Good will to all men? Not from the grumpy atheists! (Thank God not all atheists are grumpy but there sure seems to be a lot of them)
Why is it that so many in the atheist community cannot bring themselves to get past their anger whenever they engage in discussions? The language of many of their contributions in public debate is laced with invective and dripping with sarcasm and bile. There are exceptions of course, but they tend to fall more into the category of being the 'exception that proves the rule' when compared to the hostility of many of today's atheist posters. Comment offered by the theists in the public square is often depicted as being 'malicious' or 'venomous' and intended to enslave the 'feeble minded and weak' by those who post. Nothing could be further from the truth. Venom is something that is oriented to death. Christians are oriented in a 180 degree different direction. We speak not to the culture of death that grips our world but rather for the culture of life and light which ends with the gift of eternal life. For example, the Catholic Church in its hum...
It would be nice if the reviewer saw the episode before they critiqued it. I haven't seen it (no cable) but will when it eventually comes out on itunes or something. I'm old enough to have seen the original when it was on PBS and I loved it.
ReplyDeleteRationalist: I watched the first episode last night. The reviewer is correct in as much as it concerns Church history (eg: Galileo was never shackled in irons in prison as was depicted in cartoon for proposing a heliocentric model of the universe) but imho, the positives in the program greatly outweighed the negative effect of such errors.
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim
Ooops! Not Galileo but Bruno. He was not condemned by the Church but by his scientific peers. Challenging orthodoxy was dangerous both in religious and science... at least in the 16th century. It is wrong to lay the blame for retarding scientific advancement solely at the feet of Church which is what happens in the program.
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim
I see it's on Youtube. I'll watch it later this week (when we finally get a TV). I thought Bruno was brought before the inquisition and tried for theological unorthodox both in theological matters and his speculations about other worlds.
ReplyDeleteI think the Catholic Church gets unfair blame for Galileo as they initially found no problems with his teaching but Protestants used it against the Catholics that they were departing from Scripture and the Church in an attempt to refute these claims clamped down. If Galileo had have been born in Norther Germany or England, he would have suffered the same fate in Protestant countries, perhaps worse./