SYNTHESIS #2 – Galileo and Bacon
Science and religion can never truly function together. One must always have the upperhand. Equality of power cannot exist between two separate entities on a cultural scope, for one must always be considered more heavily. This is seem time and time again as a master-slave dynamic will always emerge between two forces. True equality can only be found in utopian constructs, which find little base in the reality of the world. Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo Galilei and The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon are two works that revolutionize human ideology and worldview and they are also works that provide a narrative on the coexistence of science and religion. Science and religion can never be valued equally, neither within …show more content…
Human beings always have a way of defining themselves by what they are not. This is “us” versus “them” ideology and it can be very polarizing. Together, these two qualities make equality very unlikely because it perpetuates recognition of differences in levels of power and the need to classify dominance and subordinance. These are not favorable qualities, but these are qualities that are seen in all societies. For example, this kind of thinking has lead to American imperialism, racism, sexism, and marginalization of various other groups. This way of thinking is not something Bacon supports, as equality is very important in his utopia, but it shows the realistic limits of his optimistic worldview. The human need to distinguish what is weighed more heavily can also be applied to values, rendering the equality of science and religion an …show more content…
In The New Atlantis, Bacon creates a fictional society in which science and religion are thought of as being of separate, but equal power. Our class discussion focussed heavily on a debate of the image created in Bacon’s utopian world. And last thoughts, we spoke in class about the coexistence of science and religion. Cultural and societal equality of two separate things, not by law, but by norm, is not present anywhere in the real world. In the utopia that Bacon writes about in The New Atlantis, religion and science function together well and appear to coexist in equality, but as a utopia, it has fundamental differences to our world. I do not think there is true equality in the world and so I do not think there can be between religion and science. One will always have more power or more weight. I believe Galileo would agree with my surmation. In Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo attempted to appeal to religious sensibilities, alluding to his scientific inventions and discoveries as having been a manifestation of divine will, but he was very much a scientific thinker and the Church recognized him as a threat to the religious ideology that existed at the time. Galileo and his writings presented a threat to religious power because they would feed the scientific revolution that would begin to change the worldview of people everywhere from an eye toward God to an eye toward
Science and religion can never truly function together. One must always have the upperhand. Equality of power cannot exist between two separate entities on a cultural scope, for one must always be considered more heavily. This is seem time and time again as a master-slave dynamic will always emerge between two forces. True equality can only be found in utopian constructs, which find little base in the reality of the world. Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo Galilei and The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon are two works that revolutionize human ideology and worldview and they are also works that provide a narrative on the coexistence of science and religion. Science and religion can never be valued equally, neither within …show more content…
Human beings always have a way of defining themselves by what they are not. This is “us” versus “them” ideology and it can be very polarizing. Together, these two qualities make equality very unlikely because it perpetuates recognition of differences in levels of power and the need to classify dominance and subordinance. These are not favorable qualities, but these are qualities that are seen in all societies. For example, this kind of thinking has lead to American imperialism, racism, sexism, and marginalization of various other groups. This way of thinking is not something Bacon supports, as equality is very important in his utopia, but it shows the realistic limits of his optimistic worldview. The human need to distinguish what is weighed more heavily can also be applied to values, rendering the equality of science and religion an …show more content…
In The New Atlantis, Bacon creates a fictional society in which science and religion are thought of as being of separate, but equal power. Our class discussion focussed heavily on a debate of the image created in Bacon’s utopian world. And last thoughts, we spoke in class about the coexistence of science and religion. Cultural and societal equality of two separate things, not by law, but by norm, is not present anywhere in the real world. In the utopia that Bacon writes about in The New Atlantis, religion and science function together well and appear to coexist in equality, but as a utopia, it has fundamental differences to our world. I do not think there is true equality in the world and so I do not think there can be between religion and science. One will always have more power or more weight. I believe Galileo would agree with my surmation. In Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo attempted to appeal to religious sensibilities, alluding to his scientific inventions and discoveries as having been a manifestation of divine will, but he was very much a scientific thinker and the Church recognized him as a threat to the religious ideology that existed at the time. Galileo and his writings presented a threat to religious power because they would feed the scientific revolution that would begin to change the worldview of people everywhere from an eye toward God to an eye toward