Too often critics of Christianity will appeal to an unfair stereotype
of "Science vs. Religion." These critics often ignore the fact that
science rose out of a Western Christian context. It is intersting that
Lynn White, though blaming Christianity for an environmental crisis, also credits Western Christianity for the rise of science. Other critics
prefer to give Christianity none of the credit for the rise of science
yet at the same time wish to blame Christianity for environmental problems, ignoring the fact the envrionmental questions arouse with
the rise of science. In other words these dishonest critics want to
give Christianity none of the credit and all of the blame.
One of the "fairy tales" that critics will use to attack Christianity
is to tell the lie that Columbus debated the Catholic Church leaders
over the shape of the earth, whether it was round or flat. Contrary
to the critic's lie, both sides knew the earth was round. The actual
debate was over the circumferance of the earth. It was not a case of
enlightened science vs. ignorant chruch leaders. For the record, the chruch leaders were right about the circumferance. The earth is much
bigger than Columbus had claimed it to be. But this flat earth argument keeps rearing it's head. I remember reading this one person in
Kansas saying that if oponents of evolution want to teach the earth is flat, they should teach it in a religion class, not a science class. For one thing the critics of evolution (in Kansas) were not even discussing the shape of the earth.
On the issue of Galileo and the church, over the question of the sun orbiting the earth (geocentricity) or the earth orbiting the sun (heliocentricity), one should look at the context.
I do not think the Catholic Chruch was right to suppress Galileo. But
as Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton point out in THE SOULF OF SCIENCE
why blame the Catholic church for not accpeting a theory that was
not "proven" till fifty years later?
Also there is a bit of irony.
Either model geocentricity or heliocentricty works. The fact that
the geocentric (or Ptolemaic) model was not abandoned readily was
because it did "work" and was useful for navigation. People
have often used the term "Copernican" to speak of great profound
revolutionary change. But the Copernican model is not
used today. Copernicus assumed the orbits to be circular. Kepler
provided the correct eliptical orbit. So if we use the
a heliocentric model today, we actually use Kepler not Copernicus.
In addition the Ptolemaic or Geocentric model is still used today
for shipboard navigation, absent GPS. So ironically the Ptolemaic
model is still in use, while the strict Copernican model is not.
Guy
# posted by GuyTak @ 12:26 AM
