From: "Chris Ho-Stuart" <>



Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian





Subject: Re: faith (was creationism)



> Ptolemy's solar system was based on the models of Aristotle.

> Aristotle's model was the basis of western astronomy for

> the whole history of the church from its start up until the

> time of Galileo. At no point did anyone appeal to the bible to

> justify an alternative -- with the exception of a few churchmen

> who argued for a flat Earth rather than the Greek notion of a

> sphere. But that was the exception; by far the majority view

> within the church was the model of Aristotle.

>

> The biblical authors similarly did not ever conceive of the

> Earth in motion around the Sun, and the bible was not used

> in support of such an outlandish notion.

>

> The people who did precipitate the revolution in astronomy,

> being Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, were all devout

> Christians; exceptionally so even by the standards of the

> day. They all knew the bible well, and referred to it. But none

> of them made their scientific advances by studying the bible.

>

> The same is true of the other cases you mention; Chloroform

> and charting of the Atlantic.

>

> The bible is not a science text book, and it has not ever been

> the foundation of any scientific advance. It was written at a

> time long before the age of science, and it does not anticipate

> scientific advances. The bronze age cosmological world view

> of the writers of the bible is clear from the text.

>

> On the other hand, the bible was not written to promulgate any

> particular scientific principle, and its symbols and metaphors

> can, in every age, be adapted (with hindsight) to apply to

> new discoveries. Same applies, of course, for *any* book which

> makes use of poetic or symbolic language.

>

> A closer look at the cases you mention are interesting...

> especially the case of Chloroform.

>

> The deep sleep of Adam was definitely not a motivating factor

> in any experiments which lead to discoveries of anesthetic

> properties of Chloroform or anything else.

>

> The truth of the matter is the around the 1840s there were are

> series of developments in anesthetics made roughly simultaneously

> in Europe and America.

>

> The potential for chemical pain relief was known, particularly

> with nitrous oxide and ether. These were also used extensively

> in the early nineteenth century for recreational use. Nitrous

> oxide is laughing gas, and had been studied as early as 1799.

>

> Such agents were probably first used for operations by Crawford

> Long in about 1842, but he did not report results. He almost

> certainly was prompted by the "frolics" at which people used

> nitrous oxide to lower inhibitions and induce euphoria. 1844

> was the first published success with rendering a patient

> unconscious with NO2 before extracting a tooth. Further

> demonstrations followed using ether in 1846 in Massachusetts.

>

> The person you are thinking of as discovering chloroform is

> James Simpson; but you have the role of the bible incorrect.

>

> James Simpson, a Scot and a devout Christian, experimented

> with a variety of volatile agents, after reading about use of

> ether in the USA.  But he was skeptical of the safety of ether,

> and pioneered the use of chloroform instead. He used it from

> 1847 to help relieve pain in child birth.

>

> The bible was first explicitly invoked, not by Simpson but by

> his critics. Many church leaders at the time believed on the

> authority of the bible that pain in child birth had a divine

> mandate and that artificial pain relief was impious. Simpson

> was a devout Christian, and it was in response to this attack

> from the church, that he somewhat humourously referred to

> Adam's sleep as an indication that God approved of anesthesia

> in surgery.

>

> To say he was prompted by Adam's sleep to discover Chloroform

> is untrue. The truth is that he was prompted to consider

> chloroform because of concerns with the safety of ether.

> Simpson did not discover anesthesia; that was already known.

>

> I referred to these pages in producing this summary:

>    <http://www.sfhr.com/anesthesia/abrief.htm>

>    <http://cudental.creighton.edu/htm/history.htm>

>

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/medicine/nonint/indust/as/inasbi1.shtml>

>    <http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/library/books/simpson.html>

>    <http://www.people.virginia.edu/~wwc2r/vicstudies/dnb.simpson.html>



Other person:

>

> > Be careful in criticism of Luther and others. The academic

> > world, including the Popes accepted the geocentric view.

> > Luther's achievement, inspired from the work of Wycliffe

> > (the Morning Star of the Reformation)in England gave humans

> > the right to read and think through the Biblical scriptures

> > for themselves.  I would believe that it brought about the

> > Age of Reason and while that had some undesirable aspects

> > there has been a freedom that was not available previously.



Chris again:

>

> I have not the slightest hesitation in criticising Luther,

> and I will do so even more strongly.

>

> His error of making criticisms of scientific discoveries

> based on an excessively literal interpretation of the bible

> is a matter of record. You make the same mistake.

>

> Calvin's position (as Ken has pointed out) is a bit of a

> contrast. Calvin also accepted the geocentic models of the

> time, and saw them reflected in the bible. But Calvin

> presented a view of scripture in which the bible was not

> intended to teach such empirical details; and his view of

> the bible was a view that could adapt as new discoveries

> about the world were made by empirical means.

>

> There is a discussion of Calvin's approach to conflicts

> between Genesis and science on-line here:

>    <http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/focus/May97/calvin.html>

>

> On a much more serious matter, Luther was a significant

> contributor and participant in the violent prejudices against

> the Jews in Europe. Initially he was was more tolerant than

> others, but when he failed to persuade Jews to follow "the

> right path" as he saw it, he went straight back to virulent

> anti-semitism, with such writings as "The Jews and their Lies"

> (1843). He explicitly called for burning of Jewish synagogues,

> churches and homes, and the confiscation of all their religious

> books. Luther was an evil man, in this at least.

>

> To say Luther ushered in the age of reason by making the bible

> generally readable is ridiculous.

>

> The age of reason of the 1700s (also called the "enlightenment")

> was a reaction *against* the defects of religion, which Luther

> illustrates in full measure.  Luther's use of the bible as a

> tool to criticise scientific ideas, and his violent intolerance

> of the Jews, make him a model for precisely those errors which

> the enlightenment sought to rectify through the use of reason

> and humanism.

>

> One feature of the age of reason is that many people did read

> the bible for themselves, without the constraints of following

> a specific party line supplied by the church; and they found

> it to be flawed. This was not just a superficial catalogue of

> so-called scientific errors; more significant was a recognition

> of moral flaws and seeds for intolerance within the bible.

>

> Whether you agree with this or not is beside the point. The

> plain fact is, as more people read and thought about the bible

> for themselves, many did come to perceive it as filled with

> flaws. The age of reason is distinguished by looking to reason,

> and science, and humanism as a better way than ignorance. And

> ignorance is all too often associated with religion and the

> church; a connection made by many of those whom we associate

> with the so-called "age of reason".

>

> Creationists continue to link ignorance to religion in the

> modern age.

>

> [snip rest]

>

> Cheers -- Chris