Has religion held back the development and potential of the human race?

Question

Considering how freaked out the religious types are whenever a scientific advance comes along, you have to wonder. (Except for the things they can use to brainwash people. For example, the internet.)

Answer 1

Some organized religions are threatened by scientific discovery in the world of nature, "God's Creation." Why this should be is a mystery, except that some who try to interpret their religions think that science is in some way a challenge to their beliefs. Christians have been notorious for this, as in burning the accumulated knowledge of the time in the famous Library of Alexandria. Many misguided Christians believe that teaching their children to think clearly and learn about science will somehow cripple them spiritually, so they try to eliminate such things from school curriculums. The result is that our children are unable to compete in the hi-tech world of today, scoring so badly that the lowest scores in northern Europe are better than the highest scores of our own kids. This misguided behavior is definitely holding back the potential of our country, but that of the whole human race. Some organized religions do not do this and their countries are not hobbled in this way, but the Evangelical lobby in this country is definitely working towards a reality where their own children will not only be ignorant of modern science, they will find it very hard to get a job. That they are successful in doing this to their own children, I guess is there own business, but to bring this calamity on other people's children as well is something we all need to look at.

Answer 2

maximum religions have not been unfavourable to progression. Fundamentalist religions are. the u . s . is going backwards with declining training criteria due on to the upward thrust in fundamentalist Christianity. it really isn't any different in that regard from the outcome fundamentalist Islam has on some middle jap countries. extra: "Ferdinand Magellan might want to have landed on the Moon quite than circumnavigate the international". He did not even circumnavigate the international. He died interior the Philippines in uncomplicated words somewhat over 1/2 way. something of the voyage change into led by potential of Magellan's First Mate, Sebastian del Cano, who subsequently grew to change into the first individual to circumnavigate the international..

Answer 3

Religion has as much affect on the potential and development of the world as a popsicle. It's useless without it's leaders and members. The unfortu

Answer 4

No. It is true that the Catholic Church persecuted a lot of people during the scientific revolution, but it should be noted that many of the scientists during the scientific revolution, and afterward, were Christians. For example, Isaac Newton, who did extensive work in physics and optics, was a Christian. Though he wrote books on science, he also wrote extensively on Judeo-Christian theology. He believed that the Council of Nicea and the Catholic Church corrupted certain doctrines of Christianity.
There have been a lot of other Christian scientists. Nicholas Copernicus, though his book was placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books, was a Christian. Johannes Kepler, who discovered the Laws of Planetary Motion, was also a Christian. Galileo Galilei, though the Catholic Church harrassed him, said that the Bible cannot err. Rene Descartes, a French mathematician, was openly Catholic. In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, he devotes a whole meditation to the nature of God. Descartes is also credited with his achievements in mathematics; he discovered Descartes Rule of Signs, which is used even today in synthetic division in high school Precalculus classes. There are countless others, such as the founder of the study of gynecology, and Lord Kelvin, who created the Kelvin unit for the measurement of temperature, also believed in God. There's also Max Planck, who discovered Planck's constant and found that the energy of an electron is quantized. He disliked atheism because he saw it as highly materialistic, and believed that the purpose of both religion and science was to discover the truth, the ultimate goal being to strive toward God. There are countless others.
For many scientists during the scientific revolution and beyond, religion played a great role in their discoveries. Many, like Isaac Newton, were motivated to study life, nature, and the universe because they thought it was a way of better understanding God. For a lot of scientists who came up with the ironclad theories we have now, understanding the mind of God was one of the main reasons for their investigations. Science had everything to do with God in the eyes of these revered and respected chemists, and physicists, so to say that religion has held back science is significantly erroneous. If you asked one of them what science was, you'd likely get a definition that had to do with religion as well. It was Kepler who said "Science is thinking God's thoughts after Him."

Answer 5

Some religions seem to be concerned about some advancements. In reality, we would have no scientific advancement without God permitting it. Some religions have a very narrow understanding of the true nature of God and therefore feel threatened when some advance in science and/or technology seems to contradict that narrow view.

Answer 6

Not really. Religion, with its tendency toward scholarship, has actually contributed toward the advance of science, civilization and technology.

Consider the clock, for example. The invention of the clock was an enormous leap forward in the way people thought about time. It made the industrial revolution possible. The clock was invented in a monastery to aid the monks in fixing the times of daily prayer.

Answer 7

No. Take a look at Islamic history.
Go to video.google.com and search for "islam empire of faith"

Go to www.youtube.com and search for "when muslims ruled in europe"

Answer 8

Who's freaking out? We all seem to be advancing quite nicely.