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How much did Religion set back Science and Technological progress?

sxt

How far did it set back the progress of mankind?

If it wasn't for the burning of the great library of Alexandria( in which the single greatest recording of human knowledge from all the Sciences to Mathematics were destroyed) and all other acts of Religious dogmas reeling through the centuries... Where would we be today ?

Would we have been tweeting and using smart phones to buy stuff 500 years ago ?

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DazMarz

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...

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Zillah wrote: »

Peasants that can read start getting ideas and we can't have that now, can we? Imagine if they had used their vast wealth and knowledge to open public schools instead of hoarding both in the Vatican for hundreds of years? There's a reason they're call The Dark Ages.

In that sense they are no different than any other powerful elite throughout history. And historians don't use the phrase 'Dark Ages' anymore, as its a very misleading one.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

jhegarty wrote: »

As were the Egyptians , Greeks and Roman empire

Not Christian for the most part but devoutly religious nonetheless, as were virtually all societies prior to the twentieth century.

An intereresting take on the relationship between science, technology and religion can be found in American historian Lynn White's essay The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis

Zillah

b.harte wrote: »

Not as much as we would be led to believe.:eek:
Some modern scientists and commentators would have us believe that the church was a malign influence on progress, but the truth isn't so black and white.
A lot of the earlier progress in Maths and technologies were promoted and funded by the church, especially as the major wealth in the world was controlled by the church or by rulers who supported / were supported by the church.
It was really only in areas where scientific enquiry contradicted the teaching of the church that there was a conflict.
The idea of heresy and blasphemy certainly did dampen the progress, but to be fair when science got to the point where it was a threat to the church it was already well established and was, as we can see, taking it's own place among other widely held beliefs.
There is also the point that the earliest recording of scientific texts would have had to have been translated from older Persian/Arabic/Greek scripts to Latin and then into French and Germanic languages. The only people who had mastery over language and translation would have had to go through the church system at some point as this was the only western institute of learning for a long time.
There is a book which is well worth a read goes into the whole story better than my rambling post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Philosophers

The Church was indeed the sole bastion of knowledge of many sorts for centuries. On one hand, it might seem like we should be grateful...on the other, when we consider that they actively hoarded that knowledge for themselves and could only afford to live lives of reflection and study because of the tithes they extracted from the peasants, it suddenly seems like we shouldn't be quite so quick to congratulate them. The Church used education as another yoke for the people, texts and ceremonies were kept in Latin so that only an elite class could interpret them. They used education as power.

Peasants that can read start getting ideas and we can't have that now, can we? Imagine if they had used their vast wealth and knowledge to open public schools instead of hoarding both in the Vatican for hundreds of years? There's a reason they're call The Dark Ages.

B.A._Baracus

Grayson wrote: »

Thing is you're going into an atheist forum. Course they're talking about how god is sh1te. In the Christian forums they're probably talking about how Jesus is great. In the model aircraft forum, they're talking about aircraft.

I'm an athiest and there's only one of those forums I'd go into.

Re-read what you typed

You pretty much said that being an atheist is all about crapping on about how there is not a god...

Because as you say a catholic forums would have people talking about that religion. Jewish forum would be the same, buddhist the same, etc etc.
But lets take boards.ie forums. you dont see the vast majority of posts in the Christianity forum going on about atheists? .... each to their own.

Here is the thing. I dont like cherry coke cola. But I dont feel a need to post why people like such crap. I believe each to their own.

badabing106

jhegarty wrote: »

Wasn't it Caesar who burned Alexandria ?

Actually ? No...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

" Some 40,000 book scrolls were destroyed in the fire. Not at all connected with the Great Library, they were account books and ledgers containing records of Alexandria's export goods bound for Rome and other cities throughout the world."[21] "

Grayson

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Ha :pac:
Had to search that up. Never knew about it... lol.

But there is a point to be made... and thats history. Sure didnt england control most of the world at one point? Didnt the americans grab land from the native americans? etc :P

If someone wants to talk about the church and the pedo acts thats gone on ... you'll hear no argument from me. Because they currently have alot to answer for!!! :mad:

But I just feel if you want to go back hundreds of years ago, all else is open too. How can we still hold one thing relevant but not the other?

Thing is you're going into an atheist forum. Course they're talking about how god is sh1te. In the Christian forums they're probably talking about how Jesus is great. In the model aircraft forum, they're talking about aircraft.

I'm an athiest and there's only one of those forums I'd go into.

B.A._Baracus

Grayson wrote: »

No. That's a widely recognised scientific idea called Godwins law.

Ha :pac:
Had to search that up. Never knew about it... lol.

But there is a point to be made... and thats history. Sure didnt england control most of the world at one point? Didnt the americans grab land from the native americans? etc :P

If someone wants to talk about the church and the pedo acts thats gone on ... you'll hear no argument from me. Because they currently have alot to answer for!!! :mad:

But I just feel if you want to go back hundreds of years ago, all else is open too. How can we still hold one thing relevant but not the other?

jimmycrackcorm

Apart from the abuse scandals, the Catholic Church was the main provider of education in this country for a long time. Perhaps that's why we didn't get to invent nuclear power.

Grayson

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Atheist thread is Atheist thread.

Thats one thing I dont get about atheists ( take the atheist forum on here for example ) ... 90% of posts are on about how religion is a load of shite. I get it, you think religion is shite. Thats cool. But why go on and on...

And here is another thing about this subject, the catholic church has alot to answer for. For holding back science hundreds of years ago.
But whilst people condemn the catholic church for that, when it comes to the germans and WW2 - suddenly "thats the past"

No. That's a widely recognised scientific idea called Godwins law.

Grayson

steddyeddy wrote: »

What are the people who constantly berate other people about their beliefs contributing to science?

Propagating the use of a scientific method?

B.A._Baracus

Atheist thread is Atheist thread.

Thats one thing I dont get about atheists ( take the atheist forum on here for example ) ... 90% of posts are on about how religion is a load of shite. I get it, you think religion is shite. Thats cool. But why go on and on...

And here is another thing about this subject, the catholic church has alot to answer for. For holding back science hundreds of years ago.
But whilst people condemn the catholic church for that, when it comes to the germans and WW2 - suddenly "thats the past"

The Master of Disaster

Despite the fact that religion and science are seen as classic diametrically opposed philosophies today, for most of our history that wasn't the case. Pre-Renaissance much of what formed the basis of modern science was done by men who were both religious and naturally inquisitive. Many of the Greeks and Romans were simultaneously exploring human knowledge while maintaining varying degrees of Pagan belief. Then in the period 400 - 1400 the intellectual rigours of church life was one of the few places that harboured the knowledge basis to do any research. The schism formed towards the end of the Medieval period and the birth of the Renaissance when Christian theologians failed or were unwilling to incorporate this rapidly expanding body of knowledge into their religious philosophy. Worse the Church then went on to attempt to violently suppress anything that it deemed contrary to its doctrine. This remained the case I think well into the 20thC when the Church began to lose its hold on the masses.

I think only recently have parts of the Church realised that it had set its stall out in an unnecessary and self-defeating position 500 years ago and may be beginning to 'accept' the scientific evidence. How many priests do you know now, despite their religious inclinations, that would honesty try tell you that the sun revolves around the earth or that Hell is literally in the centre of the earth?

That said there are still a few areas where religion does curtail science today. The one that springs to mind is religious objections to embryonic stem cell research.

steddyeddy

What are the people who constantly berate other people about their beliefs contributing to science?

jhegarty

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Very misleading. The Renaissance was as Christian as the Medieval period.

As were the Egyptians , Greeks and Roman empire

Grayson

If you look at the golden age of arab development, there was a feck load of science. The Byzantines were great scientists. And iirc there were temples attached to the library in alexandria.

Religion has been bad for science, but it's also been good.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

http://i.imgur.com/dlMjZ.jpg

Very misleading. The Renaissance was as Christian as the Medieval period.

Capt'n Midnight

PK2008 wrote: »

Not much Id say, in fact some would argue that the Protestant work ethic was the basis of the industrial revolution.

England was well on the way by the time of Henry VIII

forests were being destroyed for the navy and industry so coal mining was taking off so pumps would have been needed. Like many technologies it was going to happen anyway unless actively prevented by something like a central government trying to keep the status quo eg. China.

You could argue that with all the small countries in Europe the conditions would have happened somewhere.

The dark ages gave us heavy ploughs, the horse collar and crop rotation that enabled much larger populations,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

Cú Giobach

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".

Gummy Panda

aaronjumper wrote: »

The world would look like Star Wars.

No!!!

I hate ewoks

EoghanIRL

ChunkyLover54 wrote: »

sxt wrote: »

Would we have been tweeting and using smart phones to buy stuff 500 years ago ?

No....we wouldnt

Agreed.

Capt'n Midnight

sxt wrote: »

How far did it set back the progress of mankind?

If it wasn't for the burning of the great library of Alexandria( in which the single greatest recording of human knowledge from all the Sciences to Mathematics were destroyed)

Lots of other burnings too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries - the records of a civilisation lost in one night. Only 3 Mayan books survived the July 12, 1562 burning by Fray Diego de Landa,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book_burning_incidents Following the advice of minister Li Si, Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin — beginning in 213 BCE. This was followed by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals who did not comply with the state dogma.

...
According to the Madrid Codex, the fourth tlatoani Itzcoatl (ruling from 1427 (or 1428) to 1440) ordered the burning of all historical codices because it was "not wise that all the people should know the paintings".[45] Among other purposes, this allowed the Aztec state to develop a state-sanctioned history and mythos that venerated the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli.

also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Irish_Saved_Civilization

The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe is a non-fiction historical book written by Thomas Cahill.

Cahill argues a case for the Irish people's critical role in preserving Western Civilization from utter destruction by the Huns and the Germanic tribes

http://i.imgur.com/KJjYd.jpg

PK2008

sxt wrote: »

How far did it set back the progress of mankind?

If it wasn't for the burning of the great library of Alexandria( in which the single greatest recording of human knowledge from all the Sciences to Mathematics were destroyed) and all other acts of Religious dogmas reeling through the centuries... Where would we be today ?

Would we have been tweeting and using smart phones to buy stuff 500 years ago ?

Not much Id say, in fact some would argue that the Protestant work ethic was the basis of the industrial revolution.

D1stant

sxt wrote: »

Would we have been tweeting and using smart phones to buy stuff 500 years ago ?

Strange examples of 'progress'. Not electricity, cars, planes, tv, internet....

Capt'n Midnight

http://i.imgur.com/dlMjZ.jpg

Miss Lockhart

I just mean you seem to arrive in any religion or atheism related thread within the first page. It's uncanny!

gurramok

We can't have science, it educates the population to think by themselves instead of being religiously indoctrinated to believe in crazy stuff.

philologos

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

There must be a beacon to call philologos to these sort of threads!

The beacon is really simple - it's when people post ignorant things about what I and many other people believe. I suspect the same would be true if I posted a thread which claimed something untrue about atheists / atheism.

BUBBLE WRAP

realies wrote: »

Cant do the michael jackson thing, but I getting the popcorn.

This?....

bnt

Even within particular religions, things change. In the first few centuries after Islam was invented, they were quite progressive about scientific research. The word "algebra" is Arabic, as are the names of many of the stars in the sky - thanks to Islamic scholars. Had they kept that open, enlightened attitude, who knows where we'd be?

I don't know exactly what happened in detail, but the Islamic countries came under attack from both sides. If it wasn't Crusaders from the West, it was Genghis Khan and his generals from the East. The "siege mentality" took hold, the rulers clamped down on anything not strictly Islamic - and there (barring a few exceptions) they've stayed for more than 800 years.