MD- Deep Duck - Chapter 10 (sermon)

Tue Feb 17 10:38:25 CST 2015

Yeah, very solid point(s).. What I was suggesting with the " heavenly cosmos" phrase was the scholastic domination of a Religious explanation for it all.....you know, the belief system which led Galileo to mumble " but still it moves" 

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> On Feb 17, 2015, at 7:55 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Be careful in interpreting Smith & Yong's assertion that the work of Copernicus, Kepler and Newton "all combined to establish the regularities of heavenly and earthly bodies” -- and Mark, I question your "...when the non-empirical 'heavenly cosmos' was 'known' as if by declared truth."
> 
> The regularities of day and night, of the moon's phases and of tides, of the seasons, of the wheeling stars, had been empirically established for many millennia. If anything, the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer or Neolithic farmer, shepherd ("watching their flocks by night") or fisherman was more empirically aware of them than we are. Nor was mathematization of those regularities new: calendrics and astrology had built up a lot of rigorous apparatus before classical times. 
> 
> What was new was a change in *what counted as explanation*. 
> 
> 
>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 10:49 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>> Absolutely -  the real conflict between science and religion began with Darwin and "On the Origin of Species” (1859).  M&D takes place almost a century earlier.
>> 
>> Becky
>> 
>> 
>> > On Feb 16, 2015, at 2:03 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Becky writes:
>> >
>> > ** The scientific revolution "nurtured a growing awareness" that
>> > "there were universal laws of nature at work that ordered the movement
>> > of the world and its parts." James K. A. Smith and Amos Yong write
>> > that in "astronomy, the Copernican revolution regarding the
>> > heliocentrism of the solar system, Johannes Kepler's (1571-1630) three
>> > laws of planetary motion, and Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) law of
>> > universal gravitation--laws of gravitation and of motion, and notions
>> > of absolute space and time--all combined to establish the regularities
>> > of heavenly and earthly bodies."
>> >
>> > For Sir Isaac Newton, "the regular motion of the planets made it
>> > reasonable to believe in the continued existence of God."[4] Newton
>> > also upheld the idea that "like a watchmaker, God was forced to
>> > intervene in the universe and tinker with the mechanism from time to
>> > time to ensure that it continued operating in good working order."[5]
>> > Like Newton, René Descartes viewed "the cosmos as a great time machine
>> > operating according to fixed laws, a watch created and wound up by the
>> > great watchmaker."[6]  **
>> >
>> > So for Cherrycoke to be preaching a positive comparison between
>> > astronomy and religion/God is interesting in that it shows the two
>> > entities were not separate at the time- in Cherrycoke's age the
>> > Natural World was God's World.  So it follows that Mason and Dixon
>> > could be both men of cutting edge science and look to a God of the
>> > cosmos including Jesus Christ.
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>> >
>> > yes, I think this is the time when both could coexist in History and
>> > did. (if my suggestion about Cherrycoke's doubts is true, he is a kind
>> > of historic hinge. He foretells the faith loss of the near future.
>> > ***********
>> >
>> > On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 10:09 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>> >> Chapter 10 - p. 94
>> >>
>> >> Overview:   (from Wiki):
>> >> The opening of the episode returns to Philadelphia where the Reverend, using an orrery, lectures on the Transit of Venus and the solar parallax. In Cape Town, the skies clear long enough for Mason and Dixon to take their observations. A strange lassitude descends on the colony for several weeks after the event but normal routines are soon restored, even as the Vroom daughters find new objects for their attentions. After several months, Mason and Dixon depart Cape Town aboard the Mercury. The Reverend closes the episode by musing whether something other than philosophical or scientific desire drives astronomers worldwide to their observations."
>> >>
>> >> ****
>> >> From an unpublished Sermon:
>> >>
>> >> *  "As Planets do the Sun, we orbit 'round God according to Laws as elegant as Kepler's.  God is as sensible to us, as a Sun to a Planet.  Tho' we do not see Him, yet we know where in our Orbits we run, -- when we are closer, when more distant, -- when in His light and when in shadow of our own making. . . . We feel as components of Gravity His Love,  His Need,  whatever it be that keeps us circling. Surely if a Planet be a living Creature, then it knows, by something even more wondrous than Human Sight, where its Sun shines, however far it lie.  We feel as components of Gravity,  His Love"*
>> >> Gravity's Rainbow?  Or not?
>> >>
>> >> I think this chunk of unpublished sermon is included to acknowledge that science and religion had NOT gone their separate ways at that point.  (I think in the US that was in the 1920s with the Scopes Trial.)  In fact,  discovering the universal laws of nature, especially in astronomy,  worked quite well with the religion of some scientific men.  Later this developed into what was called the "Watchmaker analogy."  Meanwhile,  the idea that history was the search for Christ was covered in Chapter 7 (p. 75).
>> >>
>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
>> >>
>> >> ** The scientific revolution "nurtured a growing awareness" that "there were universal laws of nature at work that ordered the movement of the world and its parts." James K. A. Smith and Amos Yong write that in "astronomy, the Copernican revolution regarding the heliocentrism of the solar system, Johannes Kepler's (1571-1630) three laws of planetary motion, and Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) law of universal gravitation--laws of gravitation and of motion, and notions of absolute space and time--all combined to establish the regularities of heavenly and earthly bodies."
>> >>
>> >> For Sir Isaac Newton, "the regular motion of the planets made it reasonable to believe in the continued existence of God."[4] Newton also upheld the idea that "like a watchmaker, God was forced to intervene in the universe and tinker with the mechanism from time to time to ensure that it continued operating in good working order."[5] Like Newton, René Descartes viewed "the cosmos as a great time machine operating according to fixed laws, a watch created and wound up by the great watchmaker."[6]  **
>> >>
>> >> So for Cherrycoke to be preaching a positive comparison between astronomy and religion/God is interesting in that it shows the two entities were not separate at the time- in Cherrycoke's age the Natural World was God's World.  So it follows that Mason and Dixon could be both men of cutting edge science and look to a God of the cosmos including Jesus Christ.
>> >>
>> >> Thoughts?
>> >> ***********
>> >>
>> >> Bek
>> >>
>> >> -
>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> 
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> 
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