Texas Board of Education at it again Banning textbooks

[TGS]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

And the first academy was-- uh, The Academy.

I think the Buddhist university at Nalanda, as already referenced, pre-dates it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Angst

Who sits in judgment of what truth is? To some, that the world is 6k years old represents "truth", to others, 4 billion years. (There's not much middle ground on this one. )

The important part of kennyc's statemen was "as we know it". We look at the evidence and use the accepted method to form an opinion (science). So the scientific method is the method to decide what to hold as true.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And according to Wikipedia (again) hospitals seem to have originated more from inns/hostels than something put together in the sense of today's hospitals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital

Seems little to do with church/religion in origin according to that entry.

Indeed, in addition to other early institutions for the care of the sick, the article goes on to state, "Institutions created specifically to care for the ill also appeared early in India. King Ashoka is said to have founded at least eighteen hospitals ca. 230 B.C., with physicians and nursing staff, the expense being borne by the royal treasury."

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Angst

Who sits in judgment of what truth is? To some, that the world is 6k years old represents "truth", to others, 4 billion years. (There's not much middle ground on this one. )

The whole controversy is about deciding which "truth" to promote. The arbiter seem to be democracy (50% +1).

Popular vote is no way to decide truth.

.....In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
..........— Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002), American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science. Essay: "Evolution as Fact and Theory."

Our children deserve to learn what our best scientists and historians have discovered about how the real world works; not how some people--or even the majority--wished it worked.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Angst

Who sits in judgment of what truth is? To some, that the world is 6k years old represents "truth", to others, 4 billion years. (There's not much middle ground on this one. )

The whole controversy is about deciding which "truth" to promote. The arbiter seem to be democracy (50% +1).

Not really it's the sum total of humanity's knowledge as defined by reality, logic and science. The only truth we have that we can be most sure of is a result of science. It is not a matter of opinion or belief.

Oh, I see other's beat me this time (Graham ).....thanks guys.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Our children deserve to learn what our best scientists and historians have discovered about how the real world works

"Somebody's gotta stand up to experts"
--Don McLeroy

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And according to Wikipedia (again) hospitals seem to have originated more from inns/hostels than something put together in the sense of today's hospitals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital

Seems little to do with church/religion in origin according to that entry.

No, it apperars that the majoity agrees that most hospitals and centers of education are founded in, or created by, religions. I'm only going by the links provided by the majority.

Graham - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda
"According to historians, Nalanda flourished between the reign of the Gupta king Śakrāditya (also known as Kumāragupta, reigned 415-55) and 1197 CE, supported by patronage from Buddhist emperors like Harsha as well as later emperors from the Pala Empire."

and Taxila - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila
"It dates back to the Gandhara period and contains the ruins of the Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā which was an important Hindu and Buddhist centre."

Kenny - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital
"In ancient cultures, religion and medicine were linked. The earliest documented institutions aiming to provide cures were Egyptian temples."

ardeegee - The Academy (See TGS post #301) (The Neoplatonic Academy of Late Antiquity)
"In the Timaeus, perhaps his most influential contribution to the dialogue between science and religion, Plato extends this account to general cosmology, explaining the design in the visible world by referring to a divine craftworker who fashioned the whole (by referring to Formal reality, of course) and insured its proper function by making it a living thing with a soul. Plato begins the tradition of perfect-being theology, which argues that God must be perfect, hence good, unchanging, eternal, and so on." http://www.enotes.com/science-religi...clopedia/plato

[nguirado]

Dudes, there may have been places of learning before or places where sick people hung out. Our (American which means Western- excuse me if you're not) hospitals and universities come from Western ideals. Or, I don't think a monk got the idea to found Oxford or the University of Paris after visiting India (although the Western world got the zero from Inida via Arabs. The Mayans had the zero too, but we didn't get it from them). Pagan Romans or Greeks (much less barbarians) didn't really care for the sick.

What would have been can be a fun question, but I'm just stating the way it happened.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by nguirado

Pagan Romans or Greeks (much less barbarians) didn't really care for the sick.

Wow. Just wow.

That reminds me of the first few lines of this:



Are you trying to say that you actually think that ancient people didn't care when people got sick? That there were no attempts at curing disease, or healing wounds? Really? Really?

[nguirado]

I'm saying that there weren't hospices for the general public. I'm sure their family members were quite worried for them.

The Romans created valetudinaria for the care of sick slaves, gladiators, and soldiers around 100 B.C., and many were identified by later archeology. While their existence is considered proven, there is some doubt as to whether they were as widespread as was once thought, as many were identified only according to the layout of building remains, and not by means of surviving records or finds of medical tools.[15]
The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire drove an expansion of the provision of care. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. urged the Church to provide for the poor, sick, widows, and strangers; it ordered the construction of a hospital in every cathedral town. Among the earliest were those built by the physician Saint Sampson in Constantinople and by Basil, bishop of Caesarea. The latter was attached to a monastery and provided lodgings for poor and travelers, as well as treating the sick and infirm. There was a separate section for lepers.[16]

For Kindle people:

http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Churc...5646688&sr=8-2

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by nguirado

I'm saying that there weren't hospices for the general public. I'm sure their family members were quite worried for them.



For Kindle people:

http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Churc...5646688&sr=8-2

has it not occurred to you that people NOT of those classes had the means and help to be cared for at home?

seriously, as a whole hospitals by and large are a fairly modern invention. prior to the last century they were primarily facilities to go and die presumably slightly more comfortably than completely alone with no care at all

[ardeegee]

Well, at least it isn't only secular knowledge that is lacking in the US:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/0...-finds/?hpt=C1

The page offers 10 questions from the Peee-yu! poll-- take that before you read the article because one or two of the (freaking obvious) answers might be spoiled in the text. (I got 10 out of 10, but then again it wasn't exactly challenging questions.)

[kindlekitten]

I got 10 out of 10 as well. I'd like to see one with some more teeth in it

[Graham]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

No, it apperars that the majoity agrees that most hospitals and centers of education are founded in, or created by, religions. I'm only going by the links provided by the majority.

We're not denying that. We were expanding on nguirado's contention that they were developed by the Christian religion in particular.

Originally Posted by nguirado

Hospitals and universities are Church inventions. There were libraries, of course, but no school with a comprehensive curriculum. There wasn't organized care for the poor either.

Education for more than the very rich is a Christian invention as well.

I do think though that as civilisations grew in power they would have developed these things regardless of religion. Religion, though, has historically been one of our main tools for gathering wealth and mobilising the workforce.

Graham

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Well, at least it isn't only secular knowledge that is lacking in the US:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/0...-finds/?hpt=C1

The page offers 10 questions from the Peee-yu! poll-- take that before you read the article because one or two of the (freaking obvious) answers might be spoiled in the text. (I got 10 out of 10, but then again it wasn't exactly challenging questions.)

And this result from the survey as well:

"For comparison purposes, the survey also asked some questions about general knowledge, which yielded the scariest finding: 4% of Americans believe that Stephen King, not Herman Melville, wrote "Moby Dick."



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,7375137.story