Pope Cancels Speech After Scientists Protest 1507
Reservoir Hill writes "Pope Benedict XVI canceled a speech at Rome's La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit to a secular setting by the head of the Catholic Church. Sixty-seven professors and researchers of the university's physics department joined in the call for the pope to stay away protesting the planned visit recalled a 1990 speech in which the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, seemed to justify the Inquisition's verdict against Galileo in 1633. In the speech, Ratzinger quoted an Austrian philosopher who said the ruling was 'rational and just' and concluded with the remark: 'The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason.' The protest against the visit was spearheaded by physicist Marcello Cini who wrote the rector complaining of an 'incredible violation" of the university's autonomy. Cini said of Benedict's cancellation: 'By canceling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.'"
Once again we see (Score:4, Insightful)
So what does he want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see. He asks that the visit be canceled. The visit gets canceled. Then he complains about the visit having been canceled.
This sounds like the guy's ready to complain no matter what happens.
Big Deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Flaimbait article (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once again we see (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dialogue? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Mecca and Medina (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, there is currently no unified theory that explains the connection of the spiritual realm ("soul") and physical world. Certainly there are dependencies (healthy body leads to healthy mind), but this still doesn't explain how we "feel" about the various chemical and electric processes going on in our brains. It only makes sense to study spirituality based on spiritual methods just like we study science scientifically. Perhaps some day we will discover more details about the connection between these two realms, but until then the two groups should just get off each others' backs.
Next we ban Santa Claus (Score:2, Insightful)
Banning the Pope today from speaking at a University because of what was done to Galileo 400 years ago is the thinest of all possible excuses for blatant anti-religious prejudice.
It is just mean spirited narrow-minded and wrong.
There are religious people who, as we speak, are cutting off peoples heads for being of the "wrong" faith, and putting women in prison for being the victims of rape. And yet their representatives get to speak at Universities.
This situation is just preposterous.
Re:Once again we see (with improved POT format ;) (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is censoring the Pope. Quite the opposite, the man gets far more attention than I think he deserves. That he isn't showing up at a university for some sort of glorified photo op where he gets to pretend he's cozy with science is hardly some vast attempt to silence him.
Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Ratzinger was elected for two very specific reasons. First, he is already old so he won't spend 30 years on the throne. That's important to the church hierarchy because they don't want another John Paul II setting policy for that long and progressively going soft on them. The second is that he's essentially a hardcore, old-school catholic. You'll see a lot more of this crap in the next few years, along with a resurgence of the more traditional major and minor orders within the church organization, slowly displacing the more enlightened groups that gained a lot of power during John Paul's tenure.
We'll have to wait about a decade or so to see if this new angle will work for them. Personally I don't think it will. The world has largely moved on. But so much power (most of it very subtle) concentrated in the hands of a group of people who think it wasn't so bad to punish people for claiming that earth is not the center of the universe cannot be good. To paraphrase someone, it's not God I dislike - it's his fan club that scares the crap out of me.
Re:Mecca and Medina (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, let me fix that for you: In any case, there is currently no evidence of the spiritual realm ("soul")...
Re:Dialoge? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you READ his remarks?
But why talk about anything "rational", when such an "irrational" reaction like yours is acceptable? After all, EVERY day is bash-a-christian day.
Real bias? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would hope that people see that this University is not representative of the broader intellectual community.
Re:Real bias? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
the following two actions are SOOO the same
1) Tell someone they're not welcome because they're asinine bigoted ideas
2) Pass laws against someone, condemn them to hell,etc because they don't live by your rules and therefore are second class citizens
Oh, absolutely they're different. And what the scientists did was neither of those. They didn't tell the Pope he wasn't welcome, they campaigned to prevent him speaking at the university. They didn't pass laws, because mob rule doesn't like laws. And I bet none of them have bothered to find out why Galileo was really excommunicated and just assumed the popular myth was true (simplistically, he was excommunicated for effectively calling the Pope an idiot when the Pope asked for scientific evidence of what was considered a discredited crackpot theory by the scientists of the time, which Galileo insisted on teaching. It was the equivalent at the time of removing the teaching accreditation of somebody who insists on teaching creationism and calls anybody an idiot who asks them to justify it. Yes, "condemning to hell" might seem over the top, but only if you believe in hell. Otherwise the Pope did pretty much what the scientific community of the time required.)
Yes, the Pope and the RC church have a lot to answer for, but did you notice how the scientists played it so that he couldn't win? They campaigned to stop him from speaking, then when he cancelled they accused him of playing the martyr. In a liberal democracy, people are allowed to express ideas and the ideas are allowed to stand or fall on their own merits, but those scientists clearly don't believe in that; it seems that they believe that their ideas can only stand if they suppress competing ideas. Religion doesn't have bigotry DRM'd, evidently. Or maybe the scientists have managed to crack it?
Re:Dialoge? (Score:1, Insightful)
what is this babble? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, that means it's a pain in the ass to be truly tolerant, so I'd settle for being "mostly tolerant" or something like that.
No decent person should welcome the pope (Score:2, Insightful)
his signature is all over the documents authorising the cover up of child-raping priests. he would be in jail if not for the diplomatic immunity he has as head of state for Vatican City.
the policy he implemented would be to have another priest hear the child-raping-priest's confession, thereby satisfying the need for justice in god's eyes. the raped child would then be told that since catholic confession is a sacrament, any discussion of what had happened to them with parents, police, councillors etc. would violate the sanctity of confession and the *child* would then burn forever in hell. the catholic church has now spent over $1 billion in America alone in compensation because for all their goodness they couldn't recognise that raping children was not a Good Thing.
this is also the pope that labelled a comedian who publically disagreed with him a "terrorist".
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
It would seem to me it is the Church that needs to ask for forgiveness from Galileo, not give it.
Re:Real bias? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course atheism is a religion, it is a system of belief about the supernatural nature (or lack there of) of this universe. It's the null religion. Do you believe that zero is not a number? Or perhaps that a null pointer isn't a pointer at all? Come on now. If it isn't a relgion is it a taco? I think it fits the former definition better.
I believe the GP post was referring to "new" in the sense that many scientists today ascribe to atheism, which distinctly wasn't the case 200 years ago, not that atheism is a brilliant new construction of the modern mind.
Past precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
They weren't protesting about what he was going to say. They were protesting about what he said in the past. Unless the pope was going to say "sorry, I was wrong", the scientists were absolutely right.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not saying religion doesn't have a history -- but two wrongs don't make a right. Lets LEARN from our mistakes, not just switch sides on who's making them.
Re:Philosophers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Once again we see (with improved POT format ;) (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, if he were invited by the college governors, as the Pope was, then shouted down by some intolerant jerks. And he didn't "demand" anything. He backed out gracefully, no pun intended.
It's perfectly alright for a Holocaust Denier to give a speech at memorial to Nazi genocide victims?
No, because it is rude. Nor is it OK for one to be invited to Columbia University [payvand.com]. But last time I checked, there were not 6 million scientists killed after which the Pope denied it.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhat on-topic..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Current Pope aside (who, from what I can tell, isn't even well-liked by most Catholics), the Catholic church has more or less apologized for most of its past crimes, and John Paul II even made a case for evolution. Likewise, the Church has definitely placed a huge emphasis on charitable works, and focused very little on evangelism (which, is effectively very much in line with the text of the New Testament).
Although I could be completely wrong, Catholicism seems to be one of the more progressive mainstream branches of Christianity, whereas the bible-belt Christians seem to be moving in the other direction. (This is rather significant, given the Church's history)
Personally, I'm a bit upset at these scientists for protesting a speech from the Pope, which is -- dare I say -- rather dogmatic of them. No scientist should be afraid of ideas, even if they contradict his own.
Academic hysteria (Score:3, Insightful)
What if the guy went to the University? Even the fierstest atheist may find interesting what the man has to say, being that either as a filosofical exercise or simply to get the knowledge on how the Catholic Church thinks.
Now this academic hysteria is completely ridiculous, it sounds more like a science-as-religion bigotry to me.
And, quite frankly, the academic world (I'm not talking about Science itself) is not in a good position to point any fingers.
A huge number of academics are simply and only interested in self-promotion, stealing someone else research, professors taking a hike on his/her students' work, busy formalizing bad-science in a flowered paper and... Treating anyone else outside their circle as inferiors.
You want to meet bigotry, power hunger, deceit and elitism? Politics and religion are not the only options, nor Shakespeare, one would find plenty of such crap inside the Universities.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
It just means your are an ignorant bigot... in both cases.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:4, Insightful)
What persecution?
How about something simple like being able to enjoy the "free exercise thereof" part of the establishment clause ...
He has that. Nobody has suggested that he be detained, censored, injured, or kept off public property.
If freedom of speech includes Nazi rallies, KKK marches, and the Pope's ramblings, it also has to include the right of other people to say that they don't like it.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Once again we see (with improved POT format ;) (Score:5, Insightful)
You do know that the Catholic Church, including Benedict XVI, supports the theory of evolution [wikipedia.org], with only a few caveats that it's part of God's plan?
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
And you are not guilty of stereotyping [wikipedia.org] how? And this isn't a form of bigotry [wikipedia.org] how?
What's wrong with this syllogism [wikipedia.org]?
Some people do bad things.
Some people are religious.
All religions are bad.
Sorry, but I think the "ignorant" label is correct in this case.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Italy: the Vatican is simply evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry but your are wrong: no one has "shout down" the Pope. He owns a newspaper and a radio, and he's the politician that we see more than anyone else in TV here in Italy, even more than Silvio Berlusconi that owns half of the Italians TV stations.
Yes the Pope acts exactly like a politician in Italy: he tell which laws should be passed or not, or changed, for whom to vote and sometimes even tell people not to go voting, like in a recent referendum. And it's far from nice and good: the Vatican opposes (successfully, thanks to corrupt politician) the right of women, gays and lesbians, is opposing right now an anti-racism law (you read it right: they aren't opposing racism, they are trying to shout down an anti-racism law) and they even opposed a donation from Italy to a children hospital (they didn't oppose the use of the same budget money for the war in Iraq a few years ago), because they want to have the exclusive of charity in the minds of the Italians (the stupid ones, at least) so they get more donations.
And we already know exactly what he was going to say: that abortion is murder, even if it's a simple embryo one day from the fertilisation. And abortion must be completely illegal (in Italy we have a very sensible and balanced abortion law, that has reduced to less than half the number of abortions from when it was completely illegal and all abortions were clandestine, and saved countless women). I know this because I see him every day on every television news always saying the same things, and insulting women, gays, scientists and atheists.
Well he's free to says what the hell he wants, but scientists are also free to not invite him to say those things in a university. He can say the same thing but not in my home. This isn't censorship!
And the Earth is not flat. It's approximately spherical! And it goes around the Sun, not vice versa. I don't care what the Pope says about it: Galileo Galilei was right and the Bible is wrong!
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
Where did you hear about someone being shouted down? I didn't read that anywhere.
The article is pretty sucky in terms of what actually happened. But it's pretty clear there was no shouting down going on. It makes a nice strawman argument though.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:1, Insightful)
This debate would be reasonable to observe if both sides admitted they do not have 100% concrete proof that they are correct. Religious types don't want to admit that because it somehow sounds like they don't fully believe what they practice. Non-religious folks think it waters down their position. Dogma makes the mind resistant to alternate points of view. It is a pity that people cave to their base, self-serving instincts ("I have to be right") even when discussing unsolved issues anonymously.
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Big Deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. I'm calling you out on this one.
You said:
I'm going to have to ask you to prove that one to me. I'll bet you a steak dinner that: 1) You can't (it's an unverifiable statement no matter how you slice it) and 2) you haven't met many practicing Roman Catholics.
Your bias against religion is astounding. Compare your statements "religions have a good side" and "the amount of damage [they perpetrated]... is so stunning...". One could make the same argument about, oh, our favorite topic: Technology. In fact, I think I will: "Technology has its good side, but the amount of damage (direct and indirect) that has been perpetrated on humanity in the name of progress is so stunning that few people even realize it."
Now, I should point out that I am both religious (Muslim, believe it or not) and a big fan of science and technology. I do not think they are opposite approaches to things. They are actually quite orthogonal. If you think that a world without religion would be a better place, I'm afraid you'd be as sadly mistaken as if you said a world without technology would be a better place. Think about it for a second; the two actually need each other. Religion (or, at the very least, morality) without rationality (without "science") easily veers towards superstition and sorcery. Science without religion just as easily veers towards the cruel and inhuman. Ideally, each should help guide the other.
None of this is to say that there are not some religious people out there who attempt to undermine the scientific and rational process, but I think you'll find that sort of person could just as easily be areligious. Arstechnica had an interesting article not too long ago debunking a paper on a theory of homeopathy, whose authors all had letters behind their names. On the other hand, a large portion of Western philosophical and scientific thought came from deeply religious people, a lot of whom were Catholics.
Coming back to your obvious bias against Catholicism: what I find most peculiar is that you happen to pick a religion which has, time and time again, insisted that the Universe is knowable and rational, two necessary assumptions for any scientific progress to occur. Yes, yes, some of them (just like the aforementioned homeopathic charlatans) try to ignore, disregard, or diminish the role of reason, but the stance of the religion on reason is pretty damn clear to anyone whose even bothered studying it. In short, you should spend more time actually reading about Catholicism than reading about conspiracy theories regarding the council of Cardinals, the Pope, and the Church. Its views may differ greatly from yours, but it's not the big scary monster you make it out to be.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a agnostic that does not accept your rationalization of human evil. Your answer is too easy and shared by so many and repeated so often that it has become pure mantra with no more credibility to me than sky daddy talk. A cop out.
Pour on the anecdotes...
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Real bias? (Score:3, Insightful)
4. He said "No, thank you."/i
The Pope elected to silence himself. In some circles this is referred to as "being a pussy."
Re:Flaimbait article (Score:2, Insightful)
This story is talking about Galileo, and his fate under the Inquisition, so I'd say it definitely counts as 'News For Nerds.'
Get back in your box, pembo.
how they act when they gain power (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the negative side of religion is death and persecution, and those are pretty consistently applied by theocracies.
I'm not saying you're just bidding your time to start raping and pillaging, but I think religion is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and you seem really focused on the softness of its hide.
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
and there's also just plain failing to give religious leaders (and religion in general) an undeserved privileged position of input & influence.
is he a scientist? a physicist? then what makes him - or anyone - think that he's automatically entitled to a soapbox at a scientific institution?
his belief in and advocacy for mythical being(s) doesn't give him any credibility or authority in such a setting.
Re:So what does he want? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're wrong: he and a lot of professors and students asked the cancellation of the invitation to the Pope from the university chancellor to speak at the most important ceremony of the year without a debate. The invitation wasn't cancelled at all, and now they're trying to portait the Pope as a victim (successfully judging from a number of apologist comments even here on /.), which is why he's complaing.
If you don't live in Italy you may not understand how strong is the offensive from the Vatican against women, gays, lesbians, science, atheists and pretty much anyone who doesn't bow. Please read my previous comment [slashdot.org] about this. This IS NOT ABOUT RELIGION: is about money, power and the violated right of actual people in Italy and elsewhere.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think anyone fits all their beliefs together into a coherent picture of the world.
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
You know you have won the argument when your adversaries denigrate you by claiming you are just like them.
Re:how they act when they gain power (Score:1, Insightful)
Because the negative side of religion is death and persecution, and those are pretty consistently applied by theocracies.
Further, what does "theocracy" have to do with anything? You are committing the logical fallacy of "shifting the goalposts." We are talking about religion, not theocracy.
So I reject your premise on two fronts: that any torture or murder done on behalf of religion has specifically religious motive, rather than deeper motives of control of people who are different, and further, that what "theocracies" do are representative of religion.
Re:Big Deal (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't confuse knowledge with opinion. Opinion is just that. If you think that pink is an ugly color, that's your opinion, but it holds no knowledge, only a judgment.
This Pope also supports Galileo's conviction for supporting heliocentrism. Philosophy here simply doesn't matter. Either the earth orbits the sun or it doesn't. All available evidence says it does, and some stupid old book written by ignorant stone-age people says it doesn't. Supporting the conviction of someone for going against this book is utterly ridiculous. Even the fundamentalist Christian Creation supporters believe in heliocentrism these days.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Start with science. Science as we know it today was brought into existence by religious people who -- unlike their atheist contemporaries -- believed that, because God exists, the universe must have order, and rules, and that those rules are discoverable. It is because of Isaac Newton's religious beliefs that he brought so much knowledge to our world.
Justice. It is from religion that we get the idea that all men are created equal, that equality before the law, equality of rights, equality of worth are good and right and true.
I could go on but dinner is approaching. Now, to turn things around, all the things mentioned to me -- the crusades and so on -- don't appear to me to be related to religion at all. Religion was no more inherent to the Crusades than Nationalism was to the Holocaust. Those were both just tools used to promote other fascistic ideas about conquering and destruction. You could make the case that unthinking religion or nationalism is bad, but that's nothing new, and not unique to any particular idea. For example, courage is not bad, but courage without wisdom is bad, and so on. There's nothing bad inherent in religion.
Now, maybe there's bad things inherent in a particular religion, such as Scientology. But that's a separate discussion.
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
The Pope was invited to the university by its rector.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1703692,00.html [time.com]
According to "the letter", the scientists are still pissy about something Benedict said 17 years ago. That's a long time to hold a grudge.
Also, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/17/2140251.htm?section=world [abc.net.au]
The pontiff decided not to deliver an address at La Sapienza University, scheduled for later today, after protests by a small but vociferous group of students and faculty members.
Some occupied part of the campus to demand he stay away.
Many Italians condemned the protests, saying they smacked of censorship. Politicians and pundits used words like "shame" and "humiliation" to describe the national mood.
Disagreeing with the Pope is fine. Not being interested in what he has to say is fine. Boycotting a popular leader because you disagree with his views? That's really lame, and yes, shameful. If you don't want to hear him speak then don't go to his speech. It's not fucking rocket science.
Re:So what does he want? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the pope is german so what?! You Sir ARE an idiot...
come over here in Italy for some time and get a hang on the situation... pope, pope, priests, everywhere, anytime, these folks don't just say mass... they pretend and expect to have a say on italian policy and law... and the politicians just queue up to kiss the royal slipper. So we get OUR representatives kneeling down to some guy that tells them that stem cell research is against God's will... so we don't, that Marriage is a Holy Covenant between a male and a female... end to any discusion on sexually indifferent civil unions (useful for things like visiting your partner in hospital, having a say on a partner's fate in case of dire illness, sharing legal responsibilities on property as a couple, hereditary benefits in case of death and so on...).
The best of all: the law on medically assisted reproduction - seems written off the Vatican - an absurd, demented and quite cruel piece of tripe written around the concept that the embryo is a human being with human legal status since genomic fusion, thus there can be no frozen embryo left out of the process: thus a woman undergoing the procedure MUST get all of them implanted - in batches of four - and since you can't freeze eggs, if a lap fails she goes through the whole process again (hormone therapy included).
Next in the crosshairs is abortion... once the preceding principle was settled they're going after the law allowing abortion (over here it's quite rigid, written around the principle of responsible parenthood and very effective about it) and since the UN moratorium on executions they've started a fuss on abortion moratoriums... execution == abortion... you get it?
So Mr, we're full of priests, they come from all over the world storming over Italy... the last pope was polish, this one is german... but they still mess around with our italian stuff...
Re:Dialoge? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somewhat on-topic..... (Score:1, Insightful)
And let's not even get started on the anti-contraception crusades (because making abortion illegal just isn't intrusive *enough*).
Re:the 6 million mark (Score:5, Insightful)
He was drafted into the army by a fascist state. Not something he had any choice over or should be blamed for.
In 1981, Ratzinger was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Inquisition, although the activities we now associate with "the Inquisition" ended centuries before Ratzinger's birth.
He holds no legal authority outside a few blocks in Rome. He is the head of a faith that teaches chastity outside of marriage, but so is the Dalai Lama.
Yes, the Pope does wear papal vestments, although "dressed in gold" is another exaggeration. You might have also noticed that the Pope is indeed Catholic. Look, if you have a bone to pick with the Pope, at least be honest about it. Don't go around misleading people.
Re:how they act when they gain power (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, the bodycount difference you're talking about is due to difference betweens methods (industrial VS manual), not motivations. People have been executed and tortured for far longer, and in many more places by religious forces than by atheists.
As far as motives, how can you dissociate religion from a desire of control? Your religion does not ask that you live by their rule? Do you know many religions that do not demand submission to an absent authority represented by the mortal leaders of the religion?
Re:What dialogue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I feel that one should mock everything and everyone. People who are serious and things that `are to be taken seriously' are the only things and people that make me really scared.
Re:I live in Italy: the Vatican is simply evil (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like this one: "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son ... Then shall his father and his mother ... bring him out unto the elders of his city ... And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die." -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Killing stubborn children is a metaphor for what exactly? And if you think this is funny I can find dozen more examples of this shit, in both the old and the new testament, since I have actually read the whole bible from cover to cover, something that most christians don't do, apparently.
Re:I live in Italy: the Vatican is simply evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Just state what that is, and your validating evidence showing that construct is objectively correct.
Apart from that, I'll continue to consider that harsh social and organizational norms can be valid in an effectively-wartime environment where the whole culture could easily have been wiped out by surrounding cultures at any time.
If you live there, why do you think that? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think that the current Pope, or the Bible, claims that either the Earth is flat or that it doesn't go around the Sun.
Now, long before people could measure stellar parallax, there were reasons to suppose that the Earth wasn't moving. But they were scientific ones, based on the incorrect science of the day. The Bible doesn't say anything of the sort.
Re:I live in Italy: the Vatican is simply evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, he found this argument unconvincing.
Re:Academic hysteria (Score:3, Insightful)
Religious persecution of the secular arena is real. This is not "academic hysteria" any more than Martin Luther King, Jr. was engaging in "minority hysteria".
Religious ideology has been stifling politics for thousands of years and it's happening every day in front of us, from curtailing stem cell and AIDS research, to ignoring environmental issues and beyond.
It's a shame that the American academic community doesn't have the balls to stand up to religious power that the Italians do. We sure could use it.
Re:Real bias? (Score:4, Insightful)
The public perception in many places is that Richard Dawkins is a spokesperson for scientists (with a position like Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, perhaps the perception is warranted).
Huh? Saying some is a "spokesperson for scientists" is like saying Linus Torvalds is a "spokesperson for software developers". It's just incredibly inaccurate. Frankly I don't really care if peoples perception is "warranted". I'm sure lots of evil crap that goes down in the world is "warranted". What I care about is if right or wrong, and clearly it's wrong.
When such a well-known public figure rags on religion as much as he does, it's no wonder that religious people feel threatened by science.
Religious people feel threatened by science because many of them have built a religion on the gaps of knowledge. As those gaps are filled in, it threatens their belief structure. Rather than modify their belief structure, they choose to challenge science itself. Dawkins has really little to do with it. It's not like this whole science/religion schism just developed in the last several years.
In a very real sense, Dawkins does evangelize for atheism. This is one reason why people have started calling it a "religion."
Who are all these people? You? This is honestly the first time I've ever heard someone try to call atheism.. the lack of belief in a deity.. a religion. It's just amazing to me that anyone takes this kind of thing seriously.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
This phenomenon is hardly unique to Christianity. I would say two key ingredients almost inevitably guarantee a flamewar:
1. Commonality of strong personal beliefs
2. Lack or widespread obfuscation of concrete empirical data or evidence to support a position
I think you'll find at least one of these two things to be common to nearly every flamewar on Slashdot (and in the world at large). It certainly explains what happens to nearly every article regarding politics, religion, climatology (i.e. global warming), evolution, console wars, etc.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that this is unique to Christians, of course: most people are like that. Well, most people I know, anyway.
Re:I live in Italy: the Vatican is simply evil (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Try living your life as an atheist, where every day for your entire life is bash-the-atheist day. Where you end up arguing with your own parents who ask what they did wrong that you failed to believe in mystical gods and demons and fairies in the bottom of the garden.
You're upset about a few years of well-deserved religion-bashing now that people are finally starting to speak up about why they don't believe in religion or the literal truthiness of the Bible. Get used to it, because as long as religion speaks up on issues we can see and touch you'll have people talking back and just plain not respecting the thousands of years of religious thinking. And that's a good thing because either the religion will learn to survive in the reality we inhabit or die off because it couldn't reconcile a book from 2-4 thousand years ago with today's world.
Re:I live in Italy: the Vatican is simply evil (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, problems here:
condemn catholics or christianity if you like, but at LEAST get somewhere CLOSE to objective or reasoned arguments, and not just a bunch of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing leftist AD HOMINEM or IPSE DIXIT attacks. the Pope can speak any where he likes if he is invited, and if you can't do anything but shout people down and protest until you get your way, read more, so that you don't commit your ignorance or idiocy to print on places like /.
Re:What dialogue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:5, Insightful)
is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man
is happier than a sober one"
-George Bernard Shaw
-amen
Re:Real bias? (Score:3, Insightful)
He's a charismatic leader... of who, exactly?
I probably missed the memo informing me of my due obedience...
Re:Dialoge? (Score:1, Insightful)
No - they're asking two sorts of questions that are categorically different, only one of which is tractable.
The professors look at questions that have an answer in reality - the pontiff looks at questions that have no place in reality or in rational discussion.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but questions like "where did we come from," "why are we here," and "what is my moral duty to others" are important questions that have been part of rational discussion for literally thousands of years. Most of the great Western philosophers--people who perhaps define "rational"--have spent time thinking about those questions. For example Plato [wikipedia.org], Descartes [wikipedia.org] ("I think, therefore I am" [wikipedia.org]), Epictetus [wikipedia.org], Nietzsche [wikipedia.org], just to name a few. Each of those philosophers has thought about why we are here and what duty we owe to others--questions that the Pope also seeks to answer. He uses a different method to reach his answers, but the question is shared between secular and religious philosophers.
You might agree with the Pope's answers, but the questions are certainly important and deserve rational treatment.
Re:What dialogue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Great! Where's your counter-argument? If it's so thoroughly "disproven", this should be easy...
See, the problem is that there is no one definition of God. There are plenty I can disprove out of hand as internally inconsistent, but most people do not have a clearly defined God that they believe in.
You must be very lonely.
Science absolutely does not solve everything. [xkcd.com]
Of course, having fun and falling in love don't require religion, or any particular belief. [xkcd.com]
That's all you've got?
Just look up the Laws, in particular what it says about rape. I'll admit there are a lot of morons out there who claim to believe the entire Bible, yet obviously have not read it. [bash.org]
You know, the Koran goes on for pages and pages about how merciful Allah is. Jesus says "love your neighbor as yourself". At a certain point, it is hard to say whether the Jihadist or the pacifist is a perversion of their religion, but both are founded in Scripture.
There are some religious people who do horrible things because of their religion -- the Crusades, terrorism, etc. And there are some good people who do good things because of their religion -- Martin Luther King, Gandhi, etc. And there are atheists who do horrible things anyway -- Stalin, China, etc.
All of which makes it very hard to argue for or against religion based on what the religious do.
Science can [pearcable.com] control people [wikipedia.org] just as easily [qray.com].
You could say that's bad science, sure. And I can say that anyone using God to tell other people what to do is practicing bad religion. The only difference is that science is defined clearly enough that your claim is actually true.
Haven't seen either of those. There's your possibly-accurate description of the origin of war, but no mention of how that's at all relevant to religion.
Now, as to why there should be dialog with religious figures?
Because as long as the scientists don't put an asshat like you up there, we should be able to show, calmly and rationally, why science deserves to be taken seriously, and why the Pope does not (if, indeed, he does not).
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
And I bet none of them have bothered to find out why Galileo was really excommunicated and just assumed the popular myth was true (simplistically, he was excommunicated for effectively calling the Pope an idiot when the Pope asked for scientific evidence of what was considered a discredited crackpot theory by the scientists of the time, which Galileo insisted on teaching.
That's one extreme interpretation of the what happened that's been put forward by more than one author, but the truth is that heliocentricism was attacked as well. At best the pope had no qualms about trampling on truth and scientific thought in pursuit of a personal grudge and an attack on his authority. If you know your history you'll be well aware that Copernicus didn't publish his work until he was old and about to die. The church also banned his book [wikipedia.org] and he did not take part in mocking the pope as the character Simplicio.
Even if the actual political situation had more to do with maintaining control and power, than with the content of the science, trampling scientific theories to maintain that control is vile. This is from someone who purports to be the voice of God on Earth, and according to the religion he heads is meant to be doing good for all men. Apparantly the mistreatment of individuals is quite justified in order for him to maintain power.
It was the equivalent at the time of removing the teaching accreditation of somebody who insists on teaching creationism and calls anybody an idiot who asks them to justify it. Yes, "condemning to hell" might seem over the top, but only if you believe in hell. Otherwise the Pope did pretty much what the scientific community of the time required.)
Excuse me, but you've now moved from repeating something questionable to saying something that is patently false. If it was common practice to punish someone who went against church doctrine with house arrest (if being merciful as in Galileo's case), kill them barbarically (eg. burn them alive), or excommunicate them therefore making them a pariah within the community, doesn't that speak volumes about why the church has done harm?
Yes, the Pope and the RC church have a lot to answer for, but did you notice how the scientists played it so that he couldn't win? They campaigned to stop him from speaking, then when he cancelled they accused him of playing the martyr.
What's worse. Telling the opposition to go spread their BS elsewhere, or putting them under house arrest until the end of their life, threatening them with death if they didn't recant their ideas, and banning their published work?
You seem more than willing to cast a blind eye to past pope's indiscretions while at the same time nailing today's scientists for basically telling the pope to go elsewhere to spread his doctrine. There is a world of difference between the two. One is much much worse than the other, yet your own prejudice means you're happy to let the worse of the two go. I don't think you're being at all fair or rational, and I wonder what's up with
Re:Dialoge? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that also censorship?
Re:Dialoge? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not arguing dogma -- I'm saying that the non-dogmatic rules that are part of the church's tradition must change with the times.
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for your reasoned rebuttal (and for not invoking Godwin).
It's probably fairly clear that I don't know the full history here, as I'm pretty much neutral toward religion. I think it's more or less a bunch of fairy tales, but not that it's necessarily a bad thing.
So, my opinion was based purely on what I saw in these reports: the "scientists" protesting someone from speaking because the scientists disagree with their views/opinions. The main thing they're upset about is the Pope's condoning of Galileo's treatment way back when. At the time his views were... unconventional and destabilising, to say the least, and societies' tolerance for such was much lower than now. It's unfortunate, but that's human nature.
It's not as if science is particularly tolerant of differing points of view. Even ignoring obvious things like the huge outcry over the teaching of creationism theory alongside evolution theory, any radical scientific theory and its proponents will be criticised heavily and unfairly until it's finally accepted. And then once it becomes accepted, anyone who still disagrees with it will be criticised and called irrational. It's unfortunate and not something to strive for, but again it's just human nature. I'd expect educated people to be aware of this.
My point is that the response of these "scientists" to someone who supports the silencing of people with opinions they disagree with is to... try to stop someone with opinions they don't agree with from speaking at a venue he was invited to speak at.
Can you substantiate this claim? Sure, cancelling the visit was certainly a politically expedient move, but why it can't it also be due to his need (desire, really) for a dignified and tranquil welcome? He was invited to speak and accepted the invitation, but then a group of people started protesting it and promising to heckle him during his speech. Given that he's the freakin' Pope and does in fact have a wide choice of venues to speak at, why would he bother with one where he knows he'll get a hostile reception?
I guess you can argue that he should've held a communion with God and come to the realisation that if he accepted the invitation some people would be upset; but on the other hand, if he rejected the invitation some people would be upset, too. Maybe you can come up with a theory that he orchestrated the invite from the rector purely for the purpose of being able to cancel after being protested against, but it seems a bit conspiracy theorist to me. A more logical explanation is that he was invited by someone who thought it'd be good for the university to have the pope make a speech, the pope thought it was a good opportunity to spread his message to young intelligent people, and accepted. Then all the protest stuff happened and he decided it probably wasn't worth all the hassle.
Which is in fact exactly what he did. He was invited, he accepted; then he was protested, so he cancelled. The staff and students certainly have a right to protest, and they invoked that right. I still think choosing to do so reeks of intolerance.
Re:What dialogue? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd also like to reiterate my first point: that there is no proof that God doesn't exist. No, I'm not going to ask you for your "disproof", because I know there can't possibly be one. God is above logic. He created logic and he can defy logic for all we know. How can you logically disprove something that logic doesn't apply to? Destroy that!
Usual and tiresome disclaimer: I'm not religious, so don't bother calling me a "lobotomised sheep", or whatever you call those effigies you made in the image of religious people.
Re:Once again we see (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as the intolerance is not being forced on others, the intolerant must be tolerated in a tolerant society.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:4, Insightful)
Risking coming across as a flame, the point here is that their notion of suppression was "agree with us or we'll suppress your life", a position Pope Benedict has (reportedly) implicitly defended, and which is the cause of the "we really don't you preaching your religion in our campus" reaction (which, let's face it, is a fair bit milder take on the whole suppression thing).
Re:Real bias? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you spend most of your time arguing against strong atheism, you're probably flying right over the head of the vast majority of atheists, for whom the idea isn't so much "absolutely not!!!!!!111 Dawkins proves it zomg!!!" but more "meh, foolish question".
Re:Dialoge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:how they act when they gain power (Score:4, Insightful)
And finally, you have not established that you are any less retarded than the people 2000 years ago.
You've said nothing interesting so far, and glancing quickly ahead, I see nothing else interesting. I am not going to take time responding to each of your points, because it is clearly a waste of our collective time. However, I will respond to one more thing, because I think it shows quite clearly how irrational you're being.
Your whole post is full of ignorant claims, but this one shows quite clearly that you are not even attacking Christianity at all. You probably wouldn't know Christianity if it fell in your lap.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I personally don't think Christianity is responsible for either one.
Re:What dialogue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:3, Insightful)
What gods do you want to put before the Christian god for Christians to worship? What idles do you want them to worship? and why do you feel it necessary for them to take their lords name in vain?
I mean the ten commandments only apply to people of that faith. So if ti bothers you to the point you think they are a danger to you, then I have to wonder what the fuck your thinking?
Science vs Religion - OK, back to reality (Score:3, Insightful)
You see the whole Science vs Religion argument in my opinion is fundamentally flawed, and frankly it's a bit deceptive to expect as default the notion that they are mutually exclusive.
Yes the Catholic Church has made some big mistakes, Specifically in the Galileo affair [wikipedia.org] but also regarding Copernicus too. Over 2000 years or so the Catholic Church has accumulated quite a bit of experience and has had to learn lots from the mistakes of people who call themselves Catholic. That separation of Church & State is a good thing, that Faith can never conflict with reason and that the sacraments the Church offers for the benefit of the faithful should never ever be sold.
Specifically in the case of Galileo, several Popes offered tribute to him and Pope John Paul II in 1992, essentially apologised on behalf of the Inquisition that had wrongly admonished him.
"Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture...."
- Pope John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) - 4th November,1992
Over time it has been a humbling [muohio.edu] but healthy experience for the Catholic Church, and it grows wiser from it. It seems exceptionally unlikely to me that the current Pope was going to Rome's La Sapienza university to tell them that Science sux and that Galileo was wrong, so there!
Why?
Because Science and Religion are not mutually exclusive. The very rigour of Science itself came from monks in monasteries attempting to understand and describe the observable world in objective ways. The first Universities were monasteries. Galileo himself quotes a Catholic cleric saying "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how to go to heaven and not how go the heavens".
A person can choose to be an honest Scientist. A person can choose to have an honest belief in God. A Person can choose to be an honest Scientist with and honest belief in God.
A 6000 year old Earth which is an evolution free zone with dinosaur bones pre-baked is not honest. An honest Christian should not believe such things, they are not consistent with reason. With this in mind, one who doesn't lie about science can also honestly have faith in God. Faith in God does should not require taking the Bible as being a literal, scientifically prescriptive document. Paradoxically, Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this regard than the theologians who opposed him. "If Scripture cannot err", he wrote to Benedetto Castelli, "certain of its interpreters and commentators can and do so in many ways".
Faith and Reason are actually quite compatible, and from a Catholic perspective are interdependent. On the relationship between Faith and Reason [vatican.va]
Of course, It's always just a lot easier to criticize the Catholic Church and those that represent it as backward, anti-Science and probably involved in some kind of conspiracy. Trouble is, the truth just wants to be free.
Re:Academic hysteria (Score:4, Insightful)
If scientists capture the Pope and threaten to torture him to death unless he recants all religious positions that don't match modern science, then it would be bigotry. It's not "just like" something if it's different. Sorry.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
no and yes.
Asking 'Why, or is there an answer at all' is the right statement of the question.
In mathematics, a solution of "Solution does not exist" supported by a correct proof is a perfectly satisfactory answer.
I see no reason why in philosophy a similar answer wouldn't be okay: 'There's no reason, and here's the logical proof.' A problem with no solution is still a problem, and we can cease search for the solution only when we find one, or we're positively sure none exists.
Re:What dialogue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, by this same logic, holding any position in any issue is neccessarily evil, because it fosters a culture in which it is acceptable to hold that position, and someone - an extremist - might decide to use force to force to defend that position. As a specific example, this makes Dawkins own position evil, because claiming that religion is evil fosters a culture in which extremists can justify killing religous people by claiming that they were evil - such as happened in Soviet Union.
In other words, Dawkins might be a decent scientist, but he sure is a lousy philosopher, and his constant using of his reputation as a scientist to lend credence to his crusade against religion is deceptive at the very least. He's more and more starting to resemble an atheist version of Jack Chick [wikipedia.org].
Re:What dialogue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What dialogue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, I'll answer and go for the bonus.
You see, not everybody in the world has the blazing logical clarity that Slashdotters typically have which enables them to see that mass murder is inherently illogical. When this happens, it is the function of the religious people to assert that there is a powerful (almighty) deity who does not approve of mass murder. If the illogical would-be mass murderers pay attention to the religious people, then they refrain from commiting mass-murder.
That's the way it's supposed to work. The system isn't perfect. Sometimes religious people forget that the deity is against mass-murder and when that happens you get abberations such as crusades, jihads, the Spanish Inquisition, and so forth. Sometimes the illogical would-be mass murderers reject the religious people and then you have mass-murdering athiests such as Stalin and Pol Pot.
As I said, the system isn't perfect, but it is one layer of protection for society. Think of computer security: your system is more secure with multiple layers (anti-virus plus firewall) because each layer is itself somewhat permeable. In this case, religion serves as a kind of firewall.
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have GOT to take a history course at some point in your life.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't think you find the idea of murdering someone abhorrent because you're Muslim, do you?
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
The intollerance of religion is just as irrational (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dialoge? (Score:3, Insightful)
Science is a means of documenting observed phenomena and making predictions of future phenomena based on observed data. IF there is not repeatable, observable phenomena... then Science is mute on the subject and Philosophy exists as one means of poking at those sorts of topics. Science doesn't tell us everything about reality, it can only tell us about observable, repeatable events within reality.
Re:Liberal? Are you mad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a second....how in the hell are the Church's contraceptive policies killing people?
Condoms? If you're actually following church teachings, and having sex within a marriage, then what's the health risk of not using one? It seems silly to blame someone getting an STD from unprotected non-marital sex on the Catholic Church when the Catholic Church teaches that you shouldn't do that in the first place.
I can't imagine that you're insinuating that having more kids is dangerous. Even among Catholic families, birthrates are much lower in industrialized countries than it used to be, and in third world countries, birthrates are high no matter what your religion is. So again, it seems patently silly to blame the Church for childbirth morbidity for mothers, especially since modern medicine has largely made childbirth safe for even mothers with large families, even with the increased risk of having more children.