Science has done more for the development of civilization in 100 yrs than Xianity did in 1800 years?

Question

Do you agree or disagree?

Answer 1

Schneb-I am pretty sure I have seen you post the same thing here over and over. Do you have it on stand by just waiting?

Absolutely agree, christianity and modern islam have put us so far behind where we should be scientifically.

Answer 2

I both agree and disagree. Christianity in general was not the reason Europeans were held back in the Middle Ages. It was partially the fault of the fall of Rome and therefore all science and civilization. And also the Puritians (the forerunners of the Amish) in England were against all progress, as it was "of the devil." It was also Christian men like Leo Da Vinci that made great scientific progress. You can't put them all in one basket.

Answer 3

Let's see what science has brought us. Medicine, oh wait, the first hospitals in europe and asia were opened by the Knights of the Order of St John, (St Johns Ambulance today).

Ok, I'll try to be less sarcastic. Let's see science has given us:

Atom Bomb.
Chemical Weapons
Biological weapons
Fertilizers made from chemical and biological weapons
Pesticides and Herbicides made from biological and chemical weapons that are currently killing the planet of edible and non edible vegetation alike from over balance.
Nuclear power... what do we do with radioactive waste? bury it for furture generation...really scientific.
Cigarettes...the one thing uniting Newt Gingrich republicans and Obama democrats...
Antibiotics...yeah thats a good one until we finally find out we are no longer immune to diseases because our bodies are no longer trained to fight them.
Genetic Engineering...Todays Tomato has 3 times the sodium (salt) of tomato 50 years ago, and 1/3 the nutrients...but more food is good, right? and a tomato that lasts 3 weeks to a month is better than having to have to waste gas and drive to the supermarket every week for fresh tomatoes from big agribusiness a thousand miles away, rather than buying locally produced organics.
I did mention the atom bomb, yes, and since there is at least some science involved in invention, how about every weapon ever made to kill another human being?

And has anyone ever wondered why humans are killing themselves with cancer? because of many of the things science (and economics, I'm practical) has brought us?

Answer 4

Disagree.
I believe you mean science has done more for technology. Civilization is not built up by science. Civilizations have been scientifically primitive with a profound culture. Although, by this example you could say that the US is the greatest civilization because of our science and technology and all others are culturally closer to dung beetles? Is this what you are getting at? Or did you just want the chance to misspell "Christianity"

Answer 5

The "church" was science for centuries, and while they made a few bad calls on things like the earth being the center of the universe.. overall they preserved knowledge and provided centers of learning. Without the "church" science as we know it wouldn't exist, or at least wouldn't exist for hundreds of years.

Also, for the record.. the "church" did not cause the dark ages. The dark ages was the result of the collapse of the Roman empire, and had nothing to do with christianity. In reality, the "church" actually provided stability during this period.. probably preventing things from getting much worse than they did.

Answer 6

Read about what was done in the name of science up until the late 1970s...I'm talking "social experiements" and testing people against their will.

Don't compare science and religion, both can be used to help or hurt society.

Answer 7

Christianity has, by every objective measure, retarded social and human progress. It is directly responsible for the Dark Ages (400-900) where all knowledge of the Ancients was lost because it did not fit Biblical tales, and it continued to choke the life out of humanity for another 500 years, until the 14-1500s.

By 1500, science was beginning to produce true knowledge based on empirical reality. This trend grew exponentially and brought about the modern scientific and industrial revolutions of the 1800s. Religion, and particularly Christianity, has fought and opposed knowledge and the education of all people every step of the way;it America it continues even into the 21st century.

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The history of Christianity is defined by its strong, and frequently violent, opposition to individual liberty, personal freedom, and (scientific) knowledge.
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…”During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."…

-- JAMES MADISON
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 "Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies."

 "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

 "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."

 …"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. "…

– THOMAS JEFFERSON

Answer 8

Agree

Answer 9

You fail to understand the huge number of Christian scientists in today's world, and the huge contribution to authentic science that the university system and the scientific method, which are both Christian institutions, has made to western civilization.

Answer 10

well if you did not have Christianity you would not have modern science. this is from Chuck Colsons website called Breakpoint.

We've Been Lied To
By Chuck Colson
12/4/2003

Christianity and the Rise of Science


To paraphrase the opening of a popular ESPN show, these four things everyone knows are true: Before Columbus's first voyage, people thought the world was flat. When Copernicus wrote that the Earth revolved around the Sun, his conclusions came out of nowhere. The "scientific revolution" of the seventeenth century invented science as we know it. And the false beliefs and impediments to science are Christianity's fault.

There's just one problem: All four statements are false.

As Rodney Stark writes in his new book, For the Glory of God, "every educated person" of Columbus's time, especially Christian clergy, "knew the earth was round." More than 800 years before Columbus's voyage, Bede, the church historian, taught this, as did Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas Aquinas. The title of the most popular medieval text on astronomy was Sphere, not exactly what you would call a book that said the earth was flat.

As for Copernicus's sudden flash of insight, Stark quotes the eminent historian L. Bernard Cohen who called that idea "an invention of later historians." Copernicus "was taught the essential fundamentals leading to his model by his Scholastic professors" -- that is, Christian scholars.

That model was "developed gradually by a succession of . . . Scholastic scientists over the previous two centuries." Building upon their work on orbital mechanics, Copernicus added the "implicit next step."

Thus, the idea that science was invented in the seventeenth century, "when a weakened Christianity could no longer prevent it," as it is said, is false. Long before the famed physicist Isaac Newton, clergy like John of Sacrobosco, the author of Sphere, were doing what can be only called science. The Scholastics -- Christians -- not the Enlightenment, invented modern science.

Three hundred years before Newton, a Scholastic cleric named Jean Buridan anticipated Newton's First Law of Motion, that a body in motion will stay in motion unless otherwise impeded. It was Buridan, not an Enlightenment luminary, who first proposed that Earth turns on its axis.

In Stark's words, "Christian theology was necessary for the rise of science." Science only happened in areas whose worldview was shaped by Christianity, that is, Europe. Many civilizations had alchemy; only Europe developed chemistry. Likewise, astrology was practiced everywhere, but only in Europe did it become astronomy.

That's because Christianity depicted God as a "rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being" who created a universe with a "rational, lawful, stable" structure. These beliefs uniquely led to "faith in the possibility of science."

So why the Columbus myth? Because, as Stark writes, "the claim of an inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more than three centuries, been the primary polemical device used in the atheist attack of faith." Opponents of Christianity have used bogus accounts like the ones I've mentioned not only to discredit Christianity, but also to position themselves as "liberators" of the human mind and spirit.

It's up to us to set the record straight, and Stark's book is a great place to start. I think it's time to tell our neighbors that what everyone knows about Christianity and science is just plain wrong.