SimplyAtheistic

Religion DOES hinder science, and it will always be that way. Religion tells us the answer without making us look at the evidence. It rewards people on their "faith" of supposed events that took place. This sounds like the kind of thing that would hinder science, doesen't it? I mean, everyone was convinced the world was flat, and to believe otherwise was heresy. The earth HAD to be the center of the universe right? If anyone opposes this belief then they should surely be punished accordingly right? Evolution can't possibly be a viable theory right? The earth has to be less than 10,000 years old right? Hopefully you get my point. Oh, and as far as brilliant men and their religion go, Einstein is kind of smart, and he had no religion.
Jake

Tenspace

Christianity will not accept as fact any scientific evidence unless it fits the worldview model described by the Bible. In Galileo's day, his discoveries challenged the infallibility of Genesis. Newton's discoveries regarding force and motion offered no challenge to the Bible. You can't accurately compare persecutions between the two.
I would say that you are wrong. Current religious views are interfering with genetic research, specifically stem cell and cloning research. Heck, it's been said many times, by many leading geneticists, that molecular biology makes no sense without the framework of Darwinian evolution. Yet Christianity still believes that all living things are descended from a bunch of animals loaded into a boat five thousand years ago.
Since when did being religious preclude anyone from being a scientist? Even theological scholars apply scientific methods today. I don't see your point.

Quote:

Not one of these men would say Jesus was any hindrance to them. I suspect they would call him an intellectual liberator just as he was a social liberator. But you know more than they do about themselves, right?

Times change. Science is proving things about the natural world, things which the majority of Christians refuse to believe. Just look at the most recent surveys (I can research and reference if anyone wishes... I'm sure most everybody here knows of them) that show half of the respondents believed that man and dinosaurs co-existed! Jesus might not have been a hindrance then, but keep in mind that we are still in the infancy (maybe adolescence) of our scientific body of knowledge. Just what will the quantum world reveal that will find contradiction in the Bible?

With respect,

Tenspace

sullster

One of the events which allowed science to rise was the split between Catholicism and Protestantism. Once the "absolute truth" of the Catholic Church was forever toppled by the equal ''absolute truth" of the reformation, the other-worldly perspective was shattered among thinkers.

As to this topic's question, I say that Christianity was and is a hinderance to science, but by being such a powerful hinderance it has strengthened the resolve of science. The worthy enemy concept. I think that creationists have actually helped evolution by sharpening arguments and deepening thoughts.

That many scientists claimed belief in christianity, only means that they were good liars or that they managed to separate the two.

Radorth

I have no idea. Perhaps you confused me with Biff.

Which has nothing to do with scientists being Christians, but rather proves some Christians are ignorant- hardly the subject here.

I dunno. Very little probably. If they find wormholes lead to a parallel universe, I'm sure folks will be dusting their Bibles off, as they do from time to time when they hear another evolutionary theory which contradicts Darwin's assertions and expectations.

No I don't. I already admitted there were problems then. All these were believed before the Reformation, and the widespread publiation of the Bible. If the Bible was any hindrance to science, things should have gotten worse after it was widely read, according to your tired and inane theory.

Rad

Hugo Holbling

Firstly, i should like to clear up some common misconceptions. The question of who was responsible for the destruction of the Great Library is hardly as clear-cut as some here would have it; the problem seems to be an excess of suspects and polemical accounts of their responsibility on all sides. Our own Bede has a nice essay on the subject. We can no more use incomplete and inconclusive scholarship to support this argument than we can make ontological declarations on the basis of interpretations of QM.

A recent thread in BC&A went over the Galileo incident from a philosophy of science point-of-view. Anyone interested in it may also refer to Kuhn's account in his The Copernican Revolution, de Santillana's in his The Crime Of Galileo, Shea's paper Galileo and the Church, along with some dozen other references i could offer; what is clear is that the simplistic account of a conflict between Galileo as some kind of martyr for science and the dogmatism of the Church is no longer held by any historians of science. Perhaps de Santillana summed the matter up best (although much work has been done since further supporting him) when he remarked:


The very fact that we don't subsequently see arguments using the Galileo affair to support an hypothesis that secular forces have hindered scientific advancement just goes to show how much more complex this and other supposedly formative cases actually were.

To move on to the general topic at hand, i'll repeat some comments i made in the philosophy forum recently. The thesis that science and religion are in conflict resulted from the work of Draper and White in the 19th century. It was popular for a time but only because both had written polemics and viewed the available evidence from with their battleground hermeneutic. From Whitehead onwards, though Gillespie, Westfall, de Santillana (again), Dillenberger, not to mention today's experts such as Grant, Lindberg, Numbers and Shapin, the idea of a conflict could no longer be sustained. Indeed, today in the history of science scholarly attention has shifted to trying to understand the complex and multidimensional interaction of the two and fathoming their mutual influences. According to Shapin:

Perhaps the more interesting areas of study are Merton, Jaki, Hooykaas and others who have suggested to varying degrees and from varying perspectives that in fact religion made a deep and foundational contribution to science.

In any event, it is no longer considered tenable to maintain that an intrinsic conflict exists between science and religion, even on methodological grounds (as Shapin explained and Boyle's own comments so nicely exemplify). I don't suppose for a moment that this account will be satisfactory to those who want to believe in a necessary and eternal conflict, but there it is all the same.

Luiseach

I was wondering when you would find this thread.

An excellent and authoritative contribution.

Well done.

:-)

Hugo Holbling

I thought you were upset with me because i wouldn't discuss truth...

Thanks for your kind words.

Luiseach

...and here all along I thought you were upset with me because I asked about truth...

You're most welcome...

Dr Rick

That's like arguing that "deafness was no hinderance to Beethoven."

That a person can overcome an obstruction doesn't mean that there is no obstruction.

That doesn't mean that their beliefs didn't hinder them. Christianity is like any other bias in this regard: If you can cast away or ignore the bias, it will be less likely to affect your reasoning and objectivity.


Here's an example: Notice the authors faulty use of the word proved and the faulty reasoning in his arguments:

Of course, he might argue that no one "can" prove that Christianity is the cause of his irrationality, and he's right, but he's missing the point. His arguments about Christians that have accomplished stuff and his claims of writing patents are not arguements that Christianity is not a hinderance to science. To make his point, he would have to show us how the Inquisitions, the oppression of "heretics," the Doctrines of Papal and Biblical infallability, the threats to Copernicus, the house arrest of Galileo, and the burning of Giordano Bruno were somehow not impedements to free inquiry.

CALDONIA

Newton spent a LOT of time trying to prove biblical prophecy.

A loss to science or just poor time management?