It wasn't a Christian Dark Ages, it was a Roman Catholic Dark Ages. It's debateable whether Roman Catholics are Christians.

I am quite interested in how you can say Christianity promotes scientific advancement because a large amount of people in our modern era do not think things like evolution and the big bang as things that are true.

Basically, because both the big bang and evolution are unproved and faintly ridiculous.

Then what is the "correct" theory of evolution. (please use science)

To quote Isaac Asimov "But suppose we were to teach creationism. What would be the content of the teaching? Merely that a creator formed the universe and all species of life ready-made? Nothing more? No details? "

Evolution isn't correct, full stop. If i can't use any creationism, then there currently is no known and proven way of how life came to be.

Also, @ the quote, yeah. Do we NEED details? To what purpose do those details aspire to?

While they may be likely, they are still only hypotheses. We don't have incontrovertible proof of either. We have not for example, witnessed the big bang or an actual evolution on a large scale. Time will tell, but for the present I don't think disbelieving either implies a clash with christianity, there are atheists im sure who may disbelieve the big bang hypothesis.

On the other hand, there is a point to be made about the liklihood of the christian version of events versus the likelihood of evolution or the big bang, and this is probably the main point to be made about christianity impeding sciences.

Additionally, let me issue a warning to you two (and everyone else); this is not to become a back-and-forth snapping over evolution vs. creationism, take it elsewhere, show the relevance to the topic, or don't post if thats all you're going to do.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 1 2009, 7:35 am by Vrael. Reason: corrected a term misuse

One simply has to look at the penalties for apostasy, in my opinion, to see that free thinking was held back through authoritarian religious means. You can say that the leaders were just bad people that wanted to keep power for themselves, but that completely fails to explain the historical examples (and there are many) where those who left the church were killed, discredited, and more. Religion is a hammer that's been used to keep people in place for far too long.

This video here shows how it's happening in the United States currently rather well. If you can honestly watch that without being disgusted by the blatant and indefensible indoctrination of children I'm ashamed to be a part of the same country as you.

@paragraph one. That's the Roman Catholic church. If you weren't a Catholic, they wanted you dead. Happily, not all religions are like that.

Cite a bit of research, then, please. I'm actually struggling to find a medieval religion that didn't command the death penalty at some point (and some still do currently) for apostasy.

Reformed Christianity didn't go further than excommunication with apostates, which is normally fine with the apostates.

Hinduism just says that apostates are finding the Truth through a different Path.

I'm guessing buddhism has something similiar.

Those churches, from what I can tell, never really exercised any sort of legal authority, which makes them largely irrelevant to my point, though you may well be correct.

no, Buddhism does not have anything that cares for apostates. You don't get punished or anything. In Buddhism, science is promoted. Whatever science says is true, Buddhism will accept. Unlike Christianity which science is not promoted because when science says something is true, it can be refuted with religious reasons.

Okay, but it still doesn't relate because Buddhism is as much a philosophy as a religion and has not been a part of the group which has made the most scientific progress (for whatever reason, that's another discussion) since the AD era, that being the western world. I appreciate the clarification but my knowledge is limited on Asian matters and no one has really connected the point to the discussion.

The western world only made the most scientific advance during and after the Renaissance.

Many places in the middle east had advanced science because they had something that was like an early scientific method

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmagupta
Brahmagupta in India made many advancements in math and even had thoughts on gravity

China also advanced in math but also made many inventions such as paper and printing.

Things like the antikythera device make me wonder what would have happened if science was more prevalent in Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

I totally agree with you Fire_Kame. Religion is an essential building block in life not because whether it is right or wrong, but because through it we have discovered and still put to use lifes greatest morals and wrongs from rights. Without religion the world would most indefinitley be a much much more different place. But in my opinion this world was made with flaws, and with these flaws we prosper and learn, much like we do from war (Only after the killing stops), so no matter what we believe or dont beleive, people are always gonna have something to bitch about, whether its religion, money, healthcare, politics, or even life, were all just along for the ride and theres never ant telling when it could stop. So live it up while you can!!!

If there was no religion, the world would be a better place. The only war that would have ever occurred is war over territorial disputes, ignorance would not be as pervasive as it is in the present day (like the majority of Americans believing humanity has only inhabited the Earth for 6-10,000 years), suffrage for minorities would have come quicker, we never would've lost the Arabian contributions to mathematics we did, technology would therefore be more advanced. Humans do not need religion.

I cannot imagine a world without religion. Religion in this world had an unsurmountable influence over its history. If you just 'remove' religion- the world wouldn't be the world today. No, it would be nothing like today. It is possible that religion was required at first to start sizeable factions, give ruling class a 'stable' political, economical, and 'psychological' stance.
The point is, there is no telling how the world would have become without religion- without doubt, a very huge influence in human history. I would rather not imagine what the world isn't right now. I can only think of how to improve our world, not imagine useless, unreal things.

@Syphon - You, and a few others have been repeating that. That isn't even circular logic. There is no logic involved. It's repeating out of ignorance. Maybe you should rethink your strategy, and write more constructively.
And a vast majority of Americans don't believe that humanity has inhabited the Earth for 6~10,000 years. Only a fraction of Christianity believe that. And Americans have 50:50 of Christians and Non-Christians (Other religious, agnostic, or atheist). So you can't call them majority. This also makes you very hypocritical.

To the OP: the question in your thread title seems obviously answered: no, the world would not be the same as it is today. Indeed, things would be different if there were no forms of organized belief in the supernatural. Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure how things would have been different. Much has been said in this thread that science has been hindered by religion, which is a stance that has been traditionally taken in Western Culture. It is one still true to this day.

On the note of Galileo and Copernicus, I would like to suggest something. If I suggested that there were scientific evidence--verifiable proof that God existed--right before our very eyes, would I be heralded as a visionary, or as a scientific heretic? I think the answer is clear.

Today's secular community can be--and in many cases, is!--just as close-minded as the RC Church was during the Middle Ages. Why? There are many reasons: resistance to change; stubbornness; fear; the list goes on. All human characteristics, not necessarily characteristics of religion.

To reference a knowledgeable and well-learned scientist who is largely credited with decoding the Human Genome--"science and faith are parallel, not perpendicular." Science and Religion do not contradict each other--but rather support each other. Unfortunately, many of our greatest scientific minds--even those spread across academia in general--are very close minded to the notion of the existence of God.

This is because religious clerics twist old teachings to support new scientific findings. Earlier today I read an article about why God exists. They claimed that the Earth was so perfect for life because of its size and distance from the sun (even though the Bible claims that the Sun revolves around the Earth), that DNA is part of God's Plan (even though DNA allows for speciation), et cetera. I assume they purposely left out the fact that life would have just evolved differently under different circumstances.

I'm not trying to start another "Does God exist?" debate (as stated by Kaidon: people don't want to change), I just wanted to illustrate my point.

I see lots of people advocating for religion because of morality.

But just because it has a nice set of morals doesn't mean we should accept the whole thing (see Fallacy of Distribution)

I say we extract the morality component and yes that can still be taught, but remove the rest of it.