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

[Chris Gehlker]

On Dec 6, 2007, at 9:02 AM, David Cake wrote:

> At 1:32 PM +0000 6/12/07, Matt Johnston wrote:
>> --
>> http://cimota.com/blog
>>
>> On 6 Dec 2007, at 13:06, Chris Gehlker <canyonrat at mac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Are you now willing to concede that Newton was both a committed
>>> Christian and a "genuine" scientist?
>>> --
>>
>> 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.
>
> 	Ah, you've slipped from committed Christian to committed
> fundamentalist, biblical literalist, Christian, by sneakily slipping
> in that 'solely'.
> 	Thus coming up with a definition of Christian that no
> technically no longer includes, say, the Pope or the Archbishop of
> Canterbury.
>
> 	We have some sort of maximal ironic projection horizon here
> -- the fundamentalists, of course, are very fond of telling people 
> that only biblical literalists are true Christians. So here is mark
> not only taking on a fundamentalist debating tactic, but accusing
> another of doing so by not following that particualr tactic! Huzzah!

I think Matt was likely mislead by my use of the word 'committed'. I  
meant it only as a synonym for 'sincere', but it is a bit ambiguous.

Anyway, I just got a call from one of the first archaeologists to  
actually specify what evidence would tend to confirm or deny certain  
hypotheses before he would let his students turn trowel on a dig  
saying that he  couldn't come to the Archaeological Society's  
Christmas Party because of a conflict with a function at his church.  
So now I have two contemporary examples of scientists that are at  
least somewhat religious.
---
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely  
or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate  
(1872-1970)