Because of religion we are so far behind in technolgical advancement?

Question

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/forces.html#Forces

Answer 1

Yes. When religion ruled the western world, it was called the dark ages.

That was almost a thousand years of stagnation. Imagine if we went right from the hight of the roman empire to the Renasance, with nothing inbetween.

Look at how religion wars against science in the US even now- like creationism vs evolution and hostility toward stem cell research.

Think about it- right now we would be a thousand years ahead of our current level of technology.

The moon and mars would be transformed, full of plants, lakes and rivers, and breathable atmosphere. The aging process would be a treatable disease instead of an inevitability. We would have nannobots enhancing our memory and fixing our every ailment.

Answer 2

Like all good questions, No and Yes.

Religions of all kinds act as a gathering point of technology. The early Greek priests hired men like Heron and Archimedes to design wonders into their temples to bring in the masses. These temples became a driving force for a lot of what we now take for granted, including vending machines and pay toilets. Most belief systems are at heart capitalists. :)

Unfortunately, they also tend to destroy what doesn't coincide with the beliefs they want their followers to have. Heresy, which basically means challenging the word of the church, has always fallen on the greatest of minds as they thought past what they were told to believe. Galileo and Leonardo are good examples of scientist walking a fine line that often got them in deep water. Galileo was under house arrest and threat of excommunication until he swore that the Sun orbits the Earth and not the other way around. Leonardo faced repeated threats because his ideas didn't mesh with accepted thought. Many of his religeous paintings were modified because they didn't match the Catholic belief systems ideas at the time.

A good indicator of when a Religion is bad is when it stops caring about the welfare of the people it represents, and starts worrying about its own existance and supremecy. In the Dark Ages, it was the Catholic church fighting to keep its place while smaller groups, who still felt themselves to be good Catholics held a slightly different concept of truth. Until Christianity finally split up into many denominations, learning was stagnated. Now, it is the Religion of Islam facing the same crisis point. Shi'ites, Sunni and other factions each trying to prove they are the truth and all the while calling anyone else (other than their own true followers) infidels.

Hard to believe that in the early years of Islam, they were extremely tollerant of everyone. They accepted Judaism and Christianity as well as Hindu and other religeons as acceptable paths to heaven. Mohammed was truly divinely inspired and that is why he believed that Jerusalem was the holy land, and not Mecca as it is today.

Answer 3

Behind what?

But qv. "Barbarians" by Terry Jones in its last chapters for well researched facts about the Ancient Greeks.

One might do well to blame not religion but Roman Imperialism. In like wise, the American car manufacturers purchased the patents for an engine designed to be 3 times more efficient than the ones we use today, forty years ago, and shelved them (among other ideas).

But the spread of the Christian (specifically, Roman Catholic, post-Constantinian, post-St.Augustinian, Christianity) is not unconnected with such conflux of cultural causes. As so often in matters human, more than one influence is at work in a complex of impulsions which lead to but one outcome, with many future possibilties.

Which we have. Technologically advanced relative to what? Star Trek?

Answer 4

To a certain extent. Not so much in western Europe and the Americas but there are still countries who's populations make decisions about life choices (e.g. spouse choice) and decisions at work based on the stars and superstitions.It's amazing how some counties can have the best engineering colleges in the world and still make illogical choices based on where a planet happens to be in the sky.

Answer 5

i disagree. With believers of more religions on Earth than any other country, America still leads the world in technological advances. The truth is, here, as in most countries, people without beliefs outnumber religious believers more every day.

Answer 6

I must agree with Kelsey H. It is because of religion that we began to explore the sciences in the first place. To know how things were made(created), worked, etc...

Some of the most outstanding scientists in history had a belief in God. For example: Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Faraday, Mendel, Kelvin, Planck.

Of course most famous of all, Einstein of whom it is said, "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists."

Einstein also said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

So in answer to your question, it is because of religion that we have technology and not the lack thereof.

Answer 7

Oh yes this is true. When geologists began dating rocks and archaeologists started seeing skulls of previous dominating species related to humans in the late 1800s and far before then, the church threw out their findings. It is only now that these ideas are being printed in our textbooks today and it concerns me. I feel like we be learning more but religious morals won't allow us to study the benefits of stem cell research... but they will fund my supplies in biology lab where I am fertilizing animal eggs under a microscope and then tossing the slides as if I were terminating the pregnancy. Oh the irony!

Answer 8

Totally disagree. If it weren't for religion, we would have lost huge stores of knowledge. Think the monk copying ancient Greek works day and night- in the ages before the printing press, religion kept science and literacy alive. Without it, we'd be very far behind.

Answer 9

That is only true in Muslim/Hindu countries where being retarded is seen as a pillar of strength. The United States currently leads the world in technological breakthroughs (at least until it's all outsourced to turd world crap holes) and the US is predominently christian.

Answer 10

Well, certain individuals and beliefs have certainly dampened science and technology, but I wouldn't blame religion. But I have a problem when science shows evidence for something (e.g. global warming, stem cell research), and it is rejected because of ignorant, baseless opinions.