[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Chris Gehlker]

On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:32 AM, Matt Johnston wrote:

> Jesus Christ.
>
> To be honest Chris, you're using the same tactics that Creationists  
> use.
>
> If we define a committed Christian as one who allows his life to be
> guided solely by the Holy Book, old testament and new, then we cannot
> in any conscience call Isaac Newton a committed Christian.

Damn, I see now how you could read it that way but that wasn't my  
intention at all. By 'committed' I merely meant that he wasn't faking  
to get along. I believe the fact that he petitioned the King to  
relieve him of the ordination requirement to hold a chair at Cambridge  
rather than simply accept ordination show an unwillingness to fake it.

> If we define a genuine scientist to be one who observes the world
> using the scientific method and who does not permit himself to be
> rules by shim or flights of fancy, then we cannot count Isaac Newton
> as a genuine scientist.

You are, of course, free to use words however you want and I certainly  
don't have any trouble following you. To me though, a 'scientist' is  
simply someone who does science the way  a musician is someone who  
does music. You don't have to play  an instrument every  waking hour  
to be a musician.

What it think is special about Newton, though, is that he does seem to  
be making an heroic attempt to integrate all his beliefs into a  
consistent whole. Contrast the the Mormon geologist who just holds  
inconsistent beliefs in the different compartments of his life.[1]

> Isaac Newton was a great thinker and natural philosopher. He was also
> a human being in England in the 17th and 18th century. He sought to
> explain all he could and he attributed the variety and scope of the
> universe to God. To make this distinction of scientist OR Christian is
> to show a disingenuous interpretation of the period in which he lived.
> And if to win points we must argue about the lives of 300 year old
> astronomers then I think neither will win.

I am certainly not the one making an either/or distinction.

> Isaac Newton was a great thinker and natural philosopher. He was also
> a human being in England in the 17th and 18th century. He sought to
> explain all he could and he attributed the variety and scope of the
> universe to God. To make this distinction of scientist OR Christian is
> to show a disingenuous interpretation of the period in which he lived.
> And if to win points we must argue about the lives of 300 year old
> astronomers then I think neither will win.

It does say he was " an English physicist, mathematician,  
astronomer,natural philosopher," and that he "wrote a number of  
religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible,  
as he considered himself to be one of a select group of individuals  
who were specially chosen by God for the task of understanding  
Biblical scripture."

[1] So his son tells me. I really don't know enough about either  
geology or the Mormon religion to tell.
--
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who  
could not hear the music.
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)