[lbo-talk] Ambigious Doug

[andie nachgeborenen]

Depends on what you mean by "premodern." Educated
people from the time of the Babylonians have knwon
that the earth was round and the stars were very far
off. So have sailors. The big revolution was
heliocentrism, which is only about 500 yrs old as a
going theory (Copernicus' De Revolutionibus is what,
1559?). though some of the pre-Socratics (Anaxagoras,
etc.) had speculated on the subject. Knights and
ladies, kings and queens, and farmers probably never
gave it much thought. jks

--- Jon Johanning <jjohanning at igc.org> wrote:
> On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 10:41  AM, Chris Doss
> wrote:
> 
> > In fact, historically, atheism and/or agnosticism
> is just weird. Has 
> > there ever been an atheistic pre-modern society?
> Has there ever been a 
> > pre-modern society that didn't believe in ghosts
> and/or have some sort 
> > of ancestor cult? Either there is _some_ sort of
> reality underlying 
> > them, or it must be hardwired into the human
> brain, methinks.
> 
> Historically, most pre-modern societies also
> believed that the earth was 
> flat, the stars were little lights in a black dome a
> short distance 
> above the earth, etc.
> 
> Unlike these elementary astronomical matters, the
> functioning of the 
> human brain/mind still holds many mysteries for
> science. The question of 
> whether "ghosts" are manufactured by the brain of
> the observer or have 
> some sort of intrinsic reality is still
> scientifically open, in my 
> opinion. (However, the evidence put forth by those
> who claim to have 
> observed them has proved maddeningly hard to put
> into an acceptable 
> empirical form, up to now.)
> 
> 
> Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
> _______________________________
> "For the world is not to be narrowed till it will go
> into the 
> understanding (which has been done hitherto), but
> the understanding is 
> to be expanded and opened until it can take in the
> image of the 
> world." -- Francis Bacon
> 
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