Lost knowledge due to religion

a reply to: JUhrman

" if the church attempts to destroy science, you would find much more example..."

You are hilarious my friend. If they destroyed it how would we know about that knowledge. Plz continue down this road...its priceless

a reply to: JUhrman

No, I'm saying it's irrelevant to the discussion.

Fair enough. You weren't going where I thought you were going originally.

Only that it's not true to claim that in Europe the Church tried to destroy ancient knowledge. They actually loved ancient books.

Note the OP said "religion". Not just the church. Though any quick google search will turn up articles such as this one... Christian Vandalism Not that the Christians were unique by any means. The destruction wrought by zealots of the Abrahamic religions alone in the last 2000 years probably set our sciences and knowledge back at least 2000 years.

No I said such accident happened and unless you can find a hundred more they are not representative of the actions of the Church.

Accident? I assure you it was no accident. And it didn't stop with Landa. There's a reason South America speaks Spanish, and is mostly Catholic.

The OP is not trying to discuss the truth.

The OP is trying to demonize the Church and religions.

Maybe the Abrahamic religions should be demonized. Their combined history is some of the bloodiest, and most destructive in written history. Even the ancient Roman empire finally succumbed.

The flip side is, science is a religion. In you went back to the first Earth Day and told them that in 45 years the Earth wouldn't be in a mini ice age. They would call you a right wing nut job, because since said it was going to happen

Another example is, how old is the Sphinx? Most scientist say one age. They call you a nut job if you disagree with their principals.

originally posted by: thinline
The flip side is, science is a religion. In you went back to the first Earth Day and told them that in 45 years the Earth wouldn't be in a mini ice age. They would call you a right wing nut job, because since said it was going to happen

Another example is, how old is the Sphinx? Most scientist say one age. They call you a nut job if you disagree with their principals.

So, in your opinion science was destroying itself all along...

Archeology is very tricky field, where you have many different groups trying to propagate their view/truth or what you want to call it... but again, when for something is provided enough evidence, then everyone accepts it. So ask your self, is evidence you were provided to believe Sphinx is older then what is being stated or in your other example that we are not accelerating climate due to our abuse of nature is real and sound.

Most scientist would actually cherish to be proven wrong, and some of them are just strange for many reasons. (phun intended ) Check what happened when little girl asks Dr. Tyson if there are dyslexic scientist that he works with...



There is very interesting as message in Dr. Tyson' s answer...

Sorry, will not have time to answer some other questions, but with this we are bit going away from topic: What we knew it was rediscovered due to religion disagreeing with findings.

a reply to: JUhrman

Check out this list of banned works in the famed Index Librorum Prohibitorum. There is a lot there if you're interested in looking.

The 1948 edition of the Index of Forbidden Books

originally posted by: thinline
The flip side is, science is a religion. In you went back to the first Earth Day and told them that in 45 years the Earth wouldn't be in a mini ice age. They would call you a right wing nut job, because since said it was going to happen

Another example is, how old is the Sphinx? Most scientist say one age. They call you a nut job if you disagree with their principals.

I wouldn't say science itself is religious. Science is a methodology. However, some of its staunch adherents might be considered religious.

originally posted by: SuperFrog


Unfortunately this is true, but we still have some examples of lost knowledge, like the one I showed in opening post. Main idea is to show danger many groups that try to infiltrate current education with religious non-science, for example, intelligent design and/or creationism as equal to theory of evolution. It would be very dangerous not to seriously address those destructive agendas...

So superfrog this whole thread is a rant against christianity based on creation and evolution

JUhrman said some atheists have become hardcore fundamentalists, seems like his words were very true.

Yes we disagree.

I think your beliefs without solid valid evidence area religion, yet here you are preaching

originally posted by: Klassified

Maybe the Abrahamic religions should be demonized. Their combined history is some of the bloodiest, and most destructive in written history. Even the ancient Roman empire finally succumbed.

`

Rome fell to her Northern tribes, and we have seen the rise of communism in certain countries that has shown the world the bloodiest violence and highest death tolls, communism guided by atheism.

I cant believe the blatancy of misrepresentation.

Yes the church has her fair share of sins but so does the secular world

I think blaming religion is similar to blaming the gun for shooting someone. Religion is merely a tool used by people with power to control people. If not religion, some other tool would be used.

originally posted by: whatmakesyouright
I think blaming religion is similar to blaming the gun for shooting someone. Religion is merely a tool used by people with power to control people. If not religion, some other tool would be used.

Guns don't preach.

Guns don't have a tax free building, to preach an ideology to affect minds too weak to think for themselves.

a reply to: SuperFrog

One thing to understand when it comes to religions is that generally the worst part of any of them is the church(or whatever the faith calls it) behind them. I hold pagan beliefs myself for lack of a better term but I have known many people who are part of a religious faith but have or want nothing to do with the church behind it. The corruption and the majority of the problems come from the organization and power structure involved in a developed church. Religion is not inherently evil or bad, it is political and economic involvement that corrupts the people who run the show who then corrupt their followers.

Many people have their vices, whether it be watching hours of reality TV, or playing video games nonstop, or drugs, or alcoholism. Humans tend to find some kind of escape. Religion is not the worst of all of these options.

I still say that if there wasn't 'religion' as you know it, then the kings and queens during all these years would have found some other option to keep the masses uneducated. We do it now, with McDonald's, TV, and drugs.

originally posted by: SuperFrog
For some time I was thinking to create topic where we could review relationship between religion and science, and try to get better grasp of what might have been lost due to religion influencing our lives. But before we go into this, let's cover little story, something we have documents and know it happened.

In end times of ancient Egypt, around ~300 BC lived a mathematician, poet, and holder of many other disciplines of science that his nickname, beta, second letter of Greek alphabet points that he was good in many things, but never specialized in single one - Eratosthenes. He also was chief librarian of great Alexandria library. One day he was reading reports, sometimes those reports included some trivial stuff, while some were just records for bookkeeping and part of report made him suspicious and wonder. Report was from Syene (Aswan) and stated that on summer solstice (June 21st) sun is directly above, so even deep well would not have any shadows. On the same day, towers in Alexandria produced shadows. This made him think and realize that only reason this might be is because earth was sphere, so he hired someone to measure distance between Syene and Alexandria, then he used shadow in Alexandria to measure that Alexandria and Syene are at about 7 degree or close to 1/50 of a circle and once multiplied that with distance, he was able very accurately to measure radius and circumference of Earth. Some believe, but we don't have record that he was also able to measure distance between earth and sun.

Now, this would be knowledge we should work on, expend on it... but because it was not in 'bible' it was just lost... just imagine, if Christopher Columbus knew what was circumference of Earth, he would knew that he was not in India, but in all new continent?!

This is also good example, what happens when folklore tale books is used to answer questions it is not meant to answer, it is no scientific nor historical book, it is just another product of fiction, should be treated as that.

This dumbing for lack of better terms with religious nonsense is likely to spread if we allow it. We have historical knowledge what happens to whole group of people if they allow religion to rule over everything including education and science - Islam. In its beginning when Islam supported science and education it was center of knowledge and science, prospered and grow, but once it turned its back to science and education stagnated and today, almost 1000 years later it still did not recover. Just mind-blowing fact that today 1.3 billion people are belonging to that religion, 2 of them only won Nobel Prize for Science, while there is only about 15 million of Jews and they hold about 25% of prizes?! Just imagine what knowledge got lost?!

This is just one example how religion influenced our lives, there are many more, and what is really worrisome is that people who are trying to change science book to include religious nonsense are constantly working to influence education system. Just look at issues with schoolbooks in Texas, Wendy Wright's organization and similar science denial folks... including Ken Ham (who thankfully has not big influence, but is working on destroying knowledge replacing it with his God view...) There are records that pont that for example Church was planning to assassinate Jean-François Champollion because if he could decipher hieroglyphs as he announced, it might lead to text to disprove bible and age of earth/universe?!

This thread in my opinion can serve two purpose, collection of lost knowledge due to religion as well as trying to figure out is religion doing this on purpose (dumbing people to make them more manageable) or if there might be conspiracy going behind all of this... After all, organized religion is biggest cult that even has done some major crimes against humanity, it still exists... and in countries like USA does not pay taxes... Also one of major conclusion of this thread is to show that religion and science are not mixing well. You have to minimize religion to something as tradition to be able to fully acknowledge science and look for discoveries...

References:
Eratosthenes: en.wikipedia.org...
Narrated story about events by late Carl Sagan as part of original cosmos: youtu.be...
BBC on Rosetta Stone and Jean-François Champollion's discovery: www.youtube.com...

The main point should be a scientific one:

1) Knowledge, belief, and teachings should be based on all of the possible data, information, and experience out there. A "real" hypothesis is one that encompasses all of the information. If new information comes up that violates it, then the hypothesis must be expanded, altered, or thrown out in favor of a new one that encompasses all data.

2) While some knowledge may be trascendentally outside of our current scientific and measurement abilities, such as whether aliens factually exist or if there is a higher power/soul/you name it, generally speaking beliefs should be subjected to my first point, not the reversal.

Fundamentalism is the opposite, utilizing religious texts and arguments from authority to trump any evidence or experience. This is what causes the horrors of religion and is one obstacle to progress.

Just look at our modern world. Quite literally the world made very little progress from the fall of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance. Almost 1000 years. During that time, the Church had complete reign, power, and control over information.

It was not until the Renaissance (during which retranslated ancient Greek, Babylonian, Sanskrit texts on philosophy, mathematics, science, and history were reintroduced via the Moors via the Middle East. Yes, Arabic authors translated Plato and regifted it to us), the reformation, and then Enlightenment (which philosophically attacked the church, fundamentalism, and religion), that we saw the birth of the modern era, science (which again came out of ancient non-religious philosophy), and technology.

originally posted by: borntowatch

Why was the first printing press ever developed?

Religion in many ways was what drove man to learn in the first place. In the past, the most learned person around was typically a person fulfilling a religious role who was trained and educated through religious institutions.

Knowledge was gained and lost any number of ways throughout our history because knowledge was somewhat isolated. War not only destroyed knowledge but it was the major way that knowledge was spread too. Outside the loss of artifacts from the Mayans due to the Spanish can someone provide a small list of lost knowledge as the OP suggests?


BTW When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue the church already knew the truth.

originally posted by: borntowatch

originally posted by: Klassified

Maybe the Abrahamic religions should be demonized. Their combined history is some of the bloodiest, and most destructive in written history. Even the ancient Roman empire finally succumbed.

`

Rome fell to her Northern tribes, and we have seen the rise of communism in certain countries that has shown the world the bloodiest violence and highest death tolls, communism guided by atheism.

I cant believe the blatancy of misrepresentation.

Yes the church has her fair share of sins but so does the secular world

The difference is, atheists do not claim the moral high ground. Nor do they claim to be the only way to "god", or you're going to hell. If you claim moral superiority over the rest of the universe, you don't get to say... "You guys did it too."

I cant believe the blatancy of misrepresentation.

There's no misrepresentation. I didn't say Rome fell to Xtianity. I said they succumbed. And it worked out quite well for them too, as history shows.

originally posted by: borntowatch
So superfrog this whole thread is a rant against christianity based on creation and evolution

No, this whole thread is not focus on Christianity, but some of Christians are used for mere purpose of example and because they are not shy to tell what they want: Their belief to enter into school and science class.. We know the danger from examples with Islam, and we know how it will end if they succeed. This thread is far from rant...

originally posted by: borntowatch
JUhrman said some atheists have become hardcore fundamentalists, seems like his words were very true.

Focus of thread is not me, but religion and its wars against science.

originally posted by: borntowatch
Yes we disagree.

I think your beliefs without solid valid evidence area religion, yet here you are preaching

No we don't agree, and thankfully it is not important what you think or believe in. Let me know if I am wrong, but here I and many other members provided plenty of evidence and only thing you provided is ad-hominem. Do you know ATS rules?

Let's continue with some lost knowledge.

Next 2 paragraphs are from Richard Carrier's blog, it has some very nice insights about some of lost knowledge...

However, in all this the one claim that cannot be sustained is that Christianity "encouraged" science. Had that been the case, then there would not have been almost a thousand years (from roughly 300 to 1250 AD) of absolutely zero significant advances in science (excepting a very few and relatively minor contributions by Hindus and Muslims), in contrast with the previous thousand years (from roughly 400 BC to 300 AD), which witnessed incredible advances in the sciences in continuous succession every century, culminating in theorists whose ideas and findings came tantalizingly close to the scientific revolution in the 2nd century AD (namely, but not only, Galen and Ptolemy). You can't propose a cause that failed to have an effect despite being constantly in place for a thousand years, especially when in its absence science had made far more progress. Science picked up again in the 1200's precisely where the ancients had left off, by rediscovering their findings, methods, and epistemic values and continuing the process they had begun.

Yet even before the Roman Empire, neither Aristarchus nor Anaxagoras (nor any other scientist in the whole of antiquity) were killed or jailed or fined or affected in any significant way at all, beyond not being welcome in one city for a brief time. Hence their work continued uninterrupted, and their books were faithfully preserved and disseminated--until Christians (yes, Christians) decided they weren't worth copying anymore. Hence their books are lost to us. We have a hundred volumes of Jerome's inordinately boring letters, but not a single volume on Aristarchan heliocentric theory. Yes, heliocentric theory--over a thousand years before Copernicus. That is the measure of medieval Christian values.

Source: richardcarrier.blogspot.com...

Also, this might be of interest to some... very old book...

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science By John William Draper, M. D., LL. D.

The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

No one has hitherto treated the subject from this point of view. Yet from this point it presents itself to us as a living issue—in fact, as the most important of all living issues.

A few years ago, it was the politic and therefore the proper course to abstain from all allusion to this controversy, and to keep it as far as possible in the background. The tranquillity of society depends so much on the stability of its religious convictions, that no one can be justified in wantonly disturbing them. But faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take place. It then becomes the duty of those whose lives have made them familiar with both modes of thought, to present modestly, but firmly, their views; to compare the antagonistic pretensions calmly, impartially, philosophically. History shows that, if this be not done, social misfortunes, disastrous and enduring, will ensue. When the old mythological religion of Europe broke down under the weight of its own inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor the philosophers of those times did any thing adequate for the guidance of public opinion. They left religious affairs to take their chance, and accordingly those affairs fell into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs, and slaves.

This books preface was written on December, 1873?!


True, as someone already noted, it will be hard to find all knowledge lost exactly due to religion, but for some of them we do have examples, where religion would even kill to preserve its view. This we can view even today in some of Islam world, where religious institution still don't accept science and education except its holy book. Christianity was no different, if not worst during dark ages.

a reply to: SuperFrog

I believe that there is no difference between spirituality and science... Religion is whole other beast though. I believe that the essential purpose of religion is to enslave and control the people.

a reply to: SuperFrog
Pffft! You're just an anti-Christian bigot! What good does it do humanity to make significant scientific advances, that have the potential to help the whole of our species in numerous ways, if we are not in right-standing with god almighty!? You godless heathen!
J/K

Sorry. Couldn't resist. Thanks for posting this, I haven't read any Richard Carrier before. I'll check out his site.