SH Comments
Reged: Feb 16 2004
Posts: 1056
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This thread is for comments about Where Does Science Fiction Come From?, by Guy Hasson
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Anonymous
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I suggest, rather:
"If we're religious, our religion probably creates a _distorted_ picture of the universe, while _science_ would allow us to understand the laws of the world in which we function."
Because we function, if we function at all, in the real world, in spite of our delusions of grandeur, in spite of any wish or prayer to live among the gods, ghosts, and goblins that seem to populate our fantasies, our myths, and our religions.
Weber
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Pascalore
New user
Reged: Apr 30 2005
Posts: 4
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Extremely interesting. You have hit it on the head. Mankind is of two minds and neither agree but they should be able to and I have found the connection between religeous belief and scientific 'fact'. I quote 'fact' becouse scientific study and conclusions vary as often as somebody studies something. Remember, and I know I was young then, that the world used to be flat, circa 1491. And the Spanish Inquisition which initially set out to prove that 'fact' based on biblical 'understanding'. Then it was found to be round in 1492 by the very person they sent to prove their point. When this was accepted is anybodys guess. The New York Times had yet to be written. Then the furious and deadly debate over the 'center of the universe', the Earth. "In 1600, Giordano Bruno(1548-1600) was burned alive in Rome for claiming that the earth moves round the sun." (From 'A History of PI' written by Petr Beckmann Copyright 1971 by The Golem Press, page 81). And in 1633, Galileo Galilei, at age 70, was arrested, jailed, tortured, tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the same offence. He died in 1642. We, the United States, was occupied but not united at that time and by 1776 had come together as a nation. That's only 134 years after Galileo's death. No wonder the separation of church and state seemed important to the founding fathers. With the church running the government, who knows where we would be right now? Hmmm..., Salem, Massechusetts... Anyway, the distance between belief and truth is still very far away and it doesn't look like we are getting any closer to it. I would like to discuss much with Guy Hasson on the subject as I am not a writer and would like to get this down in print. Who knows, it might make a good movie, too.
Mr. Hasson, if you are listening, contact me at Pascalore@bellsouth.net
I look forward to our conversation.
P.
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Jed Hartman
Fiction Editor
Reged: Oct 15 2003
Posts: 151
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Quote:
the world used to be flat, circa 1491. And the Spanish Inquisition which initially set out to prove that 'fact' based on biblical 'understanding'. Then it was found to be round in 1492 by the very person they sent to prove their point.
To save Susan the trouble, I'll just note here that Columbus was sent on his mission (to India, they believed) by people who knew the world was round. See The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus for one among a great many web pages that provide more information.
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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> Because until not that long ago, when the world was flat
> and when God gave power to kings, we had the explanation
> for everything. The nature of the world was set in stone,
> and all you had to do was live your life in it...
> And then science came and technology advanced and that
> attitude changed. Once we could prove that our picture of
> the world was not complete, that change and the unknown
> were still around the corner, once we saw that there were
> still new and mysterious worlds to conquer...
An entertaining essay, but in claiming SF to the be the reult of the rise of science and technology, the author seems to have entirely forgotten the Enlightenment, making a pretty delayed reaction for the rise of reason and the decline of religious explanations of the world to give us SF. About 100-200 years' delay.
Medieval man, in spite of his fixed view of the universe (according to the author's claim; I don't agree with it; even a cursory glance at history shows that "fixed" view changing drastically) did find his sense of wonder -- for example, in the bestseller of Marco Polo's travels, full of such unexpected and astonishing places and people that some readers believed it was all made up.
Today, I think there are readers who look for an experience of wonder and there are readers who look for an experience that is realistic. But it's been decades since any SF awoke a sense of wonder in me. I think other people have had the same experience (or lack thereof) that I have, and that's why SF is shrinking and fantasy is expanding.
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Pascalore
New user
Reged: Apr 30 2005
Posts: 4
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And therin lies the rub. Biblicans and scientists, or those who looked at the world scientifically, have disagreed since the beginning of scientific study. We know that the world was round and has always been but the belief of the times, overall and especially from the church, was that it was flat. Also understand that Christopher Columbus was not an adventurer. He was a map maker. His intent was to find and chart the edge of the world.
Even today, science can tell us a thing to understand, and biblicans will disagree if their belief doesn't allow them to agree with it. The truth is between the two. The bible, or at least the orriginal writings, are absolutly, positively, 100% correct. However, their interpretation is not. Example: 3 Kings Chapter 7 Verse 23 'He made also a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round all about; the height of it was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about.' This would give the value of PI as 3 . We know PI is 3.14. The difference is in the thickness of the brim. This was only discovered in 150 a.d. while up to that point, science had already known the value of PI. The bible wasn't wrong, only misunderstood.
Pick up any 5 bible versions and you will read 5 different wordings of the same events. Nobody changes Shakespear, even DeCaprio, so why change the bible?
The truth is there if you look for it.
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Theologians can argue for millennia over the "correct" interpretation of scripture, but how can they ever put their claims to the test? It's as though they're arguing over whether Mickey Mouse can beat Superman in a fight.
Weber
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Susan Marie Groppi
Editor-in-Chief, Fiction Editor
Reged: Jun 04 2003
Posts: 52
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I would really like to avoid a protracted debate on this subject, what with it being almost entirely beside the point of the original article, but Christopher Columbus absolutely was not trying to find the edge of the world. He was trying to chart an alternate commercial trade route to southeast Asia, which was known to lay to the east of Europe, so by sailing west to find India he was almost by definition -not- assuming that the world was flat.
I understand that "Columbus thought the earth was flat" is one of our most cherished cultural myths, but it's also completely and incontrovertibly incorrect. The Wikipedia article on Columbus is a good reference on this.
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Long before Columbus, Greeks not only argued that the world was round but measured its circumference, and with great accuracy considering the technology -- protractors and counting footsteps.
Where would science fiction be today if the science of those Greeks were never drowned out by religious dogma? If so many of the great thinkers of the centuries that followed weren't diverted by theology and metaphysics, if they never wasted their time on those unending and pointless arguments?
With scientific progress came our enlightened ideals, individual liberty and social responsibility -- including women's rights. How many women were kept from careers in science or science fiction over the years by tyrants in the church, government, classroom, and home?
Weber
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Please spare us the anti-religious cant. Those Greeks who measured the earth's circumference were religious, too. The great Greek tragedies were written for religious festivals, where images of the gods were propped up among the spectators. Science was kept alive, as well as classical learning, in the medieval monasteries, where monks studied, in addition to scripture, the sciences of the time. Great artists and thinkers throughout the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Industrial Age, and modern times have been religious and mystical believers.
The Greeks were never "drowned out." Don't make stuff up to affirm your own personal beliefs. It isn't honest.
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