Gods in the Sky: Astronomy, Religion and Culture from the Ancients to the Renaissance [Hardcover]

Allan Chapman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0752261649 | ISBN-13: 978-0752261645 | Publication Date: December 2001

Most histories of astronomy start with Copernicus, Galileo and Columbus, But this text shows that in the colourful mythology of the ancients lay a surprisingly accurate understanding of celestial movements. A radical prefiguring of modern astronomy can be found throughout history. Two millennia before Columbus set sail for America, Pythagoras conceived the world was round. In 3rd century BC, Erasthones calculated the approximate size of the Earth, and long before Galileo's heretical science upset Christian orthodoxy, our 365.25 day calendar had been more or less finalized by Julius Ceaser as a variation on that of the Egyptians. "Gods in the Sky" is more than a history of astronomy, it explores the inextricable links in ancient civilization between astronomy and astrology, mythology, religion, philosophy, architecture, art, agriculture and navigation, to illuminate the history of the ancients.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 342 pages
• Publisher: Channel 4 Book (December 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752261649
• ISBN-13: 978-0752261645
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #777,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The World's Best Teacher, September 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Gods in the Sky: Astronomy, Religion and Culture from the Ancients to the Renaissance (Hardcover)

From a student who studied under Dr. Allan Chapman, this book does equal justice to the lectures he gave while studying at Oxford University. His writing pulls into a deep emotional state which makes it hard to put the book down.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rubbish., September 19, 2009

By 

Campbell Fraser - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gods in the Sky: Astronomy, Religion and Culture from the Ancients to the Renaissance (Hardcover)

Gods in the Sky

The thesis of the book is that science and religion are not natural foes. The religious focus of the book is almost exclusively on Christianity (it therefore comes as no surprise that Chapman was raised as a Christian). Islam is afforded the occasional paragraph and the word "Jewish" appears a few times. Barely any other religion, past or present, gets a single mention.

Similarly, the only branch of science provided any real coverage is Astronomy. In the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the biggest controversies dividing science and religion have been in Biology and Medical Science. Christianity long since surrendered Astronomy to scientific inquiry (even if it took until 1992 for the Vatican to formally apologize for its treatment of Galileo) so Chapman really missed his mark.

Gods in the Sky shirks the fundamental chasm separating science from religion. Religion is about faith (is it not?) and science is about reason. What greater difference could there possibly be?

To be fair, most of the book really just describes some history of Astronomy and says nothing about whether science and religion are antagonistic or not. [...]

The book did nothing to change my view that science and religion are natural enemies. The adoption of science is the adoption of reason; the adoption of religion is the adoption of quackery. Science tells us that Mary, mother of Jesus was not a virgin. Christians believe she was a virgin. That is quackery. Christians believe that prayer can affect the outcome of future events through the actions of an omnipotent, loving being. That is quackery. Science is the pursuit of objective truth. Religion is an emotional crutch, an intellectual sedative and a reason to go to war.

There follow some detailed remarks on the text to explain why I gave the book 1 star.

Introduction
Page vi, Paragraph 2: "It is my suggestion that human beings are instinctively religious creatures. ...". I agree with this paragraph (but would omit the word "coherent"). But Chapman does not appreciate the full significance of what he is saying. Humans are instinctively religious creatures. Some have faith in Brahma, some have faith in Jesus Christ, some have faith in... etc etc.

Page Vii, Paragraph 1, "... priests, who supposedly ... keeping `the truth' hidden". Priests do not hide `the truth'. They simply don't know it. When "scientific truth" contradicts "religious truth" then priests pick a side.

Chapter 1 - Science and its modern myths
Page 3, Paragraph 3, Line 1 : "One favourite and fondly perpetuated scientific myth ... is that of scientific and religions thinking as being fundamentally antagonistic". Chapman neglects to inform his reader that "the writings" of Thomas Henry Huxley to which he refers were provoked by the church's refusal to accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection because it contradicted their "religious truth" on the origin of man.

Page 3, Line -6: "Christianity ... was temporarily stunned by science". Why only temporarily? I am still stunned by the science of the 19th century. Christian establishments have a pattern of first ridiculing, then coming to terms with scientific progress that contradicts their dogma before finally acting as if the progress had never posed them a challenge in the first place.

Page 5, Paragraph 3, Line 2 "... religious understanding has developed no less rapidly than science itself ...". Religious understanding of what? Our origins? Our significance in the universe? The workings of the steam engine? What monumental nonsense. "Religious understanding", if it exists, is dragged kicking and screaming forward by the discoveries of science. There is approximately nothing in the sum of all human knowledge and understanding that can be credited to religious introspection or the study of scripture. I challenge you to pick up an encyclopedia and point to some knowledge that can be credited to religious study.

Page 5, Paragraph 3, Line 5. ".. scientist-critics of religion still stuck in an 1860s Darwinian time warp." It is not the scientists who are stuck in a time warp. The time warp engulfs the Christian fundamentalists who have been waging a cold war in the classrooms of the United States since the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. In 1999 (2 years before this text was published), the School Board of Kansas removed the teaching of Evolution from the School Curriculum. (It was re-instated 2 years later when the people responsible were voted out of office.) Did Chapmen perform any research for his book? See for example [...] to get an idea. Please tell me again, who is stuck in the time warp?

Page 6, Line -4 "... genuine revelation ...". What is a genuine revelation? Right here Chapman demonstrates one reason that science and religion are natural enemies. In science there is no such thing as a "genuine revelation".

Page 7, Paragraph 2, "In this way, for instance, the simple yet dramatic Genesis narrative of the creation of the world can be understood within the context of evolution." How? The Genesis story has nothing to do with Evolution. It claims that the world and all species within it were created, in their current form, in 6 Earth days by an omnipotent being. Nothing could be further from the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. [...]

Page 7, Paragraph 3, Line 4. "In fact, Darwinism was not only a wonderful discovery ... Both Aubrey Moore and Frederick Temple ... pointed out ". Moore and Temple did not show God to be an active participator in the evolutionary process. They can claim it all they like but the fact is they don't have a jot of evidence or reasoned logic to justify the claim. But I am sure they have faith. In fact, a corollary of evolution by Natural Selection is precisely that no such creator is required. [...]

Page 8, Paragraph 3, last 5 lines "One encounters cosmologists who will use their computer models to twist theoretical postulates of helium and hydrogen through every permutation of implausible fantasy rather than countenance the merest possibility that perhaps God preceded the Big Bang". There is no more implausible fantasy than "God preceded the Big Bang". Cosmologists should no more consider that "God preceded the Big Bang" than consider that magic pixies preceded the Big Bang. [...]

Do you see the pattern? I hope you understand its consequences. Explaining something with "God" explains nothing. It anesthetises the mind.

Page 9, Paragraph 3. "When defending their materialist stance ... imprudent leaps in the dark ... appears astonishingly like blind faith". For every imprudent leap that leads to a discovery, there were a million that you hear nothing of because they landed in a big hole of wrongness. The imprudent leaps that you do hear about are the ones that turn out to be correct or interesting or made by already famous scientists. Using "imprudent leaps" in science is different from religion because in science, you make the leap and test it, in religion you make the leap and apply faith. [...]

Page 10. This page is one big compliment to science. But I think it was intended as a criticism. Very revealing.

Page 11. I no longer even know what he is trying to do here. What is his point?

Page 12, Paragraph 2, Line 6. "... the scientist must have a faith in the fact that acids will always turn litmus paper red, ...". No. When there is overwhelming precedent, there is no need for faith. Drugs are not prescribed or dispensed on faith. Or are they - you tell me. People don't get into planes because they have a faith in flight mechanics that can be compared to any religious faith. Etc etc etc I can't believe I have to write this.

Page 12, Paragraph 3, Line 3. "... no more susceptible to solid proof ...". Same again. Rubbish. Precedent and overwhelming evidence provide proof of many things, for all practical purposes. The way in which Chapman defines "proof" renders the word useless. There are degrees of proof and thus far, religious theories have earned zero degrees. Scientific theories have earned many degrees of proof.

Page 13, Paragraph1, Line 12. "... playing of hunches ...". Correct. An hypothesis must be formed before it is tested. In science, hunches are tested using scientific methods. In religion they are not.

Page 14, Line 6. "... he drew the correct conclusion ...". How does he know it is the correct conclusion? Because it has been tested and verified over and over again, [...]

Page 14, Paragraph 3, Line 6. "... and have faith ...". Repeating the lie. The scientist does not need to "have faith". Time tells.

Page 15, Parapgraph3, Line 4. "...a scientific materialist mode of explanation depends just as much upon faith as dies that of divine creation". Repeating the lie. Materialist explanations have a fantastic track record. Divine explanations have a terrible track record.

Page 17, Paragraph 3, Last sentence. "The acceptance or rejection of purpose, therefore, is not an inevitable consequence of scientific research, but is the personal philosophical choice of the individual scientist.". [...]

Page 17, Paragraph 2, 1st sentence. "The results of modern science are often used to lend weight to the myth of science's ultimate truth status, but this myth can be countered by two arguments". Skipping directly to the second "counter", Chapman states (Paragraph 4) "Secondly, why is it that, after science has done so much to transform the modern world, there is significant minority [emphasis added] of people within the West who seem to be... Read more ›

1 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It can't be right!, January 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Gods in the Sky: Astronomy, Religion and Culture from the Ancients to the Renaissance (Hardcover)

Hello,
...we read from the Author De Lacy O'Leary, D.D. in his book titled "How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs"
How through the many schools the "Nestorians" (Assyrian Church of the East) founded, including the Schools at Edessa, Nisibis, and Jundi-Shapur, the Greek works were translated into Syriac for use in the curriculums. These works included Theophania, Martyrs of Palestine, and Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius, and many others

In the first place Hibha [a Nestorian-Assyrian] had introduced the Aristotelian logic to illustrate and explain the theological teaching of Theodore, of Mopseustia, and that logic remained permanently the necessary introduction to the theological study in all Nestorian education. Ultimately it was the Aristotelian logic which, with the Greek medical, astronomical, and mathematical writers, was passed on to the Arabs

So the point is that it was through those Assyrian Christian Schools that Greek sciences was passed to the Arabs, and the truly inheritors of the science mace in Middle East should have been mentioned as the Assyrians and not the Arabs.

...