6 ms·

No. The church thinkers actually believed what was in the Bible: Augustine, Saint Basil, St. Thomas Aquinas. And the scriptures were made by the people who und

by acqq 10y ago

No. The church thinkers actually believed what was in the Bible: Augustine, Saint Basil, St. Thomas Aquinas. And the scriptures were made by the people who understood very little about the world, compared to what the current science knows. Therefore the creation is described using the concepts that we today know for sure don't exist. Specifically, in the creation myth: "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." (Genesis 1:7) The firmament is what people believed separated the water that rains "from above" from what we see as "heaven." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament The Latin translation, accepted by the Church, made in 4th century AD, uses word that is cognate with English "firm." The firmament was believed to be firm, like metals, and the gods "opened" it when it rained, and then closed it back. They didn't even know that the rain is really in the clouds. Their "world model" involved non-moving Earth. Aristotle came later. It's true that Aristotle wrote what he wrote, but his teachings were never a part of the Bible. Edit: kindly see my next answer down the tree if you don't want to read the Wikipedia yourself, the highest church thinkers really supported exactly the model with the firmament, the Earth in the middle, because Bible. Also see my top post here regarding the main article.

c3534l 10y ago
No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world, only that the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle, and I don't think you'll find many historians arguing otherwise on account of us having writings from them arguing and justifying their positions.
- acqq 10y ago
  Absolutely not true that "the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle." We talk about the religious view. For the religious view the Bible was actually relevant for the Church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament "Augustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament.[9] "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote.[9] Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament.[9] According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed."[10]" 1475: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_of_things1475.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_o... Before the Christians, the Jews also had such interpretations: "According to The Jewish Encyclopedia: The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.[8]"
  - ashirus 10y ago
    That section of the Jewish Encyclopaedia is itself unsourced and, to the best of my knowledge in Jewish cosmology, was not actually Jewish view of the cosmos.
    - acqq 10y ago
      Please give your citations for the relevant Jewish cosmology at the time the "creation myths" were made.
- prmph 10y ago
  > No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world Can you point out even one instance in which the Bible is inaccurate about the physical nature of the world? I'm curious
  - c3534l 10y ago
    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_errors#Astronomy http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_errors#Astr... http://biblebabble.curbjaw.com/errors.htm http://biblebabble.curbjaw.com/errors.htm http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    There are many. Just read and think about it. Start with the story that the sun and moon stood still in the sky for an entire day, with no dusk, sunset, or dawn while Joshua led the Israelites to murder their enemies. Or perhaps grab any part of the creation myth—the whole of the universe, our galaxy, our arm of the galaxy, our place in that arm, our star, our solar system, our planet, all the plants and animals and us...all made in just a handful of hours each. Or how about the notion that not one, but two lucky guys met death and were returned from it days later. Or that mud can cure blindness. Or 5,000 people can be fed to satisfaction with tons of leftovers from just a couple fish and loaves of bread. Or that a jug known to be full of water can transmogrify into wine. Or bodies of water momentarily drying up, or having waters recede on command, to permit human passage. Or stars falling from the sky and crashing into earth. Rivers turning to blood. Sudden overnight pestilence that kills only the first-born of an entire nation, unless you painted blood on your doors. A woman turned into a pillar of salt. Of course, asking such a question as yours implies one ought to take seriously and somewhat bordering on completely literal that which the Bible says that remotely touches on and involves the physical nature of the world. Otherwise the question doesn't make any sense. Because from the creation to the revelation, all of its stories say something about the physical nature of the world.
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
You are a little too quick to paint an almost caricatural image there, perhaps informed by more recent religious developments, such as the literalist interpretations (mostly, but not exclusively, an american phenomenon). The reality is that the people who shaped the debates within the Catholic church back then tended to be well educated, and possessing all the attributes of one raising through a hierarchy - above average intelligence, determination, and skill. It is pretty extreme to describe them all as narrow-minded fundamentalists. Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology (inasmuch as this field even could be said to exist back then). An educated person, including top theologians back then, would have been well acquainted with their views. It is also the case that the Catholic church has been historically more open to scientifically-backed knowledge than most people give it credit for - look at all the Jesuits who had successful careers as scientists, while also remaining men of faith. Please be aware that observing the (mostly american) present-day religious phenomena does not provide you a good basis for judging religious thinking in the past, especially that related to the non-protestant churches.
- acqq 10y ago
  > Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology No, they were not. They were just popular but not state of the art, as neither from them actually preformed astronomical observations or did the calculations. There are people before and after these two who did much more. Because they actually did some real science. Aristarchus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sizes_and_Distances_(Aristarchus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sizes_and_Distances_(Ar... "This work calculates the sizes of the Sun and Moon, as well as their distances from the Earth in terms of Earth's radius." Eratosthenes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes "Repeating Eratosthenes' calculation with more accurate data, the result is 40,074 km, which is 66 km different (0.16%) from the currently accepted polar circumference of the Earth." Aristarchus of Samos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos "presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it" Archimedes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner "Estimation of the size of the universe Archimedes then estimated an upper bound for the number of grains of sand required to fill the Universe. To do this, he used the heliocentric model of Aristarchus of Samos." Everything before that year that that carpenter was born, and before his followers continued to depend on older or plainly less informed texts.
countingteeth 10y ago
This is laughably wrong. Aristophanes wrote an entire comedy on the subject, "The Clouds", in the 5th century B.C.E. STREPSIADES: But by the Earth! is our father, Zeus, the Olympian, not a god? SOCRATES: Zeus! what Zeus! Are you mad? There is no Zeus. STREPSIADS: What are you saying now? Who causes the rain to fall? Answer me that1 SOCRATES: Why, these, and I will prove it. Have you ever seen it raining without clouds? Let Zeus then cause rain with a clear sky and without their presence! STREPSIADES: By Apollo! that is powerfully argued! For my own part, I always thought it was Zeus pissing into a sieve. But tell me, who is it makes the thunder, which I so much dread? SOCRATES: These, when they roll one over the other. STRESIADES: But how can that be? you most daring among men! SOCRATES: Being full of water, and forced to move along, they are of necessity precipitated in rain, being fully distended with moisture from the regions where they have been floating; hence they bump each other heavily and burst with great noise. STREPSIADES: But is it not Zeus who forces them to move? SOCRATES: Not at all; it's the aerial Whirlwind. STREPSIADES: The Whirlwind! ah! I did not know that. So Zeus, it seems, has no existence, and its the Whirlwind that reigns in his stead? But you have not yet told me what makes the roll of the thunder? SOCRATES: Have you not understood me then? I tell you, that the Clouds, when full of rain, bump against one another, and that, being inordinately swollen out, they burst with a great noise. STREPSIADES: How can you make me credit that? SOCRATES: Take yourself as an example. When you have heartily gorged on stew at the Panathenaea, you get throes of stomach-ache and then suddenly your belly resounds with prolonged rumbling. STREPSIADES: Yes, yes, by Apollo I suffer, I get colic, then the stew sets to rumbling like thunder and finally bursts forth with a terrific noise. At first, it's but a little gurgling pappax, pappax! then it increases, papapappax! and when I take my crap, why, it's thunder indeed, papapappax! pappax!! papapappax!!! just like the clouds. SOCRATES: Well then, reflect what a noise is produced by your belly, which is but small. Shall not the air, which is boundless, produce these mighty claps of thunder? STREPSIADES: And this is why the names are so much alike: crap and clap. But tell me this. Whence comes the lightning, the dazzling flame, which at times consumes the man it strikes, at others hardly singes him. Is it not plain, that Zeus is hurling it at the perjurers?
- acqq 10y ago
  This segment from "The Clouds" nicely illustrates the mockery which a person who observes and rethinks the nature scientifically receives from the religious people, who only trust the dogma. It's obvious that only Socrates here claims that the rain comes from clouds, or that the thunder is the result of the discharge, and gets mocked for that. Even today very much alive. From the other sources we know that Socrates was then accused "corrupting the youth of the city-state and asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens" and that he was for that crime sentenced to death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates That's why Platon decided to only philosophise about the "ideas" and not to discuss or analyze the nature phenomena. He didn't want to end like Socrates.

by acqq 10y ago

c3534l 10y ago

No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world, only that the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle, and I don't think you'll find many historians arguing otherwise on account of us having writings from them arguing and justifying their positions.

acqq 10y ago
Absolutely not true that "the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle." We talk about the religious view. For the religious view the Bible was actually relevant for the Church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament "Augustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament.[9] "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote.[9] Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament.[9] According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed."[10]" 1475: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_of_things1475.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_o... Before the Christians, the Jews also had such interpretations: "According to The Jewish Encyclopedia: The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.[8]"
- ashirus 10y ago
  That section of the Jewish Encyclopaedia is itself unsourced and, to the best of my knowledge in Jewish cosmology, was not actually Jewish view of the cosmos.
  - acqq 10y ago
    Please give your citations for the relevant Jewish cosmology at the time the "creation myths" were made.
prmph 10y ago
> No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world Can you point out even one instance in which the Bible is inaccurate about the physical nature of the world? I'm curious
- c3534l 10y ago
  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_errors#Astronomy http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_errors#Astr... http://biblebabble.curbjaw.com/errors.htm http://biblebabble.curbjaw.com/errors.htm http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  There are many. Just read and think about it. Start with the story that the sun and moon stood still in the sky for an entire day, with no dusk, sunset, or dawn while Joshua led the Israelites to murder their enemies. Or perhaps grab any part of the creation myth—the whole of the universe, our galaxy, our arm of the galaxy, our place in that arm, our star, our solar system, our planet, all the plants and animals and us...all made in just a handful of hours each. Or how about the notion that not one, but two lucky guys met death and were returned from it days later. Or that mud can cure blindness. Or 5,000 people can be fed to satisfaction with tons of leftovers from just a couple fish and loaves of bread. Or that a jug known to be full of water can transmogrify into wine. Or bodies of water momentarily drying up, or having waters recede on command, to permit human passage. Or stars falling from the sky and crashing into earth. Rivers turning to blood. Sudden overnight pestilence that kills only the first-born of an entire nation, unless you painted blood on your doors. A woman turned into a pillar of salt. Of course, asking such a question as yours implies one ought to take seriously and somewhat bordering on completely literal that which the Bible says that remotely touches on and involves the physical nature of the world. Otherwise the question doesn't make any sense. Because from the creation to the revelation, all of its stories say something about the physical nature of the world.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

You are a little too quick to paint an almost caricatural image there, perhaps informed by more recent religious developments, such as the literalist interpretations (mostly, but not exclusively, an american phenomenon). The reality is that the people who shaped the debates within the Catholic church back then tended to be well educated, and possessing all the attributes of one raising through a hierarchy - above average intelligence, determination, and skill. It is pretty extreme to describe them all as narrow-minded fundamentalists. Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology (inasmuch as this field even could be said to exist back then). An educated person, including top theologians back then, would have been well acquainted with their views. It is also the case that the Catholic church has been historically more open to scientifically-backed knowledge than most people give it credit for - look at all the Jesuits who had successful careers as scientists, while also remaining men of faith. Please be aware that observing the (mostly american) present-day religious phenomena does not provide you a good basis for judging religious thinking in the past, especially that related to the non-protestant churches.

acqq 10y ago
> Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology No, they were not. They were just popular but not state of the art, as neither from them actually preformed astronomical observations or did the calculations. There are people before and after these two who did much more. Because they actually did some real science. Aristarchus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sizes_and_Distances_(Aristarchus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sizes_and_Distances_(Ar... "This work calculates the sizes of the Sun and Moon, as well as their distances from the Earth in terms of Earth's radius." Eratosthenes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes "Repeating Eratosthenes' calculation with more accurate data, the result is 40,074 km, which is 66 km different (0.16%) from the currently accepted polar circumference of the Earth." Aristarchus of Samos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos "presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it" Archimedes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner "Estimation of the size of the universe Archimedes then estimated an upper bound for the number of grains of sand required to fill the Universe. To do this, he used the heliocentric model of Aristarchus of Samos." Everything before that year that that carpenter was born, and before his followers continued to depend on older or plainly less informed texts.

countingteeth 10y ago

This is laughably wrong. Aristophanes wrote an entire comedy on the subject, "The Clouds", in the 5th century B.C.E. STREPSIADES: But by the Earth! is our father, Zeus, the Olympian, not a god? SOCRATES: Zeus! what Zeus! Are you mad? There is no Zeus. STREPSIADS: What are you saying now? Who causes the rain to fall? Answer me that1 SOCRATES: Why, these, and I will prove it. Have you ever seen it raining without clouds? Let Zeus then cause rain with a clear sky and without their presence! STREPSIADES: By Apollo! that is powerfully argued! For my own part, I always thought it was Zeus pissing into a sieve. But tell me, who is it makes the thunder, which I so much dread? SOCRATES: These, when they roll one over the other. STRESIADES: But how can that be? you most daring among men! SOCRATES: Being full of water, and forced to move along, they are of necessity precipitated in rain, being fully distended with moisture from the regions where they have been floating; hence they bump each other heavily and burst with great noise. STREPSIADES: But is it not Zeus who forces them to move? SOCRATES: Not at all; it's the aerial Whirlwind. STREPSIADES: The Whirlwind! ah! I did not know that. So Zeus, it seems, has no existence, and its the Whirlwind that reigns in his stead? But you have not yet told me what makes the roll of the thunder? SOCRATES: Have you not understood me then? I tell you, that the Clouds, when full of rain, bump against one another, and that, being inordinately swollen out, they burst with a great noise. STREPSIADES: How can you make me credit that? SOCRATES: Take yourself as an example. When you have heartily gorged on stew at the Panathenaea, you get throes of stomach-ache and then suddenly your belly resounds with prolonged rumbling. STREPSIADES: Yes, yes, by Apollo I suffer, I get colic, then the stew sets to rumbling like thunder and finally bursts forth with a terrific noise. At first, it's but a little gurgling pappax, pappax! then it increases, papapappax! and when I take my crap, why, it's thunder indeed, papapappax! pappax!! papapappax!!! just like the clouds. SOCRATES: Well then, reflect what a noise is produced by your belly, which is but small. Shall not the air, which is boundless, produce these mighty claps of thunder? STREPSIADES: And this is why the names are so much alike: crap and clap. But tell me this. Whence comes the lightning, the dazzling flame, which at times consumes the man it strikes, at others hardly singes him. Is it not plain, that Zeus is hurling it at the perjurers?

acqq 10y ago
This segment from "The Clouds" nicely illustrates the mockery which a person who observes and rethinks the nature scientifically receives from the religious people, who only trust the dogma. It's obvious that only Socrates here claims that the rain comes from clouds, or that the thunder is the result of the discharge, and gets mocked for that. Even today very much alive. From the other sources we know that Socrates was then accused "corrupting the youth of the city-state and asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens" and that he was for that crime sentenced to death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates That's why Platon decided to only philosophise about the "ideas" and not to discuss or analyze the nature phenomena. He didn't want to end like Socrates.