IamJoseph

The crusaders would round up Jews in a synagogue and burn them alive, with no heed for sex or gender, while circling round the house chanting IN JC - anyone who escaped were killed. They were given sanction to do this by the church. Bum rap - what's for encores?

IamJoseph

Medevial European Christianity was far worse than Rome and Islam. No other force in history caused as much death as the church.

semiopen

Whatever was going on here, there is no question that the Crusades were of critical importance in creating the modern world.

There can be no doubt that without this, Western European children would have forever lost the freedom to name their Teddy Bears Mohammed.

Vinnie

I forget where, but I've read that monotheism leads to a more ordered reality than polytheism and is more conducive to the sciences. Systematic theology was important and its method has parallels to the sciences with the exception of divine inerrant revelation and the repeatability and experimentation aspect of science (two big perks!). I'd say their domains are different but both are attempts as understanding an "ordered world" (which is a faith assumption by both parties--See Hume on cause and effect for example). The problem with religion is that science had to conform to the teachings of the Bible at one time.

Science says nothing of "status quos" IMHO. Science investigates the universe and physical truth claims. If it happens to be a minority view or status quo is irrelevant to scientific inquiry. Though pure science does not accept status quos that have not been tested. Scientists still accept the status quo today in many of their views. No one can read every book, subfield or perform every experiment. One has to rely on the "status quo" as given by other working scientists. As I do for my belief in evolution, cosmology, etc. I can assess some of the evidence and find it convincing but I can in no way understand all the intricacies of evolution, the standard model cosmology AND early Christian writings. Maybe if I were rich and went to school getting doctorate after doctorate......As they say, the more you know about one thing, the less you know about everything else.

Vinnie

Toto

Carrier on Stark

Roger Pearse

Have a read of James Hannam's book "God's philosophers" which discusses how medieval thinkers thought about what they were doing. He talks a bit about this argument.

One problem with pagan astronomy was the habit of considering heavenly bodies as gods. Christians rejected this, on religious grounds, which therefore tended to sift out a whole lot of junk right there and then. Christianity was more rationalistic than paganism, which by itself made certain progress possible.

I am surprised to see Richard Carrier use the term "scientists" for ancient philosophers. The term was only invented in the 19th century, I believe, and so is dreadfully anachronistic.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

DCHindley

Roger,

The Babylonians, who certainly took the divine nature of the planets seriously, advanced observational precision to the edge, without the benefit of the trigonometry invented later by the Greeks. However, it was all done in the interest of astrology that seriously believed the planets were gods.

Now Ptolemy, I think, didn't take seriously the common belief in the planets as divine, although I do think he marvelled at the mechanical precision they followed in their rotations. But not all Greeks were sceptical, and Greek intellectuals still managed to develop mathematics and geometric theory to the edge.

What, exactly, do you mean by "certain progress"? Empirical observations, or their interpretation? Both the Babylonians and Greeks rationalized a great deal in spite of their polytheism.

DCH

mountainman

Stark is sick.

mountainman

Archimedes, Pythagroas, Ptolemy are figures in the history
of science, which for many people has a far greater import
than the history of any other human discipline, including the
history of christian apologetics.

An erroneous belief: the term "physics"
is derived from the greek "physis" which
as everyone knows means "nature".

The study of nature is science.

While some are familiar with history of christian apologetics,
others such as Carrier are familiar with the history of science.
This is not in the least surprising.

Toto

Carrier has reasons for using the term "scientist" which he describes in his PhD thesis and forthcoming book, The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire.