(January 12, 2013 at 2:09 am)Chuck Wrote:(January 11, 2013 at 11:58 pm)Justtristo Wrote: Depending on if Christianity managed to become the religion of the Roman Empire, if not, then yes.
Because Rome did endure in the East as the Byzantine Empire, however it never went through an scientific revolution. Despite having much more access to ancient scientific works than the west had.
That was because the Christians had no interest in ancient science or it's works. Indeed they were opposed to it, there are New Testament verses which condemn science (1 Timothy 6:20 and 1 Corinthians 1:22 for example). This is because they unlike their modern counterparts saw it's discoveries directly contradicting scripture.
You are reading too much into it. It was capitalism that prompted and supported industrial revolution, not the dark ages. West was not the only civilization showing signs of advancement to capitalism before the 18th century. The Chinese was moving along its own capitalist path during 11-12th century. The west was simply lucky in that it was not overrun by the Mongol invasion before capitalism moved very far along.
I am not terribly familiar with Chinese history to make any observations to be honest. However the Greco-Roman world in the first centuries of the 1st millennium CE was pretty close to an scientific revolution. Richard Carrier in his talks I have watched, talked about how these ancient scientists were using the same methodology that modern scientists use to come to their discoveries. That would not be surprising, given the following rationalist, skeptic philosophical schools (Epicureanism and Stoicism) had among the educated classes in the Greco-Roman world.
It would be until the 17th and 18th centuries when rationalism would have such a following even among the educated classes. That was the same time the scientific revolution and the enlightenment after that occurred. It is also logical than an industrial revolution would followed a scientific one.
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