Did Christianity help science develop?

[Pingu]

Let me clarify, then. When you were squeezing your brain for a way to, say, construct a simulation model in Mathlab which would be realistic enough to matter but fast enough to finish running, odds are you weren't thinking of the tenets of your faith. You did not seek help from the Ten Commandments, nay, not even from the Psalms. You simply did not function as a religious person in those moments. Or did you?

I disagree with this, because I do not regard trinitarian Christians as monotheists, and they are the majority.

OK! But they do.

All the babble going into explaining away how the Trinity is not three separate gods is just that, meaningless babble; they waste entire libraries' worth of books "explaining" it, then conclude that the faithful should just shut up and believe IOW "a mystery of faith".

Well, I guess the important thing is that the three Persons of the trinity don't act as independent agents.

So I think my point still stands. In a monotheistic tradition, for now including Christianity, you can't invoke additional deities to explain natural phenomena independently. It pushes you toward an explanatory system that makes some kind of unitary sense.

At least that was what I was trying to day.

It's like Dave Hawkins' "overwhelming evidence" for a global Noachian flood, it doesn't actually exist but its existence is constantly asserted. It's just that it became politically correct to treat all the Christian theology surrounding the issue as some sort of sophisticated attempt to clarify difficult issues rather than the primitive squid ink it really is.

Well, I entirely agree that the Trinity was a put-up job.

[buttershug]

Ei All the babble going into explaining away how the Trinity is not three separate gods is just that, meaningless babble; they waste entire libraries' worth of books "explaining" it, then conclude that the faithful should just shut up and believe IOW "a mystery of faith". It's like Dave Hawkins' "overwhelming evidence" for a global Noachian flood, it doesn't actually exist but its existence is constantly asserted. It's just that it became politically correct to treat all the Christian theology surrounding the issue as some sort of sophisticated attempt to clarify difficult issues rather than the primitive squid ink it really is.

Once I was introducing family members to someone. After I said "this is my sister", her young daughter protested and said "that's not your sister, that's my mother".

Does that mean that my sister was two people?

[RAFH]

I think monotheism fosters the view that the universe is self-consistent.

You can't invoke random spirits and demons to account for specific phenomena.

Just Saints and Prophets and, of course, the Big One, The Head God. There's also witches and sorcerers, devils and, despite your discounting them, demons as well. All have been part and parcel of the Abrahamic religions and most others as well. Black cats, even. And spells and hexes. Evil eyes. Signs and gestures. Holy relics.

But I suppose the religions that invoke and involve all those aren't really monotheistic. Just there's one head god. Sort of like Odin or Zeus. Oops, back to the whole gamut of supernaturality.

And, as noted, there's always the Big Guy or Gal or It. Prayer is recommended to seek their aid.

Nah, I don't see it at all. Collapsing many gods to one with a lot of assistants and even without a lot of assistants isn't really a step forward. Just a reorganization.

But that's mostly because religions and their subject are mostly the figments of the imagination. Of humans.

[Barbarian]

Once I was introducing family members to someone. After I said "this is my sister", her young daughter protested and said "that's not your sister, that's my mother".

Does that mean that my sister was two people?

Why do you do this.

[RAFH]

Yes.

At least in the sense I think you mean.

Well, the first is a subset of the second.

Not really. There may be a main god, but that's really three beings. And then there's the lesser beings, prophets and saints. To become a saint, you must do magic. It's a basic requirement, even though the definition of magic has changed a lot in the last 500 to 1000 years. And, of course, there's all the angels and even ArchAngels. And Lucifer or Satan or whatever one calls the semi-loyal opposition. And his or her minions. Monotheism? Not really. Not at all.

[RAFH]

Let me clarify, then. When you were squeezing your brain for a way to, say, construct a simulation model in Mathlab which would be realistic enough to matter but fast enough to finish running, odds are you weren't thinking of the tenets of your faith. You did not seek help from the Ten Commandments, nay, not even from the Psalms. You simply did not function as a religious person in those moments. Or did you?

I disagree with this, because I do not regard trinitarian Christians as monotheists, and they are the majority. All the babble going into explaining away how the Trinity is not three separate gods is just that, meaningless babble; they waste entire libraries' worth of books "explaining" it, then conclude that the faithful should just shut up and believe IOW "a mystery of faith". It's like Dave Hawkins' "overwhelming evidence" for a global Noachian flood, it doesn't actually exist but its existence is constantly asserted. It's just that it became politically correct to treat all the Christian theology surrounding the issue as some sort of sophisticated attempt to clarify difficult issues rather than the primitive squid ink it really is.

Yup.

[RAFH]

OK! But they do.

Well, I guess the important thing is that the three Persons of the trinity don't act as independent agents.

So I think my point still stands. In a monotheistic tradition, for now including Christianity, you can't invoke additional deities to explain natural phenomena independently. It pushes you toward an explanatory system that makes some kind of unitary sense.

At least that was what I was trying to day.

Well, I entirely agree that the Trinity was a put-up job.

The Catholic Church creates Saints all the time, well, a couple every decade or two, and the basic criterion is that they did magic, made a miracle. Blows your definition out the door.

The Catholic Church is Christianity. It's the only church sanctioned by the Bible and Jesus. There has been no word from on high to either decertify the Catholic Church or to certify any other.

[RAFH]

Once I was introducing family members to someone. After I said "this is my sister", her young daughter protested and said "that's not your sister, that's my mother".

Does that mean that my sister was two people?

To her daughter and you, perhaps.

Kind of silly to be making philosophical arguments about imaginary beings.

[osmanthus]

I think monotheism fosters the view that the universe is self-consistent.

You can't invoke random spirits and demons to account for specific phenomena.

I can see this has already been demolished by Barbarian and RAFH, so I'll just get some popcorn.

[Barbarian]

So I think my point still stands. In a monotheistic tradition, for now including Christianity, you can't invoke additional deities to explain natural phenomena independently. It pushes you toward an explanatory system that makes some kind of unitary sense.

And that explanation is that God did it, instead of some specialist god did it. This is antithetical to 'there are regularities, let's figure them out'. If there's a God, nothing is supposed to make sense to us, since God has free will, his ways are mysterious and he can and will intervene in worldly affairs. The very existence of physical laws or indeed any sort of regularity is incompatible with such a god.

[osmanthus]

^^ See Dave's latest claims about Teh Fludde for great examples.

[teeth!]

I think it would make an interesting discussion actually. I'm not saying we have Christianity to thank for Science or anything (after all, a lot of things like optics and mathematics are of muslim and arabic origin) but the mindset that it allows has been helpful. (not that people have always followed that particular mindset - there is still scope within christianity to apply goddidit to everything, as we see the idiots claim whenever a storm floods a city or whatever)

the mindset is really nonchristian formalisms that came from various Greek and eastern thinkers. Some theologians tried to apply this set of formalisms to Christianity with mixed results, but the whole idea of formalizing logic and universal law long precedes Christianity.

[teeth!]

I think the problem here is Pingu specifically and others more generally do not actually understand how pagan science actually worked.

[Pingu]

Well, let me clarify, as I honestly didn't think I'd said anything particularly controversial.

I don't mean that science would have been impossible without Christianity, or indeed monotheism. But I think the kind of metaphysical view that tries to see the world as a set of self-consistent interlocking mechanisms is probably more compatible with (and might even contribute to the development of) a monotheistic religion than a polytheistic one. To the extent that Christianity is polytheistic, and there are senses in which it has been, that may have gone the other way.

But if you think that you can explain individual phenomena, like tornadoes or waves, or clouds, or lightning, or floods, or the moon phases by invoking separate sentient agents, I think you are less likely to develop a self-consistent science than if you are trying to figure out the mind of some more or less unitary deity.

But possibly not. It seems to me it's perfectly arguable, though, and not demolished by the Trinity, or saints or anything else, although I expect they get in the way as much as water sprites and demons do.

[Pingu]

I think the problem here is Pingu specifically and others more generally do not actually understand how pagan science actually worked.

I probably don't, teeth!, so do please explain it to me.

[Pingu]

And that explanation is that God did it, instead of some specialist god did it. This is antithetical to 'there are regularities, let's figure them out'. If there's a God, nothing is supposed to make sense to us, since God has free will, his ways are mysterious and he can and will intervene in worldly affairs. The very existence of physical laws or indeed any sort of regularity is incompatible with such a god.

Well, in some theologies yes. In others not so much.

[osmanthus]

But if you think that you can explain individual phenomena, like tornadoes or waves, or clouds, or lightning, or floods, or the moon phases by invoking separate sentient agents, I think you are less likely to develop a self-consistent science than if you are trying to figure out the mind of some more or less unitary deity.

Unless your unitary deity interferes in the world, by acting outside the usual laws of physics. Which is the central problem.

AFAICT pagans did try to figure out the world around them, and did manage to figure out some of the things that made it work. They just reserved supernatural causes for the bits they didn't understand yet. Just like Christians.

[teeth!]

yo yo check out the Epicureans.

[Pingu]

Not really. There may be a main god, but that's really three beings. And then there's the lesser beings, prophets and saints. To become a saint, you must do magic. It's a basic requirement, even though the definition of magic has changed a lot in the last 500 to 1000 years. And, of course, there's all the angels and even ArchAngels. And Lucifer or Satan or whatever one calls the semi-loyal opposition. And his or her minions. Monotheism? Not really. Not at all.

Well, no. To become a saint, you go to heaven. To demonstrate you are there, you must show that you have sufficient influence with the big guy to induce him to do magic.

But in any case, I'm not arguing that Christianity is the reason for science. I'm arguing that, possibly, the idea of monotheism and science are related.

[Pingu]

Unless your unitary deity interferes in the world, by acting outside the usual laws of physics. Which is the central problem.

AFAICT pagans did try to figure out the world around them, and did manage to figure out some of the things that made it work. They just reserved supernatural causes for the bits they didn't understand yet. Just like Christians.

I'm not disagreeing with any of this.

[osmanthus]

But in any case, I'm not arguing that Christianity is the reason for science. I'm arguing that, possibly, the idea of monotheism and science are related.

Which would explain why the modern Islamic world is such a great leader in science.

[Pingu]

yo yo check out the Epicureans.

Yes, I know about the Epicureans.

[Pingu]

Which would explain why the modern Islamic world is such a great leader in science.

It might explain why it was once a great leader in astronomy.

[Pingu]

The Catholic Church creates Saints all the time, well, a couple every decade or two, and the basic criterion is that they did magic, made a miracle. Blows your definition out the door.

No, it doesn't create saints. It recognises saints. And the idea is that the church recognise them AS saints because someone asked them to pray for some thing and apparently they did and apparently goddidit.

The Catholic Church is Christianity. It's the only church sanctioned by the Bible and Jesus.

Not sure whose PoV you are representing here.

There has been no word from on high to either decertify the Catholic Church or to certify any other.

Right.

[osmanthus]

It might explain why it was once a great leader in astronomy.

Bit hard to explain both simultaneously.