I’m not denying that many of the pieces fell in to place in Western Europe to allow science to develop in the direction it did. I am questioning the idea that any one of those pieces very vitally necessary for that to have happened, including the existence or religion in general or the specific forms of religion in Europe during this period.
Well, we can look at a number of societies that appear to have moved in the direction of a scientific revolution and didn't make it. We can compare, for example, the ideas of the ancient Greeks, those of the Islamic scholars, the Chinese accomplishments, etc.
When that is done (and it has been done extensively), one of the conclusions is that overall cultural attitudes towards the possibility and desirability of learning about the universe are significant factors. For example, the Chinese, for all their technological accomplishments, still held to a flat-Earth concept until very late (contact with Europeans). But their primary focus was divination and not figuring out how things worked. The ancient Greeks did quite a lot, but were hampered by the concept that the senses were unreliable and that 'pure thought' was preferable. because of this, experimentation and other forms of 'getting your hands dirty' was frowned upon. In medieval Islamic societies, a great deal of advancement was found until the religious authorities decided that philosophy and science had an anti-Islamic tinge. In Europe, the sciences were helped by the split between religious and secular authorities, especially after the Reformation. Also, the European model had more ability to formalize and distribute scientific learnings.
The rise of science in Europe was a singular event. Many other societies came close, but veered away. Europe came very close to veering away also (the condemnations of 1215, for example).
Natural philosophy pre-dates modern religion by a long way and was clearly of significance in a number of ancient societies. Much of their work will have been lost or destroyed when those societies died out and transitioned, just as much of our modern scientific progress would be lost if ours ever is.
We know a lot more than might be thought initially about the accomplishments of, say, the Greeks and Romans. One crucial distinction to be made is between technology (the specific trade crafts for, say metallurgy or glass making, etc) and science (formalized investigation into the natural and workings of the cosmos). Many ancient societies had a great deal of technology, but not so much science. And the two endeavors, when they existed, were usually done by different ranks within the society. This split is one of the reasons the ancient Greeks, for example, didn't do many experiments.
That’s an expression of gross arrogance! There is literally zero justification for assuming ancient peoples were fundamentally less capable that people today. Some of those ancient people remain among the greatest thinkers of all time and, frankly, some people alive today remain among the greatest idiots.
Agreed. They were not less *capable*, but they were significantly less *informed*. Before the development of, say, telescopes, distillation procedures, and other techniques, the ability to probe into the workings of the world were limited. The ancient thinkers did an incredible amount with what they had to work with. But they didn't have the tools to do more than a surface analysis of many phenomena.
