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Comment by FredPret | Hacker News Reader

If you fully believe in the Biblical God, that behaviour kind of makes sense

Sure, but didn't pretty much every English person those days?

I feel the real interesting point is that he was interested in the unknown, and back in those days they didn't have the modern distinctions between what we now consider as natural and supernatural.

Seems that if you want to make progress in human knowledge, you assume the risk of doing things that appear frivolous or just stupid in hindsight.

Reminds me of Jack Parsons, one of the most influential rocket scientists and co-founder of Jet Propulsion Labs and committed Thelemite occultist. Or John Murray Spear, a clergyman from the 1800s who campaigned for women's equality, rights for workers, abolition, and getting rid of the death penalty. He also believed he was talking to Ben Franklin's ghost and tried to build what was essentially a robot Jesus.

>tried to build what was essentially a robot Jesus

Lol! I had to look this up, and indeed it’s true: http://www.danbaines.com/blog/tag/New+Motive+Power

And Isaac Newton:

“English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton produced works exploring chronology, and biblical interpretation (especially of the Apocalypse), and alchemy. Some of this could be considered occult. Also, Newton described himself as a ‘natural philosopher’, and his work is grounded in Aristotelian metaphysics. Newton’s scientific work may have been of lesser personal importance to him, as he placed emphasis on rediscovering the wisdom of the ancients. In this sense, some historians, including economist John Maynard Keynes, believe that any reference to a ‘Newtonian Worldview’ as being purely mechanical in nature is somewhat inaccurate.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studie...

And Keynes himself was a eugenicist [1] and pederast [2].

[1]: https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/5233e4365c2ec500000...

[2]: Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, Holroyd 1967

I don't care if it rains or freezes, I've still got my robot Jesus

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It seems to me to tie in nicely with a discussion[1] from HN the other day, and this comment[2] in particular: (though there were many good ones)

> Nice quote, and a very concise diagnosis of what ails much of science: lots of data jockeys, few true scientists. The output of scientific endeavor is not simply truth, but true theories. Or, more accurately, theories which accurately predict (i.e. are not falsified by) the broadest set of relevant observations. The real tragedy is that genuine theoretical advances are often ignored or overlooked because everyone is too busy collecting more data to notice.

A bit too much focus on the known or what can be known is (probably) playing it too safe to make the big gains.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28821498

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28823430

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure that the Bible portrays "a pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind" as being a desirable or achievable goal.

I agree, but the recently rising "Seven Mountains Mandate" sub-section of Evangelicals think otherwise, and are convinced their job is do dominate the seven areas of human culture and "bring heaven to earth", and part of that is to unify humankind under a not-so-tolerant theocracy. A portion of them also are into dreams and visions as a means to new revelation, and are largely Q-inspired and conspiracy-minded as well.

If you fully believe in the Biblical God, then both sorcery and astrology are forbidden, IIRC.

According to the Bible witchcraft/sorcery is 1) real and 2) punishable by death: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch (sorceress) to live.’ Exodus 22:18.

Sorcery and astrology are certainly frowned upon: ‘The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord has not permitted you to do so.’ Deuteronomy 18:9-14.

Ex 22:18, as I understand specifically (in the original text not the English translations) uses a term that refers specifically to a woman who casts evil spells (which is pretty close to the common understanding of “witch” but not with the more general interpretation you have imposed on it.)

The OT, as I further understand, contains a number of different prohibitions of very specific magical practices in the source language, most of which are highly genericized in most English translations.

(There's also a specific enumeration of the parts of the Jewish law that remain in force for Christians in Acts 15, and most of the probibitions under discussion here don't fall within its scope.)

Whether there is an explicit biblical condemnation (I don't know, but I would be surprised if there weren't) is not relevant, at least not to a Catholic. Sola scriptura is the province of Protestants.

Add Isaiah 8:19-22 to the mix. It pretty clearly condemns consulting spiritists and mediums. (Depending on your definition of the English word "sorcery", that may count.)

And then there's Saul visiting the witch of Endor, who summons a spirit for him (which she does,) and it wasn't treated as an evil act at all.

And there's a lot of magic in the apocrypha (which, despite having been removed from canon, does reflect the diversity in Christian belief at the time) such as the angel who teaches astrology and spells to drive away demons in the Book of Tobit, or Solomon using a magic ring to control demons in the Testament of Solomon, or the wizard battle in the Acts of Peter.

I don't read it that way at all. I read the witch of Endor as the final step in Saul's failure.

I also read it as the witch being surprised when the spirit actually shows up...

> the angel who teaches astrology and spells to drive away demons in the Book of Tobit

I think we need to be careful in how we are using words like "astrology" and "spells", since it is easy to group many ideas under those umbrellas in a way that people living long ago wouldn't have.

For a start, I don't see any mention in Tobit chapter 6 of astrology[0], and the technique given for driving away a particular demon is "thou shalt take the ashes of perfume, and shalt lay upon them some of the heart and liver of the fish, and shalt make a smoke with it: And the devil shall smell it, and flee away, and never come again any more" followed by "and pray to God".

We wouldn't say that someone is casting a spell if they used cayenne pepper to keep cats away from their garden, and early readers of Tobit wouldn't have considered fish organs to be an unholy or forbidden substance. For a process to deserve the designation of a "spell", it would have to involve either a means or an ends that was forbidden by God.

[0] https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Tobit-Chapter-6/

Totally agreed. I haven’t read up on the topic in awhile, but my recollection is that the entire verse was (possibly/likely) butchered in translation and it was originally written as an admonition against witchcraft practices, like cutting herbs, or some such.

Edit, to add: I initially cited to the King James-translation as that has historically been the most promulgated version of the gospels.

I don't see how you could have possibly come to that conclusion. At all. Superstition and the occult have always been condemned by the Church as irrational and immoral[0]. This sounds like one of those vague anti-Christian sentiments from the Enlightenment that somehow remains fashionable to this day.

In spirit, modern science is closer to the occult in the sense that mastery over nature is a major motivation for its pursuit.

[0] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14339a.htm

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