"It was science that brought us out of the darkness, and showed us what we needed to know. That opened our eyes to reality. That gave us everything the gods denied us."
And yet today science and education are under constant attack. NOT because they are failing to do their jobs, but because they are doing it too well.
We owe it to our children, our country, and our species to constantly learn and discover, so that we may someday truly understand from whence we came, and to where we are going.
Fantastic video!
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderfully done. Thanks so much for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteNow I need to watch it again and share it with everyone I know.
Crap -- Jon Stewart is taking a 12 week hiatus this summer to direct a film of a script he wrote -- it's not comedy
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2013/03/05/stewart-taking-daily-show-hiatus.html
John Oliver will be sub but it won't be the same. I like Oliver in small doses and 12 weeks is ODing for me.
One of the most telling things I found - and it helped me considerably to be able to throw off the yoke of blind religion - was that it was THE CHURCH who obliterated European man's knowledge of that which had already been discovered.
ReplyDeleteThe science of mathematics was not only withheld, but was actively subverted and ultimately wiped out since most of the knowledge came from "non-believers" and "infidels". You know, the ones who had "stolen" the Holy Land?
Of course, it didn't help matters those assholes were smart enough to recognize - even then - that true knowledge was the key to throwing off that yoke of slavery they were clamping on everyone's neck at birth.
Imagine how far we might be along our path of knowledge if the Catholic Church had not done this.
Leland, you wrote "it was THE CHURCH who obliterated European man's knowledge of that which had already been discovered." Bite your tongue.
DeleteOr just try this. Read what James Hannam has to say in his book, "The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution." Dr. Hannam has a Ph.D from Cambridge in the History and Philosophy of Science, so we can trust his credentials.
He sets his readers straight on some commonly-held misconceptions: e.g., the Pope did not try to suppress the concept of zero; the monk known as Venerable Bede (who laboriously preserved as much knowledge as he could by copying books by hand) wrote about the roundness of the earth in the 7th century; Saint Hildegard von Bingen also depicted a spherical earth in her writings. Saint Augustine, writing in the 3rd century, made it clear that the Book of Genesis was a liturgical poem, not an historical account of creation. (Much later, a Belgian Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, would be credited as the father of the big bang theory.) More recently, Jesuit paleontologist, cosmologist and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin would gift the world with his profound Omega Point theory of cosmic evolution.
A graphic in the dumbed-down video clip above shows the name of Gregor Mendel, a Catholic monk who was the father of genetics; and one of the greatest scientific geniuses of all time, Isaac Newton, who was a practicing Christian.
Franciscan friar Roger Bacon receives a great deal of credit for establishing the scientific method. So there you are.
This is only a brief sampling. You might also read the works of a Dr. Principe, Professor of the History of Science, who could further disabuse you of your notion that religion has historically held back the advancement of science. A few school districts in the Bible belt who want to teach intelligent design along with evolution should not lead to the kind of sweeping statements you make. (They aren't even Catholics. They're Protestants. Catholic schools have taught evolution for many decades)
You might want to reflect on your last sentence in light of the enormous contributions of Catholic scientists throughout history.
Beautifully Done! Imagine how much further along we'd be if people were allowed to think for themselves without fear of eternal damnation, famine, etc.
ReplyDelete