S///R///W/B Mythless Patterns

[Paul Mackin]

What Jody points out, and several others also yesterday, is
certainly correct but wasn't the point I was trying
(clumsily) to make. I was merely taking note of the fact that
Christianity's incorporation of Greek philosophy into its theology was an
important  step in the future development of modern science
(regardless of where the West picked up its Aristotle). Aquinas
applied Aristotelean reason and metaphysics to faith. Galileo (et al)
applied similarly precise thought, divorced from faith, to his
experimental data. Through St Thomas, Aristotle had become a habit in the
West, a habit the West has never broken.

Islam passed Aristotle to the West, did excellent science also thus
contibuting to Western Civilization but the point of the discussion
was Christianity's importance in the West. Outside the context of the
original thread the point sounds too obvious to deserve mention. Context
is everything.


Of course magic and alchemy also contibuted to the development of modern
science. The new always grows out of the old and only gradually
disentangles itself from the old. 

			P.


On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, jporter wrote:

> 
> 
> > From: Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net>
> 
> > 
> > On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Jeremy Osner wrote:
> > 
> >> Paul Mackin wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Another thing, it kept alive a lot of the best thought of the ancient
> >>> world. Plato, Aristotle, etc--the deciplines which later could be split off
> >>> from belief and made to work in the development of modern science
> >> 
> >> Hate to quibble but Muslim scholars were primarily responsible for preserving
> >> the writings of the Greek philosophers -- not much Greek was spoken in the
> >> Catholic church during the Middle Ages.
> > 
> > Absolutely. I was talking about presevation for the West. Christianity's
> > first cousin Islam was essential in the chain and got pretty far West
> > itself (Spain and all). Didn't intend to slight them.
> > P.
> 
> The Latin Church did little to preserve and much to hinder any thought,
> besides Christianity. Aquinas learned most of his Aristotle from Moors and
> Jews. Not to demean the central role of Christianity in providing one basis
> for Western Civilization, but Plato, et.al., were almost entirely preserved
> by Islam, and to a large extent, by the Jews- who were much less persecuted
> within the far more enlightened Islamic Civilization of "The Dark Ages."
> Some of the more enlightened Jews were even persecuted by their own Jewish
> brethren for a too overt neo-platonism.
> 
> The Classics, however, were not the only examples of unorthodox knowledge
> transmitted to the west by Islamic Scholars and Jews. There was also an
> undercurrent of secret knowledge carried along by, or complementing, the
> thrice great orthodoxies of the *revealed* monotheism(s). The cognoscenti,
> it seems, lived neither by revelation nor tradition alone, but relied on
> other sources, as well, for their inspiration.
> 
> This secret sharing of secret knowledge- not without risk- across walls both
> physical and spiritual of church, mosque and temple, as the ages, in their
> widening gyre, turned slowly to the west, played a fostering role in the
> gradual empowerment of secular knowledge. In retrospect, another lingering
> *grace note,* this time sacred, announcing the coming of a new hegemony.
> 
> jody    
> 
>  
>