191–200 of 226 posts
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He was preceded by giants -- he was at best an ordinary human. Fortunately Aristotle doesn't care what I think.
Ordinary humans don't have others talking about them thousands of years later.
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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.
> 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
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>As someone who is both Catholic and a software engineer, I find quite the opposite I find that religious people find persecution everywhere (war on Christmas for example) where it doesn't exist. Its probably difficult not to considering how protective we are to things near and dear to us. Perhaps you should consider that you are not an impartial viewer here. >loss of livelihood, others refusing to publish your work,…
I find it to be incredibly dismissive when presented with a list of great Catholic scientists throughout history, detractors brush that aside by essentially saying "Well, they had no choice but to pretend to be Catholic back then!" What these scientists thought about their religion is often documented, but the detractors don't care to read any further as it might hurt their argument. In reality, the enthusiasm for sc…
The detractors like to project the current cultural climate onto history, when in reality, this perception of conflict between science and religion wasn't around before the staged Scopes trial in the 1930's.
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Let's say that blind belief requires a closed mind. Everyone at the end of the day relies on faith at some level or other. Even scientists believe in their hypotheses until their hypotheses are proven wrong. Then they change their beliefs. The fact of the matter is that everyone still believes in something at all times. I have yet to meet a scientist who precludes his everyday thoughts with, "well, then again, it's a…
> I have yet to meet a scientist who [...] And yet you've also never met a scientist who says: "This is my current hypothesis so I've vanquished all possibility of doubt. I'm going to publish it without even testing because it MUST be right." You should entertain the notion that the word means something entirely different to religious people than to others. > The fact of the matter is that everyone still believes in…
You have a very narrow definition and/or experience of what religious people are like. You should entertain the possibility that there are religious people who are more open-minded than you think.
Even if that were true, the only reason you're saying it is to show that even scientists make that mistake. You're trying to drag them down to your level, hoping the equivalence lends weight to your unsupported ideas.
I don't say this lightly: you have issues, man. We should not propose that we know what's going on in other people's minds. It leads us to become spiteful, frustrated, unhappy people.
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He got it wrong, but the way he went about getting it wrong is significant. I'm probably just dense - how did he go about getting it wrong?
Observation: counting teeth. This was before modern dentistry.
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The sun is roughly a sphere of a fixed size. What is there not to understand ?
I believe he's referring to the "fixed size" part of it, really only an argument a true pedant would make.
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Even then the definition of the surface is different than the definition of the surface of, say, the Earth, so I'm not sure what "outside" the Sun means precisely.
The sun is roughly a sphere of a fixed size. What is there not to understand ?
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Ordinary humans don't have others talking about them thousands of years later.
Well, we are obviously typing about Aristotle, so you seem to be wrong.
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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.
> 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
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.
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So, what makes you consider Aristotle an idiot?
Well I described one in the message you replied to: the value of a person is derived solely from their value to the polity (I am glossing massively so no nitpicking on the wording: you can go read yourself as he is widely translated). And I think his approach to observation is lame even when compared to his contemporaries , thus I don't agree with Bluestrike2's defense. And yes my view of him is formed in its context…