Shaking the Foundation of Faith

NY Times ^ | November 18, 2005 | Scott M. Liell

[Lorianne]

AN event that occurred 250 years ago today stands as a singular reminder that the war between faith and science in America did not start in Dover, Pa., where several school board members who promoted the teaching of intelligent design were voted out of office last week, or even in that Tennessee courthouse in 1925 where John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution. It has been a recurring theme in our history since the very seedtime of the republic.

In the early hours of Nov. 18, 1755, the most destructive earthquake ever recorded in the eastern United States struck at Cape Ann, about 30 miles north of Boston. "It continued near four minutes," wrote John Adams, then a recent Harvard graduate staying at his family home in Braintree, Mass. "The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us."

The shock was felt as far away as Montreal and Chesapeake Bay. Throughout the New England countryside familiar springs stopped flowing and new ones appeared; stone walls were thrown down and cracks opened in the earth. Two hundred miles out to sea one ship was knocked about so violently that its crew believed it had run aground. In Boston, 100 chimneys toppled into the streets and more than 1,000 houses were damaged. A distiller's new cistern collapsed with such force that it brought down the entire building...

For Bostonians, the experience was unlike anything they had been through and their reactions varied widely. On the one side were a few who absorbed the experience with keen interest; as a natural phenomenon with natural causes. In this group were people like Adams and his favorite Harvard professor, John Winthrop, who gave a lecture on the science of earthquakes the following week.

[furball4paws]

Wont work. There's too many of them.

[RadioAstronomer]

Anyone want to found a space colony?

I have the engineering blueprints here in my office. :-)

[furball4paws]

Guilt by association with the NYT and PBS. Toss out some meat for the wackos and drag a scientist down with them.

[furball4paws]

I want the stall next to the cafeteria.

[Right Wing Professor]

I have the engineering blueprints here in my office. :-)

Since the current plan is to put Robertson and the UN on it, see if you can save some money in the design of the life support units. :-)

[AntiGuv]

To quote a book I read recently, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries by Rodney Stark:

It was only as Christian texts and teachings were acted out in daily life that Christianity was able to transform the human experience so as to mitigate misery....

Christianity also prompted liberating social relations between the sexes and within the family ... Christianity also greatly modulated class differences - more than rhetoric was involved when slave and noble greeted on another as brothers in Christ....

But, perhaps above all else, Christianity brought a new conception of humanity to a world saturated with capricious cruelty and the vicarious love of death....

In any event, Christians condemned both the cruelties and the spectators. Thou shalt not kill, as Tertullian (De Spectaculis) reminded his readers. And, as they gained ascendency, Christians prohibited such "games." More important, Christians effectively promulgated a moral vision utterly incompatible with the casual cruelty of pagan custom.

Finally, what Christianity gave to its converts was nothing less than their humanity. In this sense virtue was its own reward.

It is very difficult for me to see how this seashift in human society could have been achieved absent the emergence of Christianity. I might not think much of the irrational paradoxes of Christian theology, but I have a great regard for its impact on the course of human affairs, which on balance I think is a positive.

[joylyn]

The way I read it, the NYTimes has wrestled with the problem of evil and lost. The implication is that belief in a God of Judgment is rank superstition and amounts to "blaming the victim." I don't know why bad things happen. I have seen explanations written by some very deep thinkers and none of them satisfy me. On the other hand, I'm not sure that God is an all-accepting therapist type who never gets angry. At any rate, belief in tectonic plates doesn't tell us anything about the nature of God -- the whole approach of this article is smug and superficial.

[Sam Hill]

Good one. Defend ultra lefty Carl Sagan (proponent of Global Warming, the heavy use of marijuana for enlightenment, Communism and unilateral disarmament) by calling other people "wackos."

LOL

[PetroniusMaximus]

"Nuff said."

Origen, nice enough fellow. Turned out to be a heretic.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"It is the specific brand of faith that devalues reason and confers the mantle of infallible, absolute authority upon a leader or a book."

If you find your philosophy in line with the NYT you really should start questioning your assumptions.

[RadioAstronomer]

see if you can save some money in the design of the life support units

Ummm... Where did that page of blueprints go again? LMAO!!

[balrog666]

Turned out to be a heretic.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[AntiGuv]

From New Advent:

Were Origen and Origenism anathematized? Many learned writers believe so; an equal number deny that they were condemned; most modern authorities are either undecided or reply with reservations. Relying on the most recent studies on the question it may be held that:

1. It is certain that the fifth general council was convoked exclusively to deal with the affair of the Three Chapters, and that neither Origen nor Origenism were the cause of it.
2. It is certain that the council opened on 5 May, 553, in spite of the protestations of Pope Vigilius, who though at Constantinople refused to attend it, and that in the eight conciliary sessions (from 5 May to 2 June), the Acts of which we possess, only the question of the Three Chapters is treated.
3. Finally it is certain that only the Acts concerning the affair of the Three Chapters were submitted to the pope for his approval, which was given on 8 December, 553, and 23 February, 554.
4. It is a fact that Popes Vigilius, Pelagius I (556-61), Pelagius II (579-90), Gregory the Great (590-604), in treating of the fifth council deal only with the Three Chapters, make no mention of Origenism, and speak as if they did not know of its condemnation.
5. It must be admitted that before the opening of the council, which had been delayed by the resistance of the pope, the bishops already assembled at Constantinople had to consider, by order of the emperor, a form of Origenism that had practically nothing in common with Origen, but which was held, we know, by one of the Origenist parties in Palestine. The arguments in corroboration of this hypothesis may be found in Dickamp (op. cit., 66-141).
6. The bishops certainly subscribed to the fifteen anathemas proposed by the emperor (ibid., 90-96); and admitted Origenist, Theodore of Scythopolis, was forced to retract (ibid., 125-129); but there is no proof that the approbation of the pope, who was at that time protesting against the convocation of the council, was asked.
7. It is easy to understand how this extra-conciliary sentence was mistaken at a later period for a decree of the actual ecumenical council.

[furball4paws]

The attempt was not to diminish Sagan's politics, but his science. I don't care a hoot for his politics, which includes global warming, but I do care for his role in advancing science, especially astronomy. Smearing it by associating it with NYT and PBS is a mechanism of intellectual cowards and I recognize it as such.

[RadioAstronomer]

I want the stall cabin next to the cafeteria.

Excellent choice! :-)

[RadioAstronomer]

Guilt by association with the NYT and PBS. Toss out some meat for the wackos and drag a scientist down with them.

Guess I am guilty as well since I have been on a TLC program along with Carl Sagan (I knew him at JPL) and I have personally been on both MSNBC and CNN.

[Right Wing Professor]

If you find your philosophy in line with the NYT you really should start questioning your assumptions.

Does that include David Brooks, William Safire or Abe Rosenthal?

[PetroniusMaximus]

"So the choice is between Pat Roberston and the UN."

Actually, you are exactly right. The showdown we are grinding towards will be a conflict between the conservative, morally traditional religious people and the enlightened, amoral socialists.

The "UN" types aren't going to allow any middle ground. If you won't bow the knee, accept the "new" morality and worship at the foot of the State, you will pay the price.

And you two are content to stand back and cackle as the major medial outlets continue their task of demonizing the religious people of our society.

Surely you can't be that forgetful of history.

[Sam Hill]

Big words.

But Sagan believed in many crackpot things as articles of faith.

[Sam Hill]

"Guess I am guilty as well since I have been on a TLC program along with Carl Sagan (I knew him at JPL) and I have personally been on both MSNBC and CNN."

Gosh.

I'm breathless.