NOM

As I'm rushing out the door to work I did want to recommend an insightful article by Dan Peterson in today's Deseret News. Gotta run, I'd like to discuss it later.

Here's the article Deacon Blues is talking about: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865 ... igion.html
Peterson makes some good observations but he overlooks one important aspect. Of course religions didn't invent the geocentric cosmos, it was the obvious conclusion of people who were ignorant of the actual nature of he cosmos, BUT it was the church who actually persecuted people taught heliocentrism. In fact, it wasn't until the 1990s that the Catholic church officially admitted that the earth goes around the sun. In fact, there is a new movement of both Catholics and Protestants who continue to insist on a geocentric universe that's what the Bible claims. What Peterson should be focusing on is not a supposed war between religion and science, but between fundamentalism and critical thinking.

I enjoyed most of that article, and think Peterson makes some good points. Maybe I have a lingering anti-Peterson bias, but I still feel like he's trying to vilify his opponents by using terms like "anti-theists", and that last paragraph sounds like something strait out of an old FARMS article. But, he gives some great examples of anti-science atheists, and pro-science religious folk, which at the very least shows that individual anecdotes can't be used to represent a whole demographic.
I didn't know about Jonathan Edwards death! That was crazy! Also, I now want to read "Summer for the Gods"!

I agree that the war between science and religion is largely non-existent. But it is not only hyped by the "New Atheists." It is also hyped by fundamentalist theists.

But what would Dan say about a religion that makes scientifically testable claims about the ancestry of native Americans, the flora and fauna in the Americas, and the technology used in native American cultures? Is there a war between science and Mormonism? I don't think there is just because science ignores Mormonism without any negative consequence. To the extent that TBM's contribute to American archaeology, they do by ignoring their religious beliefs in professional work.

blazerb wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2017 7:51 pmBut what would Dan say about a religion that makes scientifically testable claims about the ancestry of native Americans, the flora and fauna in the Americas, and the technology used in native American cultures?

I believe he would say that science supports the Book of Mormon but only a handful of people (mostly employed by BYU) understand the subtle nuances of it. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he would not be able to explain that evidence to a non-Mormon scientist in a way that they would find even remotely convincing.

I had to check out this oxymoron for myself, that Dan Peterson wrote a good article.

And it's true, he made some good points, but Hagoth nailed it:

Hagoth wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:15 am Peterson makes some good observations but he overlooks one important aspect. Of course religions didn't invent the geocentric cosmos, it was the obvious conclusion of people who were ignorant of the actual nature of he cosmos, BUT it was the church who actually persecuted people taught heliocentrism. In fact, it wasn't until the 1990s that the Catholic church officially admitted that the earth goes around the sun. In fact, there is a new movement of both Catholics and Protestants who continue to insist on a geocentric universe that's what the Bible claims. What Peterson should be focusing on is not a supposed war between religion and science, but between fundamentalism and critical thinking.

And that is the fundamental debate happening RIGHT NOW in the LDS church - between the literalists (fundamentalists) and more progressive (critical thinking) members. Lots of collateral damage on both sides, I'm afraid. But I'm sure Bro. Peterson doesn't want to apply all of this to the actual church he's a member of. That would never do.

I agree. Like so many church leaders and apologists before him Peterson does not want to offend the fundamentalists. This is why for years I got to listen to fundamentalists go off in Gospel Doctrine classes, and why my views, confirmed later by the essays, were dismissed in the same classes. It seems a tacit admission that fundamentalists have thin skins, but I could be wrong.......could they? Naaaawwww.

I don't know. I felt like he cherry picked a few straw men to slaughter for a point. I suppose that his overall concept of allowing data to win, rather than dogma, tradition, or politics is wonderful. Knowing who he is and how he "see's data" without objectivity makes me very suspicious of his intent and motives.

Wouldn't it be great if the powerful and prominent apologist Dan would finally allow data to speak truth rather than doing exactly what his opening quote describes with letting his "knowing" get in the way.

Fortunately, the Church did not ban the works of Copernicus and Galileo and did not wish to subject Galileo to the Inquisition and its gentle methods of extracting bones and confessions - at least not in some alternate reality. Yes, that same alternate reality in which tapirs pulled steel chariots. The alternate reality in which Dominican friar Giordano Bruno, mathematician, and astronomer, was not burnt at the stake by the Inquisition. You know, the alternate reality where the world began somewhere around 4000 BCE. The one where dinosaur bones were not "planted" by the adversary to deceive. The one where Charles Darwin is not continually mocked by religious literalists. The one where pro-Mormon message boards do not continually assert that the theory of evolution is merely a theory.