“Consider what would have happened to a Muslim who behaved as Decartes did”
Many consider that Descartes was assassinated by a Catholic Priest.
Your argument seems to be that Descartes was persecuted by the Church, therefore he was not a product of Christian culture and cannot be said to have been produced by Christian culture.
That is the counter argument. Science sprang from Christianity, and not from other religions. The persecutions of the Church were relatively feeble attempts that did not stop the development of science. In fact, the Church did numerous things to promote science. The pope funded Galileo, as noted above, as it did many early scientists.
From TexasGator:
“Fortunately he did not adhere to the ‘Christian’ science teachings of that day ...”
Exactly the point, isn’t it?
Islam, China, India, all had several times the population of Christendom. None of them produced science. They could easily have copied early Christian scientists, and made discoveries of their own. They had the resources. They had the contacts with Europe. They did not do it. Why?
Because their basic philosophies were not compatible with scientific inquiry and the search for truth.