Holy Wars

[Thorin]

http://www.1001inventions.com/

 

Fatality

 

I win!

 

http://www.1001inventions.com/reImg/meet/6.gif

 

The first experimental scientist? In the 11th century? Really? *snigger*

[Abz]

http://www.1001inventions.com/reImg/meet/6.gif

 

The first experimental scientist? In the 11th century? Really? *snigger*

 

Please show me a picture older than the 11th century, at least mine looks like the 11th century!

[Paul]

http://www.1001inventions.com/reImg/meet/6.gif

 

The first experimental scientist? In the 11th century? Really? *snigger*

 

Racist (oh, you said snigger )

[Abz]

Racist (oh, you said snigger )

[Shane]

The thing is, if god does exist, he seems to move in mysterious ways:

 

[Matt H]

racist (oh, you said snigger )

 

[Tannhauser]

Its more a case of science and religion have never been particularly good bedfellows and (IMHO) its best to keep the two apart.

 

I'm not getting into this thread otherwise I'll be posting until Christmas (or the atheist equivalent).

 

However.....I clicked on a page at random and happened to see this. Don't know if anyone has picked up on this - apologies if they have.

 

I would say that science and religion were rather satisfied bed-partners for the majority of their existence. There were localised disputes - like the famous example of Galileo - but that has to be seen against a wider context. Newton and his contemporaries, broadly, saw their discoveries as glorifying God, because they were uncovering the greater beauty and intricacy of his creation. Further back, it was the christian scholars and monks who kept the spirit of enquiry alive, allowing it to blossom again in the renaissance.

 

It was really only in the late nineteenth century that science and religion started to be seen as antithetical. Alistair McGrath traces the history of this antagonism in 'The Twilight of Atheism'. Today, many scientists still see no opposition between the two - I forget the figure, but I think its about 40% of scientists see themselves as believers.

 

[i may have missed the point of what the mighty D was saying.]

[Tannhauser]

Are you talking about Eratosthenes the Greek scholar?

 

 

 

 

Diophantus.

 

 

 

Greeks again probably, although Marcus Vitruvius had a hand in that.

 

 

 

Probably the Egyptians, but obviously Hippocrates.

 

 

 

Well the word University comes from Latin doesn't it?

 

Not that I'm an expert on this, but I understand that a lot of science historians see the view that muslim scholars only preserved knowledge acquired from the west to be a bit outdated.

 

Don't know anything about his academic credentials, but this might interest you:

 

 

ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v7n4/Faruqi/paper.pdf

[evinX]

Holy wars, religion came in books, so they should keep their holy wars on paper to and leave everyone else alone.

 

Quoting Omid Djalili - beardy weirdy freaks who makes things up:D

 

ibtl.

[Septic]

Just got back. Got home to see my brother watching the history channel, The Universe. It's on now if you want to watch it.

 

There are so many theories flying about; bubble nucleation, inflation, m theory? Scientists still trying to work out the nature of the big bang. I'll answer your above posts in a bit.

 

Thorin, lol you clearly don't win. No flawless victory for you because you clearly haven't even taken into account what I said about Biruni and the FACT about his measurement of the radius of the earth using Trigonometry. I'll post up more in a bit.

[Scott]

Who was the guy that measured it with a meter stick using the sun?

[Josh]

Who was the guy that measured it with a meter stick using the sun?

 

Moi.

[Scooter]

very very few people actually choose a religion it is almost always taught/encouraged/inherited from adults.

 

I accept my indifference to religion 100% comes from my parents indifference (IMO if Septic and IanC were swapped at birth then they'd have the opposite opinions to those expressed on here). I can see I may have it wrong but I also look around me and see so might have all the others. However if you have total faith/belief in your religion then you think you are right and everyone else just can't see the light, or if only they would just read a book they'd understand etc etc............but think how that looks to someone like me, a fence sitter if you will, perhaps looking for something to believe in and faced with choices but with each saying theirs is the only correct way? .........how would you choose?

[Septic]

Scott M please tell me you're not trying to insult the person with the title "father of algebra" with your above post? It says a lot about you really if your answer to the above is in the affirmative.

 

It's kinda sad that so many of you cant even conduct yourselves on the forum in a helpful manner. The likes of Digsy, Tanhauser, Tbourner, Martini and certain others give me some hope that there is some semblance of intellect residing in this forum (and they have opposing views to me before anyone on here accuses me of favouritism) but then so many come on making stupid sweeping generalisations or can't help themselves by insulting others beliefs. It probably says a lot about your upbringing as well as your knowledge. This thread could be so much more informative and enjoyable if we cut out the silliness.

 

It's also counterproductive going back and forth trying to reiterate exactly what I have said as opposed to what people think what I have meant; observe Matt H and his Wikipedia link. Come on man, do I have to spell out what's wrong with that supposed point youre making?

 

Is there not a way that we can create a topic that, only people, who have a serious intention to discuss the issues at hand in a mature, coherent and productive way, can subscribe to it. Maybe because this is in the off-topic section it attracts 'stray readers'. My350z.com have a separate section on a forum that discuss things like religion etc but maybe that's too much to ask for here.

 

Scooter, as I've mentioned before, I used to pretty much be an agnostic when I was 18 years old. Ask my school mates and they will tell you the tales of my rebellious days lol. If you met in person without knowing who I am, you might be mistaken in thinking that I'm an agnostic. Even now, whilst i firmly believe the Quran is the word of God I still have a very agnostic-like approach to many questions. Trust me, I know how you feel sitting on the fence as you say. My parents scarecely follow Islam and I'm the most religious one in my family.

 

I'm not saying 'my way' is the only correct way, I just implore you to keep thinking and learning as opposed to many on here whose non-belief is based not on learning but on the way it accomodates their lifestyle and massages their conscience.

[Scott]

Scott M please tell me you're not trying to insult the person with the title "father of algebra" with your above post? It says a lot about you really if your answer to the above is in the affirmative.

 

 

Not sure, my memory doesn't really recall the name of who I am thinking. I remember being told, in school, that the worlds circumference was first measured to within 30m using a known length of stick and the shadow created from the sun.

 

Just trying to nail down the date at which the earths circumference was first measured.

 

I'm not saying 'my way' is the only correct way

 

Does that mean that your way IS the correct way, or you just think your way is the correct way? One of the worst things about religion in the modern age is that it isn't an opinion to many of its followers. It is no longer a faith or a belief, it is a fact. There is no point in discussing anything when someone knows they are correct.

[Rob]

very very few people actually choose a religion it is almost always taught/encouraged/inherited from adults.

 

Ooh I dunno. A lot of born again christians seem to get it later in life. I always see that sort of thing as some kind of psychotic event, or mental breakdown, usually caused by stress or some change in life.

That's certainly what happened to my friend, back in the '90s.

[Purity14]

Ooh I dunno. A lot of born again christians seem to get it later in life. I always see that sort of thing as some kind of psychotic event, or mental breakdown, usually caused by stress or some change in life.

That's certainly what happened to my friend, back in the '90s.

 

Happened to me dude, I just woke up one day and fell in love with Jesus

[Tannhauser]

Who was the guy that measured it with a meter stick using the sun?

 

Erastosthenes? (sp?)

 

Ooh I dunno. A lot of born again christians seem to get it later in life. I always see that sort of thing as some kind of psychotic event, or mental breakdown, usually caused by stress or some change in life.

That's certainly what happened to my friend, back in the '90s.

 

One man's mystical experience is another's psychotic episode.

 

There are some very bright avowed atheists who seemed to be wooed over to the light and remain rational afterwards. I think Alistair McGrath started off as an atheist. I suppose the most famous example of a lapsed atheist is C.S. Lewis. I like his description of his 'moment':

 

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

 

"the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet."- I love that, one of my favourite quotes.

[Scott]

The person I will follow is them who have followed none before them.

[Scott]

Erastosthenes? (sp?)

 

 

Bingo. Now, I won't google his age and quote wikipedia... what I will do is say that when I was in school, that man was credited as being the first person to measure the circumference of the earth. If things have changed then so be it, as far as my tutelage goes...... he's the man when it comes to that particular argument.

 

On a side note, was he the father of algebra? I'm trying to picture it and it isn't working out. Who was the mother?

 

By the way, noone on here can credit or discredit anyones intelligence. Google is a minefield of information at the best of times and everyone is a wikimaniac as far as I am concerned. If you want to get your knob out about intelligence and match wits against the best I suggest you do it with a printed off British Mensa IQ certificate..... how many of you own one? Not that I would for 1 minute underrate any of the people who show intelligence on this forum, I just hate seeing an articulate nature passed off as intelligence, regadless of how impressive it is percieved. The English language and memory are the last things that the IQ test is based on.

 

 

Chicken nuggets!

[Tannhauser]

The English language and memory are the last things that the IQ test is based on.

 

 

Without wishing to be argumentative, most IQ tests do have a verbal reasoning element to them. In fact, I was watching someone do one today, and the verbal reasoning element looked perilously close to a simple vocabulary test (there was also mathematical reasoning, non-verbal reasoning etc)

 

 

I've noticed that people tend to define intelligence in ways that coincide with their own abilities. Engineers write off language-based skills as not 'true' intelligence. Arty types see it as the lightning of inspiration. The Trukese boat people see it as the ability to navigate between small islands. The concepts of 'emotional intelligence' and 'mutiple intelligence' was a godsend for, well, most people - as it now appears that there are so many ways to be intelligent, one can scarcely miss.

 

As in many things, a lot of it boils down to insecurities.

 

A little factoid for you: the early history of IQ tests is dogged by problems of language. I think it may have been Lewis Terman whose tests were used to justify quota systems for immigrants in the US. He that declared substantial proportions of Slavs, Italians and Jews were 'simple-minded', because they performed so badly on his tests. It didn't seem to occur to him that his tests were in english, and that many of them weren't fluent english readers.

 

(all guaranteed Google-free )

[Scott]

Without wishing to be argumentative, most IQ tests do have a verbal reasoning element to them. In fact, I was watching someone do one today, and the verbal reasoning element looked perilously close to a simple vocabulary test (there was also mathematical reasoning, non-verbal reasoning etc)

 

 

I've noticed that people tend to define intelligence in ways that coincide with their own abilities. Engineers write off language-based skills as not 'true' intelligence. Arty types see it as the lightning of inspiration. The Trukese boat people see it as the ability to navigate between small islands. The concepts of 'emotional intelligence' and 'mutiple intelligence' was a godsend for, well, most people - as it now appears that there are so many ways to be intelligent, one can scarcely miss.

 

As in many things, a lot of it boils down to insecurities.

 

A little factoid for you: the early history of IQ tests is dogged by problems of language. I think it may have been Lewis Terman whose tests were used to justify quota systems for immigrants in the US. He that declared substantial proportions of Slavs, Italians and Jews were 'simple-minded', because they performed so badly on his tests. It didn't seem to occur to him that his tests were in english, and that many of them weren't fluent english readers.

 

(all guaranteed Google-free )

 

 

I like you

 

Edit: The test I took based one of it's questions upon I. Been around for a while now, English (not as a language) is a small part of the test but is not based on articulation.

[Hemanhead]

Why is it that religion is granted such respect, nothing based on fact and force fed to children. Try to reason the other side of the story to the religious mind and you receive bitter angst. If everyone ever thought "This is not explainable, god must have created it", nobody would even bother to answer any questions because an ancient book,rewritten many times to suit the current needs of the ruling man has answered it for them.

 

Religion equals death, oppression of women, oppression of thought and a never ending list of control.

[Rob]

"the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet."- I love that, one of my favourite quotes.

 

 

Ahhhhh ( to quote Lee & Herring in their Jesus sketches) so there he was, hard at it, day in day out into the small hours. Stress related breakdown, I'll guarantee it.

[Tricky-Ricky]

Why is it that religion is granted such respect, nothing based on fact and force fed to children. Try to reason the other side of the story to the religious mind and you receive bitter angst. If everyone ever thought "This is not explainable, god must have created it", nobody would even bother to answer any questions because an ancient book,rewritten many times to suit the current needs of the ruling man has answered it for them.

 

Religion equals death, oppression of women, oppression of thought and a never ending list of control.

 

You forgot one in your list, time wasted discussing it;)