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We’ve Been Lied To: Christianity and the Rise of Science
BreakPoint ^ | 4 Dec 03 | Chuck Colson

Posted on 12/04/2003 11:18:40 AM PST by Mr. Silverback

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 Europedeveloped 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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 1saveit4churchdamnit; bookreview; charlescolson; christianity; forthegloryofgod; religion; rodneystark; science
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To: mcg1969
...the chairman of my Electrical Engineering department in undergrad was a young-earth creationist.

which demonstrates that expertise in engineering confers absolutely no insight whatsoever into physics or biology.

21 posted on 12/04/2003 12:00:24 PM PST by js1138
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To: js1138
Very fair, although I wouldn't be totally surprised to learn if there are young-earth creationist doctors as well.

Still, my point is that to argue that the church was somehow holding science back seems silly---for even if they were attempting to do so it would be akin to attempting to dam an entire river with your hand: its far too wide an expanse to cover.
22 posted on 12/04/2003 12:03:54 PM PST by mcg1969
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To: Pyro7480
Actually, I think the word "cell" was used in this context by Robert Hooke in the 1660's. He looked at material under a microscope and thought they looked like monks' cells, all lined up. Mendel came along 200 years later.

But that's a quibble. The important point is that science was advancing, and the practioners had no problem viewing the world from within a religious mindset. It did not hold them back.

23 posted on 12/04/2003 12:05:25 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (France delenda est)
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To: mcg1969
Secondly, I would claim that exceptions such as Galileo and Copernicus were just that, exceptions.

Not exactly. The Galileo legend is another distortion. Here's another eye-popping article for you: The Galileo Legend.

24 posted on 12/04/2003 12:09:47 PM PST by Snuffington
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To: E Rocc
The Church's view that some questions should not even be asked was a stifling force on advancement.

The Church has never held such a view.

25 posted on 12/04/2003 12:11:47 PM PST by Snuffington
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To: Snuffington
Interesting essay at that link.

Here another on the same subject;
The Galileo Affair
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/GalileoAffair.html
26 posted on 12/04/2003 12:22:20 PM PST by Varda
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To: mcg1969
You may add to your exception the response to Harvey on blood circulation.

Galileo was exonerated by the Church later (1992).

Vanini was burned at the stake and Kepler's books banned, another exception.

Bishop Dromore's anti-vaccination society is another exception.

As late as the 1840s clergy opposed anesthesia at childbirth on the basis that it contravened one of the "curses" on women. Another exception.

There are enough exceptions to prove a rule.
27 posted on 12/04/2003 12:22:57 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Mr. Silverback
The Enlightenment was a construction that assumed that the cosmos was like a machine, with immutable laws, that could be discovered and exploited by science. It allows scientists to "understand" the rules of God. However Christianity was not neccessary for this process. The pagan Greeks had already discovered this, as well as the tools for inductive and deductive reason.
28 posted on 12/04/2003 12:23:30 PM PST by ffusco (Maecilius Fuscus,Governor of Longovicium , Manchester, England. 238-244 AD)
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To: mcg1969
What fraction of Americans believe that professional wrestling is real and that the Moon landings were fake?
29 posted on 12/04/2003 12:26:35 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Mr. Silverback
YES YES YES!!

I have been saying this for YEARS!!! What is NEVER discussed (because it is politically incorrect to talk about it or view it as even remotely a good thing) is how in WESTERN civilization, much of the early days of science were begun in MONASTERIES!!! Anyone who has had any general exposure to Biology or Anatomy/Physiology has been taught about Gregor Mendel, a MONK who forumlated the study of genetics through the study of flower traits.

And why would Monks be interested in things like that? Because to study the Word of God, one must study His Creation, and to learn about what God has created is to learn about the Mind of God.

No monk would presume to say that they would learn EVERYTHING, but they understood that God created His World for His Reason, and to ignore it or not attempt to understand how He has ordered it is to be disrespectful of God.

Western civilization was fostered and preserved by monasteries, and those monasteries were the pioneers of scientific study.

30 posted on 12/04/2003 12:30:03 PM PST by Alkhin (He thinks I need keeping in order.)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Ha ha, probably more than either you and I would like to hear :) Are these the same people who believe "Iraq" is a term for a nice pair of breasts? (Stolen and reversed from the movie "Bringing Down The House")
31 posted on 12/04/2003 12:32:49 PM PST by mcg1969
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To: Snuffington
The Church has never held such a view

If you are talking specifically of the Catholic Church, you are, of course, correct.

32 posted on 12/04/2003 12:37:04 PM PST by jscd3
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To: Snuffington
<
The Church's view that some questions should not even be asked was a stifling force on advancement.

The Church has never held such a view.

Then why did Copernicus (a Catholic priest) wait until the year of his death to publish his heliocentric theory?

-Eric

33 posted on 12/04/2003 12:38:13 PM PST by E Rocc (You might be a liberal if.....a proctologist helps you figure out where your head is at.)
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To: Mr. Silverback
Hmmm, educated people I know are quite aware that the first two are false, and I know barely anybody who truly believes that last. Where did the heck did this guy get the idea that everybody believes these things?
34 posted on 12/04/2003 12:42:22 PM PST by kegler4
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To: Alkhin
WESTERN civilization, much of the early days of science were begun in MONASTERIES!!!

I learned that by reading "How the Irish Saved Civilization" -- great book.
35 posted on 12/04/2003 12:47:53 PM PST by Califelephant
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To: Doctor Stochastic
You're going to need a lot more exceptions than that to make a rule, IMO. We're talking literally hundreds of years and thousands of scientists in a wide variety of fields. But I'm not going to deny that science and the church have been at odds many times.

And I kind of wonder whether it's not just religious nature but human nature to retard scientific progress. For example, PETA would like nothing better than for all vivisectoinist medial research to stop. A local town---a very liberal and secular one---recently voted on a measure to the remove the flouride from their water: 20% of the residents voted for it. My milk cartons brag that the milk they contain came from cows that were not treated with the rBST hormone---while disclaiming in a footnote that no chemical differences in milk have ever been detected as a result of the hormone's usage.

So yes the church has used its power to suppress advancement in the past. Now we have many more organizations wielding power in similar ways.

36 posted on 12/04/2003 12:49:44 PM PST by mcg1969
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To: GulliverSwift
But wasn't Newton pretty devout, too?>>>

Nope. In point of fact he was a pagan alchemist.
37 posted on 12/04/2003 12:54:21 PM PST by Ronly Bonly Jones
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To: E Rocc; Varda
Then why did Copernicus (a Catholic priest) wait until the year of his death to publish his heliocentric theory?

From the article linked in post #26 above:

Copernicus had delayed the publication of his book for years because he feared, not the censure of the Church, but the mockery of academics. It was the hide-bound Aristotelians in the schools who offered the fiercest resistance to the new science.

Two bishops were the ones who finally persuaded him to publish. Hardly common for someone supposedly being silenced by the Church.

Incidentally, thanks to Varda for finding that article. I recall reading it some time ago, but could never remember the source or find it again.

38 posted on 12/04/2003 1:07:45 PM PST by Snuffington
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To: Doctor Stochastic
What fraction of Americans believe that professional wrestling is real and that the Moon landings were fake?

Exactly.

39 posted on 12/04/2003 1:11:54 PM PST by Prodigal Son
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To: Mr. Silverback
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.”

uummmm NO! If that were the case then why did they later burn Giordano Bruno at the stake for espousing the Copernican theory?

40 posted on 12/04/2003 1:23:31 PM PST by qam1 (@Starting Generation X Ping list - Freep me to be added and see my home page for details)
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