"SCIENCE", why was it in history considered develish?

Answer 1

because it often goes against religion

Answer 2

Several reasons:
A)The church had (and still has) an official mythology on how the universe was created and how it works. Science often contradicts this version.

B)Mad scientist syndrome. Science often has to do things to pursue knowledge that the church finds sinfull or heretical. Yesterday it was the "evil" of cutting up cadavers (dead bodies) to see how the human body worked; today it's stem cells.

C)Thought processes. Science questions constantly. Even when a new discovery is found other scientists question it and try to reproduce the findings. Faith works on belief. Don't question, just believe. Questioning could lead to "false" beliefs.

Answer 3

The truth, from my point of view:


After the fall of the Roman Empire, the church had a stranglehold on the people. The priests and the Holy See (Pope) controlled so much of people's lives. They used religion to explain everything.

As science began to come along, they began to fear people would see science as the truth, and would stop believing. If you no longer believe, you no longer do what the priest tells you and you loose power.

Not all people believe religion and science are compatable. Science was labeled as evil because It threatened the power of the church.

Answer 4

The same ancestors of all the ignorant idiots on here today? You say this like it's any different now... Fact is there always were morons and their always will be morons as long as the morons are raising up little morons and breeding. What are you going to do?

"I looked around the world and saw that only stupid people are breeding, the cretins cloning and feeding and I don't even own a tv." Flag pole sitta

Answer 5

It was in some cases against religious views which were held by rulers and the powers that ruled. Thus, it was attacked aas devilish because it gave different types of explanations. Example - things like autopsies were very scientific as far as learning new things, but considered extremely grotesque and went against the idea of burying the body, etc.

Answer 6

The problem is your premise is mistaken.

Though individuals and smaller groups may have held any number of views, the great branches of the Christian Church have NEVER viewed science as "of the devil". On the contrary, it was Christian belief that gave birth to science !!

A lot of the criticisms being posted here nicely echo the rhetoric of leading skeptics and atheists since the 18th century. But the historical record does not support them.

For instance, it is claimed that Columbus fought the church because he thought the earth was round and they thought it flat. In fact, ALL his critics understood the world to be round (as had the church for centuries), but they believed he had underestimated its size and could not safely cross all the way to Asia. Guess what? THEY were right about the size; Columbus was wrong (but lucked out because of the unknown continent in the way!)

The evidence of all this has been available -- but diehard skeptics and atheists (like Voltaire and the Huxleys) didn't care to examine it, since it undermined their own vendetta against the church.

But more basic than all this -- the view that the modern day system of study we know as "science" was NOT the invention or discovery of a group of skeptics and secularists OPPOSED to the Church. Quite the contrary, MOST of the leading scientists of the "scientific revolution" were believers, and a LARGE percentage of that group appear (from their own actions and writings) to have been MORE devout than the average person (think Descartes, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Boyle).

Why was this? It was BECAUSE they believed in a RATIONAL God (not capricious), and Creator of this world, who made it to be KNOWABLE. They believed that they COULD know about the world, that it was WORTH knowing, indeed that God INTENDED us to seek to understand it. In short, their FAITH was the FOUNDATION for their efforts to study the world, including the 'scientific method.'

Also consider a KEY institution that formed the breeding ground for the sharing of ideas, MANY advances in knowledge and the birth of science as we know it (something the ancient world never developed) -- the UNIVERSITY system, started in the early 12th century by RELIGIOUS people (mainly monks)

Rodney Stark writes of all this:
"there was no "scientific revolution" that finally burst through the superstitious barriers of faith, but . . . the flowering of science that took place in the sixteenth century was the normal, gradual, and direct outgrowth of Scholasticism and the medieval universities. Indeed, theological assumptions unique to Christianity explain why science was born only in Christian Europe. Contrary to the received wisdom, religion and science not only were compatible; they were inseparable. Hence the last portion of the chapter demonstrates that the battle over evolution is not a conflict between religion and science but between True Believers on both sides."
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7501.html


Historians of the "Middle Ages", by the way, no longer prefer the term "Dark Ages", because they have come to recognize that a LOT of progress was made during the period (including a number of important inventions in agricultural, navigation and economics) that moved far beyond anything the ancient Greeks and Romans had accomplished.
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/medieval_achievements.html

Answer 7

Not history but Europe in the dark ages. The Church controlled Europe and was afraid of anything or any idea that challenged their belief and ideas. The Popes were powerful and controlled all. As long as Science agreed with their views they were alright.

Answer 8

Things that are not well known and well understood are seen as evil. Think of all the Sailors tails of sea dragons and mermaids. Look how early societys trembled at eclispes. We laugh at them now cause we understand why.

Answer 9

Religion preaches to accept its truth by faith in gods word, science encourges itself to question and undermind the status quo. If religion taught this way of thinking we all would be scientists.

Answer 10

SCIENCE - Severely Carnivores Intestine Eating Naked Carrot Eskimos. I'd like to think it was self explanatory.

Answer 11

Me personally, I figure it's because science proved religion wrong so many times in the past.