Guardian Discussion Benderillo 28 April 2014 10:36am Of all Catholic rituals, sanctification drips with medieval nonsense. What part of Catholicism doesnt? Paulhalsall 28 April 2014 9:20pm You mean like cathedrals, Gregorian chant, polyphonic music, and the development of legal (Bologna) and educational (Paris) systems based on the rational collection and organisation of evidence, and then systematically logical argument. Logic may not in fact have progressed much beyond Aristotle until Frege, but its establishment at the core of Western Christendom (i.e. the direct antecedent to Western Civilisation and forms of knowledge) was a direct result of the Catholic middle ages. Michael80 29 April 2014 1:15pm Logic developed despite the domination of Catholicism in the Middle Ages, not because of it. Malkatrinho 29 April 2014 1:44pm Super work there from the Catholic faith. Much appreciated, holding everything together through the Dark Ages until the Renaissance turned up. Now, then. What has it done lately to advance civilisation? Some would say its work is done. Paulhalsall 29 April 2014 4:33pm You mean William of Moerbeke OP (1215-35 – c.1286), (i.e. a Dominican, a member of the Order of Preachers) did not translate Aristotle directly from Greek to Latin, and that St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)(also a Dominican) did not constantly refer to Aristotle, and that Aquinas works were not the basis of philosophical education for the rest of the middle ages? Or that Canon Nicholas Copernicus (1473 – 1543) did not come up with a Heliocentric model of the Universe based on his medieval Platonism? Or that Fr. Pierre Gassendi (1592 – 1655) did not re-introduce Democritus theory of atoms to Western chemistry? Or that the committed Catholic Blaise Pascal did not in 1642 start some pioneering work on calculating machines...[and]... after three years of effort and fifty prototypes,he was one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator.] Nor that he did not begin the removal of a by then dogmatic Aristotelian physics? Or that Friar Gregor Mendel (1822–84) did not pioneer genetics and Fr Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966) did not propose the Big Bang theory? Odd, all these things that did not happen. Or perhaps you are a bit too influenced by the entirely discredited work of Andrew Dickson White (the founder of Cornell University), who in 1896 proposed an eternal Warfare between Science and Religion? You know, the one who popularised the idea that medieval Christians (who repeatedly portrayed God in art as holding the world as a *globe*) thought the world was flat until Columbus? theguardian/commentisfree/2014/apr/28/catholic-rituals-canonisation-nonsense-popes-john-xxxiii-john-paul-ii
Posted on: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:39:09 +0000
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