What if christianity never existed ?

[paulpablo]

I'm aware that king Henry split with the catholic church to form the church of England, but I'm unaware of any specific progression because of that.

From what I know it was still basically a church in control of the country.

It was a king in control of a church.  A subjugation of the religious hegemony present until that point to a political will.  In any case, this didn't just happen in Britain, you realize?  

As I say I can't elaborate on what I don't know but to put the separation of church and state down to battling sects within a religion seems oversimplified to me.

I see we're talking secularism now, instead of scientific advancement.  Doesn't really matter....as this infighting paved the ground for that as well.  There could -be- no secularizing effect so long as a unified church maintained control of europe.

Just from some slight reading up on the topic the founding of America seems to have some part in this.  

As an american..I'd love to take the credit...but like so many ideas our founding fathers had...it was borrowed. 

I wouldn't say that was a result of there being a lack of co operation between Christians but because there was a geographical location people could flee to in order to escape religious persecution and they based the news laws of the land on a fear of a lack of freedom of religion which they just escaped from.

In europe, prior to the reformation..there -was- no geographic location one could flee to in order to escape the one true church.  

And that's just one other layer to the many that I'm sure there are of how the church became separate from the state.

Complicated, sure, but not so complicated that one cannot point to definitive moments in history that lead to it.  The christian schism of the 16th century (which extended well into and influenced the events of the next two centuries) made it possible for people to break away from anceint hegomies, both politically and scientifically.  That "islam is bad too, mmkay" doesn't detract from, lessen, or make any refutation of that simple fact.

I agree that these battles must have had a significant impact on secularism and scientific advancement.

I'm not saying Islam is bad too, I didn't even say Islam is bad in the message I was putting across.

Let me try and put my point across this way.

You have 2 religions.  Those religions both have game of thrones style in fighting.

I'm not saying look how bad either of those religions are, I'm just saying they both have this common factor of infighting.

Now in one case this infighting has resulted in what you'd call progress, as you pointed out these battles have been definitive points in history that have led to secularism, increased scientific progress.

But game of thrones style battles that have occurred in Islam haven't resulted in as much of a significant affect in terms of secularism and scientific advancement.

This leads me to believe there's another factor, it's not just a case of they had some battles between each other therefore enlightenment happened.

I'm not saying I can list the other factors I don't even know what they would be.  I think the colonizing of America and having a place to flee may have had some part to play in over all secularism and scientific advancement in Christian culture, America is pretty scientifically advanced and powerful despite how popular it is to make fun of America.