Here is the final I gave my History 111 students today. It covers the mix of topics we covered this quarter, Cicero, Spartacus, Christian apocalypticism, the Reformation and religion wars and Giordano Bruno. Readers will likely get a kick out of my second essay question and the bonus. Like this blog, I do try to keep my classes interesting.
I. Identify (Pick 7) – 35 pts.
1. Millennium
2. Urban II
3. Crassus
4. Charles V
5. St. Jerome
6. Verres
7. John Calvin
8. John Hus
9. St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
10. Triumph
II. Short Answers (Pick 5) – 40 pts.
1. Was Rome a deeply religious society? Give specific examples.
2. Describe Tiro’s position in life. Do you see him as a victim of the Roman system?
3. Define martyrdom. What purpose does it serve a religion? In which periods did the Church encourage martyrdom and in which did they discourage it? Why?
4. What is the difference between a “top-down” and “bottom-up” strategy? Give an example of each.
5. Was Erasmus an opponent of the Catholic Church? What happened at the end of Erasmus’ life to make him appear so “dangerous?” Why did this event change how Erasmus was perceived?
6. According to Norman Cohn, what attracts people to “apocalyptic” beliefs? Do modern day Christian apocalyptics in the United States fit into Cohn’s model?
7. What were some of the popular beliefs in the mid 14th century as to the cause of the Black Death?
III. Essays (Pick 1) – 60 pts.
1. Giordano Bruno was a philosopher who believed in heliocentrism and was executed by the Catholic Church as a heretic. Yet at the same he was also very much a man of the sixteenth century. What elements in Bruno’s character make him different from modern people? Do you see Bruno as a scientist or as a magician? Was Bruno a skeptic trying to bring down Church dogma with reason or was he, like many in his time, a person of faith trying to work his way out of a religious crisis brought about through the Reformation?
2. Imagine that you are trying to interest either a powerful film producer or a mad king, who might chop off your head in the morning because he thinks that all women are naturally traitorous, in a story about Spartacus. Give me a summary of the story you would choose to tell. Feel free to take all the historical liberties you desire as long as you justify your decisions in terms of “narrative thinking.”
Bonus (5 pts.)
Why, since the 1960s, have many religious people (such as my aunt) begun wearing longer sleeves and skirts? Are they leading a revival to bring things back to the way they once were?
Showing posts with label heliocentrism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heliocentrism. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Name of the Rose Starring Giordano Bruno Instead of Sean Connery
I just finished reading S. J. Parris's Heresy. It is a murder mystery set at Oxford University of 1583 starring one of my favorite people from the sixteenth century, Giordano Bruno. Bruno was renegade Dominican friar, who ran around Europe as an academic celebrity, preaching his particular brand of reformed Christianity, complete with magic, Kabbalah, and heliocentrism. He eventually made the mistake of traveling to the wrong place and fell into the hands of the Inquisition who burned him at the stake.
In the novel, Bruno finds himself in England searching for a lost book from the Corpus Hermeticum
of Hermes Trismegistus. This was the most important work on magic in the early modern period. It was commonly believed at the time that the Corpus Hermeticum dated from the time of Moses and contained the original religion of the ancients. While searching for this lost book, Bruno befriends Philip Sydney and through him, Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster. Walsingham recruits Bruno to seek out undercover Catholics. Bruno's duel tasks of book and heresy hunting both lead him to Oxford, where Bruno finds that just about everyone there is hiding something, he is attracted to the daughter of one of the faculty and bodies are starting to mysteriously drop all over the place to the theme of Foxe's Book of Martyrs
.
Heresy reminded me of another novel, The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco. In my mind Name of the Rose stands as probably the greatest novel about the Middle Ages ever written for its complex plot, charming if morally ambiguous characters and, most importantly, its ability to accurately present a medieval worldview without recourse to polemics about fanaticism, superstition, and misogyny. It was made into a movie starring Sean Connery. Unfortunately, the movie systematically undoes the moral complexity of the book in favor of easy to target corrupt sexually repressed monks and an oppressive Church.
The essential plot of Name of the Rose takes place in the fourteenth century and centers around a scholarly monk named William of Baskerville visiting a monastery along with his young companion Adso of Melk with the charge of looking for undercover members of the heretical Fraticelli group on behalf of inquisitor Bernard Gui. On a personal level William also seeks to examine the monastery's secret library. Before too long Adso finds himself looking into a mysterious girl, smuggled into the all-male society and bodies do start to drop with the murders all being done to the theme of the book of Revelation.
Ultimately Heresy was a fun book and certainly a much easier read than Name of the Rose. Still, the villain most certainly did not compare with Name of the Rose's. It is hard to top a blind guy armed with a poisoned copy of a lost book of Aristotle, the ultimate killer read. Still, Giordano Bruno does make for a great hero. I will even take him over Sean Connery.
In the novel, Bruno finds himself in England searching for a lost book from the Corpus Hermeticum
of Hermes Trismegistus. This was the most important work on magic in the early modern period. It was commonly believed at the time that the Corpus Hermeticum dated from the time of Moses and contained the original religion of the ancients. While searching for this lost book, Bruno befriends Philip Sydney and through him, Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster. Walsingham recruits Bruno to seek out undercover Catholics. Bruno's duel tasks of book and heresy hunting both lead him to Oxford, where Bruno finds that just about everyone there is hiding something, he is attracted to the daughter of one of the faculty and bodies are starting to mysteriously drop all over the place to the theme of Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Heresy reminded me of another novel, The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco. In my mind Name of the Rose stands as probably the greatest novel about the Middle Ages ever written for its complex plot, charming if morally ambiguous characters and, most importantly, its ability to accurately present a medieval worldview without recourse to polemics about fanaticism, superstition, and misogyny. It was made into a movie starring Sean Connery. Unfortunately, the movie systematically undoes the moral complexity of the book in favor of easy to target corrupt sexually repressed monks and an oppressive Church.The essential plot of Name of the Rose takes place in the fourteenth century and centers around a scholarly monk named William of Baskerville visiting a monastery along with his young companion Adso of Melk with the charge of looking for undercover members of the heretical Fraticelli group on behalf of inquisitor Bernard Gui. On a personal level William also seeks to examine the monastery's secret library. Before too long Adso finds himself looking into a mysterious girl, smuggled into the all-male society and bodies do start to drop with the murders all being done to the theme of the book of Revelation.
Ultimately Heresy was a fun book and certainly a much easier read than Name of the Rose. Still, the villain most certainly did not compare with Name of the Rose's. It is hard to top a blind guy armed with a poisoned copy of a lost book of Aristotle, the ultimate killer read. Still, Giordano Bruno does make for a great hero. I will even take him over Sean Connery.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Frank Schaeffer and the Humanities Question
I would like to thank James Pate for recommending Frank Schaeffer’s memoir Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. Frank Schaeffer is the son of the late Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer. Frank grew up in the shadow of his parents in a villa called L’Abri in Switzerland. One of the major themes of the book is the struggle between his parent’s deeply held evangelical beliefs and their love of art and literature. While Frank Schaeffer grew up in a very strict home, without movies, television and other “corruptions” of modern life, he was raised to love classical literature, music and art. Francis Schaeffer did not approve of rock music until the 1960s but he played classical music in his room every waking hour. The highlight of the year was vacationing in Italy where Frank was tutored in painting by a gay artist. On the one hand, Francis was far more sheltered than his Evangelical peers in America yet he was also far worldlier. Frank explains the dilemma as follows:
We wanted nothing so much as the respect of the people who found our ideas backward and foolish. In a fantasy world of perfect outcomes, you would write a “Christian book” but have the New York Times declare it great literature, so great that the reviewer would say he was converting. And in the Style section, they would say that Edith Schaeffer [Frank’s mother] was the best-dressed woman in the world, so well dressed that this proved that no all fundamentalists were dowdy and that “we have all been wrong about you Christians.” And if those reporters visited L’Abri, they would say they had never been served so lovely a high tea, and that they had never heard such clever answers to their questions, and that because of the sandwiches, the real silver teaspoons, the beautifully cut skirt and jacket Mom was wearing, the kindness of the Schaeffer children, the fact Dad knew who Jackson Pollock was, meant that the Very Wealthy and Very Important people all over the world would not only come to Christ, but would, at last, admit that at least some real Christians (in other words, us) were even smarter and better-dressed than worldly people, and that you can believe Jesus rose from the dead, not drink or smoke or dance, and yet be even happier, even more cultured, better in every way!
What I never heard Mom or Dad explain was that if the world was so bad and lost, why did they spend so much time trying to imitate it and impress the lost? (pg. 52-53)
Frank Schaeffer has hit on one of the main challenges facing anyone attempting to build a religious movement that can stand its ground intellectually against the best of secular modernity. It is all too easy to make the pretense of being modern as a cover thus making the entire enterprise a scam. It is very easy to say the line that your religion works well with modernity. This goes for both the humanities and the sciences. Even Haredim have for decades now been in on the act, espousing what, in theory, is supposed to be Modern Orthodox rhetoric. Ask a Haredi person about the relationship between science and religion and they will be quick to give you the thirty-second talking point about how science does not contradict religion and in fact supports it. It is only when you start to dig in that you will find that the person does not believe in evolution. The science they are talking about is creationism, likely even young earth creationism. It is this sort of thinking that allows a group like Chabad, which engages in soft-core denial of heliocentrism to publish its own “science” journal, B’or Ha’Torah, and claim that they support science. Following the same logic, fundamentalist Christians can create institutions like the Creation Museum in Kentucky to give a scientific veneer to their Christian missionizing. Haredim and fundamentalist Christians are similarly able to create their own micro-artistic cultures, with books, music, and movies. These are ultimately pale imitations of the secular culture and thus fail in their stated purpose to offer a counter to secular culture.
If you are only engaging in the sciences and the humanities as an act, without believing in what lies behind them, the act is going to wear thin very quickly. I would see this as the cause of the failure to build a serious religious intellectual culture beyond eccentric individuals. By all counts, Frank Schaeffer’s parents were true believers in their humanities-based Christianity. Yet they failed to bring that humanities element to the wider evangelical culture, which simply wished to use them as intellectual cover. This is best captured in the book when the Schaeffers are told by a Christian film producer that they needed to cut out a shot of Michelangelo’s David from a documentary about Western art because it was male nudity.
This is a challenge that I face in my life. If I were debating me, the issue that I would go after is that I may be a smart religious guy, who values science and the humanities, but that I am just an individual who does not represent anyone. All I am doing is providing cover for those who do not really believe in science and the humanities and are just making the pretense of supporting these things to better advance their cause. The fact that I am a true believer in the sciences and the humanities makes the damage to these things all the greater. I would not be nearly as effective if I were simply pulling off an act like everyone else. I have a lot of sympathy for the Schaeffers. Like them, I see my religious beliefs as a necessary underpinning for science and for the humanities, where I actually work. My faith serves as a tool that I use to interact with the culture around me, helping me to further the cause of what is best in that culture. I matured into this belief through the influence and example of people like Rabbi Shalom Carmy, Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Dr. Alan Brill, and Dr. Louis Feldman during my years at Yeshiva University. In order to continue to operate within Orthodox Judaism I need to believe that such people are more than just eccentrics off to the side, but the elite representatives of a wider movement, a movement in which I am but a lowly foot soldier. I also need to believe that this movement has the potential to dominate Orthodox Judaism as a whole. As of now, I do not believe that we even control Modern Orthodox Judaism let alone the Haredi world.
We wanted nothing so much as the respect of the people who found our ideas backward and foolish. In a fantasy world of perfect outcomes, you would write a “Christian book” but have the New York Times declare it great literature, so great that the reviewer would say he was converting. And in the Style section, they would say that Edith Schaeffer [Frank’s mother] was the best-dressed woman in the world, so well dressed that this proved that no all fundamentalists were dowdy and that “we have all been wrong about you Christians.” And if those reporters visited L’Abri, they would say they had never been served so lovely a high tea, and that they had never heard such clever answers to their questions, and that because of the sandwiches, the real silver teaspoons, the beautifully cut skirt and jacket Mom was wearing, the kindness of the Schaeffer children, the fact Dad knew who Jackson Pollock was, meant that the Very Wealthy and Very Important people all over the world would not only come to Christ, but would, at last, admit that at least some real Christians (in other words, us) were even smarter and better-dressed than worldly people, and that you can believe Jesus rose from the dead, not drink or smoke or dance, and yet be even happier, even more cultured, better in every way!
What I never heard Mom or Dad explain was that if the world was so bad and lost, why did they spend so much time trying to imitate it and impress the lost? (pg. 52-53)
Frank Schaeffer has hit on one of the main challenges facing anyone attempting to build a religious movement that can stand its ground intellectually against the best of secular modernity. It is all too easy to make the pretense of being modern as a cover thus making the entire enterprise a scam. It is very easy to say the line that your religion works well with modernity. This goes for both the humanities and the sciences. Even Haredim have for decades now been in on the act, espousing what, in theory, is supposed to be Modern Orthodox rhetoric. Ask a Haredi person about the relationship between science and religion and they will be quick to give you the thirty-second talking point about how science does not contradict religion and in fact supports it. It is only when you start to dig in that you will find that the person does not believe in evolution. The science they are talking about is creationism, likely even young earth creationism. It is this sort of thinking that allows a group like Chabad, which engages in soft-core denial of heliocentrism to publish its own “science” journal, B’or Ha’Torah, and claim that they support science. Following the same logic, fundamentalist Christians can create institutions like the Creation Museum in Kentucky to give a scientific veneer to their Christian missionizing. Haredim and fundamentalist Christians are similarly able to create their own micro-artistic cultures, with books, music, and movies. These are ultimately pale imitations of the secular culture and thus fail in their stated purpose to offer a counter to secular culture.
If you are only engaging in the sciences and the humanities as an act, without believing in what lies behind them, the act is going to wear thin very quickly. I would see this as the cause of the failure to build a serious religious intellectual culture beyond eccentric individuals. By all counts, Frank Schaeffer’s parents were true believers in their humanities-based Christianity. Yet they failed to bring that humanities element to the wider evangelical culture, which simply wished to use them as intellectual cover. This is best captured in the book when the Schaeffers are told by a Christian film producer that they needed to cut out a shot of Michelangelo’s David from a documentary about Western art because it was male nudity.
This is a challenge that I face in my life. If I were debating me, the issue that I would go after is that I may be a smart religious guy, who values science and the humanities, but that I am just an individual who does not represent anyone. All I am doing is providing cover for those who do not really believe in science and the humanities and are just making the pretense of supporting these things to better advance their cause. The fact that I am a true believer in the sciences and the humanities makes the damage to these things all the greater. I would not be nearly as effective if I were simply pulling off an act like everyone else. I have a lot of sympathy for the Schaeffers. Like them, I see my religious beliefs as a necessary underpinning for science and for the humanities, where I actually work. My faith serves as a tool that I use to interact with the culture around me, helping me to further the cause of what is best in that culture. I matured into this belief through the influence and example of people like Rabbi Shalom Carmy, Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Dr. Alan Brill, and Dr. Louis Feldman during my years at Yeshiva University. In order to continue to operate within Orthodox Judaism I need to believe that such people are more than just eccentrics off to the side, but the elite representatives of a wider movement, a movement in which I am but a lowly foot soldier. I also need to believe that this movement has the potential to dominate Orthodox Judaism as a whole. As of now, I do not believe that we even control Modern Orthodox Judaism let alone the Haredi world.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thirteen Principles of Faith for When I Take Over Judaism
Chris Smith of Mild-Mannered Musings tagged me to list ten random things that I believe. I have decided to take advantage of the opportunity to turn this into something slightly different that I had been intending to write about. Maimonides famously lists his thirteen principles of the Jewish faith. If I were to take over Judaism and construct my own list of doctrines here is what would be on it. These are actually fairly similar to Maimonides’ own list of doctrines with some of the more radical implications of Maimonides’ thought made more explicit.
I believe with perfect faith in one God, who is the ultimate cause of the universe and everything in it. He acts through the laws of nature that he put in place such as Newtonian mechanics and Darwinian evolution
I believe with perfect faith that God is not a physical being nor should he be described in physical terms. This includes not only a physical body (hands, feet etc.), but also terms such as “true,” “just” or “kind” unless they are meant in the negative sense to deny that God possesses any of the human deprivations included in their opposites.
I believe with perfect faith that God, as the ultimate intelligence who is outside the physical universe, is omniscient and omnipotent. This does not mean that he is actively aware of individual human beings and their actions or that he is likely to involve himself in specific human affairs, only that all life is within the scope of his knowledge and his will.
I believe with perfect faith in the value of prayer and that God is the only being to be prayed to. It is permitted to pray in the general direction of a physical object like a Torah scroll and meditate upon it as long as one acknowledges that such objects have no actual power. Similarly, one can consult with knowledgeable people such as rebbes and ask for spiritual advice. To go to a rebbe for anything beyond this is prayer and hence idolatry. Prayer to God serves not as magic or as a mechanism to affect God’s will, but as a means for human beings to reach a greater understanding of God and align their will with his.
I believe with perfect faith that God is the source of the moral law written in our hearts and that he has done so in order that we become moral beings in his image. God would never command us to do something immoral like massacre innocent unbelieving women and children simply to demonstrate our faith in him.
I believe with perfect faith in human reason as God’s law written into our heads as a means for us to come to know of him. This includes logic, the scientific method, and the historical method. God wishes us to value all conclusions that come from the use of these methods and would never ask us to go contrary to them on a leap of faith.
I believe with perfect faith in human prophecy. As God does not speak, prophecy does not involve God actively communicating with man but man coming to an understanding of God and his law.
I believe with perfect faith in the Torah (Old Testament), the Oral Law (Talmud) and those elements of Jewish tradition that do not explicitly go against monotheistic belief as the word of God in that they are valid expressions of God’s will put into human terms. By following these things I come to a greater understanding of God’s law than I would if I were to pursue the matter merely through my own intelligence.
I believe with perfect faith in the value of ritual practice as a means of teaching about God’s law, creating a community of believers, and transferring spiritual experiences from one generation to the next.
I believe with perfect faith that God is an unchanging being and that his will does not change. Our understanding of him and his will is part of an ongoing process in which every generation brings its own experiences to a conversation that spans the ages. Since we are including past generations as part of our faith community, the past maintains a powerful veto over all decisions.
I believe with perfect faith in the value of other cultures and systems of belief even those that go against our own. I, therefore, strive to respect all beliefs and the people who hold them as beings created in the image of God even as I strive to advance my own beliefs as doing more to advance man in its knowledge of God.
I believe with perfect faith that human beings are responsible for each other’s welfare. This includes social justice for those living today as well as caring for the environment for the sake of those generations yet to be born.
I believe with perfect faith in the continuing progress of mankind in its knowledge of God and that one day all mankind will openly acknowledge God.
The practical implications of an Orthodox Judaism run along these principles would be Modern Orthodox Judaism opening up its doors to traditionally observant Conservative Jews while kicking out Haredim. Essentially it would become ok to take a liberal stance on the divine authorship of the Bible, but the moment you imply anything physical about God or that you can go to rebbes for blessings or gain specific benefits from kissing a Torah scroll you are out.
For example, I know a Haredi rabbi with a long beard who, in a story-tape for children, told a story about the Baal Shem Tov trying to get to Israel where the Baal Shem Tov attempts to sacrifice his daughter to the angel of the sea in exchange for safe passage. This rabbi was implicitly endorsing the notion that human sacrifice to angels is permitted. In a Judaism run by me this rabbi would suffer a worse fate than even if he had snuck into his story “hey kids the Baal Shem Tov, having nowhere else to turn, went and accepted Jesus as his personal savior.” In order to ever be allowed into a synagogue again, this rabbi would have to publically recant his words and do penance. No matter what this rabbi would never be allowed into a position of authority again. I would not trust him not to spread his heresy among children.
There is a prominent Haredi charity called Kupat Hair, which claims that rabbis such Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky will bless donors with all manner of physical benefits. This would count as heresy and the donors and the rabbis who have endorsed this would be out of Judaism. Rabbi Kanievsky is also likely a supporter of at least softcore geocentrism. Since support of the use of reason, including the scientific method, is an article of faith, this would also now be not just bad science, but heresy.
If you took over and were made pope of your religion what doctrines would you put in place that those who went against them would be expelled from the religion?
I tag Miss S., Bray of the Fundie, E-Kvetcher and Cory Driver.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Scientific Revolution (Q&A and Quiz)
1. It seems from the "Invisible College" article, that new sciences and philosophies were being studied somewhat publicly. Why then, would they call their Oxford club the invisible college?
One of the important things to consider in the rise of modern science is the creation of an international scientific culture. The invention of the printing press plays a major role in making this possible. This new scientific culture is a new power structure and, while there is nothing secret about it, it is not what most people would think of as a society and would therefore not see it as such. I would recommend Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe if you wish to pursue this topic.
As a way of modern analogy. Think of how the internet with its chat rooms, blogs, and instant messaging has changed how societies are constructed. People, for better or for worse, now find themselves forming relationships with people completely online without ever meeting them in person. So now society is no longer bounded by the people you live near and interact with in your day to day lie.
This new scientific culture is crucial because part of the scientific method is that an experiment has to be able to be duplicated by people in other places and times. We are moving from a model in which knowledge is a secret to be hoarded and guarded by a select few to one where transparency comes to be of ultimate value.
2. I was just wondering what would be the definition of modern sciencewould be with regards to this week’s readings. Is it science as what we would think of today?
The science of the early modern period included things like magic, demonology, alchemy and astrology. This does not mean that these people were bad scientists or irrational or superstitious. These things are better viewed not as counters to science but as failed sciences. To give the example of astrology, technically speaking astrology is true. A heavenly object, the sun, does have a tremendous impact on life on earth. Other objects affect the earth in more subtle ways. The moon’s gravitational pull affects tides. In fact Galileo rejected the theory that the moon affected tide because it sounded too much like astrology to him. Now, considering all this, it is not such a big jump to theorize that Saturn might cause depression. We have failed to find evidence for this so this theory has fallen through. This does not mean, though, that it was a bad theory. One of the flaws in how the history of science is usually taught is that focuses on successes. A major part of science is putting out theories that fail. How many light bulbs did Thomas Edison make before he got one that worked?
3. I wondered, as I read the invisible college, when the average person began to be in any way involved in science, whether it is a product of our public school system, or sometime earlier. I mean by this, science properly called science, because people obviously always practice science, even as we work out problems through trial and error. I mean to ask when people began to learn and participate in experimental science.
To a large extent science is the province of a narrow elite even today. Certainly during the Scientific Revolution experimental science is limited to very few people. That being said a major part of the success of this new scientific culture is its ability to attract popular attention and create a lay scientific culture. We will talk more about this once we come to the Enlightenment.
4. In the Invisible College reading, it says that many of the natural philosophers believed in "faith-ism", meaning what they couldn't explain with science, they explained with faith in religion. Is this thinking the predecessor to the Church of Scientology by chance?
Scientology is a religion created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the twentieth century. To the best of my knowledge it has not been influenced by any of our early modern scientists/religious thinkers.
5. Can you further explain this concept of Fideism ("faith-ism")? It sounds pretty interesting and seems to be a unique way of combining two ways of thinking, science and religion, that one typically doesn't think of as meshing.
Anyone interested in the subject should look at Richard Popkin’s History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle. You might think that a book about skepticism would be about people coming to challenge religious dogma. As Popkin reveals, though, much of the revival of radical skepticism in the early modern period is strongly fideistic. One has all these doubts about the ability of the flawed human mind to comprehend any truth, whether in regards to the natural world or in logic. The solution is to make a leap of faith and accept Jesus as your personal savior. This allows you to in turn have faith that, because you have been made open to these divine truths, you can hope to comprehend, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, the truths of science and logic.
In my experience in dealing with religious fundamentalists (some of whom happen to be relatives of mine) I have found that their religious convictions stem not from naïve incredulousness or lack of skepticism but from radical skepticism. These people are skeptical about the validity of the scientific method, the historical method or even logic. From this perspective the bar to believing in a literal interpretation of scripture is quite low. So your science textbook says that life evolved through evolution over millions of years. This other book, the Bible, says that life was created by God in six days. Why should you accept the former book over the later? The later has the endorsement of hundreds of generations of tradition. (Freelance Kiruv Maniac is a good example of this sort of reasoning.) The difference between these fundamentalists and me is that I have a tremendous amount of faith in the scientific and historical methods. As such I take any claim that results from these methods, such as the world being much older than six thousand years, very seriously. It becomes an intellectual non option to simply go against these claims.
6. I'm confused about the events that led to Galileo's Inquisition trial and shown by the video. At first, Galileo had a supporter in the Pope who allowed him to write about his ideas, given certain stipulations. What was it exactly that turned the Pope against Galileo?
You have hit the nail on the head. Pope Urban VIII was not some anti science zealot as he is commonly portrayed. Galileo was not twice put in front of the Inquisition because of heliocentrism. The Dialogues did not directly support heliocentrism and initially even passed censorship. Galileo was, for decades, the best known supporter of heliocentrism in Europe. If the Church had really been interested in stamping out heliocentrism they would have gone after Galileo decades before they did. Galileo made some really bad political decisions. He made fun of a stance taken by the Pope.
Keep in mind that the Thirty Years War is going on in Europe. At stake here is not science but Protestantism and the authority to interpret scripture. Galileo attempted to defend heliocentrism in terms of scripture and as such offered an interpretation of the book of Joshua that was contrary to that of the Catholic Church. From the perspective of the Church this makes Galileo a bit like the Protestants that they are in middle of fighting a war with.
I gave my students their first class quiz. It consisted of the following questions:
1. What faith do Magdalena and Balthasar belong to? What role does God play in their lives? (2 points)
2. List two of Luther’s “predecessors?” (2 points)
3. List three examples of religion wars in the sixteenth century? What was the resolution to these conflicts? (3 points)
4. Name two people involved with the Scientific Revolution and explain why they are important.
5. What was the common word for scientist before the nineteenth century? (1 point)
Bonus: Who was Mennochio the Miller and why do historians find him to be so fascinating?
One of the important things to consider in the rise of modern science is the creation of an international scientific culture. The invention of the printing press plays a major role in making this possible. This new scientific culture is a new power structure and, while there is nothing secret about it, it is not what most people would think of as a society and would therefore not see it as such. I would recommend Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe if you wish to pursue this topic.
As a way of modern analogy. Think of how the internet with its chat rooms, blogs, and instant messaging has changed how societies are constructed. People, for better or for worse, now find themselves forming relationships with people completely online without ever meeting them in person. So now society is no longer bounded by the people you live near and interact with in your day to day lie.
This new scientific culture is crucial because part of the scientific method is that an experiment has to be able to be duplicated by people in other places and times. We are moving from a model in which knowledge is a secret to be hoarded and guarded by a select few to one where transparency comes to be of ultimate value.
2. I was just wondering what would be the definition of modern sciencewould be with regards to this week’s readings. Is it science as what we would think of today?
The science of the early modern period included things like magic, demonology, alchemy and astrology. This does not mean that these people were bad scientists or irrational or superstitious. These things are better viewed not as counters to science but as failed sciences. To give the example of astrology, technically speaking astrology is true. A heavenly object, the sun, does have a tremendous impact on life on earth. Other objects affect the earth in more subtle ways. The moon’s gravitational pull affects tides. In fact Galileo rejected the theory that the moon affected tide because it sounded too much like astrology to him. Now, considering all this, it is not such a big jump to theorize that Saturn might cause depression. We have failed to find evidence for this so this theory has fallen through. This does not mean, though, that it was a bad theory. One of the flaws in how the history of science is usually taught is that focuses on successes. A major part of science is putting out theories that fail. How many light bulbs did Thomas Edison make before he got one that worked?
3. I wondered, as I read the invisible college, when the average person began to be in any way involved in science, whether it is a product of our public school system, or sometime earlier. I mean by this, science properly called science, because people obviously always practice science, even as we work out problems through trial and error. I mean to ask when people began to learn and participate in experimental science.
To a large extent science is the province of a narrow elite even today. Certainly during the Scientific Revolution experimental science is limited to very few people. That being said a major part of the success of this new scientific culture is its ability to attract popular attention and create a lay scientific culture. We will talk more about this once we come to the Enlightenment.
4. In the Invisible College reading, it says that many of the natural philosophers believed in "faith-ism", meaning what they couldn't explain with science, they explained with faith in religion. Is this thinking the predecessor to the Church of Scientology by chance?
Scientology is a religion created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the twentieth century. To the best of my knowledge it has not been influenced by any of our early modern scientists/religious thinkers.
5. Can you further explain this concept of Fideism ("faith-ism")? It sounds pretty interesting and seems to be a unique way of combining two ways of thinking, science and religion, that one typically doesn't think of as meshing.
Anyone interested in the subject should look at Richard Popkin’s History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle. You might think that a book about skepticism would be about people coming to challenge religious dogma. As Popkin reveals, though, much of the revival of radical skepticism in the early modern period is strongly fideistic. One has all these doubts about the ability of the flawed human mind to comprehend any truth, whether in regards to the natural world or in logic. The solution is to make a leap of faith and accept Jesus as your personal savior. This allows you to in turn have faith that, because you have been made open to these divine truths, you can hope to comprehend, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, the truths of science and logic.
In my experience in dealing with religious fundamentalists (some of whom happen to be relatives of mine) I have found that their religious convictions stem not from naïve incredulousness or lack of skepticism but from radical skepticism. These people are skeptical about the validity of the scientific method, the historical method or even logic. From this perspective the bar to believing in a literal interpretation of scripture is quite low. So your science textbook says that life evolved through evolution over millions of years. This other book, the Bible, says that life was created by God in six days. Why should you accept the former book over the later? The later has the endorsement of hundreds of generations of tradition. (Freelance Kiruv Maniac is a good example of this sort of reasoning.) The difference between these fundamentalists and me is that I have a tremendous amount of faith in the scientific and historical methods. As such I take any claim that results from these methods, such as the world being much older than six thousand years, very seriously. It becomes an intellectual non option to simply go against these claims.
6. I'm confused about the events that led to Galileo's Inquisition trial and shown by the video. At first, Galileo had a supporter in the Pope who allowed him to write about his ideas, given certain stipulations. What was it exactly that turned the Pope against Galileo?
You have hit the nail on the head. Pope Urban VIII was not some anti science zealot as he is commonly portrayed. Galileo was not twice put in front of the Inquisition because of heliocentrism. The Dialogues did not directly support heliocentrism and initially even passed censorship. Galileo was, for decades, the best known supporter of heliocentrism in Europe. If the Church had really been interested in stamping out heliocentrism they would have gone after Galileo decades before they did. Galileo made some really bad political decisions. He made fun of a stance taken by the Pope.
Keep in mind that the Thirty Years War is going on in Europe. At stake here is not science but Protestantism and the authority to interpret scripture. Galileo attempted to defend heliocentrism in terms of scripture and as such offered an interpretation of the book of Joshua that was contrary to that of the Catholic Church. From the perspective of the Church this makes Galileo a bit like the Protestants that they are in middle of fighting a war with.
I gave my students their first class quiz. It consisted of the following questions:
1. What faith do Magdalena and Balthasar belong to? What role does God play in their lives? (2 points)
2. List two of Luther’s “predecessors?” (2 points)
3. List three examples of religion wars in the sixteenth century? What was the resolution to these conflicts? (3 points)
4. Name two people involved with the Scientific Revolution and explain why they are important.
5. What was the common word for scientist before the nineteenth century? (1 point)
Bonus: Who was Mennochio the Miller and why do historians find him to be so fascinating?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Whig Narrative of History: Secular Creationism (Part II)
(This is the continuation of an earlier post. See here.)
This thousand year period of church darkness came to an end in the fifteenth century with the dawn of the Renaissance. In truth, even to use the word "Renaissance" bespeaks of a Whig bias. The word Renaissance means rebirth. In particular, this is supposed to refer to the rebirth of classical culture, which had lain dormant for a thousand years. The person most responsible for the popular understanding of the Renaissance was the nineteenth-century Swiss historian, Jacob Burckhardt. According to Burckhardt:
In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family or corporation – only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possible. (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Part II chapter 1.)
For Burckhardt the Renaissance meant a rediscovery of the individual. Man became conscious of himself, and by extension the state, as works of art; which could be fashioned to suit the will of the individual. At a cultural level this led to the rise of Renaissance art with its increased emphasis on the human form, but it also, at a scholarly level, led to the rise of Humanism. Humanist scholars recovered many classical texts, which were unknown in the western world, hence widening the canon of texts. More importantly, Humanism, in defiance of the medieval Church, placed man at the center of the world.
The Church came under attack as new horizons, both literal and figurative, were opened. The invention of the printing press brought literacy to the masses. This opened up new horizons as people came to be able to read, and think for themselves. No longer were people enslaved to the Church and its interpretation of the Bible; now they could interpret the Bible for themselves. This led to the Reformation, in which Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church. Luther believed in the rights of the common man to read the Bible for himself. For that purpose he translated the Bible into German, overthrowing the Latin Vulgate.
Christopher Columbus literally opened up a new horizon with his discovery of the New World in 1492. The voyages of Columbus and those who followed in his wake demonstrated that the world was round and not flat as most Europeans had believed. Thus people’s eyes were opened to the fact that the Church and Aristotle were not infallible and that courageous individuals, unshackled by medieval dogma, could accomplish things that would have been unthinkable to earlier generations.
The Renaissance’s emphasis on man as an individual and its willingness to challenge Church dogma bore its ultimate fruit with the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo overturned the Ptolemaic view of the solar system, which placed the earth at the center of the universe, with the heliocentric view. Overturning Ptolemy meant a lot more than just a change in man’s view of the solar system; it also was the overthrow of Aristotelian thought and of the Church which had supported it. No longer would man live at the center of his tiny solar system, in which angels and even God lived right above the earth just out of reach. No longer could man view himself as the central character of a divine drama. Mankind now awakened to the fact that the Earth was just a tiny, and not particularly important, part of a much larger cosmos. Christianity’s man-centered narrative must now give way to the forces of science.
While the Church tried to hold back this tide of new knowledge by persecuting scientists such as Galileo and putting books they disagreed with on the Index and forbidding people to read them, ultimately they failed. With the coming age of the Enlightenment, the Church found itself more and more under attack as philosophes such as Voltaire not only challenged specific doctrines of Christianity but also came to openly reject it. This overthrow of Christianity also brought with it the overthrow of the medieval aristocracy. With the Church no longer powerful enough to protect it, the whole edifice of the medieval hierarchy came tumbling down in the wake of democratic revolutions, first in America and in France then across Europe. These democratic revolutions overthrew both the Church and the aristocracy and in its place established freedom of religion and the equality of all mankind.
(To be continued …)
This thousand year period of church darkness came to an end in the fifteenth century with the dawn of the Renaissance. In truth, even to use the word "Renaissance" bespeaks of a Whig bias. The word Renaissance means rebirth. In particular, this is supposed to refer to the rebirth of classical culture, which had lain dormant for a thousand years. The person most responsible for the popular understanding of the Renaissance was the nineteenth-century Swiss historian, Jacob Burckhardt. According to Burckhardt:
In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family or corporation – only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possible. (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Part II chapter 1.)
For Burckhardt the Renaissance meant a rediscovery of the individual. Man became conscious of himself, and by extension the state, as works of art; which could be fashioned to suit the will of the individual. At a cultural level this led to the rise of Renaissance art with its increased emphasis on the human form, but it also, at a scholarly level, led to the rise of Humanism. Humanist scholars recovered many classical texts, which were unknown in the western world, hence widening the canon of texts. More importantly, Humanism, in defiance of the medieval Church, placed man at the center of the world.
The Church came under attack as new horizons, both literal and figurative, were opened. The invention of the printing press brought literacy to the masses. This opened up new horizons as people came to be able to read, and think for themselves. No longer were people enslaved to the Church and its interpretation of the Bible; now they could interpret the Bible for themselves. This led to the Reformation, in which Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church. Luther believed in the rights of the common man to read the Bible for himself. For that purpose he translated the Bible into German, overthrowing the Latin Vulgate.
Christopher Columbus literally opened up a new horizon with his discovery of the New World in 1492. The voyages of Columbus and those who followed in his wake demonstrated that the world was round and not flat as most Europeans had believed. Thus people’s eyes were opened to the fact that the Church and Aristotle were not infallible and that courageous individuals, unshackled by medieval dogma, could accomplish things that would have been unthinkable to earlier generations.
The Renaissance’s emphasis on man as an individual and its willingness to challenge Church dogma bore its ultimate fruit with the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo overturned the Ptolemaic view of the solar system, which placed the earth at the center of the universe, with the heliocentric view. Overturning Ptolemy meant a lot more than just a change in man’s view of the solar system; it also was the overthrow of Aristotelian thought and of the Church which had supported it. No longer would man live at the center of his tiny solar system, in which angels and even God lived right above the earth just out of reach. No longer could man view himself as the central character of a divine drama. Mankind now awakened to the fact that the Earth was just a tiny, and not particularly important, part of a much larger cosmos. Christianity’s man-centered narrative must now give way to the forces of science.
While the Church tried to hold back this tide of new knowledge by persecuting scientists such as Galileo and putting books they disagreed with on the Index and forbidding people to read them, ultimately they failed. With the coming age of the Enlightenment, the Church found itself more and more under attack as philosophes such as Voltaire not only challenged specific doctrines of Christianity but also came to openly reject it. This overthrow of Christianity also brought with it the overthrow of the medieval aristocracy. With the Church no longer powerful enough to protect it, the whole edifice of the medieval hierarchy came tumbling down in the wake of democratic revolutions, first in America and in France then across Europe. These democratic revolutions overthrew both the Church and the aristocracy and in its place established freedom of religion and the equality of all mankind.
(To be continued …)
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Can One Believe in Heliocentrism and Still be a Scientist?
Four hundred years ago Judaism and Christianity were challenged by the rise of heliocentrism, the belief that the earth circles around the sun, and the collapse of geocentrism, the belief that the sun, stars and all the planets circle around the earth. This was a problem for Jews and Christians in that according to the book of Joshua, the sun stood still for the Children of Israel, implying that the sun circles the earth. This without any doubt is a major challenge to the authority of the Bible. In the standard Whig narrative, this shift is seen as one of the two great triumphs of the forces of science over the forces of religion, the other one, of course, being evolution. What is so often glossed over though is that, while heliocentrism is a challenge to Judaism and Christianity, this challenge pales in comparison to the challenge heliocentrism poses to empiricism and any faith in humanity’s ability to understand the natural world around him. If I accept heliocentrism, which I do, then I must recognize that when I look up at the sky I am falling victim to one massive optical illusion for the sun, the stars and the planets all appear to circle around the earth. If my senses can be fooled on something as basic as the sky above me then I must ask whether I am mistaken about everything else I think I know about the natural world. I must like Descartes come to doubt whether I have hands or feet or whether there is even an earth if it is not merely an illusion. If I cannot be confident that the world even exists then I must also come, like David Hume to question whether there is even such a thing as a law of nature. Why should a non-existent world even have consistent laws? If I cannot talk about laws of nature then I can have no science. How can I search for patterns and rules that do not exist? If my belief in science can survive admitting that the heavens are a giant optical illusion then surely my religion can survive admitting that Joshua is not meant to be taken literally.
Today with evolution we find ourselves in a similar situation. Can our faith survive admitting that Genesis is not meant to be taken literally? This may be a problem but it is nothing compared to the problem faced by the believer in science. If I accept evolution, which I do, then I must admit that, as C.S Lewis argued, my intelligence, my ability to reason, and every other tool with which I explore the natural world is the byproduct of natural selection. If human beings use the methodology of science simply because that mode of thinking helps the human species survive then we have no reason to assume that it is valid. As with heliocentrism, if my belief in science can survive admitting that the human mind is the product of natural selection then surely my religion can survive admitting that Genesis is not to be taken literally.
When reading Richard Dawkins, I am reminded of Nachmonides’ constant reply to Pablo Christiani at the Barcelona debate: if you truly understood what you were saying then you would realize that your claim is a far bigger problem for you than it is for me.
Today with evolution we find ourselves in a similar situation. Can our faith survive admitting that Genesis is not meant to be taken literally? This may be a problem but it is nothing compared to the problem faced by the believer in science. If I accept evolution, which I do, then I must admit that, as C.S Lewis argued, my intelligence, my ability to reason, and every other tool with which I explore the natural world is the byproduct of natural selection. If human beings use the methodology of science simply because that mode of thinking helps the human species survive then we have no reason to assume that it is valid. As with heliocentrism, if my belief in science can survive admitting that the human mind is the product of natural selection then surely my religion can survive admitting that Genesis is not to be taken literally.
When reading Richard Dawkins, I am reminded of Nachmonides’ constant reply to Pablo Christiani at the Barcelona debate: if you truly understood what you were saying then you would realize that your claim is a far bigger problem for you than it is for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)