NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/aus/religion/855

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 3.7 KB | 73 lines

Newsgroups: aus.religion
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!richardson-1g1-05.cc.monash.edu.au!ripng
From: [e-mail] (PAUL NG)
Subject: God & Science
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Summary: History!!!!!
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet system)
Organization: Halls of Residence, Monash University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 13:57:40 GMT
Lines: 61

In any society at any time in history, the intellectual freaks have had to
be sorted out from those who really know what they are on about.  The
process of peer review for scientific publications is the best
modern-day illustration of this mechanism.

Today this "filter mechanism" tends to be secular - but that's only because
society and its governmental institutions have become secular.  IN the past
the Church was the filter because the Church -was- the government;
and because society was dominated to a larger extent by religious
institutions than they are today.  The filter criteria have changed in
tandem with the constitution, attitudes and store of knowledge held by
society; but the essential point is that there has always been and always
will be a need for such a "filter mechanism".

Galileo and Copernicus and a few others were success stories; those who
ultimately passed the filter mechanism - and everybody seems to love to bash
the Church for suppressing what later turned out to be correct.

NOBODY cares or hears about the million and one freako theories postulated
by countless others - theories that were definitely wrong and were
consequently rejected by the Church - BECAUSE they were rejected as wrong,
and were ultimately wrong, and therefore they are not worth hearing about
today.

Now some hundred years down the line we are going to hear about some theory
that everybody thought was freako when it was first published, but was later
vindicated by research and evidence.  In fact, we are hearing about it
now.  There is a scientist at Monash whose astrophysical theories were
thought to be cracko by most of his contemporaries - until measurements made
using his theories turned out to be more accurate than any others.  Then
everybody shut their big mouths up.  He's made quite a few trips to NASA
to help the poor sods out.

What I'm trying to say is this: Suppression of ideas subsequently proven
correct has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION AND CERTAINLY NOTHING TO
DO WITH CHRISTIANITY OR THE CHURCH.  The Church was just doing its job as an
important element of government.  It tried to carry out its function as a
"filter" as best as it could, just like modern scientists function today as
checks on their colleagues' competency, via peer review.

It seems to me to be the height of arrogance on the part of non-historians
who don't know what they are talking about, to bash the Church and religion
generally for suppressing Galileo (among others); if the Church wasn't
there to do it somebody else would come along and do it - otherwise society
would be flooded with useless ideas.

People should instead be thankful (partially) for the fact that some
institution was around for the better part of European history after
Christ, to manage the flow of information in that society.  It wasn't
perfect but at least it was there.  So stop bashing religion for Galileo; if
you (whoever you are - atheists included) were alive then, you'd press for a
public examination of Galileo's ideas too.  And if you were alive then,
you'd look at Galileo's ideas through mediaeval eyes.  So you'd probably
reject Galileo's theories like the Church did.

So to all the anti-Church and anti-religionists out there, put up and shut
up.