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Why Should We Love Science?
#8
RE: Why Should We Love Science?
(June 12, 2015 at 1:22 pm)Minimalist Wrote:
Quote:We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

     These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll,

Ingersoll already explained this over a century ago.

In a few minutes a theist will come along and say that much science, art, and education was promoted and paid for by the church.  So I thought I beat them to the punch and point out that regardless of who sponsored and paid for it it was science not theology that bettered the human condition.  Improved agriculture, medicine, transportation, communications, engineering, and the works of men doing science not men praying or reinterpreting the Bible.

And I would add that the church has a rather mixed record with regard to science.  When it has been able, it has repressed results that conflict with then current theology, not by rational argument, but by force.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god.  If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
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Messages In This Thread
Why Should We Love Science? - by BoS - June 12, 2015 at 11:15 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Alex K - June 12, 2015 at 11:35 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by abaris - June 12, 2015 at 11:59 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Cato - June 12, 2015 at 12:00 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Minimalist - June 12, 2015 at 1:22 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Jenny A - June 12, 2015 at 1:50 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by abaris - June 12, 2015 at 4:04 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Chad32 - June 12, 2015 at 1:47 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Pyrrho - June 12, 2015 at 1:48 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Minimalist - June 12, 2015 at 2:02 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by comet - June 12, 2015 at 3:55 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Minimalist - June 12, 2015 at 4:26 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by comet - June 12, 2015 at 3:54 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by ignoramus - June 12, 2015 at 9:38 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by robvalue - June 12, 2015 at 3:57 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Longhorn - June 12, 2015 at 6:42 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Iroscato - June 12, 2015 at 6:55 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Cyberman - June 12, 2015 at 9:12 pm
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by robvalue - June 13, 2015 at 3:44 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Cyberman - June 13, 2015 at 4:27 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Mudhammam - June 13, 2015 at 5:18 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by BoS - June 15, 2015 at 2:00 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Iroscato - June 15, 2015 at 7:45 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Minimalist - June 15, 2015 at 2:11 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Longhorn - June 15, 2015 at 2:22 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Fidel_Castronaut - June 15, 2015 at 3:12 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by robvalue - June 15, 2015 at 8:59 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by Alex K - June 15, 2015 at 9:05 am
RE: Why Should We Love Science? - by LastPoet - June 15, 2015 at 12:16 pm

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