How much did Religion set back Science and Technological progress?

Possibly quite a bit, but not in the way most people mention here.
If we as a species had no concept of deities and we had never used them to explain things, our curiosity about the nature of things around us could well have been activated in quite a different way over the course of our evolution as we tried to make sense of the world.
No gods could have resulted in our finding out about a lot of stuff a lot sooner, because we do indeed have this insatiable appetite to "know" things, even to the point of making things up in order to make us feel more comfortable, there are a lot of people out there who will believe anything rather than admit "they just don't know". Not knowing is for many, not an option.

Of course someone (not looking at anyone in particular ) could say "well look at all the learning and knowledge religion is responsible for", true, but this would ignore the sheer enormity of the difference in the way we would think and how we would view the world, we would practically be a different species, so what we did as this one would have little bearing on what we would have done if we were the "other".

Religion's problem is that it was once the be-all and end-all in the world. There were no other answers available to people, so religion filled the gaps and joined the dots (spectacularly badly). Religion used to be the 'one path' and the only way forward, and as such, held an amazing ideological and societal strangle-hold on most of humanity for centuries.

Science was promoted and (dare I say) tolerated by religion at first because it was not seen as a threat. It was a benign subject that did not upset the apple cart too much. It was only when science began to challenge certain little things about religion (the Earth being hundreds of millions of years old, the sun being the centre of the galaxy, etc.) that religion realised: "Uh-oh... we don't have all the answers anymore" and knew that unless they did something, people would start to abandon religion and turn to science, logic and reason.

Hence, this is why religion paints science largely as 'evil' and disrupting 'god's plan' and so on. Religion was fine for our distant ancestors who simply did not have the methodology, technology nor the basic intelligence to search out answers. Religion offered answers and comfort.

But now, science is challenging the old guard, correcting the wrong answers religion has pushed for so long. And this is why so many people are turning their backs on religion. Why is this a problem? Well... money. If there are no sheep people to attend religious services, donate money and so on, religions will start to fail. While most religions may speak of not needing material goods and the life eternal and so on, while the preachers and adherents are stuck on this mortal coil, money is a necessity.

Science is also causing religion to lose power. Knowledge is power. And for a time, the only source of (allegedly infallible) knowledge were religious institutions. Millions of people flocked to religions for answers and thus did these religions become powerful. They had more 'soldiers' to fight for them. But if they failed to remain the only conduit for knowledge and salvation, people would simply stop adhering to their doctrine. Science is stripping away the power the church once had, challenging their bedrock beliefs and dogma.

Losing power and money... this makes science a deadly enemy for the modern church/religion.

Imagine it like an organised crime family: Religion is the patriarchal, domineering head of the family. Science is the young, up-start, radical underboss. Initially, the relationship is good and mutually beneficial, with the boss bringing the underboss up and providing him with sponsorship and so on. But the boss suddenly realises that the underboss is getting too powerful, too big for his own boots. He's gaining support quickly and he is losing it. The boss tries his best to get rid of the underboss, but fails. He comes close, but he ultimately fails. The underboss is fairer, more reasonable and more all-inclusive than the old, dictatorial, xenophobic boss. Eventually, with enough support, the underboss will soon topple the boss and sweep him and his few remaining supporters away...

Or something like that.

Basically, religion helped science to its own detriment and only realised too late that they had cut their own throats. It's just taking religion far too long to bleed to death at this stage. Science will soon come along and place a firm boot on the neck and finish the job. And not a moment too soon...

Religion advanced the sciences in some areas, for example look at all the gadgetry the Catholics created for their inquisitions.
It's a shame that all the female heretics were hiding the signs of the devil in their pubic regions, because it forced the priests to spend countless hours searching the victim's genitalia before they were tortured and hideously murdered.

Yay religion.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Jim Al-Khalili has a nice documentary on what happened to science in Islam, sorta the rise and fall and then he touches a bit on how its re emerging in places like Iran...

Indeed without Islam bringing together such a wide variety of people and knowledge, the "Golden Age" wouldn't have happened, and a lot that came from it would have to have been worked out later.
We could well have been still using the Roman numeral system for a while longer without the introduction of the Arabic-Hindu system in the 13th century.

Christianity was also a unifying force in Europe and the sharing of knowledge is quite a positive thing.