Pope Fires his Chief Astronomer

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
You don't get it do you? We are not going to visit your stupid site that requires a login to view a stupid article that we don't care about because we've actually gone over the same damn material more times than we care to remember.

EDIT: Especially not when you try to insult us at the same time. Also nice posting history. I like how half your posts have a link to your amazing website and the rest of them are about it.

I just tried to take one for the team and visit the URL. Not only do you need to sign in to MSN Passport, you first have to apply to the group and then become approved by its administrator before you can read it.

Whatever happened to sharing the gospel?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
I just tried to take one for the team and visit the URL. Not only do you need to sign in to MSN Passport, you first have to apply to the group and then become approved by its administrator before you can read it.

Whatever happened to sharing the gospel?

Let me guess. You were not found worthy. Do you think Ivanhoe is running it?

Originally posted by kirksey957
Let me guess. You were not found worthy. Do you think Ivanhoe is running it?

I don't know.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the topic title. Why the Pope would need an astronomer - a chief astronomer, at that, indicating that he has a whole team of them - is truly beyond me.

Reverend, does your church have a staff astronomer?

Well you know that for most of the mideval and Renaissance periods, and even well into the 18th centruy the Church (as in the RC Church) was a primary supporter of reseach and teaching of the sciences. The Church even turned entire cathedrals into giant pinhole cameras to measure the apparent diameter of the solar disk at various times of the year. You should read historian of science John Heilbron's 'The Sun in the Church.'
There still exists the Papal Academy of Sciences of which Stephen Hawkings is a member. To have a chief astronomer, in light of the Church's involvment in science is hardly surprising.

Originally posted by LutherMaher

There still exists the Papal Academy of Sciences of which Stephen Hawkings is a member.

Who?

minus the 's' in Hawkings

Originally posted by LutherMaher
minus the 's' in Hawkings

Oh, you mean this guy? You're putting up this guy as the poster boy for the Papal Academy?


'The man who is believed by many to be the world's greatest living scientist, Stephen W. Hawking, has an insightful comment regarding his own audience with the pope, in his best-selling book, A Brief History of Time (Bantam Books, 1988). He had been a speaker at a high-level papal scientific conference on cosmology. After which he describes his encounter thus:

At the end of the conference the participants were granted an audience with the pope. He told us it was all right to study the evolution of the universe after the Big Bang, but we should not inquire into the Big Bang itself because that was the moment of creation and therefore the work of God. I was glad then that he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference—the possibility that space-time was finite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment of Creation.

That being the case, according to his cosmological mathematics, he concludes: "What place, then, for a Creator?" (p. 140). Hawking's book refers frequently to God, but he ends up concluding in his heart: "There is no god." '

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/b-pope-accepts-evolution.htm

simply pointing out that the Church is still very involved in the study of science

Originally posted by LutherMaher
simply pointing out that the Church is still very involved in the study of science

If that were the case, why would the chief astronomer be fired? Did he fail to adhere to the scientific method? Did he fake experimental results?

Is sounds to me that what is actually the case is that the church is still very involved in the retardation of scientific advancement and in keeping knowledge within a short leash of Genesis.

yes but you dont know what youre talking about
think logically: if the church has an astronomer (and a chief astronomer at that) to fire, chances are they are still involved in science
no retardation is taking place, the RC Church is not the ICR or AiG who because of their inability to place the Biblical texts in the contexts of the authors day, somehow contrive theories about how Biblical authors and specifically Genesis ones, had asstrology, cosmology, biology and natural history in mind when the Creation stories were being composed...
The fact that the RC church was willing to reconcile Galileo's findings and alter their interpretations of the Scriptures because of them, and the fact that they were able to do the same with Darwin, show that the RC Church is not merely as dogmatic as you allege

Originally posted by LutherMaher

The fact that the RC church was willing to reconcile Galileo's findings and alter their interpretations of the Scriptures because of them

You are simply naive if you think that reconciliation came about due to the church's scientific integrity.

It came about because they would be the laughing stock of the entire enlightened human popluation if they continued to assert that that earth was the center of the universe.

name me an organization that has done more in human history to promote the sciences?
also you are still recycling the over-simplified generalizations that permeate the majority of laypeaoples examinations of past historical/scientific issues
read my article, which is based on an intelligence that has not penetrated this discussion from your perspective yet
its about information, and your in need

Originally posted by LutherMaher
name me an organization that has done more in human history to promote the sciences?
also you are still recycling the over-simplified generalizations that permeate the majority of laypeaoples examinations of past historical/scientific issues
read my article, which is based on an intelligence that has not penetrated this discussion from your perspective yet
its about information, and your in need

"Name me an organization." LOL. You are a joke. The Nazis did more real science in their short reign than the Vatican has done in its entire history.

Name [me] an organization that has done more to retard scientific advancement.

im afraid we are argueing this from two different intellectual levels, and my eyes are hurting from having to squint down at you, so im going to leave it at that i guess. at some point in a conversation youve got to realize that progress is not being made and will not be...you want my article ill send it to you, and if you have any questions id be happy to field them...at this point though that would have to be how future correspondence on this issue will be (Q&A) but since you may not have a realistic view of your own abilities in this regard, let me bid you farewell

Name a scientific breakthrough brought about by the Catholic Church.

EDIT: Name a scientist who was forced to recant a scientific finding after threatening from the Catholic Church.