Software Engineer, father of two. Interested in philosophy, science (and the history of both), pizza, music, children, and world peace -- not necessarily in that order.
Among my contributions are:
I have mucked around with:
I am harboring possibly stupid stuff at:
I have been trying to remove "bias" from Wikipedia articles on controversies dear to me, but I recognize that what I call "bias" may merely be ideas I misunderstand. I may in some cases also fail to distinguish between personal belief and documented fact, whether through wishful thinking or sheer sloppiness. Feel free to set me straight at any time. When I feel I've absorbed the lesson, I'll add it to my /Learning page.
I respond to praise, reason, and pizza -- not necessarily in that order!!
Hi Ed, I just wanted to say welcome to Wikipedia, and tell you not to be discouraged by criticism of your contributions; its par for the course around here. You don't seem to be taking it personally though, and that will take you far around here. :) --
STG
Ed, on
MichaelTinkler/Talk you'd asked about Galileo and his struggles with the church. After the Greeks a lot had been lost, or put on the back burner, even during Roman times. But there was still a lot there, and throughout the Middle Ages there was a great deal of interest in ancient philosophy. At the time of Galileo the works of Aristotle were widely supported, and the church had recently decided to adhere to them dogmatically. This second was a temporary development, owing to attempts to define a more comprehensive canon for Catholicism in the face of religious criticism. A century earlier the heliocentric theory of Copernicus passed with little remark, and actually the church initially showed a relatively large amount of leniency with Galileo, allowing him for instance to right a comparison of heliocentric and geocentric models so long as he didn't attempt a full scale attack on the church's position. He did, of course, and was forbidden from publishing as a result. Later, when a friend of his became the pope, he decided to risk publishing something anyways, and this is what got him in trouble - mainly because the pope saw the Aristotelian
Simplicio as a caricature of himself. All in all it can be said that, though the church was being oppressive, Galileo showed a considerable lack of tact in dealing with it, and was unlucky to be alive at that particular time. Only a relatively short while later Kepler and Newton found themselves essentially unopposed from that quarter.
Looking for a home for the following observation:
- Many religious people and theologians study scriptures in their original language. Jews who can, study the Torah in Hebrew. Christians and New Testament scholars study Aramaic or ancient Greek. Krishna devotees study Sanskrit to study the Baghvad-Gita (sp?), and Unificationists (are told to) study Korean to understand the [Divine Principle]? and the sermons of Sun Myung Moon.
I really don't know what to make of this. Is there any article this belongs to? --Ed Poor
- Hi Ed. I think the best place would be on the [[Scriptures] page. It should be very easy to work in, especially since tht pageis a bit of a mess it the moment. :) It would probably be useful to include what language the scriptures of each reigion were originally written in, too. BTW, Christian scholars also study Hebrew. --STG
Hi Ed! Welcome (kinda late, I know...). Just wanted to say that it's great that you are so open to people checking you for NPOV, etc., but I've been wondering what draws you to write on subjects (especially as a major contributor) where you seem to be pretty sure you will have trouble being neutral...Not that this is bad -- I'm just being nosy! ;-)
JHK
- Why should that be a problem? I'll just lay out the "truth" as I see it, same as anyone else -- then we can all wikify the heck out of the article. All opinion removed or attributed, and so on.
- Suppose, for example that I believed that corporations were wicked but free markets were good? Would that automatically disqualify me from authorship?
- I believe it is possible for a person with strong opinions to express them in an acceptable form, so long as that form does not require an explicit repudiation. NPOV forever! Ed Poor
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