Posted: Mar 16, 2018 4:26 pm
Chris Putnam wrote:People in history have undoubtedly died for something that was not true, but their willingness to die for it tells me that they certainly believed it was true.
So what? That doesn't mean their beliefs were rationally justified.
Chris Putnam wrote: I don't know that it means they are idiots.
At the very least they were acting irrationaly.
Chris Putnam wrote: Some of them might have been very intelligent.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Chris Putnam wrote:Correct me if I am wrong, but I think Galileo was forced to recant his discovery or be executed for heresy. Apparently he recanted. In his case he knew he had the truth, but clearly did not see this as something to die for. He probably did not attach any eternal significance for his soul to his work in this area. Interestingly enough the Roman Catholic Church only recently admitted that they were perhaps a little hard on old Galileo.
Maybe he did not beleive in the concept of a soul in the first place.