believed them without questioning up to some point. But when the way of the religion
and myths to explain the natural events start to be less satisfactory, people started to make
comments on their observations which generally lead to contradictions with those myths.
Critical thinking against religion made people to separate what is right, what is not (Segal
& Ilin, 1983). People then started to use their mind not only to reach practical
information to survive, but they also wanted to learn just to know. Greeks could not
satisfy their sense of wander with the answers of their religion, that’s why; they tried to
collect information systematically by questioning and observing the environment. As
Gökberk (1985) stated, they reached theory, which was above practice. That means
scientific founding was above its practical results. This is how science occurred.
Philosophers’ position was important in ancient Greece, where this term is firstly
used because they were related to both science and religion. In the eastern cultures the
mission of the prophets was to sustain the communication between gods and his
creatures, but instead of such a religious leader, in ancient Greece, there were
philosophers who were also subject to great respect (Hilav, 1975). Although this may be
true, being a philosopher only does not make someone gain a religious importance. In
fact, being a follower of a religion and being a philosopher contradicts since one requires
and the other rejects the act of questioning (Segal & Ilýn, 1983). When a person believes
in something if he rejects questioning this, we can conclude that he has no suspicion
about the truth of that thing. But a philosopher questions what he is told, the beliefs and
information. He looks for the true facts. According to Hilav(1975), in a way he looks for
the rules that may bring a meaning to one’s life. A philosopher tries to live according to
that rules.
At the times, when the boundaries between science and religion were not so clear
because science was just developing, Philosophers accepted their mission to seek for
information (Hilav, 1975). This special importance of that mission was it helped the
people who were confused about the answers of religion about the events of nature that
they observe, which are hard to understand. This looking for information was the first
step in the development of science (Katz, 1998). They were looking for the answers to
their questions. That’s why while they were thinking, they were not only questioning the
myths, but they were also trying to construct alternative answers. Philosophers were
acting like scientists as they were looking for the true information, while they were doing
this they didn’t completely rejected content of the myths.
The term philosophy, which means the love of wisdom, is firstly used Pythagoras
according to one of his students, Heraclites (Katz, 1998). He led the society, which was
half religious and half scientific. This society followed a rule of secrecy. Pythagoras
called himself as the lover of wisdom, not as the wise man. Because, according to his
religious beliefs, being wise was a property of gods. He also believed the job of a
philosopher was to seek for information without hesitation at all times. His real aim was
to reach the truth. Pythagoras became a legend in time like the prophets of other nations
(Katz, 1998). In his Academia, he was at the center of the society who came together to
learn and teach. According to followers of his path his set of beliefs was like a religion.
A person who accepts the rules of a religion totally without questioning can not fulfill the
requirement of being a philosopher which requires critical thinking. So Pythagoreans
who claimed to be philosophers in fact were behaving in a conflicting way with being a
philosopher by accepting Pythagorean order without questioning (Hilav, 1975). We can
conclude this from their trial to reject the existence of irrationals and keeping that fact as
a secret.
Pythagoras gave special meanings to numbers. He thought that things are numbers
and the whole cosmos is a scale or a number. A number represents justice, another
represents soul, and another is the symbol of mind in his belief system. He found that the
harmony in music is closely related with the number ratios, so they thought numbers
were units of all the matters. The main matter of existence was numbers according to
him. Pythagoras answered the question of cosmology, “How matters can be constructed
of numbers?” by assuming numbers to be related with materials (James, 1997).
Pythagoreans separated numbers into two as finite and infinite. They also made another
classification of numbers as odd and even. They thought that they found this
classification in the following ten basic opposite couples: odd-even, one-many, left-right,
male-female, stable-unstable, direct-curved, light-dark, good-bad, and square-rectangle.
So they had a sense of duality in their ideas of the world, there is infinite, bad, even
against odd, finite and good (Segal& Ilin, 1983). There they assumed number one to be
both even and odd. So as being both even and odd of number one, these opposites exist
in the world in a harmony. Universe is a harmony of numbers. So the order of matter in
the universe is a system of numbers. This is number mysticism.
Science and religion may intersect according to some points of view. Pythagoras
led a group of people who believed in his ideas without questioning, not like philosophers
but like followers of a religion. Because of the distinction between science and religion,
they were obviously not scientists. Science depends on questioning the previous founding
and accepts the possibility of the falsity of them; religion rejects to change any idea
which is accepted to be true (Segal&Ilin, 1983). Religion accepts its rules as absolute
facts. Although Pythagoreans’ loyalty to their beliefs and their tendency to reject any fact
conflicting with their beliefs were harmful for the development of science, their studies
and observations worked for science (James, 1997). For instance, they had success in
astronomy by noticing for the first time in history that the earth is not the center of
universe, they assumed the earth to be sphere, turning around another sphere of flame
(Katz, 1998). Pythagoras also defined solar eclipse of the moon. They thought like all
the objects moving fast, stars make a sound. The frequency of that sound is proportional
to the distance of their center of the star to the central flame, so the universe has its own
music, but ordinary mortals can not hear that music. This generalization stemmed from
Pythagoras's observations in music, mathematics and astronomy. For his followers, he
was the man who gave the secret of the universe by revealing special number ratios
(Swetz, 1994). Pythagoras noticed that vibrating strings produce harmonious tones when
the ratios of the lengths of the strings are whole numbers, and that these ratios could be
extended to other instruments. He used music as a means to help those who were ill. He
created the special rules of Pythagoreans’ like washing left foot first but wearing the right
shoe before the other, not to eat beans, not to eat meat except lambs’ meat (Segal & llin,
1983). He was under the effect of Orphan’s who believed in Dionysus, wine god. This
path included the idea of rebirth in a cycle. With the effect of Orphism, Pythagoras and
his followers rejected to eat meat because of the belief that humans might reborn in
animal bodies. They also tried to keep themselves away from desires of the body to break
the rebirth cycle. Religion was the main factor that kept Pythagoreans together but,
science and music had important effects on that religion, because they tried to make their
rules or beliefs depends on scientific founding’s. Although they tried to depend on the
founding about mathematics; they could not prevent themselves to believe in stereotypes
like not to eat beans, because they are countable, not to sit as groups of four. They
generalized their founding’s on mathematics and accepted numbers as the base of
existence. His followers applied these rules in their lives without thinking on them,
because they believed their teacher. Pythagoreans thought they did not have the right to
question Pythagoras’ ideas (Bunt, 1988).
Pythagoras claimed his belief system was depending on science. On the contrary,
with the discovery of the existence of irrationals which was against his belief in the
magnificent ratios of the integers his rules lost their meaning. This was a logical scandal.
An irrational number is a number which you can not express as a ratio of two integers.
This went against Pythagoras's philosophy the all things are numbers and can be
expressed by ratios of integers. However, because of his belief that all things are numbers
it would be a natural task to try to prove that the hypotenuse of an isosceles right angled
triangle had a length corresponding to a number. But simply the diagonal length of a
square, which is the hypotenuse of that kind of a triangle, is an irrational number. This
harms the idea of unity. Pythagoreans tried to hide that fact with the usual behavior of
people who believe in dogmas (Bunt, 1988). This kind of a behavior conflicts with the
happiness of a scientist to discover what is not known. As Jones stated, science can not
advance if it is a secret known only to initiates (Swetz, 1994). One of the followers of
Pythagoras revealed the fact. Hippasus, who revealed the secret of their brotherhood, was
punished by the gods according to a legend. Gods killed him in the sea (Bunt, 1988).
Science and religion are the two basic tools that we use to give a meaning to our
lives. The major difference between them is, their different approaches to any possible
change in the information that they depend on. Although their religion was constructed
according to scientific foundations, their attempt to hide the fact shows us that science
had lost its priority against religion because Pythagoreans organized their lives according
to their religion and they didn’t want to change their life style. There is no absolute fact in
science. Any information is true if you can prove it. If any logical disproof can be
developed, the information changes. That’s why, although Pythagoreans religion was
constructed according to scientific foundations, their attempt to hide the changes the
reliability of their information shows us that science had lost its priority against religion
in the case of Pythagoreans. But as we have seen in that case, facts can not be hidden
forever. On the whole, although people reject scientific information because of their
religious dogmas, the only way to solve the secret of the universe is to depend on science.
Because as the time goes, any set of beliefs can not be enough to organize new lives of
people according to new facts. The main conflict between science and religion, the
dogmatism in religion, still threatens the future of many countries which are ruled by the
religious orders. Since science reveals the secrets of the universe, some beliefs of
religions are proven to be false by science. So some people reject the discoveries of
science. The duality between the people who rejects science and the ones who accept it
is a source of problems for now and the future.
References
Katz, J. (1998). A History of Mathematics. Massachusetts, Integre Publishing Co., Inc.
Bunt, N. (1988). The Historical Roots of Elementary Mathematics. Mineola, N.Y: Dover
Publications, Inc.
Swetz, F. (1994). From Five Fingers to Infinity. Peru: Open Court Publishing Company.
James, W. (1997). Numerology or What Ptythagoras Wrought. Washington, DC: MAA
Service Center.
Hilav, S. (1975). Felsefe El Kitabi. Istanbul: Gerçek Yayinevi.
Gökberk, M. (1985). Felsefe Tarihi. Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi.
Segal, E; llin, M. (1983). Insan Nasil Insan Oldu? Istanbul: Yeni Dünya Yayinlari
