Is not Christianity the one that gives birth to modern science as J. Robert Oppenheimer say?

Question

J. Robert Oppenheimer (not a Christian, see world history) is well known in his saying that: "Christianity gives birth to modern science for the simple reason that it created a climate of thought which put men in a position to investigate the form of the universe" Thats why well known great scientists in the past were mostly Bible Reader Christians.

Answer 1

Yes Man always wants to prove out problems and unanswered questions.It gives man a sense of comfort to find out their has to be some scientific reason for each and every thing.That is why the Bible says the foolish people will confound the wise

Answer 2

This is an interesting point. Terry Pratchett's "Science of Discworld - The Globe" has an interesting take on this:

"Joseph Needham brought light to this kind of confusion. He pointed out, in the introduction to his truly gigantic History of Science in China, that the reason why China never developed science as the West knows it is that they never espoused monotheism. In polytheistic philosophies, it isn't very sensible to search for the cause of something, like a thunderstorm, say: you're liable to get a very contingent answer involving several incidents in the love lives of the gods, and an explanation of the provenance of thunderbolts that verges on the ridiculous. Monotheists, however, by which we mean someone like Abraham, to whom we shall return later, reckon that God had a consistent set of ideas and causalities in mind when he set the universe up. One set of ideas. If you expect your one God to be consistent, then it's worth asking how those causalities relate to each other: for example, 'black clouds and rain will be associated with thunderstorms when ..." whatever. The monotheist can predict the weather, even if rather badly. But the polytheist needs a theopsychologist and a precise account of what the gods are up to at the moment. She needs to know whether a tiff between two gods will result in a thunderstorm. So scientific causality is compatible with God-causality, but not with gods-causality."

Combine the idea that monotheism encourages thinkers to expect consistency from the universe with the fact that for many years, the christian churches were the only literate records keepers around, and you end up with a certain percentage of literate monks and priests who had a penchant for observation and extrapolation.

As the idea of science evolved, it mainly evolved from mysticism, that is astrologers, alchemists and other lettered mystics who glimpsed a better way through the mist.

TO THE ARCHITECT: Yes, your portrayal of history is accurate, but remember that the world isn't black and white. The same agency that started the dark ages can be the agent that later leads the world into light, in this case, inadvertently. Acknowledging that christianity can accidentally do some good on occasion doesn't mean that we have to lose sight of the negative effects it has. Without it, the time of reason might have come much earlier, but we don't really know, since we can't rewrite and rerun history.

Answer 3

Well, Creationists are a bit embarassing ... although that is a minority. But apart from that, I think its because of one or two historical episodes where some christians seemed to be on the non-scientific side. 1) some christians initially were arguing against Darwinism (Creationists still do, but they are a minority) 2) The catholic church initially opposed Galileo for his "new-fangled" ideas about the solar system What has happened is that some of the christian behaviour in these episodes looks very backward, idiotic, even a bit oppressive in the Galileo case. So what you've got is Atheists very emotionally committed to Athiesm, perhaps many not particularly concerned about accuracy in historical arguments. Some are very bitter. So these past episodes make christians look so bad, that they tend to speak of them a lot, and focus on them a lot, rather than making an honest appraisal. It's like politicians, and indeed like some of our yahoo disputations - people are keen to win the argument, so come up with the stuff that makes the other side look bad and idiotic. Telling them that James Clerk-Maxwell and Faraday were very committed christians doesn't thus glue in their minds, it's evidence they don't want to look at; unless of course they are trying to be impartial. But humans are often creatures of emotions and prejudices.

Answer 4

You have to be kidding!

I respect and assume you are a person of christian faith, as I presume a number of people who read this question and answer.

But let me explain one simple and unquestionable fact to you- The Dark Ages 380 CE to 1100 CE was wholly and singularly created by Christianity- no question.
See The Almanac of Evil for the clear steps that were taken.
http://one-faith-of-god.org/final_testament/end_of_darkness/evil/evil_0040.htm

Now what do you think the single most symbolic absence was represented in the Dark Ages? No no light- an absence of knowledge and professionals who knew how to use it!

That's right. From the day Emperor Theodosius gave the Pope open slather around 380 CE to destroy every library, starting with the Great Library of Alexandria, to round up and execute every master mason, surgeon, teacher, skilled carpenter, scientist the world was plunged into a darkness infinitely worse than any Cambodian Pol Pot.

Literally millions of skilled people were eventually killed in wave after wave of persecution and madness until the Western World had become a cesspool of the illiterate and the superstitious - a prison of serfs.

If Paul of Tarsus and the High Priests of the House of Ananus had never crafted Christianity to defeat the true message of Jesus and the Nazarenes/Gnostics, then by around 600 CE we would have probably had the motor car and by 1200 CE cancer would probably have been cured.

I know you find this difficult even possible to believe, but it is true. It is true that we lost the art of brickmaking for over 1000 years because of the Vatican and Paul's christianity. We forgot basic medicine so that the surgical instruments uncovered from Roman times were only surpassed in precision less than fifty years ago...

So before, you go about making questions/assumptions, please read. It isn't easy and probably goes against much of what christian science has claimed- but the history is overwhelming. Our world was sent to the brink of oblivion- science was destroyed because of Christianity.

Answer 5

""Christianity gives birth to modern science for the simple reason that it created a climate of thought which put men in a position to investigate the form of the universe""

have u noticed that it's mostly people who HAVE read the bible that have turned atheist?may be this "climate of thought" was that the more they read the Bible,the harder they found to believe it and that induced them to find alternative and more realistic explanations for things.

Answer 6

I know in my own life I take comfort that God has created an universe of order that we can understand. When I study science I am studying God's creation, that's the way I feel. Science makes me appreciate the wisdom of God more and gives me still more faith. As the quote says there were a lot of believing scientists in the past. Still today 66% of scientists believe in God.

Answer 7

maybe the past decade but not before that , earlier times scientists had to defend themself in Rome for their theories that where in contradiction with the bible , they should even retract their theories because of the consequences. Can you back up your claim that great scientists of the past where mostly Bible Reaer Christians ?

Answer 8

The answer is 'NO'. Every advancement in modern science came in-spite of Christianity or more specifically 'religion'. That many of them read the bible and believed in 'God' means little or nothing: their intellect aloud them to see beyond Church Dogma, tradition and narrow interpretation of scripture to discover the truth. pboy

Answer 9

You trust and have faith on that man whom you have never seen and have read his name in a book but you do not believe the bible which is also a book for knowledge of God.
jtm

Answer 10

yes