(December 19, 2024 at 3:07 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: And ancients prior to the Christian era scientifically discovered that the earth is round, estimated about how big it is, studied refracted and reflected light and sound; not to mention they figured out a great deal of geometry and mathematics. It didn't require rejecting any particular religion or religion in general, just not taking religious notions into account when making and testing hypotheses.
That's true. Empirical research didn't start with Christians, and didn't end with them.
As for taking religious notions into account, I guess it depends on which religious notions we're thinking about. Certainly a scientist can't take religious myths literally. But educated pre-modern people were familiar with the idea that a text's true meaning is the one we get by reading allegorically. Jesus and Paul read the Hebrew Scriptures allegorically, Proclus read Homer allegorically -- it was typical.
Remember that John 1:1 says that Jesus is the Logos. And Logos is a term from Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophy which refers to the set of rational principles by which the universe operates. So the second person of the Trinity is the set of rational principles according to which the universe operates, and knowing these principles is knowing God -- according to many many Christians.
This got a boost in the 13th century when Thomas Aquinas revived Aristotelian methods. Leonardo, for example, spent a great deal of time studying fluid dynamics, because he thought that such principles revealed the mind of God.
