Reddit reviews Nothing Matters: a book about nothing

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>"The catholic church outlawed zero"

My favorite work on this is Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea The bibliography there is fantastic. It's important to remember that zero as a placeholder is just a convenience, nothing about notation or the mathematics themselves requires the use of zero for most of the mathematics that were being done at the time. God created everything, there is no such thing as nothing because of God's immanence, so zero]was a heretical isdea. The real purpose was that actively working against the adoption of zero kept up a barrier in mathematics that allowed the church strict control of accounting and taxation. They used Roman numerals, not arabic, so zero was't really needed until algebra and geometry necessitated it. It's also covered in "Nothing Matters: A Book About Nothing" but I haven't read that yet.

> This shows a grave lack of understanding of history

I am eagerly awaiting your corrections. I'm not one to assert that religion is at fault for all the problems in the world, or claim they caused the Dark Ages. The church remained the only academic institution for many places during this time, I don't fault them that.

They did suppress views contrary to their ideology. This "same answer to every question" statement of mine may have been excessively reductionist, but I'd say it holds, generally. If it comes down to faith or reason, Christianity holds to faith. When the church makes an empirical claim, and evidence that contradicts it comes to light, it has suppressed or ignored it.

> Sure, they executed scientists to the left and right that did not tow the party line.

I'm well familiar with scientific suppression in the Soviets, and thanks for the link. I had read up on Lyshenko and Vavilov when I studied genetics, it's really quite sad. But Lyshenko wasn't driven by his rejection of Mendellian genetics on theistic grounds, it was his fanaticism for Lamarkian genetics. He was just on the wrong side of the scientific fence. He was then exceptionally petty and unscientific by using political leverage and ideology to suppress his critics. That had nothing to do with his theistic stance, and everything to do with ideological totalitarian states being incapable of scientific dialogue.

In fact, if you go through the whole history of soviet suppression of science, it's all about ideology in totalitarian states. They can't handle the open inquisition science runs on. That has nothing to do with their stances on theism. Science is rejected as "bourgeois pseudoscience" if any interpretation of it threatens the state-sanctioned worldview. There's only one notable exception in that article, and it's Stalin's personal rejection of Mendelian genetics.

When theocracies reject science, they do so on theological grounds. The church suppressed science it believed was a threat to its doctrine and dogma. When a totalitarian state suppresses science, it's not inherently because atheism is a tenet of that totalitarian state's ideology. Yes, Stalin hated Mendelian genetics because a priest came up with it. But the rest of soviet science wasn't suppressed because it had theistic ties, it was suppressed because it undermined other ideologies totally unrelated to theism.

When we look at Hitler rejecting modern physics, atheists don't have a fair argument to make by saying "Catholics suppress physics." That's not at all the grounds Hitler rejected it on, he rejected it because Jewish scientists were heavily involved in the theory of modern physics. We can't even extrapolate that to other catholic states, because the real mechanism of suppression was a dictatorship. In a theocratic state, however, the theology is both the ideology and the system of government. When science is suppressed, it is for theological reasons and the suppression is done by theologists.

There is simply no way you can equate the two, let alone conclude atheism is more suppressive to science than theism has been.

Even if it isn't a simulation, shit is just meaningless anyway. Nothing that happens will matter to yourself when you're dead, which is my interpretation of the phrase "YOLO". Nothing matters to the dead, and all there is and ever will be will die, thus nothing will matter in the end. Therefore you can just do whatever stupid shit you come up with. What's the worst consequence? Death? Death is inevitable anyway.

"Wherever we go

And whatever we do

And whatever we see

And whoever we be

It don't matter

I don't mind 'cause you don't matter

I don't mind 'cause I don't matter

You'll see in the end"

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1846947073