1. Comment #81937 by kurtdenke on October 25, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Intellectual history is complicated, and there are ways in which science was fostered by religion, and ways in which it was hindered by religion. But even if we only focus on the former and not the latter, so what? It doesn't make religion true; it is only an observation about intellectual history.

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2. Comment #81954 by sidfaiwu on October 25, 2007 at 12:49 pm

In a sense, it does. Religion was our species' earliest attempts at explaining the unknown. It just happens to be an incredibly bad way of explaining most things. Eventually, we found a much better way to explain things: the scientific method. So even if the roots are religious doesn't mean the roots are better, as kurtdenke points out.

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3. Comment #81965 by Rtambree on October 25, 2007 at 1:04 pm

The statement is entirely false. When Christianity was strongest in Europe, enquiry into the natural world was at its weakest. Christianity was one big 2,000 year interruption between the Greek awakening and the Renaissance and Enlightenment. It's referred to the Dark Ages for a reason - very little happened in the arts, humanities, sciences and philosophy. In fact, in many areas, Europe regressed under totalitarian Christianity.

Islam circa 1,000AD did more for science than Christianity e.g. School of Baghdad, translation of Aristotle, etc.

It was precisely when Christianity began to wane, that scientific enquiry could flourish.

The explanatory power of the scientific method and the real world results (e.g. increasing longevity and reduced suffering from diseases) meant that scientists increasingly were deists, agnostics and atheists; always more sceptical than the population as a whole.

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4. Comment #81977 by jeepyjay on October 25, 2007 at 1:20 pm

Simplifying (more than) slightly! Science began in the Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, and reached an advanced state with the Greeks, as for example in the work of Aristotle on logic, Euclid on geometry, Archimedes on mechanics.

Then there was a setback for 1000 years, known as the Dark Ages, during which the Christian religion took over the Roman world, and then Islam spread.

It was only with the gradual rediscovery, over the next 500 years, of the ancient Greek achievements, that a new questioning mind-set and willingness to test and experiment evolved that led to the scientific revolution.

Far from Christianity creating science or stimulating its development, religion was a force for ignorance for 1500 years, and it was the renewal of thought that led to the Reformation in the church that then permitted the new thought to evolve further.

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5. Comment #81984 by Quine on October 25, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Remember, if the Christians can find out that a scientist was baptized as a baby, they can claim credit, even if they suppressed him/her during life.




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6. Comment #82002 by burkbraun on October 25, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Wonder gives rise to religion, and wonder also gives rise to science. The historical sequence was that immature and narcissistic methods of addressing our wonder (we are the center and measure of everything, the universe loves/hates us, etc.) were gradually replaced with mature, evidence-based methods that we now call science. Christianity helped to put some distance between humanity and the natural world, and also incubated theories of an orderly universe. Scientific methods then observed and documented the universe to be empirically orderly in many ways, which is a far stronger and more durable form of knowledge. Early scientists were all religious, since they did not have any choice in the matter given the bullying nature of religion. The history is very interesting and lengthy, but to say that science relies on religion now is like saying that I rely on my childhood self for survival, let alone want to return to that state of reasoning.

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7. Comment #82024 by MaxWeiss on October 25, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Dinesh already talked me into buying 3 more used cars; what more do you want from me!!??

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8. Comment #82029 by ? on October 25, 2007 at 2:56 pm

The argument that certain aspects of Christian theology were conducive to the growth of early science has been preseted fairly well by Rodney Stark (sociologist) and others. Even if true, however, it says NOTHING about the truth of the religion.

The scientists discovered things through work not revelation. Anything that inspired this work would have ***indirectly*** contributed to science.

A person can be inspired to productive behavior by ideas that are not true. If you go into a jungle to find the "fountain of youth" and in the process draw some excellent maps of the region, those maps may have serious value to other travelers even if the myth that guided you is false or even absurd.

Propositions should be accepted or rejected as facts based on evidence; not their connection with some admirable person or useful act.

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9. Comment #82040 by Mewtwo_X on October 25, 2007 at 3:24 pm

"Not at all, Science (along with medicine) owes its origin to ancient Greece."

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10. Comment #82127 by kev_s on October 25, 2007 at 5:55 pm

It is true that there was a time when the church (i.e monasteries) offered the only sanctuary for an intellectual person; a place where they could avoid an early, brutish death and find the time and resources to study. However whenever newly discovered scientific truth contradicted doctrine the church usually pronounced that science to be wrong. Bruno, Copernicus and Galileo are obvious cases. Behaviour like that can hardly be described as supporting science.
Science developed in spite of religion, not because of it.

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11. Comment #82364 by BCReason on October 26, 2007 at 6:55 am

I think it's no coincidence that the enlightment soon follwed the protestant reformation. It was only after the Churchs totalitarian power was broken that we began to see progress.

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12. Comment #82369 by irate_atheist on October 26, 2007 at 7:14 am

Stock reply -

"So, in what possible way does this make your religion true?"

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13. Comment #82416 by tomyr95 on October 26, 2007 at 9:00 am

This one is easy. Who cares, honestly. It's not relevant. Purely historical discussion.

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14. Comment #82418 by darth_atheist on October 26, 2007 at 9:14 am

I would say I have to agree with #2's (sidfaiwu) reply on this matter. To add to it, imagine explanations of observable phenomenon (whether religious or scientific) are like a computer processor. Religion's processor could be represented by an 8086 IBM chip (one of the oldest ones), while modern science's processor would be a certain upgrade to a 3.2 Ghz Dual processor. In other words, religion at one time was so easily viewed as having the answers since it would have been hard to disprove them, given the limited tools they had. Once our tools got better, the explanations got better. Unfortunately, there are people who still wish to use the ancient 8086 processor for running analysis of the data, rather than the better and more efficient and more accurate 3.2 Ghz processor of science.

I think it's time we had an upgrade.

Peace.

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15. Comment #82420 by JerryD385 on October 26, 2007 at 9:34 am

Saying that Science owes its origins to religion is like saying that vaccines owe its origins to small pox.

Skepticism, reason, and free inquiry were reactions against dogma, faith, and special revelation, not extensions from it.

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16. Comment #82445 by ChrisMcL on October 26, 2007 at 10:54 am

Successful religions are successful in large part because they plagiarize human nature. Religions make claims that their gods and the philosophies inspired by their gods are the origininators of those moral values that people respect. It is just as natural to assume a god as is to assume that that god brings certain things with it. It's just another form of creationism; in this case, it's the moral universe that is created by god.

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17. Comment #82448 by Dr Benway on October 26, 2007 at 11:00 am

Science owes its origin to religion in the same way penicillin owes its origin to syphilis.

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18. Comment #82721 by Garnok on October 27, 2007 at 10:55 am

"Religion created science" or "Without religion there would never have bene science" or something like that.

Chemistry began as alchemy. Astronomy began as astrology. Christanity began as Judaism. The origins of something is not relavant to the veracity of its current position and the strength of the current position does not lend validity to its origins. Science began the moment one of our ancient hominid ancestors developed the brain power to ask "why?".

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19. Comment #82904 by poggle on October 28, 2007 at 8:15 am

In 100 years, Christians will be taking credit for the acceptance of gay marriage, the amazing success of embryonic stem cell research, and human genetic engineering to make a more peaceful, intelligent, and compassionate species. They will claim that only a Christians society would have made such advancements possible. Ha!

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20. Comment #83042 by quill on October 28, 2007 at 5:04 pm

I think the best answer to this statement is a simple "no it doesn't". Science as we know it today found its first expressions in pagan Greece. There's no disputing that fact. 'Nuff said.

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21. Comment #83197 by mrtim on October 29, 2007 at 8:50 am

Garnok -- well said. I think it was Christopher Hitchens who said in an interview that he hoped religion would eventually evolve into philosophy, just as alchemy evolved into chemistry.

In my experience this rebuttal will *not* result in a reasoned response . . .




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22. Comment #83220 by Aaron on October 29, 2007 at 10:10 am

Science and religion have a common origin: human curiosity. Where they part ways is in the carefulness of their methodologies. Science strives to eliminate human bias and confusion from its process of investigation, an act in which religion places no value.

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23. Comment #83262 by Garnok on October 29, 2007 at 1:05 pm

mrtim said:

Garnok -- well said.

Thanks.

I think it was Christopher Hitchens who said in an interview that he hoped religion would eventually evolve into philosophy, just as alchemy evolved into chemistry.

Funny that. I had a discussion with a theist (one of the few somewhat pleasant and rational ones I've had) about this and he was trying to go the other way, that philosophy became religion. I granted at least the two were very similar and the lines between them could get blurred easily. However, I told him that I think that most likely religion, of some type, came first as religion has a "make it up as you go along" feel to it while philosophy has some forethought. I did admit that this was my opinion as one who is mostly uneducated in philosophy, so to take it with a grain of salt.

In my experience this rebuttal will *not* result in a reasoned response . . .

Not too many do sadly.

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24. Comment #83270 by Plasticman on October 29, 2007 at 1:25 pm

Thanks, Dr. Benway, right on target ;-))

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25. Comment #83386 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 10:11 pm

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were the ones who had invented science; it took a LONG time to rediscover it, and the rediscoverers were Xians because Xianity was the only religious game in town.

Also, it's strange to see Xian apologists making heroes out of people that they would normally dismiss as hellbound heretics -- a sort of inverse No True Scotsman fallacy.

Like evangelical and fundie Protestants making heroes out of Catholic and mainline-Protestant and Jewish scientists.

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the world's greatest scientists, but he was also a religious nut, someone very interested in the Biblical prophecies in Daniel and Revelation. He also came to deny the Trinity, believing that Jesus Christ was not co-equal to God the Father, but subordinate to him. He also thought that God has to fix the Solar System every now and then to keep it in shape, a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Newton kept his Trinity denial a secret, out of concern that it would severely limit his career chances; that's another reason that so many of the earlier scientists were card-carrying Xians.

Galileo considered himself a good Catholic, but he argued that the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go; he'd seem dangerously liberal to many conservative and fundie Xians.

In fairness to many early scientists, they might have thought it possible to develop a "science of God", as it were. But such efforts have clearly been unproductive.

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26. Comment #83390 by Zakie Chan on October 29, 2007 at 10:21 pm

The argument that Christianity is responsible for science, therefore Christianity is good (and true?) is a genetic fallacy.

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27. Comment #83398 by methinxaweezil on October 29, 2007 at 11:02 pm

Modern religion and science may have evolved from a common ancestor. Shamanism is a fusion of both religion's celebration of mystery and ritual, and the scientific impulse to explain and control the natural world. In this prehistoric form religion and science were one and the same.

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28. Comment #83550 by lpetrich on October 30, 2007 at 11:36 am

And to add to my previous post, Albert Einstein is a bad example for Xian apologists, since he was a Jewish deist/pantheist -- he did not believe in Jesus Christ, and he used "God" in an almost metaphorical sort of sense.

And here's my favorite one-liner rebuttal:

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was a great mathematician who believed in the wickedness of eating beans. Does that mean that to be good at mathematics we must stop eating beans?

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29. Comment #84361 by anonquick on November 1, 2007 at 10:45 pm

The Gist: Thanks, but we don't it any more.

Acknowledge it - acknowledge that Science owes its origins to Christianity. Then say so what? Religion is man made, science is man-made. Science grew out of (man-made) Christian culture, it doesn't need it any more.

Remember the core tenet: Religion is man-made. My re framing the question in terms of religion is man-made then you can acknowledge that Christianity had a part to play as the best Historians of Science argue, and then say in Hybridized with Greek thinking, AND that during that time NEW social and psychological changes occurred (for example at various times the call for measurement and empiricism).

If you keep the core tenet in mind - religion is man made you can emphasise that WE did, human individuals and human culture did it.

This is the trojan horse. How many times in the debates do people bring up "religion makes people good" or some other objective claim. That's the weakness - claim it. Claim that what every good comes of religion, that good is man-made, and a secular variant can be produced (and often already has).

A nice lateral shift can be made into the increased numbers of atheists in the National Academy of Science etc.

The Gist: Thanks, but we don't it anymore.

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30. Comment #84362 by Bonzai on November 1, 2007 at 10:51 pm

Well before the advent of chemical fertilizer tasty veggie used to grow out from piles of shit. So it seems that some people think they may just as well eat shit instead of vegetable.

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31. Comment #84496 by Cartomancer on November 2, 2007 at 7:15 am

I've dealt with this one at length several times before in many other threads.

We're supposed to keep things concise and to the point here, but in my experience the best way to refute the theist on this point is to demonstrate an extensive and sophisticated understanding of the history of ideas, particularly in the high and central Middle Ages when the apparent religious origins of modern science are really based. Supplement this with an explanation of historical development in the abstract, being sure to point out that counterfactual speculation of this kind is an amusing parlour game and little more, then rinse and repeat until the theist crawls back down whatever sordid little hole they came from.

It's probably unbecoming, but browbeating them with one's erudition is a lot of fun...

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32. Comment #84619 by Tim Friede on November 2, 2007 at 10:02 pm

Science owes it to these people, who actually work hard about thinking. Celsus, Galen, Hippocrates, Hunter brothers, Philipp Hohenheim, Darwin,Walter Reed, Louis Pasteur, E.V. Behring, E. Metchnikoff, Koch, Ehrlich, E. Jenner, P. Medawar,N. Jerne, K.Landsteiner, M.Burnet, C.Mathers, L. Pauling, Watson/Crick, C.Sagen,Richard F., Albert E., and Rhazes to boot!

Missed a million, but just thought about what a theist did to promote science, and make a major difference? Are there any? I don't know! If 99% of scientists are atheists, I guess not(knowingly). Hmmmmmm

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33. Comment #84645 by BMMcArdle on November 3, 2007 at 3:38 am

You can't be intelligent without first being ignorant.

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34. Comment #84818 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 5:40 pm

If science survived at all through the Dark Ages, it was because some of the early Church leaders were schooled in Greek Philosophy, and didn't want to give up their right to think. Augustine, for example, argued against the literal interpretation of Genesis, and believed that where religion contradicted science religion must give way. So they invented the doctrine of Natural Law, through which one could understand God by understanding nature. This didn't do much good, though, until the Church lost its stranglehold through the Reformation, and people got well and truly sick of the religious wars. Descartes fled to Holland and then Sweden. Newton lived under the protection of that great libertine king Charles II.

Medieval theology took the form of "Faith justified by reason." They started with their conclusions and argued backward. Not exactly the scientific method.

No dogma has ever been fully compatible with science. Some may be content to use technological innovations--although the church argued that such provided unfair advantages and were to be discouraged. Christianity was notorious; only Islam, after the fall of the Caliphate, proved to be worse.

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35. Comment #85083 by Armando Ortega on November 4, 2007 at 11:32 pm

It is false that Science owes its origin to religion in general or Christianity in particular. Science owes its origin to man's curiosity, to man's search for facts, reasons and why's of what's around him. Almost every scientific advancement has been resisted by the religious elite. The negators of the mind and the abusers of faith flourish among the ignorants, credulous and superstitious (compare the theory of germs against demon possesion as explanation for disease). I f some believer was a scientific it was despite his faith and not because of it. Where is science and the search for knowledge recognized as "good" in the Bible? (There is nothing new under the sun, science is foolishness before God, etc.).

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36. Comment #85622 by drbreakfast on November 6, 2007 at 2:05 pm

I agree with many of the comments here with regard to religion essentially being man's first attempt to explain why things the way they are. However, it seems as if our discussion is Judeo-Christian and Euro-centric. After all, ancient China, just to take one example, had a rather thriving scientific history, starting with the Han Dynasty at least 200 years before the alleged birth of Christ.

Apologists may argue that the Confucian "religion" was responsible for this. However, my understanding of Confucian thought is that it is a system of philosophy and not a religion.

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37. Comment #85808 by Asta Kask on November 7, 2007 at 7:03 am

Dinesh D'Souza claims that there are three postulates that lie at the foundation of science and which are explicitly derived from Judaeo-Christianity.

i) The universe follows certain laws

ii) These laws can be understood by humans

iii) These laws take mathematical form

I think this view is completely untenable. These three postulates are derived from Pythagoras and were transmitted via people like Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle. We don't know when Pythagoras died, but it was probably before the Persian wars, somewhere around 500 BC.

The historian Flavius Josephus claims that much of Pythagoras's philosophy came from the jews. He refers to the lost (?) works of Hermippus of Smyrna who lived some 150 years after Pythagoras. F.J. himself lived some 600 years after Pythagoras. We do not know if they are correct, but we should be sceptical, especially since statements i) and ii) (above) are quite common among pre-Socratic philosophers.

Either way, D'Souza makes it a bit easy for himself. He quotes the Muslim scholar al-Ghazali as an example of how wrong you can go if you do not follow Judaeo-Christianity. But the Moslems are surely just as much a part of the Abrahamitic tradition as the Christians, and if D'Souza claims that the beneficient influence stems exclusively from Christianity then the question becomes how Christ could have influenced Pythagoras who lived five centuries earlier...

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38. Comment #85888 by oriole on November 7, 2007 at 12:29 pm

Even if one were to accept that Christianity to some extent and at some times functioned as a vehicle to promote science, we should remember Buckminster Fuller's piano analogy: If you were on a cruise ship that sank and, while floundering in the water, noticed the grand piano from the ship's lounge floating by and, grabbing hold of it, managed to float to safety, it would not follow that the ideal way to stock the lifeboat bay would be to fill it full of grand pianos. We use what we have, but what we have may not be the ideal choice.

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39. Comment #86105 by Asta Kask on November 8, 2007 at 6:47 am

Come to think of it, this view of nature as ordered is much older than Pythagoras. It was present in ancient Indo-European myths as a war between Artus (Law) and Nethain (Chaos). This would be about 7 000 BC. It was present in ancient Egypt as the struggle between (I think) M'aat (Law) and Maug (Chaos). It was present in Babylon as reflected in the struggle between Marduk (Law) and Tiamat (Chaos). It was present among the Aztecs - the reason they sacrificed blood was to give the gods the power to uphold the order in this universe.

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40. Comment #88144 by monkeytrumpet on November 14, 2007 at 11:39 pm

Religion owes its origins to the lack of science and reason.

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41. Comment #92192 by AllanW on November 30, 2007 at 3:06 am

I grow vegetables in my garden. They are planted in a mixture of earth and manure. After they have grown I eat them and they taste delicious while providing sustenance. If you prefer to eat the earth and manure mixture, that's up to you.

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42. Comment #101795 by Jake Atkisson on December 21, 2007 at 1:47 am

That's as ridiculous as saying "Mankind owes it's existence to monkeys because monkeys are where mankind originated" and then trying to get people to worship monkeys.

Besides, in following with that statement's own internal logic, religion owes itself to storytelling and imagination, which are the pretty-well-accepted-and-understood roots of how religions came to be; stories made up in attempt to explain the otherwise poorly understood, mystifying aspects of the world around more primitive generations of people.


I mean, really, think about it. There you are, some dude or dudette way-back-when, looking up at the sky at these huge white things that move and shift and change shape -all the time-.

You don't know that they're primarily water vapor. You also don't know that there's such a thing as air. Likewise, you don't know a thing about gravity, buoyancy or anything to do with things science wouldn't explain for thousands of years.


All you know is that there are these huge white things up there that clearly move, change shape and occasionally fill the entire sky, get dark and drop water over absolutely everything.

Sometimes those big things even seem to attack the ground with blasts of light while bellowing earth-shakingly. It's scary stuff, yo!

But, hey, when you talked about it with all your pals back at MudHutVillage, some of the older folks understood your awe and fear and said that those things must be great beings that live in the sky.

But why do they get so angry sometimes? Well, maybe they get angry for reasons like we get angry.

Maybe someone's insulted them or hurt them. Maybe something's stolen from them, or did something that displeased them.


But what would insult such sky-beings? What could hurt them? Surely there is no man who could throw a spear so far and so high as to strike them.

Well, maybe it was one of those flying creatures, and maybe those flying birdy things like to steal stuff, just like they keep stealing our food when we leave it sitting out...

...ho hum. Kind've explains itself, doesn't it?

I think it does.

Now, contemplate how silly most here would think it if that dude in the above vignette got hit by lightning while out hunting one day.

Let's say he survives; he was attacked by a giant skybeing. Smote like he'd never been smitten before; no spear or animal could cause him such pain. Skyfire has burned his limps, blown the fingers of his hands off and melted all his hair.

It's awful. Dude's hurting -bad-. He crawls back to his village, explains what happens that his fellows freak -right- out.

Why? He somehow angered the skybeings. They think "OMG, he pissed them off something awful and they attacked him with their light-spears of skyfire!"

So, what do they do? Well, that depends on how they take it. Most likely, they'd probably kill the poor bastard to appease the skybeings, -just- in case they were still mad at the dude and might strike the whole lot of them down for not finishing the job of killing him.

Maybe it's all a test! Someone starts babbling about how it's a sign; maybe the skybeings -wanted- him to survive- surely if they wanted the dude dead he'd be dead, right?

And so it goes on, one unfounded answer leading into another, and at it's root, it's one massively splendid exercise of the imagination, and can make for very enjoyable storytelling, even educational!

I mean, really, we can get a lot of insight into things through fiction and stories, but we can also uh...run into trouble when we start believing things that aren't true, and it gets just silly when we effectively choose to continue believing in skybeings with spears of skyfire despite knowing all about water vapor, atmospheric buoyancy, static electricity and lightning discharge, so on, so forth.


Welcome to the age of Utter Silliness, thereby. Have a lovely day!

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43. Comment #105746 by notsobad on January 1, 2008 at 6:45 pm

Christianity? Certainly not
Religion? Discovery of Penicilin owes its origins to bacterial infections.

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44. Comment #125764 by the_ultimate_samurai on February 12, 2008 at 1:59 am

"The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive...but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born." ~mark twain.

of course that statement was more true in twains time,the atheistic nations have surpassed the christian nations substantialy. japan is largely atheists...but...not quite (they are shinto, but they do not consider themselves religious...they just like the ceremonies.) switzerland is largely atheistic and are generaly winning in..everything..
so, religion may have been a start...but now its a hinderance, we have outgrown it, and like the child who doesnt let go of his security blanket into his 40's...its not healthy anymore.

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45. Comment #130245 by martino on February 20, 2008 at 7:35 am

Either it does or does not. Either way it is quite irrelevant to what science has discovered by reading the book of nature. To assert otherwise is the genetic fallacy.

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46. Comment #133260 by Corey Hill on February 26, 2008 at 1:45 am

Man invented god
God invented madness
Man got bored and found science

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47. Comment #180658 by cpiasminc on May 15, 2008 at 1:09 pm

There's a level of wrongness in here that is just beyond words. First of all, specifically Christianity?!? Whatever happened to the ancient Egyptians who clearly managed to derive enough about mathematics to be able to build the pyramids? What ever happened to the ancient Hindus and Mayans and Chinese? Even for all the discoveries they might have made after the time of Christ, there isn't a single one they made aided and spurred on by Christian doctrine. You could say the same of the Islamic scientists of the 9-12th century who were quite explicit in cutting themselves off from the "infidels" of the Christian world, and still managed to do so much for mathematics, astronomy, etc. To take the fact that Western civilization and Christian-ruled empires ultimately became dominant through the course of history is not the same as saying that it is because of this that we have science.

Extending to religion in general, there may be hundreds of examples where religious institutions got in the way of scientific progress, but that's the least of it. The fact is that there has never been a single scientific discovery that originated out of religious doctrine first. This is a classic case of the fallacy where correlation == causality. You can't tell me for a second that Darwin, who was originally aiming for the priesthood, came across natural selection because of his Christianity, as opposed to saying that he came across this insight because of his travels and studies and the expressly non-religious works of other scientists of his day. You can't say that Mendel derived his laws because he was a monk, as opposed to because he was tending to a garden. Nowhere in the Bible does it say "the Lord, thy God created the living substance with alleles. And of the alleles, He created dominant and recessive sorts." How can you possibly say, with any sort of inkling of having brain cells that humanity found out that 1 plus 1=2 because "God said so"?! Did Eratosthenes compute the circumference of the Earth by praying to Zeus? Was Archimedes pondering on the minds of the gods when developing his screw? It's just utterly absurd to say that.

I've heard some argue that in Hinduism, there are examples of "scientific" notes in the scripture, but these are all examples where the science happened before the religious text contained them -- the Vedas, after all, are pretty much a compilation of previously existing essays written in a different form (and it had obviously been amended and added to over generations). The basic point is that just because there are people who happened to be both religious and progenitors of scientific discoveries at the same time, doesn't mean that one gives rise to the other. These people had inquisitive minds and sought answers by their own efforts. With religion, the attitude is always "You don't need to know. Just say 'God'." Scientific discovery happens because people did not accept the idea of "you don't need to know." If we ever find that something to which you can ultimately say "God did it" at some point in time, it only raises the question "How and Why did God do it?" The religious institutions would just shrug and say "God works in mysterious ways. Don't ask questions like that." How about this proposition, then... If I don't ask, then you don't tell. Sound fair? Science happens in spite of religion, not because of it.

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48. Comment #199346 by Eric Blair on June 25, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Scientific development has responded to human needs, within the framework of human institutions. For most of the past 2,000 years, these institutions have been religious (Christian, mostly Catholic - where church and state were not separate). The biggest ongoing need was the demand for better weaponry. So science, or its practical applications, arose mainly from wars.

To say religion pushed science along is true but doesn't make religion any more valuable, since warfare did so even more directly and that doesn't mean we wish to adopt war as method of promoting science.

Science does not stand apart from society and unfortunately does not have values of its own, besides those of the people who practise it.

EB

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49. Comment #205557 by LateBloomer on July 7, 2008 at 12:54 pm

So what? Chemistry owes its origins to Alchemy. Medicine owes its ancestry to witch-craft. Does that mean that these are not valid paths of human endeavor?

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