More On Gödel and God

(fm the BC thread "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism")

Good work on this thread, especially marymcl.

Limpet6,
Very nice, one question though, was Aquinas asserting the limits of human perception or justifying claims of omnipotent authority buttressed by not only scripture but prior authority, in the form of Aristotle? My theory is moving towards the view that the Medieval to pre-Reformation Church responded to the threat of Islam in part by internalizing some of the enemies perceived strengths. These included a sense of certitude or even fatalism in the face of death and an inescapable authority for those empowered to interpret textual dogma. While we may now say that over time those qualities doomed Islam to fall behind the West in innovation and combative skill that was not so clear to those manning the walls of Constantinople, the Emperor begged his priests to rule that a soldier killed in battle was guaranteed Paradise and they refused, or battling both moslem corsairs, waves of barbarian invasions and successive outbreaks of heresy, such as the Cathars. The Reformation and the Enlightenment, despite subsequent Relativism, saved Western Civilization from that trap.

Mark,
Two Truths
Nice model. Leftists like John Edwards have refined that to "Two Nations" and ultimately Two Moralities.