Layman

The Rise of Christianity is an excellent book for anyone who wonders how and how fast Christianity spread. I thought his most fascinating conclusion was that the conversion of Constantine did little to speed up the growth of Christianity. According to Stark, there was no accelaration of Christian growth rates after Constantine came to power or after the Edict of Milan or after gaining favored religious status.

NOGO

Ancient Greek had many people who contributed and built upon one another.

Again Bede, Greeks created the cornerstone of modern science. They created goemetry and algebra and the all important idea that one can model the world using mathematics.

No other scientific discovery which came after can even come close in importance to what the ancient Greeks did. All that Kepler, Newton, Galileo and others could do is copy a good idea.

What does modelling the world with mathematics have to do with mythology of any kind and in particular, Christianity? I have yet to hear anything of substance.

Adora

The Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs and Quipu had highly developed algorithim and mathematical systems that were tied to their religious system of ritual worship and the calendar. Using the specific Mayan example, the focus was specifically on the calendar and then from this base they built a wider number system stemming from "The Long Count" (base-20/base-18) which started in August 3113 BCE (can't remember the day, something like the 6-3). The Mayans were the most exact, with an 18 month calander with 20 days in each (therefore equalling 365 days). Before 4th Century BCE the calendar was only 360 days, but still these feats must be respected, considering their eventual calculation of the Mayan year -365.242036 days, which is slightly more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar, which was not conceived of by the Western Christian civilisations until the 1500's CE. The Mayan specifically had a "golden age" (as all great civilisations do) between 250 to 900 CE but their roots stretch back to 2000-1000 BCE. Most remaining evidence of the mathematical basis of the society is the Dresden Codex system (put it into Google and do some research yourself) which managed to survive Landa's stupid acts (see below). The only things historians find they were lacking, however, were multiplication and division. The Mayan's are the most widely documented, thanks to Diego de Landa, but then he went and burned all the "heretical" documents he copied and recorded. Sad.

And I never said anything about calculus hun. You were putting words in my mouth. I said "So Christianity influenced the ancient South American civilisations to have some of the most complex mathematical and scientific schools in the ancient world around 3000+ years before Christianity even existed?". Nothing about calculus, everything about Ancient, and yes, obviously it did rival middle-ages in Western Europe since they got it more right with their horrible pagan ways.

I dunno, somehow I think applying your insides with crocodile dung, irrigating with honey and then inserting a gummy substance is pretty damn effective (who's gonna want to shag that?).

Have a nice day.

liquid

Regardless of many of the points being argued in this thread, it still remains absurb to claim that christianity in some way 'gave rise' to science. You can back track your argument all you like, but that was what you stated in the OP, and that claim is obviously false.

Scientific thought was founded far before christianity even existed. That has been shown by the ancient greeks/egyptians/babylonians/chinese (the atomic model, mathematics, the elemental model, estimations of the geometry of the earth, empirics, astronomy). In the greek culture particularly, science/natural philosophy was WELL established, to the extent we still recognise its legacy today.

It has also been demonstrated in cultures with no knowledge of christianity. Just picking off the top of my head, I can give you the example of the Incas who had ideas on heredity and also constructed agricultural amphitheatres for generating microclimates for crop experiments. Unfortunately, they didn't really develop writing so we don't know exactly how advanced they were!

I don't hold out much hope of you reviewing your opinion but I suggest you do in light of the evidence. As for Stark, he may be an academic but that does not mean all his hypotheses are correct (and a hypothesis is all this is.).
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A seperate issue is whether christianity assisted the development of western european science. On this the conclusions are necessarily mixed. Whilst there was inevitably a cultural drive to the rennaisance, with christianity being an important part of the culture of the time, there was also massive active christian suppression of scientific thought, throughout the rennaisance and the enlightenment and continuing today in some sectors.

You must then look at the situation in the last century, where scientific progress has accelerated beyond all previous levels, and you find an active decline in christian belief. If you were to look at that period, you would be forced to conclude that progress rates and christianity were negatively correlated!

Personally, I believe that there were elements of cultural thought, part of which was christian-derived, that led to the rennaisance and enlightenment. However, I also think it is clear from the other evidence that it is simply not a prerequisite for scientific thought.

lpetrich

That book is at Amazon, and has received a few glowing reviews.

However, none of them have addressed the problems that have been mentioned here, like how modern science had built on classical-Greek science, and why it took a millennium to get restarted. Why didn't the scientific revolution start with Roman emperor Constantine?

{edited to fix Amazon URL to link to II}

gregor

I thought of this thread when re-reading some essays from S.J. Gould's "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms."

In the titled essay, Gould discusses the harsh consequences of Xian in-fighting between Catholics and Protestants, and he quotes from a Catholic policy statement issued in response to Martin Luther. The Edict of Worms states in part:

"We want all of Luther's books to be universally prohibited and forbidden, and we also want them to be burned . . . We follow the very praiseworthy ordinance and custom of the good Christians of old who had the books of heretics like the Arians, Priscilians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and others burned and annihilated, even everything that was contained in these books, whether good or bad."

Edict of Worms, 1521.

While admittedly a debate on Xian theology, one cannot ignore the impact of similar mind-sets on all free inquiry.

Bede

Just a note to myself. At least two of the headbangers on this thread say part of the reason they hate Christianity is that it impeded science. (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=69465) As all but headbangers now know this isn't true, then perhaps the truth could reduce the amount of hate in the world?

Toto

Note to Bede - we are trying to lower the intensity of the arguments here for everyone's benefit. You can do your part by refraining from referring to others as "headbangers" or implying that their arguments are responsible for "hate." You should also be careful about mischaracterizations of others arguments.

I don't think that everyone "knows" that Christianity never impeded the growth of science, and it is not inconsistant to say that Christianity might have been instrumental in the rise of science historically, but has also at times impeded science. There are some Christians (a minority to be sure) in the USA who oppose the study of evolution. There are Christians today who think that mental illness is caused by demons who need to be exorcised. There is the misnamed "Church of Christ Scientist" which opposes all medical intervention in disease. The Catholic Church opposes stem cell research. The Catholic Church is now promoting falsehoods about condoms to discredit birth control, for very unscientific reasons. That's just what is happening now.

If you want a general discussion of Christianity and science, you might want to start a thread in the appropriate forum.

Bede

Toto, the reason for the post is it has been said that no one thinks what those posters said. Clearly they do.

As for lowering intensity, 'hate' was the word used by the people on that thread. Go and talk to them, by all means.

I will however refrain from using the term headbanger (even though you provided me with my own smilie). I appreciate that efforts are ongoing to raise the tone of debate and that my occasional outbursts can be counterproductive.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Bede

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Have read through some more of Stark and it appears he is using anti-evolution arguments. :banghead:

This should not detract from what he gets right but inevitably it will.

Bugger.

(Sorry for the outburst, Toto)