Thursday, September 13, 2012
Religion vs. Science
After our great discussion in class about, well I still don't fully understand what, I have a question for you all. Today, we were talking more about wether or not science and religion can coexist nowadays. Do you think that both science and religion could have coexisted during the time that we are talking about in World Civ? Why or why not? And what do you think needed to change in order to make them coexist? (With this question I am talking about the time from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance with the rise of Humanism up to what we are talking about now with the Counter-reformation.)
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ReplyDeleteI do not think it was possible for science and religion to coexist during the period we are talking about. If you think about it we are much more opened minded then the people back in the 1400s- 1600s and we did not come up with an answer to this question. We had an excellent discussion but we never got a complete answer. We did get a lot of varying viewpoints and for some of us we were able to think in ways that we never have before. But back to the question, I do not think it would be possible because of the amount of power that the church had. If we think back to what we are currently discussing, which would happen to be Galileo, he was put on trial for simply showing what his studies had shown him. Can you imagine if someone went even further and tried to convince everyone that science should be on the same level as religion?! The world would end! I think that before even the thought of science and religion being able to coexist could happen the church would have to ease up on controlling everything and just let the people think and discover new things freely.
ReplyDeleteI think Treazure has a good point, but I think that there is an important distinction between our time and theirs. We are thinking of the kind of science that we learn about in class. But Galileo didn't even view himself as a scientist. He thought of himself as a natural philosopher. I think that the science, if it can even be called that, was compatible with religion because its goal was to bring people closer to God. Pico himself says that being a philosopher, being a "scientist" of the day was the best thing a man could do. I think that the science and the religion of the time were compatible and did coexist for a long time.
ReplyDeleteNothing can change for them to exist or coexist or else we would not have the life we have today. They are essentially the same except for the ONE big difference that one is based on faith and the other on tests and observations. This means they can coexist. This is dumbed down version of what I said in the discussion because you all heard it for 2 hours.
ReplyDeleteNick, just to clarify- are you arguing that they did coexist during the Renaissance? You only mentioned that they can coexist, not wether or not they did...
ReplyDeleteThey did. And they can now.
DeleteI don't think that science and religion could have coexisted in Galileo's time. Religion was much more important in that time. Most people weren't educated but everyone went to church and would have accepted religion over science. Also, religion wasn't just the accepted explanation of the time, but it was the true authority. The church controlled everything. Galileo's book did not contradict scripture, but it undermined the authority of the church. The church would not have wanted to feel threatened or proven wrong by the work of scientists.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Paige. I think to SOME extent science and religion did coexist back then but they couldn't always coexist without conflict. The Aristotelian view of the universe was able to coexist with religion at the time and science was sort of seen as a way of using the senses God gave us and improving ourselves to be in the likeness of God. Also, in some cases science supported religion; for the questions science could not answer, that's where religion came into play. It made people awestruck and speculative about how God did it and more appreciative of God.
ReplyDeleteI think the only reason why Galileo's books were declared heretic because it was a major idea that went against the current belief (Aristotelian model of the universe). The situation is similar to how paintings about Greek gods and philosophy were considered "pagan" during the Medieval age. They were considered pagan because many of the Greek philosophers lived before Christ, but later on during the Renaissance, Christians were more openminded to the Greek classics. This can be seen in Boticelli's "Primavera," "Birth of Venus," and Raphael's "School of Athens." People were stubborn and were unwilling to accept something that went completely against what they believed in their whole life. This caused conflict because, as Emily said before, the Church was the true and only authority at the time. Galileo's book undermined the whole system and view of the world.