Christianity: science's cradle!

[thentian]

This should maybe go in the humor forum! :D

I found this on a xian site (http://www.reasons.org/tnrtb/2008/05/27/statements-about-science-that-bother-me-part-3-of-3/):

...the historical roots of modern science are deeply tied to religion in general and to Christianity in particular.

Christianity uniquely and decisively shaped the intellectual climate that gave rise to modern science (roughly three and a half centuries ago). It is even correct to say that modern science was born in the cradle of Christian civilization. Not only were virtually all of the founding fathers of science devout Christians (including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Steno, Pascal, Faraday, and Mendel), but the Christian worldview provided a basis for modern science to emerge and flourish. In effect, the Christian worldview supported the underlying principles that made scientific inquiry both possible and desirable.

The Christian cultural perspective provided the philosophical framework that was needed to launch science—a necessary conceptual structure that was conspicuously absent from other influential cultures of the past.

Where would we have been if it hadn't been for christianity? No doubt still unenlightened, superstitious people believing in old myths and fables! :Cheeky:

Cheers!

[Abel]

Not only were virtually all of the founding fathers of science devout Christians (including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Steno, Pascal, Faraday, and Mendel),

The other option was to be burned at the stake!

In effect, the Christian worldview supported the underlying principles that made scientific inquiry both possible and desirable.

For God's sake, don't let rhutchin see this. He'll go nail a new set of religious rules on some church's door. Oh, it's been done? You don't say.

The Christian cultural perspective provided the philosophical framework that was needed to launch science—a necessary conceptual structure that was conspicuously absent from other influential cultures of the past.

Somebody's been getting a sneak peek at the Vatican's upcoming press releases, hasn't someone?:cool: The old boys are trying to play ketchup because of all the scientific discoveries regarding life elsewhere in the solar system and universe.

Where would we have been if it hadn't been for christianity? No doubt still unenlightened, superstitious people believing in old myths and fables! :Cheeky:

Cheers!

Um, I don't know. Maybe surfing a wormhole to another galaxy?

[Civil1z@tion]

Wasn't science intially found by skeptical greeks in the ancient world? And didn't Christianity just magically reproduce this "affinity for science" after these works were rediscovered during the renaissance? And didn't a large number of those Christians mentioned get persecuted by the main establishment of the church?

[ImaAtheistNow]

The old boys are trying to play ketchup because of all the scientific discoveries regarding life elsewhere in the solar system and universe.

What?

[ImaAtheistNow]

Seems to me the birth of modern science had more to do with demoting the Bible's claim to knowledge than with accepting what it had to say.

In the European world before the scientific revolution, Aristotelian scholasticism was used to educate students in the Universities, and it placed authority - such as what the Bible and Aristotle said - above all other methods of knowing (that is, above reason and experience). But by the early 1600s Aristotelian scholasticism was under attack: Francis Bacon being one of the most vocal. He said that religion and natural philosophy (science) had been being mixed, to the detriment and confusion of both. That is, he wanted religion and science separated. Bacon also wanted to refocus human thought such that it produced positive, real-world effects: improving the human condition (reducing suffering, increasing crop yields, etc.).

Of course, let's not forget the timeline of progress. Human knowledge of how nature works progressed astronomically more in the last ~400 years than it did in the entire preceding ~1600 years, when 'science' was mixed with Christianity (to the confusion and detriment of both).

PS: And, of course, the ancient Greeks - as well as Muslims and the Chinese - none of which were Christians - contributed a lot to pre-modern science.

[BTV Engineer]

The old boys are trying to play ketchup because of all the scientific discoveries regarding life elsewhere in the solar system and universe.

What?

Its spelt catsup ;)

[Nauticus]

The goal of science will always be godless, just not always the scientists.

[skepticalbip]

The goal of science will always be godless, ....Not necessarily; science is a search and quest for an understanding of reality. If there ever turns out to actually be any evidence of a god then science will study the hell out of it.

[Abel]

The old boys are trying to play ketchup because of all the scientific discoveries regarding life elsewhere in the solar system and universe.

What?

Now don't go getting all haughty on me. My grandparents are from Alabama and they always said "ketchup," too. :Cheeky:

Oh, you meant the other part of what I said. Sorry, I could have been more clear by saying "all the scienific discoveries regarding the precursors of life elsewhere..." You know, hydrocarbons on Titan, methane and water on Mars, oceans under the ice on Europa, Ganymede, and other icy moons around Jupiter and Saturn, the "Wow signal" picked up in the seventies by the Ohio State U. radio telescope, the 100+ planets discovered so far orbiting other stars, and so forth.

I should've known a fellow Alabamian wouldn't have trouble with "ketchup.":D

[arricchio]

This should maybe go in the humor forum! :D

I found this on a xian site (http://www.reasons.org/tnrtb/2008/05/27/statements-about-science-that-bother-me-part-3-of-3/):

...the historical roots of modern science are deeply tied to religion in general and to Christianity in particular.

Christianity uniquely and decisively shaped the intellectual climate that gave rise to modern science (roughly three and a half centuries ago). It is even correct to say that modern science was born in the cradle of Christian civilization. Not only were virtually all of the founding fathers of science devout Christians (including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Steno, Pascal, Faraday, and Mendel), but the Christian worldview provided a basis for modern science to emerge and flourish. In effect, the Christian worldview supported the underlying principles that made scientific inquiry both possible and desirable.

The Christian cultural perspective provided the philosophical framework that was needed to launch science—a necessary conceptual structure that was conspicuously absent from other influential cultures of the past.

Where would we have been if it hadn't been for christianity? No doubt still unenlightened, superstitious people believing in old myths and fables! :Cheeky:

Cheers!

Isn't it interesting how Christians sling around terms like "philosophical framework" and "Christian cultural perspective" without ever defining them. I think there is a reason for this.

Evangelical Christians are purely the products of late 20th century, middle-class American culture. They exist in no place, and have existed at no other time, than right here and now. They have no link to religious, let alone scientific, tradition - a fact that they frequently brag about. But for people claiming descendancy from New Testament Chritisianity, the absence of traditional ties to the past weighs heavily on them, prompting them to try to create a cultural historical past that doesn't exist. In order to do this, these supposed links to the past have to be expressed only in the vaguest most superficial terms. Because if they were specifically defined, their incoherence would become obvious.

In order for the claim that "the historical roots of modern science are deeply tied to religion in general and to Christianity in particular" to be even superficially true, first of all, Evangelicals would have to be able to transform Medieval and Renaissance Catholic scholars into a type of born-again, literal Bible believing, Christians that they themselves could recognize. But they can't be. Secondly, the works of these scholars could be described as springing from a "Christian cultural perspective" only if scholasticism, neo-platonism, aristotelianism, could meaningfully fit into a definiton of that term that Evangelicals could accept. Which they can't be. Thirdly, the voluminous contributions of literally dozens of medieval Muslim scholars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_scientists_and_scholars)whose works were translated and poured over by European Christian scholars would have to be utterly ignored. Which they can't be.

It is certainly true that the Catholic Church inspired, and even sponsored, a great deal of scientific inquiry - its troubles with Galileo notwithstanding. But the theology of that church and the philosopical framework of its scholars are incompatible with almost everything that Evangelical Christians now believe. After all, when has Pat Robertson ever quoted Jabir Ibn Hayyan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geber)as an authority on anything.

[Bob K]

If the Chinese invented gunpowder 850 yrs before Westerners, and Chinese sailing ships were more efficient than Westerners' (they had triangular sails that enabled them to point into the wind and therefore sail better into the wind) we ought to recognize that science is observation/discovery of the causalities—natural causal relationships/NCRs—in our universe, and anybody who engages in such discovery/observation is a scientist regardless of his philosophy or culture or religion (religion = philosophy which includes a belief in the existence of supernatural beings).

Obviously, Xnity did not sponsor the Chinese discoveries of the NCRs inre gunpowder and the use of triangular sails.

[Corwyn]

What I find most hilarious about this is that on the same website there 3 links to the
"myth" of evolution.


SO xianity is the cradle of all science EXCEPT of course the science that has THE most evidence and has been THE most influential in the last 200-300 years from medicine to computer programming.

That one xianity opposes - go figure.