rob117

Well, for meteorology- when Ben Franklin discovered that lightning was a form of electricity, church leaders blasted him for showing that it was not a miracle from God...

Bede

Yet another myth...

Clivedurdle

I'm not Chris! (I think?!) My mum used to shout clpaulpclive at my brother and me so I am never sure who I am!

Should we link our previous thread in science?

Berthold

There is a lot of treatments why Europe is a special place in several respects. Climate, geography, diversity of population, connections to elsewhere... It may not have been a concludable necessity that this place, after having been a sort of backwater throughout much of prehistory, became the cradle of progress (whatever that is), but at least the preconditions look plausible.

Bede

Whoops. Sorry guys, I shouldn't get you confused as you are not both saying the same thing. But you look identical.

B

Johann_Kaspar

I think you got it wrong. Please re-read the OP. It says that without xianity sciences could have evolved much more quickly. Discussion about what happened in the Renaissance is off topic for this OP. During 1400 years xians had the control of the texts of the Antiquity and much of this science was forgotten. Xianity is about dogma, the exact opposite of science. Flat earth, earth center of the universe, investigations on corpses forbidden, etc. The intellectual world during well over one millenium was busy with theological questions, not scientific ones. That says it all.

Now during Renaissance the churches tried to fight hard against several people when they put the dogma to jeopardy: Servet, Bruno, Galilei and many more often accused of sorcery. The good thing about xianity is that it could not control all when fights between themselves began.

Philadelphia Lawyer

Christianity opposed every advance in science that threatened any of its dogmas. Geology because it refuted the Genesis stories of the creation of the Earth and the Flood; medicine because it undermined belief that diseases were caused by evil spirits or sin or God (the Church opposed dissection of cadavers, vaccinations, the use of pain killers, even surgery); philology because it undermined the ridiculous "Tower of Babel" story and also the notion that Adam had "named" all the animals; meteorology because it undermined the belief that God or evil spirits were responsible for the weather. Much the same could be said for anthropology, history, geography, and so on. If you want quotes, see here and here.

Basically, the story is the same for every advance in science. (It goes on to this day with evolution.) Christianity first opposes the advance because it refutes some tenet of Christian belief. It calls the scientists blasphemers and so on. Then, when the scientific advance becomes inarguable, the Christians try to find compromise positions that grudgingly accept what science has to say while still paying lip service to the traditional Christian view. When the compromise position itself becomes untenable, the Christians admit that the scientists were right, but then try to rewrite history to show that they never opposed the scientific view, that the "Scriptures" are not in conflict with that view, that they, the Christians, have always nurtured science, that no "true Christian" is, should be, or ever was opposed to the scientific view, and that what had been the traditional Christian belief was in fact only a holdover from paganism!

For a great example of this last point, see here. All that bell ringing, incense burning, and praying to prevent storms and lightning was never really part of "true Christianity" at all, don't ya' know!

Bede

Mr Lawyer,

Your problem is that Andrew Dickson White is now universally rejected by all historians of science. I have analysed and debunked his work (with notes and quotes from modern scholarship) here. For the third time on this thread, the church did not attempt to ban lightening rods. White is the source of this myth and wrong as usual.

You are a victim of popular culture in that most people do believe all the rubbish that White came up with. But, you have no more excuse for sticking to nineteenth century works of history than to nineteenth century works of science. Nor should you use the internet as an authority when you lack the skills to tell the wheat from the chaff. The Church has rarely attempted to hinder science and its positive effect has been much greater. The founder of modern geology has been canonised by the Roman Catholic Church. I know of no medical advances that the Church tried to stop (it is false that it tried to prevent human dissection and the argument over vaccination was simply over whether it was OK to pray for recovery froma disease deliberately inflicted). Lightning rod suppression is a myth (I assume that is your stock example of meteorology). As for philology, the study of ancient writing is not what we call science today. Nice try, though.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Berthold

Saint James Hutton? Or do you mean Athanasius Kircher? Want to make a poll how many know of the latter?

Bede

I mean Nicolas Steno (although I note he is still one step away from sainthood).

Best wishes

Bede