IC please clarify for us

[Walker]

How does your unsupported assertion(s) relate to the topic?
Are you trying to say that none of these inventions came from Judeo-Christian cultures?

[Immanuel Can]

The scientific method was first developed during the Islamic Golden Age , most notably by Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haytham also known as Alhazen (965-1040 CE).

No, actually, it wasn't. It was invented by Francis Bacon, the father of Western science. Here's the myth of Islam's alleged "Golden Age," from a secular site.

https://medium.com/@relentlessreasoning ... 4b81344a54

[Immanuel Can]

Why should we assume...

No, no, Gary. No running away. Answer the question. Or admit you cannot. Then we'll go on.

I guess my question will go unanswered, then. As have many of my other questions posed to you.

You have to answer questions yourself, Gary...this isn't a one-way street. If you're not prepared to answer, then this isn't a conversation, and you aren't doing any skeptical self-analysis or personal soul-searching along the way. You're not prepared to learn, then.

So what would be the point?

[Walker]

How does your unsupported assertion(s) relate to the topic?
Are you trying to say that none of these inventions came from Judeo-Christian cultures?

(continued)

Well, I'll do the thinking for you, based on your premises.
I'll do it for you, to show you some thinking based on political philosophy, rather than merely reciting as an agent of AI.

Question:
The United States is the land of opportunity, but what does that mean?

Thinking:
In fact, the United States is the land of thieves, opportunists, and pragmatists.
Australia is the land of criminals.
Europe is the land of the elites, the affectationers.

- Because of Judeo-Christian principles that created a social system freeing the creative power of man for the benefit of humanity, and not just some elite king, the United States has stolen civilization-advancing inventions from other countries.

- Why?

- Because the moribund social systems of these other countries inhibited public benefit in favour of elitism, the upper tier of class structure.

- Never-the-less, updated applications of Roman sewer and infrastructure technology applied by England to Africa and India were powerful enough to overcome any barriers to make colonialism comfortable for the invaders out in the boondocks.

Or so it would seem.

[MikeNovack]

IC, READ the article you suggested we read. It is NOT saying "Islam's Golden Age was a myth". It is arguing wasn't a golden age BECAUSE OF orthodox Islam (that orthodox Islam was not the CAUSE of this Golden Age). Not the same thing, and the article does not even consider the possible role of "un-orthodox" Islam in the same time period.

For example, are you suggesting Francis Bacon "invented the scientific method" BECAUSE of his Christianity? An excellent case can be made that science developed IN SPITE OF Christianity (Bruno was burned at the stake, Galileo suppressed, --- even hundreds of years later many were having their work published posthumously, their lives no longer at risk). The "Stokes Trial" was 1925 in the US so Christian religion vs science not something of the distant past.

[phyllo]

Well, I'll do the thinking for you, based on your premises.

You can't even think for yourself.

[Walker]

Well, I'll do the thinking for you, based on your premises.

You can't even think for yourself.

Without yourself to think or me to think for you, you're in a pickle.

*

Question to AI:
How many experiments did Edison conduct to invent a workable light bulb?

AI Answer:
Thomas Edison conducted thousands of experiments, testing over 6,000 materials, to develop a practical incandescent lightbulb.

Commentary:
Edison was a moron.
He should have just called England, the inventor of the light bulb.
Would have saved a lot of time and effort.

If Edison spent so much time inventing a workable lightbulb,
does that mean that England's lightbulb didn't work?
Nothing more annoying, is there.

We have those low wattage bulbs strung about the yard.
It creates a festive atmosphere at night.
It's a multi-candle candle effect.
Thanks Tommy E, and I suppose England too.
Just recently I replaced six of them, and was able to quickly replenish the stock thanks to capitalism.

Capitalism caters to the luxuries such as light at night.

[Immanuel Can]

IC, READ the article you suggested we read. It is NOT saying "Islam's Golden Age was a myth". It is arguing wasn't a golden age BECAUSE OF orthodox Islam (that orthodox Islam was not the CAUSE of this Golden Age).

That's about the silliest thing you've said so far, I have to say. It's really bizarre.

In what sense was the "Golden Age" ISLAMIC, when none of its alleged "achievements" were ever achieved by Islam?

..."un-orthodox" Islam...

Islamists have names for these people. First, they call them "apostates": then they call them "dead."

For example, are you suggesting Francis Bacon "invented the scientific method" BECAUSE of his Christianity?

Very much so. And I'm not the first to propose it, either. Not only did Bacon himself claim it, but also the thesis has been developed by later philosophers, most notably A.N. Whitehead. It's known as "Whitehead's Hypothesis."

Stanley Jaki and C.S. Lewis have also contributed to it, but the case is really good: the reason science never appeared in polytheisitic, pagan, gnostic or other mystic societies was not because their people were stupid. It was because their worldview taught them not to expect regularity in nature. The Judeo-Christian view, on the other hand, taught them to expect that they would find that nature was under the creation and laws of one God, and hence, rational and explorable. And when Bacon et al applied systematic rigor to that expectation, they discovered that that was absolutely the case.

Bruno was burned at the stake, Galileo suppressed

Actually you can blame another doctrinaire and mystical system for that: Catholicism. But you should also research the real Galileo story, because most of what you've heard about it was merely secular myth making, you'll find.

The "Stokes Trial"

You mean the "Scopes Trial," I must assume. That was over Evolutionism, and nobody got burned at the stake. If arguing against a bad hypothesis is verboten, then science is out, for sure. But again, you need to read the history there; it's decidedly not what you've been told.

Let me help: a quick and easy summary of the falsehoods and misrepresentations you've evidently been taught about these incidents can be can be found in Sampson's "6 Modern Myths..."

[Gary Childress]

No, no, Gary. No running away. Answer the question. Or admit you cannot. Then we'll go on.

I guess my question will go unanswered, then. As have many of my other questions posed to you.

You have to answer questions yourself, Gary...this isn't a one-way street. If you're not prepared to answer, then this isn't a conversation, and you aren't doing any skeptical self-analysis or personal soul-searching along the way. You're not prepared to learn, then.

So what would be the point?

If I had answers to give you for your question, I would answer. Otherwise, I can only give speculation. I didn't see any use in that. I'm more interested in hearing your expert analysis. You seem to have all the answers to everything. I don't.

[Immanuel Can]

I guess my question will go unanswered, then. As have many of my other questions posed to you.

You have to answer questions yourself, Gary...this isn't a one-way street. If you're not prepared to answer, then this isn't a conversation, and you aren't doing any skeptical self-analysis or personal soul-searching along the way. You're not prepared to learn, then.

So what would be the point?

If I had answers to give you for your question, I would answer. Otherwise, I can only give speculation.

I said one of your options was to say, "I don't know." That's not a lot to expect.

[MikeNovack]

But you should also research the real Galileo story, because most of what you've heard about it was merely secular myth making, you'll find.

LOL, I don't have to research this. I know full well many of Galileo's experiments were myths (myths that he conducted the actual physical experiments). Galileo was operating at a theoretical level, setting up reductio ad absurdum thought experiments against the older theories of motion. Thus -- by the older theory "a heavier object would fall faster" implies two one pound canon balls dropped side by side would fall slower than the two balls connected by a rod, even connected by a spider thread. And what if when the two balls fell it was past a candle that burned the thread? That would slow down the rate of fall? So "heavier falls faster" HAS TO BE wrong meaning "fall at same speed" must be correct << because the reductio ad absurdum would work equally well against "lighter objects fall faster" >>

Theoretical Physics suggests the experiments (to test theories) rather than results of experiments suggesting theories, but we tend not to teach it that way. Same in the other sciences.

[Immanuel Can]

But you should also research the real Galileo story, because most of what you've heard about it was merely secular myth making, you'll find.

LOL, I don't have to research this.

I think perhaps you still do. None of what you mentioned had to do with the circumstances of his run in with the Catholic hierarchy. That's where the interesting information lies.

[Walker]

If I had answers to give you for your question, I would answer. Otherwise, I can only give speculation. I didn't see any use in that. I'm more interested in hearing your expert analysis. You seem to have all the answers to everything. I don't.

If Socrates was actually dishonest enough to claim to know nothing, he must have gazed into a clear pool and wondered to the image, "Do you think a philosopher thinks, or does a philosopher just ask speculative questions?"

*

Ben Franklin believed in God.

“And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” Revelation 22:5

Figuratively:
God’s light is enlightenment.
Literally:
Electricity is neither a candle, nor light of the sun.

Question to AI:
Did Ben Franklin bottle electricity?

AI answer:
Benjamin Franklin did not literally “bottle” electricity, but he played a key role in developing the Leyden jar, an early device that could store static electricity for later use.”

(Maybe I should have asked unimaginative AI if Benjamin Franklin "jarred" electricity, without surprising it.)

A logical conclusion based on Franklin’s beliefs:
God spoke to Franklin, and Franklin listened.
One could do worse in life than to be the face on the Benjamins in a culture of abundance.

[Gary Childress]

You have to answer questions yourself, Gary...this isn't a one-way street. If you're not prepared to answer, then this isn't a conversation, and you aren't doing any skeptical self-analysis or personal soul-searching along the way. You're not prepared to learn, then.

So what would be the point?

If I had answers to give you for your question, I would answer. Otherwise, I can only give speculation.

I said one of your options was to say, "I don't know." That's not a lot to expect.

I just did.

[Fairy]

If I had answers to give you for your question, I would answer. Otherwise, I can only give speculation.

I said one of your options was to say, "I don't know." That's not a lot to expect.

I just did.

You are asking the wrong questions when you claim you don’t know the answer.