I don’t misunderstand the term ‘pre-scientific’ at all. You are the one who misunderstands the term pre-scientific and (as usual) agrues the straw man.

Pre-scientific Europeans understood material cause / effect and much about the natural order. They had not developed a systematic understanding based upon empirical and deductive reasoning; they had not quantified that understanding. I am sure they understood force and its effects. In warfare they knew that a shield wall would not hold up against cavalry. To use my humble example they understood that if you rolled a boulder off a cliff – it dropped. They did not express that knowledge as F=MA. They did not utilize an abstract concept of force like gravity.

Come to think of it, Hohenzollern, you do look at the world through pope coloured glasses. Your pope or authority is your own reason exercised without awareness of the limitations of reason. You think that starting from reason you can draw a circle around all that is, explain it, quantify it and reduce it to what can be accounted for in a merely rational paradigm: mathematical, empirical, etc. And in your limitation you reduce this type of system to dogma as it is popularly understood.

Unfortunately, your pope coloured glasses are hopelessly fogged with gnosticism.

The Christian faith does not despise reason. It recognizes faculties higher than reason – which without ceasing to be rational are not reductive and limited to the merely rational. There is a lot more to heaven and earth (and the new heaven and earth of new creation even now breaking into our space / time) than is dreamt of in your philosophy.

You have no concept of what I have seen or not seen, Hohenzollern.

Yes, I have seen in concrete (also verifiable by others) in material terms – events that you would despise as superstition – if you were to merely hear an account of them. And I have seen much in concrete (also verifiable by others) in material terms) – events that as a witness, I frankly disbelieve as superstition or the deceits of Satan. My faith gives me a criteria for distinguishing.

But in the not too distant future, when you are able to observe events in our space / time that are concrete and verifiable, events that would seem to prove the authority of those who say they are the gods – you will have no such criteria, Hohenzollern. On the basis of mere reason (and I would say on the basis of your own very limited powers of reason) you will certainly believe these events and hail Lucifer.

That was meant to be “pope”-colored glasses. My mind runs a bit faster than my clumsy fingers. Materialist ideologies, yadda yadda…what? I don’t look at the world through the lens of any ideology, and I’m certainly no materialist. Judeo/Masonic Enlightenment. I’m sure Galileo would agree with you. LOL The Enlightenment wasn’t all good. Nothing is. But the fact is, sooner or later something had rise and begin breaking the ludicrous power of ignorant, blowhard clergymen to dictate what was and wasn’t acceptable on matters scientific through the repression and suppression of dissenters and new discoveries, or we’d still be still be enmeshed in that intolerable state of affairs. This is so axiomatic it hardly needs stating, though I’m sure you’ll come up with another outlandish argument or theory about how the appearance of some saint to a one-legged cobbler in Brussels in 1156 just blows my contention all to hell and proves that I’m a Jewish infiltrator. Whatever you come up with, it will be entertaining, as always.

“Both pre-scientific, pre-Christian Germanic tribes and post-modern, post-Christian, post everything Germanic tribes know that men are not resurrected from death; both know that the spiritual body of new creation and resurrection (exhibiting powers demonstrated by our Lord and many saints) occurs outside the natural order and physical laws governing this present aeon that is perishing in its sins.”

Well, you had a promising start, then veered right off the rails. I agree that they all knew men aren’t resurrected from death. As for the assertion that the Lord/saints ever demonstrated such a power, there is no evidence. It’s been observed that a report of a miracle is not a miracle. You have never seen it happen with your eyes, you’re just taking it on faith because it’s what your church teaches. That’s fine for you, but it’s pretty outlandish to expect anyone else to believe it “just because”. Even if you had seen such a thing with your own two eyes, you couldn’t be sure you hadn’t been fooled. Most astute and worldly men than either you or I can and have been tricked by clever magicians. I maintain there is no physical resurrection. But there is gnosis, which is the real resurrection.

“I am sure the pre-scientific Germanic tribes were aware that if you roll a boulder off a cliff – it drops, if you kill someone – they die. Their solstice markers show clearly that they knew the sun rises in the east.

A person who does not know that the sun rises in the east, will not be surprised if one day it just happens to pop up in the west. Only those who do in fact know about natural order will be impressed by the signs God works outside the natural order (miracles) to testify to the new creation in Christ that is dawning even at the end of this wicked age.

Your view of ancient peoples is just silly. Of the Christian faith – let us just say, you haven’t the foggiest. It is not the saints, but the benighted, ’scientific’ moderns who will belielve anything.”

You misunderstood my meaning by the use of the word “pre-scientific”, of course. It was not at all what you were implying above. “Pre-scientific” doesn’t mean retarded or even completely unsophisticated, but I honestly don’t have the kind of time it would take to spoon-feed you on this point. As for the notion that I don’t have the foggiest about Christianity? You’re probably right. After all, I was only raised in and around the church and have spent my entire life immersed in Christian culture. I couldn’t possibly have any idea what I’m talking about. Because it doesn’t square with what you believe. Ipso facto. So, I’ll just leave it to the cherished public intellectuals like you.

You didn’t respond to my original question, which was:
“What do you think the differences are between the pre- and post- scientific Europeans?”

Your original assertion was that there was a meaningful difference between the two that would nullify the style of evangelization used by the missionaries Lynda wrote about. But you didn’t specify what you thought the difference was, so we can’t debate the merits of the difference, meaning your point is unfalsifiable.

Answer the question or go away.

Native religion? You mean, like, the pre-Christian, indigenous ones? Of course, Christians always say that. I’m not really sure why, except maybe that it’s a comforting self-deception: “The easiest person to fool…is me.”

Granted, the quality of religious indoctrination, or theological instruction, if you prefer, is not what it once was and ignorance reigns supreme, but the salient point is that, were it otherwise, it wouldn’t make any difference, as all fundamentalist religions, including Christianity, are easily falsifiable because they’re based largely on brainwashing and wishful thinking that are at odds with the “facts on the ground” of archeology, history, etc.

But that brings up another issue- which “Christianity”? Who are the real Christians here? I’ve noticed that as more Catholics etc. appear on this site, a false projection grows increasingly stronger in its outline that Catholics and Protestants, particularly Reformed Protestants such as mainly frequent SWB, represent some kind of united front of “Christendom”, when in fact they are different religions i.e. though they both claim to worship “Jesus Christ”, share some identical doctrines and use similar language, they totally diverge in their views on essentials like justification, as is well known, and therefore can’t both be orthodox. This is either never pointed out or glossed over and is disingenuous at best. That is, if there even was such a thing as orthodoxy but, contrary to popular opinion, there never was from the beginning. Still, it’s apparently no longer fashionable to point out the incompatibility of the Reformed faith with Rome, though our ancestors on both sides had no problem acknowledging it, and slaughtering each other in the tens of thousands their infernal “religion”.

Good points. I may have been a bit harsh. Thanks for your response.

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