Jack the Bodiless

I see nothing specifically Christian about this argument.
The thread title is "Is Christianity a necessary prerequisite to science". The answer is clearly "no".

Case closed, I think.

Butters

Well, before we close the case, let me add this.

“This is my response to Bede’s little paper”

Conclusion and the Contribution of Christianity

Christianity had an important impact on every step of the road to modern science. Let me now summarise exactly what they were:
The preservation of literacy in the Dark Ages
Because it is a literary religion based on sacred texts and informed by the writings of the early church fathers, Christianity was exclusively responsible for the preservation of literacy and learning after the fall of the Western Empire. This meant not only that the Latin classics were preserved but also that their were sufficient men of learning to take Greek thought forward when it was rediscovered.

“ Nonsense! It was the Arabs that preserved Greek learning, and it was only “rediscovered” in the sense that the west found out they had preserved them, and added to the base of knowledge themselves. I’m sure the Jews kept their sacred writing alive during this time. While it is true that some things were saved by Christians, that is more than offset by all the books they destroyed, and by all the knowledge that they suppressed that disagreed with their Dogma.” It was Christians that burned libraries and temples. It was Christians that stopped the copying of non-Christian books, thus insuring their demise. With the closing of Pagan schools, the Greek language declined, sure the Church preserved what Latin works they deemed useful, but it was mainly used by and taught to the clergy, while the rest of the population was illiterate. Even then did they save the Latin language? Why is it called a dead language? And let us not forget that it was Christian barbarians that brought down the Roman Empire in the first place. What the Roman church did not destroy, the Visigoths and the Vandals took care of. After studying the matter further, I find that contrary to what Bede would have us believe, history is not slanted against Christianity, but in favor of it. I myself felt from what I had learned that the Christians DID preserve some literature, while burning others, but I never realized the extent of the damage that they did to learning and knowledge in general.

The doctrine of the lawfulness of of nature
As they believed in a law abiding creator God, even before the rediscovery of Greek thought, twelfth century Christians felt they could investigate the natural world for secondary causes rather than put everything down to fate (like the ancients) or the will of Allah (like Moslems). Although we see a respect for the powers of reason by Arab scholars they did not seem to make the step of looking for universal laws of nature.

“I have seen in your other essays the claim that Christians believed God obeyed his own laws, and this is also so much crap. I’m sure you can provide one or more quotes from some Christian scholar to support this, but we both know it’s not true. Christians believe, and always have believed that God is not bound by his own laws. Both the ancients and the Muslims looked for secondary causes, and also ran afoul of their religion, but in all three cases, it was men willing to go beyond religion, and even against it, that made progress. The church is not responsible for declaring that disease is not caused by demon possession, it was men that could not accept that answer that started modern medicine. It was not the Christian religion that figured out that lightning was not the wrath of God, but a man that could not accept that crap and went out to look for himself. You are willing to misrepresent your own faith to promote a lie. God is beyond all law, God can circumvent natural law to his own will. I do not see Christians looking for a universal law of nature, although some went beyond or against their faith to explore the true cause and effects in nature, it is largely non- Christians looking for any universal laws. Fate, or the Moslem will of God concept corresponds directly with the concept of predestination in Christianity.” It’s God’s will. God works in mysterious ways.”

The need to examine the real world rather than rely on pure reason
Christians insisted that God could have created the world any way he like and so Aristotle's insistence that the world was the way it was because it had to be was successfully challenged. This meant that his ideas started to be tested and abandoned if they did not measure up.

“Well, I don’t find that the Christian idea successfully challenged Aristotle. And of course Aristotle was not the only Greek, and his ideas were not universally held. And ideas did not start being tested, they were simply replaced by Christian ideas. It took men that could reject the Christian view of the world to start asking questions again. Christians claimed that to explore the world was fine, as long as your conclusions don’t contradict the Bible. This creates an obstacle for science, since the Bible is a book of myth and stories thought up by ignorant goat herders several thousand years ago.”

The belief that science was a sacred duty
This is not so much covered in this essay, but features again and again in scientific writing. The early modern scientists were inspired by their faith to make their discoveries and saw studying the creation of God as a form of worship. This led to a respect for nature and the attempt to find simple, economical solutions to problems.

“This may be true, but these men would have been better off as deists than Christians, they would not have had to fight the Church when making their discoveries. There is no evidence that Christianity promotes inquiry any more than any other Religion, and we know that they hindered it when they could. Let’s not forget that Galileo and Bruno were devout Christians, and claimed that their work did not contradict God, only the church.”

Hence Copernicus felt he could propose a heliocentric model for no better reason that it seemed more elegant.

Not that it seemed more elegant, but that it WORKED! And don’t forget, the church rejected the heliocentric model, even after Galileo PROVED it correct.”

Not all these factors were unique to Christianity but they all came together in Western Europe to give the world its only case of scientific take off which has since seen its ideas spread to the rest of the world. An learned examination of why other civilizations failed to make the leap forward can be found here.

“The reasons that science took off in Western Europe have nothing to do with Christianity, other than the fact thatChristianity was largely responsible for it’s earlier demise. A link to Robert Turkel! What little respect I had for you is shattered. This man is a liar a joke, and an embarrassment to Christians everywhere. His “work” is nothing but falsehoods, misrepresented facts and attempts to sound authoritative by ridiculing anyone that doesn’t agree with him, Christian or not.”


For the anti Christians desperate not to give credit for their own faith of scientism to the religion they hate

“Here is that line “faith of scientism” What the hell is this?! First of all there is no such word as “scientism” and how can anyone that claims to have studied science write this crap and really believe it themselves? I have no faith in scientists. I have no faith in scientific institutions. What I see is that by applying the scientific method to the world is the only way to avoid being sucked in by superstition and fraud. Just to make sure it is read, allow me to repost the definition of science.

Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.

I would have thought they taught you that at Oxford (I’ll let you guess what collage my kids NOT going to.) No faith, no Dogma. Allow me to expand on the quote from Robert Park.

“The success and credibility of science are anchored in the willingness of scientists to obey two rules.
1) Expose new ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other scientists.
2) Abandon or modify accepted facts or theories in light of more complete or reliable experimental evidence

Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that sets science apart from “other ways of knowing” to use a fashionable euphemism,. When better information is available, science textbooks are rewritten with hardly a backward glance. Many people are uneasy standing on such loose soil; they seek a certainty that science cannot offer. For these people the unchanging dictates of ancient religious beliefs, or the absolute assurances of zealots, have a more powerful appeal.”

“If you have one once of intellectual honesty, you would remove the word “scientism” and any references to “faith in” or “belief in” scientism.”

two questions must be answered. First, if the dominant world view of medieval Europe was as hostile to reason as they would like to suppose, why was it here rather than anywhere else that science arose?

“It arose here because they had available the vast body of work that was done before them. Because while they enjoyed the relative calm of a relatively civilized world, they were not at the complete mercy of their religion. If Rome had not fallen we might be living on Mars right now, who knows? Of course this answer is as simplistic as the question. The reasons are varied and complex, you have failed to show that Christianity did not hinder science, much less was the cause of it. You have also completely ignored all political and social conditions of the times”

And secondly, given that nearly every one of the founders and pre founders of science were unusually devout (although not always entirely orthodox) even by the standards of their own time, why did they make the scientific breakthroughs rather than their less religiously minded contemporaries?

“How did you determine that they were “unusually” devout? Everyone at that time was devout. If you wanted money or patronage, you had better have been devout. What less religiously minded contemporaries? We are talking about a time when religion permeated all aspects of life. If you wanted an education, or a job other than farmer, you had to toe the line. I also see that you failed to mention that both Galileo and Bruno claimed that their theories glorified God, not discredited him, they only discredited the beliefs of the Christian church. (who was forced, eventually, by science, to admit that they were wrong.) This whole essay is nothing than a twisting of some facts, and omission of others. You have misrepresented ancient Greek thought, scientific thought, and even Christian beliefs in an attempt to rewrite history and give credit to a superstition for the achievements of science. Of course, in my experience ( and the experience of Galileo and other scientists) Christians will stoop as low as they have to in order to support the lies of their religion. “

I wonder if I will receive any answers.
“Wonder no longer, of course this tripe could have been answered more completely by many more intelligent people than I, I suspect they felt it was to ridiculous to bother with.”

Just as an addendum- The thing that shocked me most while reading up on this subject was a quick search on the net; “Book burning Christian” The first 30 sites that came up were Christian churches promoting book burning TODAY! Oh yes, Christianity really promotes science!

bluefugue

Bede, if you lived in the U.S., you might get that impression after a while too. I don't think atheists concentrate on fundamentalists out of a desire to build strawmen; it's because in the U.S. at least, fundamentalists make a disproportionate amount of noise, and constitute a clear and present danger to religious freedom. (And science education.)

lpetrich

Butters, you ought to more clearly distinguish your statements and Bede's. Don't be afraid to use some UBB code (click on "UBB Code is enabled"), and you can always go back and edit your message (that paper-with-pencil icon).

lpetrich

Bede's ideas seem very similar to those of theologian <a href="http://pirate.shu.edu/~jakistan/" target="_blank">Stanley Jaki</a>; whom I remember from having read some of his books long ago.

Those books were not about the subject of this thread, but were Brain, Mind, and Computers (computers can never "think") and Planets and Planetarians (life on other planets is wild speculation), which I remember for their somewhat specious arguments.

Sojourner553

I'll jump in since this thread seems to be fading out.

Ipetrich -- If the concept of the Trinity is original, can you explain who invented it? Was it:

* jesus and his disciples/contemporaries
* the gospel writers (original version, before their writings were later edited)
* Paul
* later Christians, like Tertullian, Athanasius

I think all of the above had a different view of what a Trinity meant to them.

Sojourner

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Sojourner553

True.

Also, have you not considered this: If Christianity were real -- shouldn't lightening or some other obvious sign distinguish the "good" Christians from the "bad" ones? Afterall many of the "bad" ones really think they are ... "good".


Sojourner

NOGO

One last point.

Looking again on Bede's claim on how Christianity contributed to the emergence of science one cannot help but notice that none of his points are exclusively "Christian". They are also from Judaism.

If we go back to the second century CE we have a Pagan Greek culture which made significant advances in mathematics, astronomy, geography, chemistry etc. which would remain unmatched until the fifteenth century.

Compared with that we have a Jewish nation which had all the benefits of all the items presented by Bede and made none of these scientific advances.

So the question which Bede avoided throughout this thread is why was it the Pagan Greeks who made these advances in the sciences and not the Jews? After all, the Jews had the Bible and all the advantages which Bede claims were essential to science and yet it was Greek Pagans who did it all.

joedad

Well put, NOGO.

There's a provocative audio excerpt at the following link from a recent book by Dick Teresi, LOST DISCOVERIES: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - From the Babylonians to the Maya

<a href="http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/amazonProduct.jsp?amazonCategory=product&productID =BK_RHAU_000106&source_code=WSAZS01001102000&scic= 0" target="_blank">http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/amazonProduct.jsp?amazonCategory=product&productID =BK_RHAU_000106&source_code=WSAZS01001102000&scic= 0</a>

As the audio states, there is no smoking gun stating that Copernicus plagiarized the discoveries of others, but there is circumstantial evidence that he did precisely that.

The book itself sounds like a pretty good read.

joe

Sojourner553

I agree with you NOGO re: early Judaism. Good observation.

Still: I think Bede is on relatively safe ground when he seeks to demonstrate there is no inherent conflict between science and (liberal/moderate) Christianity -- because God can be viewed as setting the scientific system in place that can be discovered through observation.

Just because Christians still "hope" for a miracle (including eternal life) does not mean they cannot observe the world and the sciences at work in it. In short, there is nothing to prevent them from being great scientists. Some have tried to debate with me that Christians come to science with a "bias" believing in God. But I think most people bring some cultural bias with them--so that if multi-cultural groups of scientists work together solving a problem, hopefully this equalizes out.

Now--I do find Bede's position untenable when he tries to argue that conservative/fundamentalist Christianity (such as we see with the Medieval Catholic Church) traditionally were not opposed to the sciences, and indeed (per his thesis) helped lay the groundwork for modern science. I think he has demonstrated there were some good Christian scholars -- even a handful of pro-science Christians during this time. But they were typically going against the grain of a culture that (during this time) was very anti-science and, more often than not, opposed to their scientific outlooks.

(I presume everyone will hate me for taking the middle road. Smile)

Sojourner

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>