Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[Neil]

Fortunately, homos in Europe will soon be exterminated.

[Martinus]

I think Galileo would be with me on that one.

Galileo didn't wake up one morning and find the government gone, with nobody to run the power plants.

Galileo woke up and found the government run by the church. That was the problem.

Well, considering he was put on trial while in Rome, it couldn't exactly come to him as a surprise to find out one day that the government of Rome was run by the church.

[CountDeMoney]

Galileo didn't wake up one morning and find the government gone, with nobody to run the power plants.

Belgian Congo couldn't say that.

Don't understand the relevance.

My point is, the sometimes abrupt disappearance of colonial governments did more for the dysfunctionalism of states than the presence of the church.  But, since you're apparently another Romebasher, you go ahead and blame the state of modern sub-saharan Africa on the church.

[Pat]

Oh, right, I understand wherein the confusion lies. That was unrelated to my earlier post and I wasn't refering to the third world. I was talking about the church stunting development in catholic Europe. Though I'd certainly say they greatly stunt development in the modern third world as well, particularly by condemning use of condoms, even though there are certainly additional factors at play in the poverty and under-development of the third world (though I'm not so sure about the power vacuum theory - surely they've had quite some time to fill that vacuum by now?)

[Razgovory]

I think Galileo would be with me on that one.

Galileo didn't wake up one morning and find the government gone, with nobody to run the power plants.

Galileo woke up and found the government run by the church. That was the problem.

Galileo woke up and found insulting a sitting head of state was a poor decision.  If he had insulted a secular head of state like the King France he would have been executed rather then put under house arrest.

[Pat]

The pope apologized for Galileo and said the church was wrong, and the pope is infallible.

[Razgovory]

The pope apologized for Galileo and said the church was wrong, and the pope is infallible.

He wasn't infallible at the time as that doctrine hadn't come about yet.

[Neil]

The pope apologized for Galileo and said the church was wrong, and the pope is infallible.

Not on matters like that he isn't.

[Solmyr]

I think Galileo would be with me on that one.

You know that Galileo was a devout Catholic, right? And the reason he was sentenced was not that his theory was somehow completely unpalatable by the Church. The Pope was his friend and gave him the opportunity to argue his case, it's when Galileo decided to make ad hominem attacks against the Pope that he was condemned.

[The Minsky Moment]

You know that Galileo was a devout Catholic, right? And the reason he was sentenced was not that his theory was somehow completely unpalatable by the Church. The Pope was his friend and gave him the opportunity to argue his case, it's when Galileo decided to make ad hominem attacks against the Pope that he was condemned.

That's quite a bit of pro-papal spin control.  Galileo wasn't given the opportunity to argue the case; he was only allowed to present heliocentric theory as a possible hypothesis without actually arguing for it or defending it.  he got in trouble because he wouldn't stick strictly to those limitations.  And he was prosecuted not for making fun of the Pope, but for making fun of the Pope's *arguments*. 

[Pat]

I still think Galileo would have been rational enough to agree with me that the church impeded progress when they brought him before the inquisition on charges of heresy

And Galileo is just one example. There are many more, as you know. They burned Giordano Bruno at the stake What excuses do you have for that?


edit: Though OK that was on theological grounds as well as for his heliocentrism. But it should be self-evident that the church was the enemy of free inquiry, and the Inquisition did it's best to turn catholic countries into deserts of the mind. No one can deny that. Hell, the church only recently stopped carrying it's list of banned books.

[The Minsky Moment]

[Galileo woke up and found insulting a sitting head of state was a poor decision.  If he had insulted a secular head of state like the King France he would have been executed rather then put under house arrest.

He didn't insult a secular head of state though.  To the contrary the person he was dealing with was supposedly the representative of Jesus Christ on earth.  You know - the guy who talked about "turning the other cheek" and all that.  Perhaps Galileo took the Church's PR a little too much at face value. 

[Ancient Demon]

Secularism is not a condition of modernity. You don't have to travel to Turkey to see that. It is true in the United States, which is a very religious society but in which advanced science and technological innovation thrive.

Too many people think secularism means atheism. Secularism is indeed a condition of modernity.

[Martinus]

Galileo didn't wake up one morning and find the government gone, with nobody to run the power plants.

Belgian Congo couldn't say that.

Don't understand the relevance.

My point is, the sometimes abrupt disappearance of colonial governments did more for the dysfunctionalism of states than the presence of the church.  But, since you're apparently another Romebasher, you go ahead and blame the state of modern sub-saharan Africa on the church.

You mean "Jew-basher" I hope?

The last good thing Rome did was trying to stamp out the Judean heresy by putting Christians to the sword. It all went down hill when they abandoned the Capitoline gods for the Jewish upstart.

[Martinus]

[Galileo woke up and found insulting a sitting head of state was a poor decision.  If he had insulted a secular head of state like the King France he would have been executed rather then put under house arrest.

He didn't insult a secular head of state though.  To the contrary the person he was dealing with was supposedly the representative of Jesus Christ on earth.  You know - the guy who talked about "turning the other cheek" and all that.  Perhaps Galileo took the Church's PR a little too much at face value. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5McSEU48Y8

The church still has the best variete.