[Awar]

Originally Posted by Rodney Stark

I still haven’t addressed why the scholastics and later Europeans were interested in science at all. At first glance, that may seem a foolish question. Isn’t the rise of science a normal aspect of cultural progress, of the rise of civilizations? Not at all. Many quite sophisticated societies did not generate communities of scientists, or produce any body of systematic theory and observation that qualifies as science. Although China was quite civilized during many centuries when Europeans were still rude savages, the Chinese failed to develop actual science.

Once again, Rodney says something dumb and lives.

Not even now is science as systematic as it should be, and as unbiased,
and not even now are different fields of science helping eachother to develop.

It's difficult to say whether such 'pure science' will ever exist,
because it's carried out by human beings who have their flaws, and come from societies which have tendencies.

I find it ridiculous that the author, who's a christian, nitpicks so much about what is and what isn't 'real, pure science'.
I mean, IF there were no lines drawn by society ( like those in classical-age Europe, China and other civilizations ), by now, we'd have clones walking around, 200-year old people who survive thanks to stem-cells harvested from human embryos etc. etc.

This isn't allowed in today's society, just like dissecting corpses wasn't allowed in ancient China, because of some traditional values.

The author clearly has a bone to pick with traditional values ( all except christian-European values ).

The author also wants us to think that Christianity was a full-grown, ripe entity which installed itself onto Europe, replacing all the 'unworthy' predecessors. This isn't true. Europe and Christianity evolved together.
The religion changed and adapted to pre-christian customs, beliefs,
and the people adapted ( more or less ) to the basic christian teachings.

Similarly, although in full possession of the whole corpus of Greco-Roman scholarship, and having made some impressive advances in mathematics, Islamic scholars did not become scientists. Once they mastered the classic texts, Muslim scholars added little or nothing of their own. Nor did science arise in ancient India or Egypt. And while classical Greece had considerable learning, it did not have science.

Only if you define 'science' as "Christian, European systematic knowledge gathering".

Again, the author proves nothing but his own bias.

As noted, science consists of an organized effort to explain natural phenomena. Why did this effort take root in Europe and nowhere else?

Because only Rodney says so.

Because Christianity depicted God as a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being, and the universe as his personal creation. The natural world was thus understood to have a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting (indeed, inviting) human comprehension. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork,” states Psalm 19.

Massive non-sequitur.

Christians developed science because they believed it could--and should--be done.

Alfred North Whitehead, the great philosopher and mathematician, co-author with Bertrand Russell of the landmark Principia Mathematica, credited “medieval theology” for the rise of science. He pointed to the “insistence on the rationality of God,” which produced the belief that “the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith.”

And this has nothing to do with anything written by Rodney Stark.

Faith means believing, search for knowledge is based on doubt.

Whitehead ended with the remark that the images of God found in other religions, especially in Asia, are too impersonal or too irrational to have sustained science.

As if scientists needed to be devout believers to begin their search for knowledge, anywhere in the world.

A God who is capricious or unknowable gives no incentive for humans to dig deeply into his essence.

The judeo-christian-islamic god of the old testamend ( especially ) is
capricious, and in both the old and new testament, this god is
unknowable.

I think I don't need to quote from the bible about this, because
it's clear to anyone who has ever read it.

Moreover, most non-Christian religions don’t posit a creation.

Lie.

If the universe is without beginning or purpose, has no Creator, is an inconsistent, unpredictable, and arbitrary mystery, there is little reason to explore it.

The author thinks so... no proof anyone else does.

Under those religious premises, the path to wisdom is through meditation and mystical insights, and there is no occasion to celebrate reason.

This part is just too stupid.

In contrast, Tertullian, one of the earliest Christian theologians (c. 160-225), instructed that God has willed that the world he has provided “should be handled and understood by reason.” The weight of opinion in the early and medieval church was that there is a duty to understand, in order to better marvel at God’s handiwork. Saint Augustine (354-430) held that reason was indispensable to faith: “Heaven forbid that God should hate in us that by which he made us superior to the animals! Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.” Of course, Christian theologians accepted that God’s word must be believed even if the reasons were not apparent. In matters “that we cannot yet grasp by reason--though one day we shall be able to do so--faith must precede reason,” stated Augustine.

It's one thing what theologians think,
it's a different thing what common people think,
it's a totally different thing what scientists think.

Besides, Augustine said it: "faith must precede reason" ... need I add more?

Note the optimism that reason will reveal more and more truth as time accumulates. Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) attempted in his monumental Summa Theologiae to fulfill Augustine’s optimism that some of these “matters of great importance” could be grasped by reason. Though humans lack sufficient intellect to see directly into the essence of things, he argued they may reason their way to knowledge step-by-step, using principles of logic. This is the methodology of science.

Which is all worthless, if one believes that faith MUST PRECEDE reason.

As if the babblings of theologians and philosophers have an influence on
what scientists do.

Centuries of meditation will produce no empirical knowledge, let alone science.

Who says non-European scientists used to meditate for centuries?

Meditation is a part of SOME religions, but, there's no proof that
the non-European scientists used to meditate.

But if religion inspires efforts to comprehend God’s handiwork, science will arise as a “handmaiden” of theology.

And that’s precisely how not only the scholastic scientists but also those who took part in the great achievements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw themselves—as pursuers of the secrets of the Creation.

Right, but only when they discarded most dogmas the chruch previously
held, like earth being flat, and in the center of the universe etc.

Charles Webster has summed up the consensus among recent historians of science: “Any truly historical account...must pay due attention to the deep interpenetration of scientific and religious ideas. It would seem perverse to deny religious motivation in the numerous cases where this was made explicit by the scientists themselves, often with painful emphasis. No direction of energy toward science was undertaken without the assurance of Christian conscience.”

Charles Webster, I have to remember that name... it's another
famous telepath/psychic like Rodney Stark.

Honestly, people are influenced by the mainstream society,
but, it's plain stupid to claim to know what was created from inspiration
by this mainstream influence, and what is made in spite of it.

The great figures of the heyday of scientific discovery--including Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Kepler--actively professed their absolute faith in a Creator God, whose work incorporated rational rules awaiting their discovery.

Indeed, because if they weren't professing absolute faith,
they could end up ostracized by the mainstream christian society.

Robert Boyle, the pioneering chemist, expended a considerable portion of his limited funds to have the Bible translated into various languages.

So?

Naturalist John Ray left Cambridge because he was unwilling on religious grounds to take the required oaths of loyalty to Charles II. Far from being a rejection of religion, the “Scientific Revolution” was led mostly by deeply religious men acting on religious motivations.

Wow! The author mentions two scientists most people haven't even heard of, and bases his 'proof' on that. Hardly scientific of the author, not even very statistic.

The author continues to use this flawed logic.
Try to base anything in real life on this logic, and soon you'll end up in a mental institution.

The author insists on this sort of illogical conclusions:
I know one guy who's 65 years old, and can run faster
than a 25 year old guy who's paraplegic.

Therefore, 65-year olds are physically superior to 25-year olds.

To sum up: The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: Nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Moreover, because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation it ought to be possible to discover these principles. These crucial religious ideas were why the rise of science occurred in Christian Europe, not somewhere else.

Umm, nope... that's what Rodney Stark, the author of this article thinks,
there's no proof anyone else thinks so, especially not scientists.

The identification of the era beginning around 1600 as the “Enlightenment” is as inappropriate as the identification of the millennium before it as the “Dark Ages.” And both imputations were made by the same people--intellectuals who wished to associate faith with darkness and secular humanism with light.

Which isn't hard to do, because science flourished with the rise of secularism.

It was not enough to blame the “Dark Ages” on Christianity; religion also had to be denied any credit for the rise of science. Hence, it was necessary to discredit the achievements of the scholastic era. One after another of the philosophes condemned Catholic scholarship until the word “scholastic” became an epithet--defined as “pedantic and dogmatic” according to any edition of Webster’s.

A conspiracy, I tells ya.