Is the Judeo-Christian culture more compatible with "scientific thought" then others?

[the minnow]

I remember somewhere reading a theory that goes somewhat like this:

-Western (Judeo-Christian) society created the Scientific/Industrial revolution, science... etc. Just look at Einstein, Newton, Liebniz, the Renaissance etc. It is the western culture that founded modern science and is the most progressive technologically.
-Look at the Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Africans, ...etc. Even though they have some achievements in their civilizations, they cannot hold a candle to the West, they don't come close to having matched "our" level.
-Westerners (European society) were able to do so because they see God in a rational way (eg. An omnipotent force, first cause, that drives everything, creates the universe... linear time, not cyclical etc.) but many non-Abrahamic cultures (eg. Hindus, and Buddhists, polytheists, pagans) as well as Sufi Islam focus more on the mystical aspects (eg. many spirits, meditations, energies, life-forces, rebirths etc.) Also, Western religion focuses more on "objective" truth in revelations, morality etc. while Easterners do the opposite (things are "subjective", pantheistic, mystical)

What do you think of this theory?

Do you really think that the reason the West has superior technology is because it had a more rational religious/philosophical foundation for science?

I mean is the idea of an almighty God, heaven-and-hell, life and death, absolutes evil and good really more compatible with science than say, chi and shakras, yin-and-yang, birth and rebirth, spirits and gods etc. and is that what set the stage for Western thought?

I know that today (in modern times) India, China etc. does produce brilliant scientists, engineers etc... but I'm arguing about the past record. How come their civilizations didn't able to produce the "scientific revolution" as the Judeo-Christian one?

[Pavlov's Dog]

The first problem I see, is that Islam is an Abrahamic relgion, so how do you account for their culture being even less technological/scientific than India, China, etc.?

[Agemegos]

What do you think of this theory?
It is a typical example of the Christian propensity to claim credit for everything in European culture, even those things that are plainly derived from Greek, Roman, and German precursors rather than Jewish precursor, and indeed even things that it tried desperately to suppress while it had the power to.

Besides, Islam shares most of these Judaeo-Christian qualities, and the predominately muslim countries aren't currently at the scientific or technological leading edge. Nor, for that matter, are such long-standing Christian countries as Ethiopia. And there have been times when the Chinese and Indians were at the cutting edge: it seems to me that the Japanese are doing good science and tech without much Christianity, and the Chinese are poised for a comeback.

We live in one society that seems to have had five centuries at the forefront despite everything its erstwhile Christianity could do. But it is no more typical of Christian societies in general (eg. mediaeval Ethiopia or Russia) than Tang China is of non-Christian societies. And we'd better pull our socks up if China, Japan, and even India are not to surpass us again.

[Agemegos]

Western (Judeo-Christian)

This is a false equivalence. Western civilisation is as much Greek and Roman, Saxon and Frankish as it is Jewish or Christian. And since the Renaissance it is has been developing in such a way that it is more humanist and scientific and sui generis than it is a continuation of any of those roots or of all of them combined.

Besides, there are and have been a lot of Judaeo-Christian societies other than that of Western Europe. Eastern Europe, for example, which was a backward and priest-ridden scientific and technological wasteland until a couple of hundred years ago. Of the Thomasine Christians of the Malabar Coast. Or the Ethiopian Copts.

You are looking at one, breakaway member of the heterogenous set of civilisations that have had an Abrahamic religiion and falsely attributing its accomplishments to the whole set.

It is the western culture that founded modern science and is the most progressive technologically.

The Japanese and South Koreans give us a run for our money.

-Westerners (European society) were able to do so because they see God in a rational way (eg. An omnipotent force, first cause, that drives everything, creates the universe... linear time, not cyclical etc.)

So does Islam.

We only started on our accomplishments when we began to re-read pagan Greek material and doubt what our religious leaders told us.

but many non-Abrahamic cultures (eg. Hindus, and Buddhists, polytheists, pagans) as well as Sufi Islam focus more on the mystical aspects

So do most Christian and many jewish ones.

Besides, Sufi is a tiny minority of Islam.

Also, Western religion focuses more on "objective" truth in revelations, morality etc

I can't help but laugh at your calling revelation and morality 'objective'. And I can't help but deride your implication that Islam, Buddhism, Stoicism, Mithraism, Manichaeism, andthe ancient Persian religion weren't concerned with morality.

What do you think of this theory?[/i]

It is based on deliberately ignoring most of the facts.

[quote]Do you really think that the reason the West has superior technology is because it had a more rational religious/philosophical foundation for science?

Yes. That is why it didn't get started until if began to recover from Christianity, rediscover Greek philosophy, and respect skepticism.

I mean is the idea of an almighty God, heaven-and-hell, life and death, absolutes evil and good really more compatible with science than say, chi and shakras, yin-and-yang, birth and rebirth, spirits and gods etc. and is that what set the stage for Western thought?

No and no to both questions.

I know that today (in modern times) India, China etc. does produce brilliant scientists, engineers etc... but I'm arguing about the past record.

No, you're arguing on the basis of a tiny bit of the past record, which ignores what happened in the West until AD 1500, everything that happened in Judaeo-Christian cultures outside the West, all Islamic societies except for the froth of Sufi mystics they produced, and the long epoch of China technological predominance.

And even with that hopelessly biased selection of teh evidence, you are still basis your case entirely on the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, instead of examining the actual foundations of science and its relation with religion in the West.

How come their civilizations didn't able to produce the "scientific revolution" as the Judeo-Christian one?

Not the Judaeo Christian one. Most Judaeo-Christian civilisations partook of the Scientific Revolution in exactly the same way that Muslim and Indian ones did: as colonial subjects of the West.

[the minnow]

Actually, I'm not actually arguing for this idea, its just a theory I read. The more detailed idea for the person's reasoning is view here.
http://www.rae.org/jaki.html

[the minnow]

Actually, I'm not actually arguing for this idea, its just a theory I read. The more detailed idea for the person's reasoning is view here.
http://www.rae.org/jaki.html
Are these arguments valid do you think?

[pescifish]

I'm not seeing a non-Abrahamic slant to an OP and topic that is predominantly Abrahamic (Judeo-Christian), so I believe this thread belongs in GRD.

Moving from NARP to GRD.

[perfectbite]

:wave:

Is the Judeo-Christian culture more compatible with "scientific thought" then others?

The word you want is not 'then' but 'than'. (Seriously, it can't even qualify as a typo, the keyboard letters are too far apart.)

and, no one has brought up the mathematical microsope that was supplied by Arabian scholarship that allowed the Christian, Abrahamic West to re-examine, and fill in the blanks (how to get there from here) of the Greek and Roman views of the world.

[Tigers!]

Joseph Needham tried to answer this very question in relation to China. I like his analysis my self.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needham%27s_Grand_Question

[lpetrich]

There's a thread on a similar subject in A review of the Closing of the Western Mind (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=179520), Bede's rather negative review of a book that associates the rise of Xianity with the fall of classical Greco-Roman culture. I and some others argued against Bede's claims in it, noting that the pagan Romans were often very science-friendly and the early Xians not so science-friendly.

The early theologian Justin Martyr had liked about Xianity that one did not have to learn any science to believe in it, as opposed to what some philosophical schools demanded.

And I agree with Agamegos -- Xianity is not inherently a rationalistic religion; one has to graft rationalism onto it. This came about with the rediscovery of pagan Greco-Roman literature in late medieval Europe; if Xianity was such a super-scientific and rationalistic religion, then it ought to have been very apparent in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers. But it isn't. They didn't make a principle of learning all they can from pagan philosophers and trying to improve on them.

Imagine Socrates vs. Jesus Christ in a debate. Socrates would likely have made Jesus Christ look VERY stupid.

[OldYgg]

This is just pure ethnocentrism. Bunk. After all - the Muslims could have claimed the same thing hundreds of years ago when they were a thriving culture and developed things like Algebra.

It is the current and sustained control of everyone by mythology that determines the capabilities of a culture in terms of science.

During the middle ages - western culture was completely controlled by religion. Muslim cutlure was not. They had various scientific feats then that are equivalent to the feats we do at present.

There unfortunately, was a change in Muslim culture during this time period - where different thoughts were no longer praised. a few hundred years later western culture is no longer as doctrine bound and religion tight - and we have developed many wonderful things.

But without Algebra, would we have been able to do many of these things?

Who knows, in a few hundred years maybe the West (excepting Europe - so just the USA) will be a rigid theocracy and the Muslim world will rise again to build colonies in space - while we believe that this is a horrible thing - to defy god and live off of the planet Earth.

Old Ygg

[Agnostheist]

The first problem I see, is that Islam is an Abrahamic relgion, so how do you account for their culture being even less technological/scientific than India, China, etc.?

The argument is about "Judeo-Christian".

Islam is the worst because it is the most rigid religion on earth.

[Tom Sawyer]

The argument is about "Judeo-Christian".

Islam is the worst because it is the most rigid religion on earth.

It would be more accurate to say that Islam today is the most rigid on Earth. There's no other ideology that's currently oppressing and holding back more people than it.

A few centuries ago, it was Christianity that was doing the same thing and crushing scientific and logical thinking. It's only when the Christian societies started throwing off the domination of the church that our scientific and technological progress restarted. For the thousand years before that, nothing interesting happened from a scientific point of view in Europe. Hell, in the 12th century, universities were teaching from 2nd century Roman medical textbooks because nothing new had been written on the subject and those texts were wrong and based off of studies of pigs and no one ever noticed because the societies had no one in them with the background to be able to check what was being taught.

Christian culture is not compatible with scientific thought, in fact it's quite the opposite. Western culture is, but the fact that Western culture has additional attributes unrelated to the scientific ones that happen to be Christian doesn't mean that the Christian parts have anything to do with the scientific thoughts.

[lpetrich]

I think that that's a bit simplistics. Xians have had a long tradition of liking science when it seems to be on their side -- though not otherwise.

However, science cannot be counted to always be on their side...

In the later Middle Ages, when western Europeans were rediscovering a lot of pagan philosophy and the like, Thomas Aquinas tried to reconcile Aristotle and Xianity. He had to depart from several of Aristotle's beliefs to do so; Aristotle had believed in several heresies, like:

The eternity of the Universe
Three kinds of soul - vegetable, animal, and rational
Individual consciousness dying with the death of the body
God being interested only in Itself and not anything else
God not actively controlling the Universe, but instead keeping it going in a purely passive fashion, by being an object of attraction

And in early modern times, Jesuits were good at learning and science -- as long as the science wasn't anything the Vatican disapproved of. When the Vatican proscribed heliocentrism, they meekly went along -- and stopped advocating theories about celestial objects.

A common way of getting around such problems had been to present controversial views as purely hypothetical; when Buridan discussed the possibility of a vacuum, he claimed that he was speaking purely hypothetically. And so it went in the Middle Ages. Nobody got in serious trouble for advocating some new scientific theory -- and nobody was willing to advocate some theory that could be seen as heretical. This fictionalism is what Osiander put in his preface to Copernicus's magnum opus, and the Church seemed to think it was OK. But Galileo got impatient with continually having to present heliocentrism as "only a theory" without any claim to truth. And he was not exactly patient with what he considered foolishness.

For his part, Galileo considered himself a good Catholic, and he tried to argue that heliocentrism was not theologically troublesome. He tried to argue that the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go, a viewpoint much like Stephen Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria, but the Church was not exactly enamored of that.

[Tom Sawyer]

I think that that's a bit simplistics. Xians have had a long tradition of liking science when it seems to be on their side -- though not otherwise.


Technically speaking, that's another way of saying that they don't like science at all. At the most basic level, science is a methodological way of asking questions and accepting the results you get. If you're only going to agree with the methodology when it gives the answers you want and reject it when it doesn't, you're actually never agreeing with the methodology at all and are always completely opposed to it.

That's not to say that there are not individual Christians who are great scientists, but their scientific thoughts are fundamentally at odds with teh Christian beliefs. Both are ways of trying to find the truth about the universe. One is syaing that we need to test the universe and see what the answers are, the other is saying that we have already been told the answers.

[hinduwoman]

Didn't science with capital S actually began in Christian Europe with the renaissance and then it really took off during 18th century.?
It is getting away from religion that allows science to flourish.

[lpetrich]

Didn't science with capital S actually began in Christian Europe with the renaissance and then it really took off during 18th century.?
It is getting away from religion that allows science to flourish.
Yes, and Richard Carrier pointed out in a radio interview that the prosecution of Galileo squashed scientific research in Italy for a century -- many would-be scientists were likely afraid of being suspected of some heresy.

Science ended up getting farther in Protestant countries, and in Catholic ones where the Church was weaker, like France, for the next few centuries.

And I wonder if Xian apologists will someday claim that metaphysical naturalism is a part of True Xianity, and that Universe-controlling anthropomorphic superbeings are a pagan absurdity.

[Tammuz]

This is a false equivalence. Western civilisation is as much Greek and Roman, Saxon and Frankish as it is Jewish or Christian.

I agree. Perhaps it should be called Romano-Germanic instead of Judeo-Christian?

[lpetrich]

Or Greco-Romano-Germanic.

I'd answered similar arguments in Was Christianity good for Europe? (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=181873)

Yes, this "Xianity the scientific, rationalistic religion" theory is sometimes called the "Jaki thesis", after the Catholic priest Stanley Jaki. It seems to me to be out-of-context evangelistic propaganda more than anything else, because it ignores a lot of widely-accepted contrary theology, like miracles and God's incomprehensibility ("a finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite", "man cannot presume to judge God", etc.). And Stanley Jaki, being very knowledgable in his church's history, ought to be aware of his church's criteria for sainthood. You have to work miracles; a superior understanding of natural law does not count towards sainthood. And medieval saints were recorded as doing LOTS of miracles.

So one does have to wonder how the concept of natural law emerged. I suspect that it was a borrowing from pagan philosophers, who had often treated the gods of their societies as unnecessary hypotheses.

[Clivedurdle]

I thought the two groups with disproportionate numbers of Nobel prize winners - sects of Judaism and protestant xianity - had in common cultural habits of arguing and debate.

I think it is related to how much people explore, think about the world, and debate and argue with others - primarily in their families and communities.

So no relation to religions, but a strong relationship to thinking and looking and discussing and arguing.

[J-D]

The argument is about "Judeo-Christian".Yes, and what does that mean, anyway? Jewish I understand. Christian I understand. But what's 'Judeo-Christian'?

[OldYgg]

Yes, and what does that mean, anyway? Jewish I understand. Christian I understand. But what's 'Judeo-Christian'?

I wonder if the term arrived after the holocaust. Sort of sharing the western culture with the jewish heritage as an apology for killing millions of people and a meek recognition of a heritage of killing jews in small towns whenever something untoward should happen.

I mean, if there is a Judeo-Christian heritage - that's it - kill the jews whenever convenient. Then when the biggest Jew killer in the world comes in to existence - claim he wasn't Christian - and ignore the long standing tradition of killing jews.

And people wonder why most of Europe is nonreligious. Most of the can probably look back only a couple of generations and see their family trees littered with people killed for religious reasons.

Old Ygg

[J-D]

I wonder if the term arrived after the holocaust. Sort of sharing the western culture with the jewish heritage as an apology for killing millions of people and a meek recognition of a heritage of killing jews in small towns whenever something untoward should happen.You have prompted me to check the Wikipedia article, which suggests that something like that might be true, although it dates the usage as far back as 1938, so it wasn't strictly a reaction to the Shoah, but could have been a reaction to Nazism.

The Wikipedia article also points out that the use of the term can nevertheless be seen as disregarding the ways in which Jewish culture differs from Christian culture, and hence as being objectionable from a Jewish point of view. That's what I've thought for a long time: that the term 'Judeo-Christian' implies that Judaism is just a prologue to or rough draft of Christianity, which is of course what Christians believe, but not what Jews believe--and also a point of view which I see no reason for infidels to adopt.

[Sarpedon]

I always refer to 'Western Civilization' by that name, or 'Greco-Roman' rather than 'Judeo Christian.' After all, Christianity was more of a greek phenomenon anyway, and its not as if the Jews amounted to much before they were Hellenized.

[ziffel]

What do you think of this theory?

I think we've achieved the success in spite of Christianity. For Christianity to claim credit is ludicrous, considering they've fought science tooth and nail, every step of the way (Galileo anyone?). They are still fighting it, laughably, with ID/Creationism and calling evolution bunk. Christianity is anti-science.