Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Sauron · 01-08-2006, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LittleTim

This was originally posted on Christianitytoday's website. Any thoughts or links to counterpositions?

http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/

LittleTim · 01-08-2006, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

The "Conflict" Thesis is officially out in History of Science studies and probably will be for some time to come. So those old books are basically wrong.

Stark is a religiously-driven writer who uses data selectively, erects models that are self-serving, and often simply ignores counterexamples. I have reviewed his earlier book here and on my blog:

http://michaelturton2.blogspot.com/2...k-rise-of.html

Michael

Michael,

Thanks for your insights. It's good to know people take these matters seriously. I tried posting some questions on a Christian forum, but they banned me.

freigeister · 01-08-2006, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

The "Conflict" Thesis is officially out in History of Science studies and probably will be for some time to come. So those old books are basically wrong.

A book is wrong if its thesis is officially out?!!!! You heard it hear first, folks.:rolling:

Gawen · 01-08-2006, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob117

Claiming that Christianity was responsible for the rise of rationalism and science is a common apologist technique. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel for a better explanation.

This book, in parts, is VERY dry. It was not an easy read for me. It's been 5 years. Maybe I'll give it another go.

gregor · 01-08-2006, 08:02 PM

I've always wondered about how Xianity supported intellectual development, given (i) centuries of stasis during the Church's maximum control 600 CE to 1600 and (ii) the exponential increase in science and technology that occurred just as the role of the Church in government and education was dropping, 1700 - current.

And Stark, it also should be pointed out, has spoken out about the inaccuracy of evolution (IIRC).

Sauron · 01-08-2006, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gawen

This book, in parts, is VERY dry. It was not an easy read for me. It's been 5 years. Maybe I'll give it another go.

I agree totally.

Which is why I was happy to see that PBS is producing a TV series on it. I'm hoping that it will bring out the key points with a lot of visual aids.

lpetrich · 01-09-2006, 07:04 AM

There indeed is a PBS version of "Guns, Germs, and Steel", complete with a dramatization of Spanish adventurer Pizarro vs. Inca emperor Atahualpa. However, IMO, the site does not do enough to illustrate the book's thesis graphically. Like showing graphically where domestic animals and crop plants can easily spread to.

Such as showing wheat and rice plants spreading east-west across Eurasia, or llamas not being able to travel north of the Andes.

lpetrich · 01-11-2006, 05:29 AM

On relations between science and religion, that likely depends on which science and which religion. Massimo Pigliucci has discussed the question in detail in his article on Personal gods, deism, and the limits of skepticism, and he has created a graph of the various possibilities in page 16 of this slide series.

One axis is Michael Shermer's categories of science and religion as:

Same World
Separate Worlds
Conflicting Worlds

and the other axis is what kind of god, if any

Personal God
Naturalistic God
Deism
Atheism

And he places a variety of possibilities in that graph.

-

But more to the point, I think that it's fair to say that modern science grew out of medieval philosophy and theology, and that conflicts started happening when early scientists started coming to theologically awkward conclusions as part of their researches, like heliocentrism.

In earlier centuries, philosophers and proto-scientists had avoided trouble by presenting potentially controversal work as purely hypothetical; Buridan presented his discussion of the possibility of a vacuum as that. That was even OK for heliocentrism, but Galileo got impatient with that, which displeased the Church.

Toto · 03-06-2006, 06:55 PM

There is a scathing review of this book by Alan Wolfe, who usually writes sympathetically of evangelical Christianity here:

The Reason for Everything

Quote:

The Victory of Reason is the worst book by a social scientist that I have ever read. Stark's methodology has nothing to do with history, or the logic of comparative analysis, or the rigorous testing of hypotheses. Instead he simply makes claims, the more outrageous the better, and dismisses all evidence that runs contrary to his claims as unimportant, and treats anyone with a point of view different from his own as stupid and contemptible, and reduces causation in human affairs to one thing and one thing only. How in the world, I kept asking myself as I read this book, could someone spend so much of his life trying to understand something as important as religion and come away so childish?

In a most inadvertent way, however, Stark does perform a public service with the publication of this dreadful book. For much of the postwar period, academic disciplines, including the social sciences, ignored religion, despite the fact that giants of social-scientific discovery such as Weber and Durkheim made the subject central to their understanding of the world. Turning back to those roots, scholars have begun to produce important work that helps us to understand why, if the United States is any indication, increasing prosperity did not bring increasing secularization in its wake.

. . .

Scholars who are religious and who want to call attention to the role of religion in the modern world may be motivated by their faith to do so, but as scholars they must act differently within the academy than they do in the pews. And as the revival of religion in academia has begun to take hold, this is what the great bulk of them are doing. Mark Noll, an evangelical Christian, wrote a book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind that spared little in its criticisms of the faith with which Noll so strongly identifies. Others, such as Grant Wacker writing on Pentecostalism or George Marsden on Jonathan Edwards, produced brilliant books filled with nuance and balance. In the work of all these scholars, general religious convictions are always present, but specific ones are difficult to find.

Not so with Rodney Stark. His book is not about religion, it is about Christianity. . . .

. . . If the religious revival in the academy begins to take the form of Stark's Christian triumphalism, it will lose its credibility and perhaps even be sent back to the sectarian seminaries out of which it emerged. That will in the long run be Rodney Stark's contribution to his field; and while I would miss a strong academic interest in religion, I would gladly say good-bye to scholars who would rather evangelize than investigate.

ziffel · 03-06-2006, 07:32 PM

Crap, now I feel really dumb for ordering Rise of Christianity from Amazon last week. I was thinking it was an objective, secular view of the origins of Christianity from an historical and sociological perspective.

So, to be clear ... is Stark a Christian now and thus an apologist?

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01-08-2006, 08:02 PM	#15
gregor Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Texas Posts: 932	I've always wondered about how Xianity supported intellectual development, given (i) centuries of stasis during the Church's maximum control 600 CE to 1600 and (ii) the exponential increase in science and technology that occurred just as the role of the Church in government and education was dropping, 1700 - current. And Stark, it also should be pointed out, has spoken out about the inaccuracy of evolution (IIRC).

01-09-2006, 07:04 AM	#17
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	There indeed is a PBS version of "Guns, Germs, and Steel", complete with a dramatization of Spanish adventurer Pizarro vs. Inca emperor Atahualpa. However, IMO, the site does not do enough to illustrate the book's thesis graphically. Like showing graphically where domestic animals and crop plants can easily spread to. Such as showing wheat and rice plants spreading east-west across Eurasia, or llamas not being able to travel north of the Andes.

01-11-2006, 05:29 AM	#18
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	On relations between science and religion, that likely depends on which science and which religion. Massimo Pigliucci has discussed the question in detail in his article on Personal gods, deism, and the limits of skepticism, and he has created a graph of the various possibilities in page 16 of this slide series. One axis is Michael Shermer's categories of science and religion as: Same World Separate Worlds Conflicting Worlds and the other axis is what kind of god, if any Personal God Naturalistic God Deism Atheism And he places a variety of possibilities in that graph. - But more to the point, I think that it's fair to say that modern science grew out of medieval philosophy and theology, and that conflicts started happening when early scientists started coming to theologically awkward conclusions as part of their researches, like heliocentrism. In earlier centuries, philosophers and proto-scientists had avoided trouble by presenting potentially controversal work as purely hypothetical; Buridan presented his discussion of the possibility of a vacuum as that. That was even OK for heliocentrism, but Galileo got impatient with that, which displeased the Church.

03-06-2006, 07:32 PM	#20
ziffel Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Florida east coast, near Daytona Posts: 4,969	Crap, now I feel really dumb for ordering Rise of Christianity from Amazon last week. I was thinking it was an objective, secular view of the origins of Christianity from an historical and sociological perspective. So, to be clear ... is Stark a Christian now and thus an apologist?

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