Quote:
Originally Posted by evman150
Ever heard of the Great Library? We lost out on 1000(+) years of free thought and technological progress because of its loss and the corresponding dive into the dark ages. Free thought was destroyed along with the library and religion was allowed to take hold. For 1000 years humanity accomplished almost nothing. Can you imagine if the calculus was invented 1000 years before Newton and Leibniz? The steam engine? The industrial revolution? The propogation of free thought? Instead we wasted time on the ignorance of religion, witch hunts and sacrificial killings.
Religion is the most major impediment to science there is. Noting a number of theistic scientists is no more to the point than pointing out the few that exist now.
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I thought I'd post this excerpt from
David Mill's book
Athesit Universe.
He clearly has his own view, but his points fit in quite well with your post. It's a good read, and I quite enjoyed the book.
"The Christian Church has fought bitterly throughout its history - and is still fighting today - to impede scientific progress. Galileo, remember, was nearly put to death by the Church for constructing his telescope and discovering the moons of Jupiter. For centuries, moreover, the Church forbade the dissection of a human cadaver, calling it "a desecration of the temple of the Holy Ghost." Medical research was thereby stalled for almost a thousand years. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Christianity's longest period of sustained growth and influence occurred during what historians refer to as The Dark Ages.
The ancient Greeks and Egyptians made amazing scientific discoveries and wrote detailed scientific analyses that the Christian Church later destroyed and suppressed for centuries. A mob of religious zealots deliberately burned the greatest library of the ancient world, at Alexandria, Egypt. And it was not until Renaissance scholars emancipated Europe from religious shackles that these scientific principles were rediscovered 1500 years later.
Fifteen-hundred years of progress were therefore stifled by the Christian Church. Were it not for religious persecution and oppression of science, mankind might have landed on the moon in the year 650AD. Cancer may ahve been eradicated forever by the year 800AD. And heart disease may, today, be unknown. But Christianity put into deep hibernation Greek and Egyptian scientific gains of the past.
Historically, the Church fought venomously against each scientific advance. But after fruitlessly criticizing each new scientific achievement, the Church soon flip-flopped its position and embraced the new discovery as a "gift from God to mankind." The Catholic hierarchy even opposed the invention of the printing press because copies of Scripture could be easily mass produced and placed in the hands of those who might misinterpret or criticize "God's Word." Before the printing press, Scripture had been read and deciphered only by Catholic priests.
The Church angrily denounced the introduction of medicines, antibiotics, anesthesia, surgery, blood transfusions, birth control, transplants, in vitro fertilization, and most forms of pain killers. Supposedly, these scientific tools interfered with nature and were therefore against God's will. Today, the Church is fighting cloning technology and genetic engineering. But when cloning laboratories provide an unlimited supply of trasnplant tissue for dying children, and when genetic engineering cures all forms of cancer, Church leaders will once again forget their initial opposition and hail these achievements as evidence of God's love for mankind. Today, science is prevailing, but throughout most of recorded history, religion strangled scientific inquiry and often tortured and executed those who advocated the scientific method."