Pope praises Galileo's astronomy

 

Pope Benedict XVI has paid tribute to 17th-Century astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose scientific theories once drew the wrath of the Catholic Church.  BBC NEWS

It has been nearly 400 years since the papal trial in which he was found vehemently suspect of heresy for his teaching of the heliocentric theory.  Galileo was then placed under house arrest and his movements restricted by Pope Urban VIII.

I am delighted that the current pope has seen fit to acknowledge the truth of Galileo’s observations and his accounts thereof.  But I can only wonder how many more years it will require for the Catholic Church and the other religions of the world to acknowledge that God is a myth.

"There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell."
"There is only our natural world."
"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."
Freedom From Religion Foundation

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

In my mind this is a form of insanity in the modern world and a total denial of all the knowledge that homo sapiens have acquired in the past 30,000 or so years. I can accept that poets and writers use the concept for the entertainment of their reader, but the reader, except for a rare few, rarely goes away believing that rocks can think a believer.

I say rarely, because I just received my current AARP Magazine where I found this letter to the magazine.

Sinking Ship

I was on the National Geographic Endeavour, one of the two ships that steamed to the rescue of the sinking M.S. Explorer [“Mayday in the Antarctic”]. Our captain remarked that the Explorer, nearing its final voyage, may have chosen to remain in those waters, and selected that moment, when its passengers could be rescued, to end its historic life. To those of us who witnesses this event, this actually seemed possible.  John Curtis, Heath Texas

This one stopped me in my tracks because it is pure Cro-Magnon insanity:

• That the captain of a scientific research vessel, someone that should have both knowledge of and respect for science rather than some strange mysticism, ascribed multiple human traits to an object.
  • He said that the ship made an intellectual choice to sink rather than complete its voyage.
  • He implied that the ship felt compassion towards its passengers and made a deliberate choice to sink where they could be saved.
• That someone, anyone, that heard those remarks would go away believing this strange mysticism, and repeat it and their belief in it, especially in a magazine that prides itself on providing their members with the facts and rational thinking they need to understand and deal with our modern society.
• That the editors of AARP Magazine, from the hundreds of letters they receive from their readers, many of them probably filled with facts and rational thinking, selected that letter to print and promulgate this strange mysticism.

To me, a science oriented atheist, this is how religion got started. Humans, unable to understand the world around them, used anthropomorphic concepts to explain their world. Gradually they expanded their explanation to mysticism and gods of many kinds.  Then when some humans realized that they could profit from the Cro-Magnon beliefs of their fellow humans, priests were born and modern humans have been plagued ever since.

Perhaps, for the Cro-Magnons still among us, the captain of the National Geographic Endeavour just became a priest of a new religion, Mr. Curtis his first apostle, and the letter to AARP will become their first epistle.

I really don’t mean to denigrate the Cro-Magnons of thousands of years ago, just those among us that have never evolved any further.

What will the Scientific Community do?

CHICAGO, June 28 (UPI) -- The Field Museum in Chicago said a massive study of bird genetics has completely redrawn the avian evolutionary tree.

"The results of the study are so broad that the scientific names of dozens of birds will have to be changed, and biology textbooks and bird watchers' field guides will have to be revised," The Field Museum said Thursday in a release.

An international research team spent more than five years examining DNA from all major living groups of birds. The findings are published in the journal Science.

The study found that colorful hummingbirds evolved from drab nocturnal nightjars, falcons are not closely related to hawks and eagles and tropicbirds are not closely related to pelicans and other water birds.

"Our study and the remarkable new understanding of the evolutionary relationships of birds that it affords was possible only because of the technological advances of the last few years that have enabled us to sample larger portions of genomes," said Shannon Hackett, associate curator of birds at The Field Museum. DNA study shakes up bird family tree - UPI.com

What they will do is what separates science from religion. The scientific community will completely rewrite all of the material and scientists will completely revise their thinking and their teaching to agree with this new and remarkable data. Oh, there will be individual scientists that will refuse to let go of the traditional dogma, but the bulk of scientific community will change almost overnight.

On the other hand we have seen no religion do that in spite of the overwhelming evidence that human DNA and animal DNA are identical in some areas. The major religions still contend that humans were created by their god in the image of that god. Oh, there are individual religious “leaders” that have let go of some of the traditional dogma, but the massive bulk of the religious community steadfastly clings to archaic and superstitious drivel from the dark ages.

Update

Allow me to refer you to a wonderful example of this. Please see the post by biologist P Z Myers, and the comment too, at: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/amylase_and_human_evolution.php

My Brain is Scientific - Yours is ?

Scientific thinking, education, common sense, and any other rational thinking process will never be able to overcome the lack of thought I see in people of faith.

People of faith do not actually need to think, they "believe" and that is enough for them.  Because they believe, then all of the facts and data that humans have available to us are meaningless to them.  This information is as useless to them as it would be to a sea slug.  (Sorry sea slugs.)

What a bizarre world it must be to them.  Every day they are presented with huge amounts of scientific information.  Some of this information may be of value to them in their lives or profession, so they assimilate this while all of the rest must be discarded.  I can only imagine that their brain has a kind of filter, much like our email systems do, that sifts out irrelevant, to them, information before it can enter any actual thinking process.

If "belief" were the only issue, then rational people, scientific thinking people, and other non-believers would probably ignore the stupidity that accompanies belief.  But "belief" is not the real issue.   Believers also believe that scientific thinking is not to be tolerated.  Their cause is to dominate and control the lives of others.   Their goal is to determine the reality that the rest of us live in.

They would never have an abortion, except when they decide it is okay for them, therefor they will outlaw abortion for everyone.   They approve of "under God" to be included in the American Pledge of Allegiance, so they enact the law requiring it there.   They proudly proclaim their full, complete and unfettered support for the U. S. Constitution, and then decide to amend it willy nilly.  Remember prohibition?

Regardless of religion, ethnicity, and sex these people are everywhere, and they want to govern your lives.  The nice old lady, in her house of worship, is a very dangerous person.  Her pronouncements of right, wrong and what is truth are not based on anything other that her beliefs.  Facts and consideration for others do not deter her.   When we see young people throwing their and other lives away, remember they were influenced by sweet old granny.

It is not absurd to think that "believers" can and will believe in the most idiotic ideas around.  There are people that believe that the world is flat and you can not convince them otherwise.  I know someone that firmly believes that no human ever went to the moon and that all of NASA's  scientific discoveries about space are a hoax. 

When "believers" are just ordinary citizens, they do not present much of a risk to the rest of us.  But when they have, money and positions of power and influence, they are a threat to our liberty, freedom and to human progress. 

Example? You would like a couple of examples?  Okay - try these:

• An educated idiot with some influence and a forum.
• A really well educated idiot with seemingly impeccable credentials.

I can not imagine how people, like these, trained in the sciences can reject scientific method, practice and the wealth of evidence so easily in support of a "belief".   It does seem that much of the thinking of the "dark ages" is still with us.   

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