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This week we covered two thing, one is the role other historical societies affected the founding of the United States, the other was about how Science works and its role in the founding of the United States.
The readings this week started off with what I see is wrong with our education system as a whole. Some want creation taught, some don’t want it taught. I actually want a happy medium. DISCUSSION. But lets talk about the readings first.
Had to read an excerpt from, “The Scientific Reception System, from The Velikovsky Affair: The Warfare of Science and Scientism”
Velikovsky you see had some radical scientific opinions in 1966. Like Venus was hot, the earth’s rotation is affected by sun spot activity, species destruction was more from crisis events rather than evolution… you know all those things we know as fact today! However his thoughts were so out there, that the scientific community wouldn’t even give him the chance to discuss his views. The rest of the scientific community closed him out.
The readings went over the ‘rules’ of being a scientist. How things come from ‘thought’ to ‘fact’. Velikovsky tried to go through this process, yet was told to go away. To me this is where it relates to my Christian tradition. If the creationist are idiots, then let them go through the process (which includes plenty of chance for rebuttal). However as Ben Steins movie, Expelled: No intelligence Allowed, there is no allowance for even the discussion. Now sure, some will scoff at this about how silly creationism is. But what about global warming? The same thing is happening there. If you are a scientist against global warming, you are ridiculed. We need to stop allowing scientist to crush conversation. They’ve been proven wrong before and they will be proven wrong again, and again, and again, and again.
Next we started talking about the influence of the Greek society on the United States. A few of thing things from them that helped make us… us, from Who Killed Homer? by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath.
* The free exchange of news.
* Rational inquiry about the physical and material world.
* Pursuit of knowledge.
Then as they went over the Greek culture they went over a difference between us and them. We today try to find the good in all situations. We try to rationalize the Islamic world. They said the following:
No ancient Greek would today believe that the Islamic world, with a bit more patience, will learn the advantages of our democracy
Next we went over Rome’s influence on the USA. This is an influence I’ve always known. This is pretty well known, and the comparisons are pretty similar.
Next we went over the Christian influence on the USA. If anybody really believes that this country had no expectation to have a highly Christian influence by the vast majority of our founding fathers, they are fooling themselves at best. Lying at worst. But a few of the things that were said by Robert Royal in “Who Put the West in Western Civilization?”:
* America’s expanse West was largely driven by the missionary fervor in Christianity.
* “It took the Christian church to shift social mores both among the elites and throughout the general population. Along with homosexuality, the ancient practices of suicide, infanticide, and slavery slowly diminished in the West.”
Then it covered the reaction to the American’s to the Indians. Americans are looked down upon due to our pushing of the American Indian from ‘their land’. This is what he said (emphasis mine):
When we think of Indians today, our view of them as weak, essentially benign group of peoples badly treated for centuries, colors our historical judgment. But the peoples and cultures of the New World before the spread of European influence differed widely from one another and did not always display characteristics that anyone would wish to defend today. Despite the special-pleading by defenders of Native Americans, cannibalism existed without a doubt among the Aztecs, Guaranf, Iroquois, Caribs, and several other tribes. Pedro Fernades Sardinha (Sardine), the unfortunately named first bishop of what is now Bahia, Brazil, for example, was eaten by the Caete, a local tribe. Human sacrifice was practiced by the high cultures and several groups not so developed. Slavery and torture were widespread from the Southern Cone to the Pacific Northwest. Cultural difference between Europeans and native Americans made mutual understanding difficult and made encounters bloody. But if these cultures had been left alone and were still intact today, most of us would think that humanity and reason required intervention, for good Western reasons. It is only ignorance – of history and anthropology – that permits a sentimental view of people who have, without question, been badly treated.
It is against this background that we must view the modern history of the West.
Well we’ll call it a post for this week. 99% of you have stopped reading by now anyways :-).