Sam Harris

I never post in this section, but I thought you science nerds would appreciate this. Bill Donahue from the Catholic League (an organization that’s owned and run by him—and quite possibly only him) gets his face on FOX any chance he gets. Here he tells the two male hosts of FOX and Friends that the new Ron Howard film “Angels and Demons” based on Dan Brown’s book, is nothing but lies and that…are you ready for this?

there would not have been a scientific revolution without the Catholic church.

OK science buffs, is that the truth or a lie? Inquiring minds want to know. Plus, I plan on seeing this film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfhsbAV55gM

rab - 12 May 2009 12:09 AM

I never post in this section, but I thought you science nerds would appreciate this. Bill Donahue from the Catholic League (an organization that’s owned and run by him—and quite possibly only him) gets his face on FOX any chance he gets. Here he tells the two male hosts of FOX and Friends that the new Ron Howard film “Angels and Demons” based on Dan Brown’s book, is nothing but lies and that…are you ready for this?

there would not have been a scientific revolution without the Catholic church.

OK science buffs, is that the truth or a lie? Inquiring minds want to know. Plus, I plan on seeing this film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfhsbAV55gM

I would say yes and no.  There was almost a scientific revolution in the Islamic world but the fundamentalists won out and reason got demoted when compared to revelation.  There was another pre-scientific revolution taking place in China, which ran into problems because of the monolithic form of government they had (with other cultural factors as well).  So it’s pretty clear that there would have been a scientific revolution at some point somewhere.  On the other hand, the Catholic church tried to absorb reason into theology and so provided some fertile soil for development of science (which the church would have rooted out mercilessly had they realized what was going on).  One could also make an argument that it was also the decadence and corruption of the Renaissance popes that helped fuel the Reformation and this pushed the development of science (and note that after the 16th century the countries where science flourished were non-Catholic).

‘there would not have been a scientific revolution without the Catholic church.’

LOL. Actually, there was a scientific revolution in spite of the Catholic Church.

Wouldn’t we like to hear what Galileo, Descartes and many others would say about this comment.

He’s right, you know. Without the Catholic Church, a revolution would not have been necessary.

I think this falls under the post hoc ergo proctor hoc group of fallacies.
Because at one point virtually all Europeans were Catholic, all the later virtues of Europe can be attributed to the church.

By the same logic there wouldn’t have been the Olympic games without the practice of slavery.

Reasoning of this kind lacks the specificity of a good argument.

And Bill Donahue is clinically insane.

Nhoj Morley - 12 May 2009 01:14 AM

He’s right, you know. Without the Catholic Church, a revolution would not have been necessary.

I thought the same thing.