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Was science possible before the Protestant Reformation?

Was science possible before the Protestant Reformation?

Last updated on: August 13, 2024 at 7:03 pm by Dan Peterson

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Was science possible before the Protestant Reformation? 2024-08-13T19:03:43-06:00 Dan Peterson

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BYU’s Gordon B. Hinckley Center. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Some new slides from a pair of lectures have just gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “The Innovative and Revolutionary Book of Mormon Critical Text Project,” presentations by Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, given Saturday, 10 August 2024

On Saturday, August 10, 2024, Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack spoke at a celebration for the completion of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. The slides used for those talks are available below.

Royal Skousen’s presentation was entitled “The Innovative and Revolutionary Book of Mormon Critical Text Project.”

Stanford Carmack’s presentation was entitled “The Archaic Language of the Original Book of Mormon.” His slides are pages 85 through 144 of the slides below.

Note that we have not made these slides available for downloading or printing due to copyright issues. Please refrain from attempting to bypass these restrictions.

The presentations were recorded by three video cameras and the combined and edited version of those recordings will eventually be posted online. However, our film people are fully extended on other projects — among them the final polishing to our forthcoming Six Days in August theatrical film — so we crave your patience. It may be a month or even more before the recording of Saturday’s program is ready to go up.

Raphael, “The School of Athens” (1505) In this painting, which is located in the Vatican Apartments, Plato (the older bearded man, shown gesturing upwards) walks with his younger student, Aristotle (who motions downward, suggesting how his more empirical philosophical approach would come to differ from his master’s). In the foreground, Michelangelo sits, looking downward, resting his head on his fist. Over toward the right border of the painting, the very young Raphael himself, wearing a black beret-like hat, looks directly at the viewer.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I notice that, roughly a week ago, my Malevolent Stalker posted a prediction about me over at his compound. His posts are almost always about me. He follows this blog with obsessively meticulous — albeit ill-intentioned — care, and has done so for the entire twelve years of its existence. (His anonymously vocal online hostility to me predates the launch of my blog by several additional years.)

He had noticed a comment made here (by Mr. Roger McKinney) to the effect that genuine science is impossible without (implicitly Protestant) Christianity. Knowing that I’ve at least pretended to a sympathetic interest in Islam over the years, the Stalker rhetorically wondered aloud whether I would say anything about the scientific contributions of the Islamic world. He confidently predicted that I would not, because . . . well, because, in his view (whether real or feigned), I’m actually a religious bigot who holds Islam (and all other faiths other than my own) in contempt. I would, the Stalker declared, therefore say absolutely nothing in defense of classical Islamic contributions to science.

I notice also that, as is entirely understandable, the Malevolent Stalker has revisited neither his prophecy nor the thread in which he made it. Why? Pretty obviously because it’s yet another redundant example of the malicious vacuity and routine falsehood of his accusations and prognostications. I’m confident that, at this point, he would prefer that his prediction be forgotten.

However, I’ve spent more time going back and forth with Mr. McKinney about his historical claim than I should have — the exchange is probably at an end by this point or, if not, very near its end — and I judge that the effort might as well receive some attention here in the main portion of my blog. Besides, some folks might perhaps actually find it of at least minimal interest. So, if you care to look, please see the comments to “Are Reason And Faith Diametrically Opposed?”

Plato and his disciple Aristotle
Detail from Raphael’s “Academy of Athens” (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

And now, here are two more items that have been newly posted on the never-changing and virtually moribund Interpreter Foundation website:

“The Book of Mormon in Context Lesson 34 “Preserved by His Marvelous Power” Alma 53-63”

During the 28 July 2024 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show,Steve Densley and John Thompson discussed Book of Mormon lesson 34, “Preserved by His Marvelous Power” covering Alma 53-63.

You can listen to or download the Book of Mormon in Context segment of the 28 July 2024 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It has been purified of commercial interruptions and made available at no charge to you. The other segments of the 28 July 2024 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-july-28-2024.

You can listen live to the Interpreter Radio Show every Sunday evening between 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, in the Salt Lake Valley, or you can listen on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps (2024): Lesson 34, August 19-25: Alma 53-63: “Preserved by His Marvelous Power”

Editor’s Note: Four years ago, Jonn Claybaugh began writing the Study and Teaching Helps series of articles for Interpreter. We now have these wonderful and useful posts for all four years of Come, Follow Me lessons. Beginning this year we will be reposting these articles, with dates, lesson numbers, and titles updated for the current year’s lessons. Jonn has graciously agreed to write new study aids for those lessons that do not directly correspond to 2020 lessons.

Is it possible that Latter-day Saint voters could have an outsize influence in selecting who will occupy the White House come next January? (This is the White House, right? Anyway, it’s a Wikimedia Commons public domain photo.)

As I see it, this last section and the article on which it is founded are not primarily about politics. So I’m hoping that none of my three readers will reproach me for violating my vow to eschew taking political positions here on my blog. In my judgment, rather, the article is about Latter-day Saints. Is it related to politics. Obviously yes. Does it have potential political ramifications? Yes, of course. As does the sheer existence of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the first place. And it’s very possible, in a tight and fiercely contested election, that the attitudes and acts of Latter-day Saint voters may have an important and even, conceivably determinative effect on the outcome of the 2024 presidential race. (I’m told, by people who follow such matters, that a presidential race is currently underway. I hope that I’m not wrong about that. If I am, I’ll certainly have egg on my face!). Here’s the article: “Mormons Don’t Want to Vote for Trump: This could be a whopper of a problem for him in Arizona in particular.”

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