Has Religion Slowed Scientific Progress Through History?

Only the 12th-16th century Catholic Church slowed a progress.

In the ancient times religion was one of the thing caused societies to organise and the settle around holy or religious places.
I know that the Egyptians and the Preclassic Greeks progressed into significant civilizations thanks to their religious centralization.
As far as I know, religions in ancient India demanded knowlegde from the people, and exposed people to philossophy (Buddha's dogma, the Vedas..). The same thing happened later in China of course, with Confucious and Laozi.

In Classical Greece and Rome there is no need to explain of course. At least until 100 AD.

Early Islam in the Caliphate encouraged the mathematicians and philossophers.

In ancient Mesopotamia the religion didn't encourage anything, but it didn't harm the technological progress at all.

And don't forget - part of the human progress is the rise and fall of civilizations and cultures. Without religion, we would have stayed way behind in this field.
What basis do you have for believing, um, any of that?
 
In my opinion, definitely affirmative.

Going into point form is more readable in this topic, the followings are my five explainations:

(1) World religions produces tons of superstitions, mythical stories, cumbersome rites and blind faith as side effects.

(2) Human has already wasted numerous of time, manpower and resources to fulfill people's ignorance and arrogance on ridiculous alchemy and seeking sorceries.

(3) Peddling indulgences reveals the profitability of turning of people's spiritual thirst into omnipotence power and ceaseless revenue, it is unevitable to stop it from being corrupted.

(4) Absurd offences and legitimate discriminations are great obstacles to our road to scientific progress. Blasphemy and Wizard Hunt turning into effective political persecution when widely abused during the Great Inquistion and thus disgracs our history. The Crusades, Jihad and Zionist Movements are still bringing devastating disasters to our world.

(5) Pseudoscience and superstitutions brought us laughter, other than translating Elements into Chinese, Matteo Ricci taught the Chinese that their conception on elements are wrong, the true elements in the universe should be: air, fire, water and earth instead of water, fire, wood, metal and earth.

View on things like religions are always subjective, religions are doubtful things , aren't them?
 
What kind of superstition made you think that Zionism is an example of how a religion brings disaster to our world?!
 
Well, the relationship between Zionism and Judaic religion isn't direct - Zionism, first and foremost, is a nationalist ideology. And I wonder how are the Crusades "still bringing devastating disasters to our world", unless you count every invasion of a non-Christian nation done by a nominally Christian nation as a "crusade".

(2) Human has already wasted numerous of time, manpower and resources to fulfill people's ignorance and arrogance on ridiculous alchemy and seeking sorceries.
And this doesn't have much to do with religion.
 
And I wonder how are the Crusades "still bringing devastating disasters to our world", unless you count every invasion of a non-Christian nation done by a nominally Christian nation as a "crusade".
Uh, there is a Crusader state in the Middle East right now.
 
And this doesn't have much to do with religion.

I have quoted some sentences from Wikipedia as follow:

Early alchemists, such as Zosimos of Panopolis (c. AD 300), highlight the spiritual nature of the alchemical quest, symbolic of a religious regeneration of the human soul.[14] This approach continued in the Middle Ages, as metaphysical aspects, substances, physical states, and material processes were used as metaphors for spiritual entities, spiritual states, and, ultimately, transformation. In this sense, the literal meanings of 'Alchemical Formulas' were a blind, hiding their true spiritual philosophy. Practitioners and patrons such as Melchior Cibinensis and Pope Innocent VIII existed within the ranks of the church, while Martin Luther applauded alchemy for its consistency with Christian teachings.[

There are some facts that reveals the link between religion and alchemy. For instance, Daoism emphasize the importance of alchemy and drugs for immotaliity.
 
I really want to just copy/paste spam "There's no such thing as religion" until this thread dies out, but I'm pretty sure I'd get banned for that.
 
There are some facts that reveals the link between religion and alchemy.
According to that standard, there're links between religion and science as well :p
 
Irrelevant. They are doing the bidding of the Christian West.

No. Israel have chosen to adopt the western culture. It isn't an emissary of the west in any way.
Israel is just a good local partner for the western world.
 
I really want to just copy/paste spam "There's no such thing as religion" until this thread dies out, but I'm pretty sure I'd get banned for that.
It is kind of tricky having a debate about the relationship between two things that don't actually exist, isn't it? Let's just hope that nobody decides to argue that there's no such thing as history, either, or we'll really be screwed.

No. Israel have chosen to adopt the western culture.
Isn't Israel dominated by Ashkenazis from Europe and America?
 
It isn't the reason.
Those who built the foundations of Israel came from eastern Europe, mostly from the Russian Empire.
They did share the same religious division as the Western European and the American Jews , but their political oppinions were comletley different from them. The Eastern European Zionists were socialists and workers.


But it isn't what I mean anyway.
What I mean is that Israel chosen the froms of government or the human rights by itself, not because it was forced to or told to.
 
But it isn't what I mean anyway.
What I mean is that Israel chosen the froms of government or the human rights by itself, not because it was forced to or told to.
Sure. Just like Diem and all the other running dogs. I guess Israel gets millions upon millions of dollars in "aid" every year from evangelical Christianity because the Christians like throwing money down a rat hole. It has nothing to do with the fact that the Jews are prosecuting the very war against Islam that those Christians have wanted for centuries. :rolleyes:
 
I see religion as not stopping scientific progress in a time, but preventing the masses from gaining scientific knowledge, which would lead to the end of religion. We may never know if religion has slowed scientific progress, because we don't have an example of a society where scientific progress was great and religion minimal.
 
I see religion as not stopping scientific progress in a time, but preventing the masses from gaining scientific knowledge, which would lead to the end of religion.
Can you actually demonstrate that this has occurred?
 
I presume he's talking about the efforts of certain groups in the US to suppress the teaching of evolution in public schools. Problem is, this only applies to a small but obnoxiously loud minority of fundies who seem to have been somewhat successful.
 
I presume he's talking about the efforts of certain groups in the US to suppress the teaching of evolution in public schools. Problem is, this only applies to a small but obnoxiously loud minority of fundies who seem to have been somewhat successful.

Evolution does not equal science. So many of the fundamentals of science came before evolution was even thought of.
 
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