afdave
Posts: 1621
Joined: April 2006
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[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. -Admin]
Hello everyone ... I think it's time to see if Wesley and Steve have once again become advocates of free and open discussion which includes POV's not shared by them. At one time they allowed me--a quite active creationist-- to post at this forum, but later got tired of me and "exiled" me to the Bathroom Wall. Read the story HERE. I will note that the other two forums--RD.net and IIDB--where I have been posting in the last year or so ARE open to other POV's including mine and have been fairly hospitable to me. Also, I have begun posting regularly at my own blog and have opened comments there for anyone to post, regardless of your POV.
So ... here we go ... will this post stay here where it should stay? Or will it take the fast track to the Bathroom Wall?
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(Robert Boyle, Founding Society Member, Father of Modern Chemistry, Christian Activist)
At the various forums where I converse with skeptics, I hear a common theme ... "Fundies are anti-science, authoritarian, not very smart denialists who would return the civilized world to the Dark Ages." I've always believed that this is utter and complete nonsense ... I think the opposite is actually true. But I have never attempted to document my position ... UNTIL NOW. When you begin to examine the evidence and quit reading modern revisionists, you find that, in a very real sense, it was "Fundies" who founded modern science.
First, what do I mean by a "fundy"? I mean a "fundamentalist" ... that is, someone who believes in the fundamentals of (in this case) the Christian Faith ... more specifically, the fundamentals of the Christian Faith articulated by the Protestant Reformation, for example, Calvinists, and even more specifically for this post ... Puritans.
Now I don't know if you are familiar with the Royal Society in England, but it is one of the most prominent scientific societies the world has ever known ... From the Encyclopedia Britannica ...
| Quote | The stimulus of free expression provided an impetus to scientific thought and developments in England. By the 18th century the achievements of the Royal Society were internationally famous. Its publication, Philosophical Transactions, begun in 1665, was one of the earliest periodicals in the West. Isaac Newton was elected to the society in 1671, and Edmond Halley, the astronomer, in 1678. In 1768 the society sponsored the first scientific expedition to the Pacific, under James Cook. In 1919 it sent an expedition to Principe Island, in the Gulf of Guinea, to photograph the solar eclipse of May 29, which verified Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and helped to make him famous.
http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9341636 |
In addition to the ones mentioned above, there was Robert Boyle, John Ray, Robert Hooke, Georges Cuvier, Charles Babbage, James Joule, Lord Kelvin, Joseph Lister and James Clerk Maxwell. OK? So we are talking about some of the world's leading scientists of the past ... the founders of whole new fields of modern science.
SO WHO STARTED THIS SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY AND WHY?
Again from EB ...
| Quote | Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is the oldest scientific society in Great Britain and one of the oldest in Europe. It began earlier with small, informal groups that met periodically to discuss scientific subjects. The so-called Invisible College of London and Oxford, which first met in 1645, and a number of small academies in England became incorporated in 1662 when the newly restored king, Charles II, granted a charter to the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge. Largely composed of Puritan sympathizers and adherents of Francis Bacon, the Royal Society received little more than moral support from the crown, unlike academies on the European continent, which were established by the state and whose members gained an income but lost their independence. Founders and early members of the Royal Society included the scientist Bishop John Wilkins, the philosopher Joseph Glanvill, the mathematician John Wallis, the inventor and microscopist Robert Hooke, and the architect Christopher Wren, who wrote the preamble to its charter.
http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9341636 |
Did you catch that? "Largely composed of Puritan sympathizers and adherents of Francis Bacon ..." Puritans? Did you say PURITANS? You mean those "witch-burning, small-minded, anti-science, authoritarian religious fanatics"? Yes, but as you can see, this stereotype is quite unfair ... simply a product of revisionist imagination.
So who founded Modern Science? Well ... we are not done with our study yet, but today we have seen that the Royal Society in England -- an arguably huge influence on modern science, if not the largest influence on modern science -- was founded largely by Puritan sympathizers.
IN OTHER WORDS ... FUNDIES!
So please, my skeptic friends ... let's not revise history and try to say that fundies are anti-science. Let's stick with the facts, shall we? While I am sure that there exist some fundamentalist Christians today who don't know much about science, there are many, many who do. ICR, AIG, GRISDA, CMI, CRS and other creationist organizations have many of them. And, as the fundies of bygone eras led society out of a scientific dark age, many of them are doing the same thing today -- leading science out of what Dembski describes as a subverted study of biological and cosmological origins, that is -- Darwinism and Materialistic Ideology.
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OTHER ARTICLES ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY
Christian History Institute July 15, 1662 ? Scientists Who Are Christians Found Royal Society ?2007
Brief history of the Society (From the Society's website) Note the failure to mention the Puritan influence. Interesting.
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You can comment here if you like or on my blog.
http://afdave.wordpress.com
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A DILEMMA FOR THE COMMITTED NATURALIST
A Hi-tech alien spaceship lands on earth ... DESIGNED.
A Hi-tech alien rotary motor found in a cell ... NOT DESIGNED.
http://afdave.wordpress.com/....ess.com
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