The Contributions of Religion to Modern Science vs. New Atheism

[Augustus]

Sorry, but your weak attempts to defned the Catholic Church in their immoral trial has already been dealt with more than once. I do not care to do so again. Try finding someone else to argue on over this.

The problem is that some people are so strongly attached to the comic book villain myth that they see any attempt to look at what actually happened in its historical context is seen as “defending the church” rather than the critical examination of historical evidence.

It’s easy enough to criticise the Church without the need to rely on the misleading comic book version.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Comfortably perched atop the podium, Christopher Hitchens declared religion to be an "axis of evil" to an audience comprising, inevitably, some self-identified skeptics and anti-religious listeners. With seemingly equal disdain for nuance and religious belief, it was in this environment that a plethora of similar declarations were afoot, spearheaded by famous proponents of "New Atheism," including Hitchens himself along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett.

Religion, within this framework, was a mere impediment to human progress at worst and a primitive emotional crutch at best. God was simply a "Delusion" (Richard Dawkins, 2006) and "Not Great" (Hitchens, 2007). Faith was to "End" (Sam Harris, 2004), and science could answer moral questions in a Moral Landscape (Sam Harris, 2010). Religion in general and theism in specific had become obsolete and harmful, or so one could be led to believe.

But a major fault line remained along the confident declarations of New Atheism, sustained both by history and the roots of science. Was religion merely an irredeemable axis of evil? Did it teach "[us] to be satisfied with not understanding the world" (Richard Dawkins)?

Modern psychology, for instance, extensively employs mindfulness practice in well-evidenced therapeutic approaches. These practices have their roots in Buddhist philosophy and practices dating back over 2,000 years. Siddhartha Gautama's teachings were not reducible to a "delusion" or "evil," then, nor could their immense contribution to modern science be overlooked by any serious student of history or science.

Millennia later, Christian theology would give rise to fundamental underpinnings of modern science and the Enlightenment. Far from being invoked only in justification of burnings at the stake or holy crusades, the name of God was at the core of numerous scientific endeavors that would later pave the way for our modern world to take its current shape.

Islam's emphasis on the five daily prayers as one of its Five Pillars motivated a subset of the study of astronomy in the medieval era, some of which would influence later research in the field.

Much like a wall made up of continuously accumulating bricks, modern knowledge did not suddenly spring into existence. It is built upon increments from previous millennia, much of which would not have been possible without religion as a component of the human condition. The notion that we should now crush some of the first bricks to be laid and treat them as a hindrance rather than a step along the way seems contrary to history, logic, and—to borrow a favorite term among New Atheist circles—reason.

Not so much about religion as it is about choosing the Left Hand Path.

 

[Alien826]

Yes, at first the commandments in the video sound sympathetic to a rational thinker but the point is that the atheist guy turns out self-contradictory and dogmatic.

Of course he does, he's a caricature created by the guy that made the video. He bears little resemblance to any atheist that I've ever known. If you just take the statements made by the presenter before he goes into straw man mode, then I found my self agreeing, in general terms, with what he said. I'll just take one example. His pretend atheist says that nobody knows what happens to us after we die. That's true. He then says that it follows that nothing happens, we are just dead. That is indeed a likely conclusion, based on what we see (the body exhibits no signs of life, decomposes over time and any entity such is a soul is supposition). So why the mockery? Isn't that a reasonable conclusion?

 

[Debater Slayer]

The Contributions of Religion to Modern Science vs. New Atheism

Science became established in spite of religion which in turn did everything in its power to strangle science when science was young and still in its cradle.

Now that science is well established religion wishes to pretend that it encouraged science from the start.

Historical evidence shows that science didn't always have to contend with religion in order to flourish, though. At many points, religious institutions supported academic pursuits and exploration of the natural world.

Also, which religion are you talking about? There are thousands of religions, and even the most popular varieties contain so many differences. Have Buddhist temples done anything to strangle science, for example? The statement is too broad unless it has further specification.

 

[Debater Slayer]

That link wasn't convincing:

"In much the same way that the Deity had instituted moral rules, he was now thought to enact laws which governed the natural world. Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry and author of the eponymous law, observed that God's creation operates according to fixed laws "which He alone at first Establish'd." God's authorship of the laws of nature guaranteed their universality and unchanging nature. Descartes thus argued that because these laws had their source in an eternal and unchanging God, the laws of nature must themselves be eternal and unchanging."

Where is a god belief required there? Just drop the god references and we have that Boyle observed that nature operates in repeatable ways. In fact inserting a god means the laws aren't immutable, but can change at God's whim tomorrow. Belief in a godless universe requires that there be regular laws in order for galaxies of stars to have had enough time to have cooked element that organized into life and mind. A universe run by a god doesn't need laws.

Whether a universe run by a god needs laws or not seems to me entirely dependent on the kind of concept of god in question. There are various concepts ranging from deistic, disengaged deities all the way to the omnipotent and omniscient concept in Abrahamic religions. Also, many Abrahamic believers see the laws of the universe as a fundamental mechanism of God's creation.

The belief in a god is not required; the link only illustrates that said belief was the primary motivation for some scientific pursuits. Could someone else have other motivations? Sure, and I would be one of those, being irreligious. That doesn't mean that belief in a god necessarily presents any impediment to scientific study.

What are you calling Christian theology here? The scriptures don't support either empiricism or enlightenment values such as reason over faith, guraneed personal rights, and church-state separation. How do you reconcile such claims with comments like these from two extremely influential Christian theologians:

• "There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn." and "Since God has spoken to us it is no longer necessary for us to think." - St Augustine

• "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus] who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13] that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." - Martin Luther

Freedom of and from religion are Enlightenment values. reason and empathy trump received moral values. It's irrelevant that some of the people advancing science were Christian. Their insights did not come from their Bibles. Christianity taught that man wasn't another animal, but a special creation. Copernicus' great insight, which Luther objects to, is that man didn't occupy a special position in the center of the universe. That's a rejection of Christian cosmology, which was consistent with its doctrine that God made our universe for man and with man in mind - not a natural extension of it. Yes, Copernicus was a cleric, but so what? Anybody who learns to compartmentalize their faith can do science.

I think making definitive statements about what the scriptures say is bound to result in some overgeneralizations due to the diversity of interpretations thereof. You'll have people pointing out that while they believe the scriptures are the word of God, they were also intended for a specific historical and cultural context. That precludes any need for them to support empiricism or Enlightenment values, which are far later developments in human history.

Just as St. Augustine and Martin Luther had more rigid views concerning obtainment of knowledge, many other theologians either disagreed or strongly supported scientific pursuits as a manifestation of their faith. I don't reject either as "not true Christians"; I just see the variety of beliefs as a natural consequence of the diversity among humans and our psychology. Two people could read the exact same book and come out with diametrically opposite beliefs, goals, and conclusions.

Newton famously invoked God to correct the orbits of the planets when his mathematics predicted that they should be unstable. His work up to that point could have been generated by any equally gifted atheist, and it is only that work that which is still used today. That's religion's contribution, not the science and mathematics. And this is a nice illustration of why a godless universe needs laws. Fortunately, Laplace came along about a century later with some new mathematics to relieving Newton's god of the need to nudge planets.

Some might enjoy this 40 minute video:

The Theft of Our Values - YouTube "We have been raised to believe that the very ideology that fought against Western values and advancements is actually responsible for them. Stop believing that lie."

As I said, that a religious person's motivation could be replaced with an irreligious counterpart for another person doesn't mean the religious motivation wasn't an inspiration for something positive. I seek not to encroach on the freedoms of someone else as long as they harm no one because of my secular worldview, while someone else may derive the same value from, say, a belief that their god denounces harming other sentient beings. What is most important to me is that we share the same values, not how we derived them.

And we are to give credit to a belief in a god for this work? Do you think that a god belief necessary for man to want to understand the movements of the cosmos?

Not any more or less necessary than other motivations for discovering natural laws. I don't believe in free will, so I don't think someone who is motivated by religious belief could just replace it with a secular motivation—nor do I believe an atheist could replace their secular motivations with religious ones. Different ideas are necessary for different people, and neither they nor anyone else can change this.

Are you contending that science and the Enlightenment need to wait for the development of faith-based systems of belief? If so, I disagree. These depended on rejecting Christian doctrine and thoughts like those from Augustine and Luther above.

Not at all. I'm only contending that some of the bricks were derived from religious belief that inspired some scientific discoveries. I don't see it as reasonable to dismiss their role or ascribe them to a different source in order to downplay the religious influence from which they originated.

I find it very reasonable to be eschew faith-based thinking. Those bricks come from reasoning and eventually empiricism, not scripture, which is fossilized, and which has little use for either.

Most religious people don't expect to find a scientific discovery or an engineering breakthrough in scriptures either; they compartmentalize and treat religion and natural laws as different fields of study. A religious structural engineer won't forgo materials science or systematic inspection of structural integrity in favor of praying that a bridge or building stays intact. Likewise, they won't replace their daily prayers at home or at church with mathematical equations and physical formulas.

The subject here is not that scripture directly confers scientific knowledge or empirical insight; it's that the values that some religious people have derived from it at different points in history have inspired them to pursue scientific discovery and knowledge.

 

[Debater Slayer]

One of the greatest impediments to rational thought among anti-theists is the idea that they "see the world as it is" free of biases and ideology.

This is what has been termed a "subtraction theory" of modern secular liberal humanism, that is you arrive at it by subtracting religious beliefs, woo and other 'primitive superstition' and then you arrive at modern science and secular humanism which are self-evident truths. Humanism is the ideology of those who feel they have outgrown ideology and the need for emotionally comforting fictions (does not necessarily apply to all humanists though).

As such they tend to answer the following question "Given it's inevitability and intrinsically progressive nature, what are the factors that have inhibited or slowed down the development of science and the scientific mind?"

This view, which relies heavily on a teleological view of history and the post-Enlightenment Idea of Progress (ironically itself an offshoot of Christian theology), is the view usually presented by those who favour the Conflict Thesis (where religion is the enemy of science) that has been thoroughly rejected by almost all experts but is treated as gospel truth by most "freethinking" anti-theist.

It rests on an assumption that science is something which comes naturally to us and simply requires the absence of constraint in order to emerge. This often aligns with a common perspective that Western Humanistic culture is the universal result of education, reason and progress, and other cultures tend to represent a more 'primitive' phase which has yet to be outgrown. In this case, the removal of obstacles is a core dimension in the development of science, and Christianity, by it's attachment to faith and timeless doctrines, was the key obstacle.

The problem is, unless you take it on faith that your ideology is the natural goal of human development, this is asking the wrong question. Unless you accept human development has a telos, the correct question to ask is "What were the unique and contingent conditions that made possible the emergence and persistence of the modern concept of science?"

As is quite cleat when we look at the diversity of human societies, modern western science was not the inevitable consequence of progress. Both the Idea of Progress and the development of modern science are specific products of a particular culture that required a number of necessary variable to be fulfilled. Seeing as these dimensions seem to have been rare in human societies, the key to understanding the development of science is to understand what were the factors which caused such dimensions to be present.

So the "New atheist"/Rational Humanists" come up with some virgin birth hypothesis where "people like me" suddenly decided to reject Christianity and apply reason and hey presto the Enlightenment, humanism and modern science.

That it is pretty easy to trace the lineage of many of the core ideas of the development of both modern science and Secular Humanism over many centuries from the "Dark Ages" onwards does little to shake their faith, which is unsurprising as it is basically a sacred belief that underpins much of their worldview.

In my opinion, it is possible to draw a straight line from the idea that "Western culture" randomly originated Enlightenment values and the institution of science to cultural supremacism, Western exceptionalism, and even warmongering in some cases. Sam Harris, for instance, greatly downplayed the contributions of the Islamic Golden Age in a historically shallow and extremely simplistic segment where he also argued that "Western culture" was "more creative" than "Eastern culture":

Within that culturally chauvinistic framework, it doesn't surprise me that Hitchens was also a warmonger and Sam Harris "hypothetically" argued for potential necessity of a nuclear first strike against an Islamic country.

My own worldview borrows from dialectical materialism, which is diametrically opposed to the idea that such breakthroughs in knowledge or cultural values happen stochastically:

Marx and Engels began as supporters of Feuerbach. However, very soon they took up an opposition to Feuerbach to restore the Hegelian dialectic which had been abandoned by Feuerbach, and to free it from the rigidity of the idealistic Hegelian system and place the method on a materialist basis:

“Hegel was an idealist. To him, the thoughts within his brain were not the more or less abstract pictures of actual things and processes, but, conversely, things and their evolution were only the realized pictures of the ‘Idea’, existing somewhere from eternity before the world was. This way of thinking turned everything upside down, and completely reversed the actual connection of things in the world. ” [Fredrick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific]

Thus, for Marx and Engels, thoughts were not passive and independent reflections of the material world, but products of human labour, and the contradictory nature of our thoughts had their origin in the contradictions within human society. This meant that Dialectics was not something imposed on to the world from outside which could be discovered by the activity of pure Reason, but was a product of human labour changing the world; its form was changed and developed by people, and could only be understood by the practical struggle to overcome these contradictions – not just in thought, but in practice.

Glossary of Terms: Di

Where I most disagree with Marx on the subject of religion is on the place of religion in society: I don't think it's merely a manifestation of cries from the oppressed, although it does fulfill that need for many. I view it as a much more complex aspect of human culture with various purposes for different cultures and people.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Are you advertising here the functionality of belief in any God towards progresses in science, or the existence of the target of said belief?

Neither. I'm an atheist, myself. What I'm arguing is that religion and science are not necessarily conflicting endeavors at all, and in some historical examples, the former inspired pursuit of the latter.

To make an example, if I believed that Charlie, an invisible magical almighty Turtle, created the Universe by using inherently random processes, I would have probably been helped to accept inherently random processes like Quantum Mechanics. Unlike traditional Gods, who notoriously do not play dice.

But would that be enough to attribute any merit to Charlie, or belief in It, for helping in developing QM? Or a superiority of Almighty Charlie, against all those loser Gods who claimed to have created the world without any chance in it?

I doubt it. After all, even a broken Rolex is right twice a day.

By the way, there is no new atheism. New atheists are like old atheists, with the difference that they can speak out freely, without risking of being the main course of some barbecue party, or some equivalent terrible thing.

Ciao

- viole

If the belief in Charlie inspired you to vigorously study natural laws and discover more about them, a case could be made that said belief was the inspiration for your pursuit.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I believe that religion historically provided the motive to study nature before people found secular applications for science, however your title appears to confuse religious motivation to study nature with religion contributing to science.

Since the Bible and the Quran have to be heavily post hoc rationalised to read science into them I think it is clear that religion did not contribute scientific knowledge, only the motivation to gain scientific knowledge.

So I would say that with respect to Western religion (including Islam even though it is not precisely western), it is true to say religion didn't contribute to science, but rather that it contributed motivation to study science.

Isn't motivation to study science a contribution to science, eventually, especially in cases where said motivation resulted in breakthroughs and major discoveries?

Also, I'm not sure whether you're classifying Christianity as a Western religion, but I wouldn't say it is: it originated in the Middle East and then reached the Western world.

I personally find that although Buddhism is a religion, comparing it to Judaism, Christianity and Islam is apples and oranges in many ways.

Exactly, which is one of the reasons I find it too simplistic when someone like Richard Dawkins talks about "religion" as if it were some uniform institution without considering the significant differences between the various religions in the world.

 

[Rival]

Likewise, they won't replace their daily prayers at home or at church with mathematical equations and physical formulas.

I'm positive this person is out there

 

[Subduction Zone]

The problem is that some people are so strongly attached to the comic book villain myth that they see any attempt to look at what actually happened in its historical context is seen as “defending the church” rather than the critical examination of historical evidence.

It’s easy enough to criticise the Church without the need to rely on the misleading comic book version.

Except that is definitely not the case when it comes to Galileo. Being a **** is not enough to justify a trial. The Church had their version ,and it was wrong. Now you could make a valid case with Bruno since it was far more than just his astronomy that led to his death. What the defenders of the Church cannot seem to understand is that not even the rankest heresy merits a trial.

 

[danieldemol]

Isn't motivation to study science a contribution to science, eventually, especially in cases where said motivation resulted in breakthroughs and major discoveries?

It is an indirect contribution, but not a direct contribution, and I feel that is an important distinction to be made.

The reason why is because I think that religious apologists (for Abrahamic religions) would try to seize this as a marketing opportunity. I could imagine them saying words to the effect of, "come study our scriptures for the great contributions it made to science". But if one is already motivated to study nature then studying the scriptures is to a certain extent a waste of time as they already have the motivation and the scriptures themselves are of little scientific relevance.

Also, I'm not sure whether you're classifying Christianity as a Western religion, but I wouldn't say it is: it originated in the Middle East and then reached the Western world.

Ok, a better term to convey what I was trying to say is Abrahamic religion.

Exactly, which is one of the reasons I find it too simplistic when someone like Richard Dawkins talks about "religion" as if it were some uniform institution without considering the significant differences between the various religions in the world.

I agree that he should be more specific about the types of religions he is criticising.

In my opinion.

 

[Heyo]

The problem is that some people are so strongly attached to the comic book villain myth that they see any attempt to look at what actually happened in its historical context is seen as “defending the church” rather than the critical examination of historical evidence.

It’s easy enough to criticise the Church without the need to rely on the misleading comic book version.

We shouldn't forget that we are talking about more than a millennium. The church, and later churches, switched their view of science multiple times. And the church also didn't always speak with one voice.

 

[Augustus]

Except that is definitely not the case when it comes to Galileo. Being a dick is not enough to justify a trial. The Church had their version ,and it was wrong. Now you could make a valid case with Bruno since it was far more than just his astronomy that led to his death. What the defenders of the Church cannot seem to understand is that not even the rankest heresy merits a trial.

The issue is the degree to which this was “anti-science”, I’m happy to say I don’t like the Church having any legal powers and think free speech is important. But given there was no secular free speech in this era either, we are basically criticising the 17th c church for being a 17th c institution. Looking at the past and saying “they didn’t have modern values” is a bit pointless imo.

So how anti-science was the church and why did GG get in trouble?

Copernicus’ De revolutionibus was published by a bishop and dedicated to the Pope.

Cardinal Bellarmine wrote a letter explaining if heliocentrism could be proved, then the church would need to reconsider its position. It wasn’t a massive theological problem to revise positions, although they were conservative about it and (understandably) wanted conclusive proof first.

GG hadn’t proved heliocentrism and most scientists supported some form of geocentrism/geo-heliocentrism. The church position was still supported by the majority of astronomers so it was not a simple case of religion refusing to accept scientific facts.

It is tempting, from a modern perspective, to propose that the leading theologians of the church ought to have modified their interpretation of the relevant biblical texts in order to get into step with scientific opinion. But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion. And it would have been a most remarkable event had its members taken elaborate measures to abandon their own deeply held principles of biblical interpretation, as well as the traditional cos- mological opinions of the church fathers, while simultaneously rejecting the majority opinion of qualified astronomers. Galileo, the Church, and the Cosmos - David C. Lindberg


GG told the church to reinterpret scripture because he was sure he was right and was placed under an injunction not to teach it as fact, although he could teach it as a hypothesis. (when, due to post-reformation violence, laymen reinterpreting scripture was obviously a sensitive issue).

GG was told by the Pope he could write a book arguing the pros/cons of each model (hence his text was The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) but wasn't to state heliocentrism as definitively true

GG deliberately broke the injunction (which is what he was charged with) by stating it as fact, called the pope a simpleton and told the church to reinterpret scripture

So saying the problem was “he disagreed with the bishops” is pretty misleading as others, even some bishops, favoured heliocentrism, and he could have continued to teach it with a little tact. People used heliocentrism in mathematical calculations and could continue to research it and gather evidence.

Overall, the church obviously had some negative impact on scientific progress in this instance, but less than is usually imagined and Galileo basically brought it on himself by being a dick and ignoring the laws of his time rather than continuing his research and teaching while being a bit more tactful given the realities of the age. The 17th C obviously wasn't a modern liberal democracy with protected rights and we can say modernity is better in this regard.

Of course there are things to criticise about the church, but this is basically the only example anyone can ever think of to show the (pre-modern) Church as persecuting someone for their scientific beliefs, and it is far less straightforward than imagined (Bruno was basically a "New Age" mystic, not a scientist). As such, someone interested in a rational analysis of history rather than confirming ideological prejudices might want to weigh the many positive contributions of the church, against a few negatives when evaluating the common trope that the Church was consistently anti-science and a major impediment to scientific progress.

Noting this is not "defending the church" but promoting evidence, critical thinking and historical scholarship over ideological prejudice.

 

[Ella S.]

The problem is that some people are so strongly attached to the comic book villain myth that they see any attempt to look at what actually happened in its historical context is seen as “defending the church” rather than the critical examination of historical evidence.

It’s easy enough to criticise the Church without the need to rely on the misleading comic book version.

Then why do all of your defenses of the Church provide such a misleading comic book hero myth of it, and falsely claim that it's the consensus among secular scholarship?

The Church resisted scientific progress and persecuted scientists for heresy. Full stop.

Some Catholics built schools and made scientific discoveries. Yet these schools also had a skewed education, teaching a literalist account of Genesis for instance, and these scientific discoveries were likewise cloaked heavily in obscurantist religious baggage that - even as believers - was often unnecessary to get into.

Go ahead, throw more misinformation at me, but your narrative is delusional.

ETA: No, not delusional. It's gaslighting! That's the word.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The issue is the degree to which this was “anti-science”, I’m happy to say I don’t like the Church having any legal powers and think free speech is important. But given there was no secular free speech in this era either, we are basically criticising the 17th c church for being a 17th c institution. Looking at the past and saying “they didn’t have modern values” is a bit pointless imo.

So how anti-science was the church and why did GG get in trouble?

Copernicus’ De revolutionibus was published by a bishop and dedicated to the Pope.

Cardinal Bellarmine wrote a letter explaining if heliocentrism could be proved, then the church would need to reconsider its position. It wasn’t a massive theological problem to revise positions, although they were conservative about it and (understandably) wanted conclusive proof first.

GG hadn’t proved heliocentrism and most scientists supported some form of geocentrism/geo-heliocentrism. The church position was still supported by the majority of astronomers so it was not a simple case of religion refusing to accept scientific facts.

It is tempting, from a modern perspective, to propose that the leading theologians of the church ought to have modified their interpretation of the relevant biblical texts in order to get into step with scientific opinion. But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion. And it would have been a most remarkable event had its members taken elaborate measures to abandon their own deeply held principles of biblical interpretation, as well as the traditional cos- mological opinions of the church fathers, while simultaneously rejecting the majority opinion of qualified astronomers. Galileo, the Church, and the Cosmos - David C. Lindberg


GG told the church to reinterpret scripture because he was sure he was right and was placed under an injunction not to teach it as fact, although he could teach it as a hypothesis. (when, due to post-reformation violence, laymen reinterpreting scripture was obviously a sensitive issue).

GG was told by the Pope he could write a book arguing the pros/cons of each model (hence his text was The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) but wasn't to state heliocentrism as definitively true

GG deliberately broke the injunction (which is what he was charged with) by stating it as fact, called the pope a simpleton and told the church to reinterpret scripture

So saying the problem was “he disagreed with the bishops” is pretty misleading as others, even some bishops, favoured heliocentrism, and he could have continued to teach it with a little tact. People used heliocentrism in mathematical calculations and could continue to research it and gather evidence.

Overall, the church obviously had some negative impact on scientific progress in this instance, but less than is usually imagined and Galileo basically brought it on himself by being a dick and ignoring the laws of his time rather than continuing his research and teaching while being a bit more tactful given the realities of the age. The 17th C obviously wasn't a modern liberal democracy with protected rights and we can say modernity is better in this regard.

Of course there are things to criticise about the church, but this is basically the only example anyone can ever think of to show the (pre-modern) Church as persecuting someone for their scientific beliefs, and it is far less straightforward than imagined (Bruno was basically a "New Age" mystic, not a scientist). As such, someone interested in a rational analysis of history rather than confirming ideological prejudices might want to weigh the many positive contributions of the church, against a few negatives when evaluating the common trope that the Church was consistently anti-science and a major impediment to scientific progress.

Noting this is not "defending the church" but promoting evidence, critical thinking and historical scholarship over ideological prejudice.

Even if true, and you did not provide any links, nor does your source support this in your quote, does it justify what the Church did to him. Why is this so hard to understand? Even if Bruno was guilty of what the Church charged him with it does not justify what they did to him. You are making "So what?" arguments. They do not change the conclusion even if true.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Then why do all of your defenses of the Church provide such a misleading comic book hero myth of it, and falsely claim that it's the consensus among secular scholarship?

The Church resisted scientific progress and persecuted scientists for heresy. Full stop.

St. Andrews University, one of the best in the world, has this article on the subject. It is certainly a credible source rather than a merely apologetic one:

Christianity and Mathematics

You can also find other credible citations on the Wiki page about the subject:

Science and the Catholic Church - Wikipedia

 

[Ella S.]

St. Andrews University, one of the best in the world, has this article on the subject. It is certainly a credible source rather than a merely apologetic one:

Christianity and Mathematics

You can also find other credible citations on the Wiki page about the subject:

Science and the Catholic Church - Wikipedia

I am familiar with the content in the links you have provided and stand by what I said.

First you claim to be a liberal defending conservative bigotry, now you're an atheist defending overinflated credits given to the Church. Jesus Christ, why do I even bother with RF anymore when this is the rubbish I see every time I log on?

I'm all for giving credit to the opposition when it's due, but it actually has to be due.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I am familiar with the content in the links you have provided and stand by what I said.

First you claim to be a liberal defending conservative bigotry,

Incorrect. My position was quite clear in that thread, and multiple other posters understood it well. Your own misrepresentation of it is yours to contend with, not mine.

now you're an atheist defending overinflated credits given to the Church. Jesus Christ, why do I even bother with RF anymore when this is the rubbish I see every time I log on?

I'm all for giving credit to the opposition when it's due, but it actually has to be due.

I cited scholarly sources stating that the Church's relationship with science was much more complex and multilayered than "the Church always loved science" or "the Church always hated science." You regard this as "defending overinflated credits"? How could someone claim to value evidence but then throw aside academic sources so easily?

 

[rational experiences]

Life first natural.

Same human owned species.

Two parents same DNA tribal. Same babies DNA tribal too.

Why did we change,?

Pretty basic.

Science says chemistry reactions brings about change.

What did earth not own?

Wandering star mass.

What historic in law did men state man illegally changed?

Rock stone law fused held by space laws.

As all Rock owns burning gases within that moves its bodies. Orbit says should not collide by law.

So how was the church laws...not thesis wrong?

The earth was space law geo central to its position. Safer by owning a heavens.

In laws no theory earths heavens was its own sun.

In law the sun had nothing to do with earth it was fixed.

Earth was travelling. Law.

Law said earth was as Earth central in space to its owned body.

Not a sun traveller first earth was crystalline fused mass. Had a clear cold immaculate atmosphere.

The sun burst changed earth.

Earth central to its geo space position law in space first.

 

[Augustus]

We shouldn't forget that we are talking about more than a millennium. The church, and later churches, switched their view of science multiple times. And the church also didn't always speak with one voice.

That's true.

There wasn't really ever a "The Church", there were always churches. People often massively overstate the power of the pre-modern church to enforce conformity over vast distances without modern transport and communication technology.

A bishop in France or Spain could, within reason, pretty much do as he pleased. The Pope in Rome wouldn't know what was happening in most cases and in most cases couldn't do all that much if they did find out something that they were against.

Even emperors with massive armies had to decentralise power. In most cases, a local ruler could ignore an imperial edict they didn't like, as the boss couldn't spend a year and massive amounts of treasure sending out an army to chastise a local ruler who did something that displeased him several months ago and that he'd just found out about.

As long as you didn't overstep the mark, you had a lot of leeway.