the church refused to even consider the truth of Galileo's claims before censoring them, because to them there was no need to: they were right, he was wrong, end of story. And he wasn't even the worst: the poor guy who suggested that the universe was infinate was put to death. His dying words were something to the effect of "I think you who sit in judgement of me are more afraid of me than I am of you."
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but the scholarship, all well informed by cultural references, is simply not as final and declarative on this as you are.
Your rejection of his arguments seems to me just as likely to be colored by your perspective as his acceptance of them may have been colored by his conversion.
I don't think so. Just because arguements are lousy doesn't mean their conclusions are wrong, and just because I think his apologism is lousy doesn't mean I think all of his conclusions are wrong.
From all available historical accounts, Jesus was respected as a teacher and perhaps even a prophet, even by those who were not his followers. (Both Jewish and Islamic tradition regard him as a very noteworthy ethicist, etc.)
Not sure if you mean this to be your arguement or Lewis', but it is highly misleading. Not all historians agree on this, and certainly not all Jews (and some Muslims, though Jesus IS religiously validated in their tradition). In a way, Lewis is trying to refute exactly these people: that respect Jesus but don't think he's God. But Lewis entirely ignores that many of these people have much more complex reasoning than simply praising Jesus as a great ethical teacher: many, like Jefferson, did so only after rejecting certain aspects of Jesus' claimed teaching and acts that they DID find to be immoral and nutty. In addition, almost none of Christ's ethical teachings are original to him. Indeed, the one major contribution he made has: eternal suffering for unbelief: precisely the teaching that many people who like his other teachings, consider a moral abomination.
Yet, he claimed to be God. Not just "a god," which would not be all that noteworthy. He went into a Monothiestic culture and claimed to be the One-And-Only divine being.
First of all, this is not as obvious as Lewis claims it is. Jesus' claims about his own divnity are controversial, not straightforward, Lewis' reading is hardly the plain or only one.
Now, when somebody makes a remarkable claim like this, there are really only three possible conclusions you can draw:
This set of carefully constrained options is begins the very weak line of argumentation. It's also possible, for instance that he was misquoted, or that he was misunderstood, possibly by later followers who needed to create a new theology about him and his life to rescue his teachings after his death.
Lewis pointed out that anybody who actually believes himself to be God, and isn't, is a complete nut.
Except this relies upon, yet again, a very closeminded concept of sanity. It's perfectly possible that a person could have some brilliant beliefs, and some delusional ones. It's perfectly possible that their views develop over time.
When we examine the record of Christ's words, deeds, and how people and society reacted to him, it looks like the chance of him being a nut can probably be ruled out.
Why? Many people in the Gospels clearly thought he was a nut, and there is plenty of behavior that would most certainly be nutty IF he wasn't in fact god, which would assume Lewis conclusion. The NT gives these interpretation into his actions: but that simply begs the question we are supposed to be considering (for instance, the killing of the barren fig tree, which is certainly loony unless you first assume that its a metaphor for Israel).
The liar arguement works the same way: by pleading ignorance as to why and how someone could possibly do that. And the plain of the matter is that MANY people, even in Christ's time, did that. In fact, the lord/liar/lunatic arguement could be used by anyone to argue that countless other professed gods were real gods, or indeed that countless non-Christian religious phophets were real phrophets.
So, that's the gauntlet that Lewis threw down: Jesus is either Lord, lunatic, or liar.
But the guantlet is a tricked out situation. Most real people, even the greatest, are a mix of lunacy, lying, and powerful insights. Lewis' arguement requires that we forget that, not to mention the usual ignoring of the possibility that Jesus's followers developed their theology of his teachings over time. But regardless of ones opinion on this, the fact that Lewis ignores this possibility invalidates the force of his deductive arguement, even if we grant the fantasy view of human psychology that he thinks rules out the liar/lunatic arguement.
---I went to high school with a number of students whose IQ was well above 160, and I have seen many students in private school who where dumber then bricks.---
Which proves... what? We are talking about averages and trends, not being able to pull out some individual examples.
Describing atheism as a worldview is like describing "non-tennis playing" as a sport.
I'd also distinguish Tolkien's works from Lewis' Christian allegories. Tolkien despised the use of obvious allegory, Lewis embraced it. Calling them both "Christians" doesn't do justice to their complex opinions on the matter of its relation to fantasy fiction.
Seattle has only one school district?
---You should remember that a "brilliant man like Lewis" did take those arguments seriously at one point despite the fact that they are Christian.---
I think you are confused as to what I said. What I said was that many of the sorts of arguements Lewis makes in MC are not arguements I think he would have thought were sound or honest if they had been put to him in a non-religious context, with non-religious conclusions. By 'those arguements' I meant the ones in MC, not the "atheist arguements" Lewis says he made when we was younger (as you might be able to tell, I'm actually a little skeptical of his discussion of his atheism to begin with, which was fleshed out only when the need for apologism arose). The arguements he supposedly made as an "atheist" are indeed goofy and unconvincing: but so are many of the arguements he made as an apologist.
---He was an avowed athiest looking to disprove Christianity when he converted.---
They are not just watered down: they are _deceptive_, such as his lord,liar,lunatic arguement.
---If you are really interested in a "serious" work of his, try The Problem of Pain. That will get your thinker thinking.---
It does, but I have the same criticism: excellent when talking about how Christians can deal with their own worldview, but insultingly bad apologism.
---it was patently clear that he had no desire to be a Christian in his initial searchings.---
I didn't say he did, and that's not at all the point in regards to the soundness of the arguements. Besides, Lewis wasn't convinced by arguements, but rather by is own personal experience/revelation. His apologism came later, defending his new worldview.
Oh, and again: what district was this?
---Since public schools spend more on average per pupil than private schools---
Most private schools also have other large sources of income available (like endowments) that public schools do not. Nor do they generally have to spend money on things like books (parents buy them), disciplinary programs (they have a much better behaved and more intelligent students), etc. But if _every_ school became a private school, the amount of money spent ont he average student might be more or less than the current average public school student. But you can't just assume that a figure from the current system will be reflected in a completely new system.
I'd really like to see Prydain on the big screen, but it probably doesn't have the popularity required to sustain doing every book in the series. The alternative would be "inspired by" amalgamations like Disney's The Black Cauldron (which was okay as a kids film, and heck got me reading the books and indeed reading in general).
I agree on LOTR: I feel many of the changes cannot be justified by a different media: they seemed far more like "a different market." The movie was good, but it gutted some of the most important themes and key interchanges not simply to save time, but to replace them with some rather pedestrian dialouge. How could anyone not include the interchange about Sauruman's cloak of many colors, the white page overwritten, and the path of wisdom? It was replaced with fairly dull bad guy taunts good guy dialog.
---In one of his books---
/know/ that western civilization had had gender segregated schools, I had just assumed that the way things are right now (rather shitty) is the way they had always been.---
In Narnia? Even if so, how is just reading these books supposed to prevent kds in school from doing bad things? That's what you were talking about: not actually changing schools to better accord with Lewis' opinions.
---C. S. Lewis writes about the coming of the "experimental schools" (I forget what the exact term he uses for them is) that are mixed gender instead of segregated. He mentions the increase in problems of violence and harassment that appear within those schools.---
Wait a minute: now you're bypassing an entire line of assumptions and claims simply by referencing Lewis' opinion. Even if it were demonstrable that schools are worse now (and that's far from a settled question), that doesn't in the least demonstrate that gender is to blame.
---Before reading that particular series of passages, I did not even
I would guess that neither nor Lewis had much of an idea about "the way things were before" in regards to their "shittiness," and even less as to WHY schools of any period are the way they are.
---The only time that anybody ever hears of 'girls' or 'boys' schools is in reference to private schools that are considered 'old fashion' and 'outdated' and that 'young people' (they are called KIDS folks, children, NON-ADULTS) do not learn how to 'socialize' (read: screw) properly when attending them.---
Nonsense: gender segregated schools have been a hot topic, and there are many successful schools.
He'd do a good job with the character designs of the bad guys at least. But he doesn't seem right for the rest.
Though, come to think of it, don't trust me on them being good or not: I was like seven when I saw them... back then I thought He-Man had great dialouge.
I suppose one's opinion of his apology work depands on if they think his arguements are much good. Mere Christianity is sort of a split for me: aspects that speak positively about Christian experience are very good and important, but the parts where he makes substantive arguements _for_ Christian beliefs really irritate me, because they are so transparently misleading: making arguements that a brilliant man like Lewis would never take seriously if the conclusions weren't Christian. That's probably why I'd put Screwtape letters well above MereChristianity: it's much livier, and spends much less time trying to push sloppy conversion arguments, instead speaking to the struggles and challenges Christian's faith faces from a unique and entertaining perspective.
Actually, there ARE movie versions already, if you are eager to see some right now instead of waiting. I think they were PBS or BBC productions though, and it was more than a decade ago. But I remember them being fairly good.
---Narnia has been banned from my local school district do to 'religious' content.---
:(---
Which district is this? Seems pretty whack of them: do they also ban T.S. Eliot's the Wasteland? Lewis's book isn't even singualrly Christian: though I could see how class discussion (which is what classroom interaction would involve) couldn't avoid but talk about the Christian allegory, and maybe its that discussion that they fear.
---I do think that some of C. S. Lewis's works should be mandatory reading though if just to show students that things do NOT have to be the way that they are.---
Isn't this what MOST fiction, especially fantasy fiction, "shows." Not that I agree with banning Lewis from assingments, but this comment seems a little silly.
---People must be reminded that it IS possible to get through schooling without punching and fucking your way from one class to the next.
And reading Lewis will do all that?
What are you talking about? Boeing already produces an entire line of gravity defying products...
You're confusing rights libertarians (small "l") and conservatives. Some libertarians are conservatives, but not all conservatives are libertarians. Conservatism isn't always directly about just running around protecting our rights from the government: it's about protecting a certain set of values (which only sometimes, not always, includes protecting certain traditional rights that people claim they have) and maintaining a stable social order. Sometimes this means a larger more intrusive government, sometimes a smaller less intrusive government. Some of the traditional civil rights certainly are imporant to these values, but they aren't the ONLY thing on the table, and they don't always trump what are seen as major threats to the conservative vision of America.
The problem with this sort of declaration is that it falls prey to the True Scotsman fallacy. sure, you think the Catholic Church is an agent of Satan: but that's only the case if we assume beforehand that you've got it right, and they're mistaken. So criticisms of this sort simply beg the question of what interpretation IS right to begin with.
I'd also note that the modern Catholic Church is far more tolerant with regards to religious ideas than you are. Does this demonstrate that they are closer to what you believe to be the foundations of Christianity than you?
---In the end, something must be an axiom, unquestionable.---
Axioms are not really truths: they are simply common assumptions. I don't think that it is TRUE that I exist, but it doesn't get me anywhere to deny it, and for most things, most discussions, no one is interested in questioning the matter.
So, in other words, don't confuse the fact that we need axioms to underly all truth with the idea that there must be "true" axioms out there somewhere: there is no such assurance. Axioms aren't true OR false in that way.
---When such ambiguity exists, an argument is resolved by appealing to Church Tradition, and that reports to us that she remained a virgin.---
Where does Church Tradition come from, and how can it be in any way distinguished from just more opinions (albiet older ones) about the exact same ambiguity?
---"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."---
Kind of a self-sealing argument, isn't it?
---Christianity is founded on tolerance. We do not oppose any other religion or movement---
Wait, first you know nothing of Christianity being a religion... and now you're speaking for all Christians about what you do or do not do to "other religions or movements"?
That Chritianity is founded on tolerance is your particular take on it. But there is nothing inevitable about this interpretation: other believers see things differently, and non-believers see lots of both tolerance and intolerance in even just the Bible passages.
---Christianity is the oppressed and the intollerated.---
Come on: this is an off the wall claim. All sorts of groups are oppressed and intollerated at various times. Christianity was born during a time when it (being a minority, though this didn't stop inter-sect persecution) was, but when it became a majority, turnabout became fair play. Sometimes Christians are persecuted, sometimes Muslims are persecuted, sometimes atheists are persecuted. Christianity has no special claim on being singled out for persecution, especially not when for most of the last two centuries in the West, it's been doing the persecution. This doesn't mean that Christianity is, in every form, bad, but having been persecuted also doesn't prove that it, in any form, is specially good.
---we just show the truth.---
That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? You think your claims about Christ and so forth are true: others aren't convinced. So, here we are.
Begs the question...
I can prove anything to you... as long as you accept as proof what I say is proof!
But in fact, I don't need to even do that, because deep down in your heart, you know that the truth I am claiming is true, is true. You are just trying to find a way to deny it.
See: anyone can play such dishonest word games.
I'm getting a little tired of this argument. Just because there was something called "Dogma" that was instituted by the church, doesn't mean that it couldn't have had, and didn't have dogmas beforehand, particularlly in thinking that the church is infaliable. That it wasn't officially declared in one of the gazillion letters the church sends out is irrelevant: the church refused to even consider the truth of Galileo's claims before censoring them, because to them there was no need to: they were right, he was wrong, end of story.
And he wasn't even the worst: the poor guy who suggested that the universe was infinate was put to death. His dying words were something to the effect of "I think you who sit in judgement of me are more afraid of me than I am of you."