Revisionist History

[marketandchurch]

I'm tired of this Lie, and yes, it is a Lie, that is being peddled by atheists, trying to revise the history of science & Christianity's contributions(or impediments) to it.

The greek golden years in math and science ended 200 years before the birth of Christ. And between then and 1100, it was the world of Islam that had preserved & pioneered scientific thought. But around 1100, when Christian Europe began to recover from the barbarians, was when scholars & logicians of all stripe began to re-embrace the sciences of pagans, from the Egyptians, to the Babylonians, and certainly the Greeks.

It was the Byzantines who moved heaven and earth to unearth Greek pagan knowledge of mathematics, and would work with Muslims, who have perserved much of Greek literature, and Greek pagan science mathematics, to advance early Christianity's body of knowledge about philosophical naturalism, as it was called during those days. From 1100, to 1600, began the first on-going study of science via the establishing of the University System, to building of the body of science, that would create the science-literate public, necessary to launch the Scientific revolution.

Medevil Christians were so comfortable with viewing the Universe as a natural entity, wherein the Supernatural was outside of it, that they often referred to the Universe as a Machine, with Mechanics, that work in accordance to the laws and limitations of the natural Universe. And much of what helped the Christians to launch the scientific revolution was their view that God was outside of nature, and that this God & law-giver has created, and ordered a lawful Universe. The Pagans believed that nature had a will of its own, and that the supernatural existed within the natural, and was their great impediment to advancing science. We thank Christianity for Oresme, Darwin, St. Aquinas, Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, & everything from Newtonian Mechanics, to our theory of Optics, is owed to them, and the Christian framework they worked under, that brought about the Scientific revolution.

And by the end of the middle ages, there were 100's of Christian Universities across Europe, funded & led by Christians, tuning out 10's of thousands bright scientists, theorists, and logicians. Galileo's assessment of the Copernican theory was based on the clergy Oresme's findings, 300 years before Galileo. The Aristotelian view of the world is what slowed the progress of science in Europe, which is not saying much considering how much Europe advanced in that period of 500 years, in light of the scientific community's strident upholding of Aristotle's views.

I've been reading the work of Pierre Duhem, Alistair Crombie, and a number of other Historians/Scientists. It was Christian Europe who launched the Scientific revolution, and Clergy who built the body of knowledge that modern science is based upon. Science had been going on around the world prior to Christian Europe's advancement, the Chinese had brilliant science, so did the Arabs, but none of them ever launched a scientific revolution, and Christian Europe did.

Atheists on here state it as a fact that Christianity was anti science, and the reason for the lack of scientific progress over the course of 500 years, and that is a LIE, and unless you want to make a thorough case for it, please do not state it as fact. It is revisionary history, an interpretation of history that the facts do not support. I've run into 4 atheists on this site who just say it passingly, as if it's just a throw-away line, a given, a truth, and if you are going to state such a claim as fact, make the case for it.

[East of Eden]

Good article here on the Christian roots of Western science:

http://www.ldolphin.org/bumbulis/

"Many non-christian scholars have acknowledged the role of Christianity in the birth of modern science. I suppose it began with Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967). While neither were Christians, both stressed that modern science was born out of the Christian world view (after all, it was born in Europe). Whitehead was a widely respected mathematician and philosopher and Oppenheimer was director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and wrote on a wide range of topics, ranging from subjects related to science to the atom and atomic energy.

In 1962, Oppenheimer wrote an article on "Science and Culture" for the journal "Encounter" and Whitehead gave a presentation at the Harvard University Lowell Lectures entitled "Science and the Modern World." Whitehead said that Christianity is the mother of science because "of the medieval insistence on the rationality of God." He noted that because of this belief, the founders of science had an "inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner. exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labors of scientists would be without hope." As Whitehead noted, the Christian thought form of the early scientists gave them "the faith in the possibility of science."

[micatala]

True enough, but that still doesn't negate the point that the real issue was obedience, not science

Science requires freedom. Demanding obedience requires science to cease being science.

That might be true today. But science has evolved over time. In Galileo's day, the modern idea of science was just starting to come into being. In addition, science today DOEs require obedience. The difference is that science today is obedient to a set of criteria, not a government or a church.

Thw conflict between science and faith has very little to do with conclusions. Ot has everythingnto do with how they go about establishing their claims.

Again, this is true enough today. As marketandchurch noted,
that was not really true in Galileo's day.

I also would echo marketandchurch's allusions to Aristotle and point out that, in effect, one can look at the declaratoin of 1616 as supporting science, albeit, the old science of Ptolemy and Aristotle. The declaration itself alludes to the Copernican system being 'absurd in philosophy.'

That statement is not saying Galileo's view should be repudiated on religious grounds, it is saying essentially that it is a foolish scientific/philosophical idea. In this day, science was a part of philosophy (natural philosophy).

So again, the church was not really being anti-science in this episode, it was arguably being at least in part pro-science.




Finally, I would also agree with the general point East of Eden is making. Science as we know it certainly came out of a Christian-dominated culture. The culture had come to see God as a rational being, and the universe as a reflection of the rationality. That was true of Newton, and later, was true of Charles Lyell and James Hutton, both of whom studied geology from the point of view of the earth being a great machine, designed by God, perhaps even specifically for human habitation. Now, there work did help completely dispel the notion of a Great Flood, and was used by Darwin to develop his theory of evolution. But, clearly the Christianity of Lyell and Hutton did not make them anti-science. Their scientific views were in part based on their religious ones.

[East of Eden]

If I can add to what Micatala said, a non-believer can agree with the idea that Christianity was a major factor in the development of Western science without agreeing with the claims of Christianity, although I do think this is a point in favor of the uniqueness and God-given truth of Christianity.

[keithprosser3]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

[East of Eden]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

No doubt much of what went on in Hitler's death camps was called 'science' also. There are more effective alternatives than embryonic stem cell use.

http://www.lifenews.com/2009/01/01/bio-302/

[kayky]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

As a blanket statement, I find this unfair. Not all religious people are anti-science.

[McCulloch]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

As a blanket statement, I find this unfair. Not all religious people are anti-science.

That is not the point. Of course we can find a good number of religious people who are not anti-science. Our point is that religion itself is anti-science. Religious scientists have learned how to compartmentalize their thinking. They turn off the magical thinking necessary for religion when doing science and ignore evidence based rational processes when doing religion.

[East of Eden]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

As a blanket statement, I find this unfair. Not all religious people are anti-science.

That is not the point. Of course we can find a good number of religious people who are not anti-science. Our point is that religion itself is anti-science. Religious scientists have learned how to compartmentalize their thinking. They turn off the magical thinking necessary for religion when doing science and ignore evidence based rational processes when doing religion.

Then how is it that science arose in the Christian West, and noplace else? Why is it that major scientists today are believers? Those two facts disprove your biased statement.

[East of Eden]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

As a blanket statement, I find this unfair. Not all religious people are anti-science.

What I find unfair is the implication that raising moral issues is anti-science.

[micatala]

Rest assured that while religion may have assisted in the development of science in the past, that error has now been corrected and modern religion is doing all it can to rollback the so-called 'progress' godless science has made since.

ICR
anti-stem-cell-research

As a blanket statement, I find this unfair. Not all religious people are anti-science.

That is not the point. Of course we can find a good number of religious people who are not anti-science. Our point is that religion itself is anti-science. Religious scientists have learned how to compartmentalize their thinking. They turn off the magical thinking necessary for religion when doing science and ignore evidence based rational processes when doing religion.

This is fair to some extent. However, the same was true for Newton. He thought differently when he did science than when he was involved in his religious studies, or even his responsibilities as Warden of the Mint.


It should also be pointed out that compartmentalization is practiced by all sorts of people, not just the religious, including scientists. In fact, in practicing science, scientists deliberately compartmentalize their thinking to correspond with the rules of science. This is true not only for religious scientists, but all.

The same is true for historians. When practicing history, the historian follows certain procedures.

All disciplines have a limited scope. Science cannot answer every question, just as religion or history cannot answer every questions.


One issue is when a person in a particular discipline uses those methods or his or her own credibility outside of their discipline in an inappropriate way. I would agree, one place this happens is religious people trying to use religion/theology to trump science. But it can work the other way as well. Darwin understood this. While describing the competition for life, and how it implies the weakest among us would ordinarily die out, he acknowledged that our better nature, our moral nature as it were, would not allow that to happen. We take care of the diseased and disabled and mentally deficient. We do not leave them to their own devices. Perhaps that action can be justified scientifically, but that is far from clear to me.