> eric brunsell

I’m a Catholic.  I even go to Church frequently. Lately, I have started playing a little game…I try to predict how long it will take for my Priest to say secular or secularist. He has a curious obsession with “secular society,” and all the ills it brings.  Anyway, I wasn’t disappointed. This past Sunday it was the first word in his Homily, “Secular scientists…”  Woo hoo, this should be interesting!  A few sentences later, he said, ”So, if those secularists and atheiests want to pick a fight with the Church about being anti-science, they’re picking a fight with the wrong people.”

 Let me get this straight?  Secular scientists are picking a fight with the Catholic Church?  Since when? The Catholic Church has been pretty consistently pro-science over the past 30-40 years.  Now, if we are talking about Biblical Literalists, that is a different story.  Even then, I would say that it isn’t the scientists trying to pick the fight, it is the literalists.  Anyway, now I was REALLY curious to see where he was going with this.  Here are a few of the points that he made -

1. The Catholic Church did not persecute Galileo for his scientific beliefs. According to the Rev., Galileo wasnt’ the first to propose a Copernican model for the Solar System. Galileo was persecuted because he promoted the Copernican model as the truth instead of a theory…even when there was no evidence. 

He’s right there…that is why it is named after Copernicus, not Galileo! Galileo was persecuted because he referred to the Copernican model as the truth…instead of just a theory.  He was persecuted because he didn’t have enough evidence to support his claim.  I beg to differ on this point.  Galileo DID have evidence, just not the piece that the Church wanted.  They wanted proof of parallax, but technology wasn’t good enough.  However, Galileo did have proof in the form of phases of Venus.

2. If the Church was anti-science, give one other case besides Galileo.  ”You Can’t!” he challenged the congregation. 

I almost shouted back, ”Giordano Bruno.” Since Homilies are generally not participatory events, I just leaned over and whispered it to my wife…loud enough for all of our neighbors to hear.  Bruno, while obviously not right about everything, was executed in a rather gruesome way in part because of his claim that life on Earth was not unique.  We still don’t have evidence of life beyond Earth today, but to many contemporary scientistis, it wouldn’t come as a surprise.

3. Science has its roots in Christianity.  

I have not gotten my hands around this one.  Science and Christianity did both evolve out of Western civilizations, but is it fair to say that science wouldn’t have happened without Christianity?  Also, the beginnings of scientific thought did arise out of pre-Christian Greek thinking.  Eratosthenes of Cyrene designed and confirmed aa way to calculate the circumference of the Earth about 200 BC. It is quite possible that he also determined the distance between the Earth and Sun within 1%.

4.  This claim drove me crazy.  “Scientists have never created anything, they just discover the order that God put in place.” 

Let’s get this straight, scientists “discovered” the integrated circuit? On the 8th day did God create television?  Scientists apply underlying principles to create new things.

5. He concluded by saying that science without Christian belief lacks wisdom. 

 I’m sure there are scientists in many other places in the world that would disagree with this.  What is true is that society (secular, Christian, or other) determines if science is used ethically or unethically.

 I can’t figure out why he went with this Homily on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. Any ideas?   

This entry was posted on February 4, 2008 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Science Illiteracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.