(June 28, 2017 at 2:27 pm)Khemikal Wrote:(June 28, 2017 at 9:49 am)SteveII Wrote:You mean, other than the pagan worldview out of which science arose....the one that didn't burn heretics for doing science - the one that both early christers and later catholics cribbed -their- science from?
Surveying all the world's civilizations up until that point seems to indicate that the Christian worldview was important in the development of modern science. At the very least, it was the most conducive worldview up to that point.
There is no version of history in which christianity can be called a friend or conducive to science. It was there, resisting science..at every step. It's still there, resisting science, at every step. Today, christers like yourself would like to claim what your forefathers attempted to abort as their own baby.
Sure, now that it's all grown up and christianity looks silly compared to it, you want a piece of the science action. Who wouldn't, but that ship sailed a long, long time ago. Yall had your shot. You blew it. No amount of faithful retconning will change that.
No, not at all.
A pagan worldview couldn't (and didn't) foster the move to modern science. Pagans thought the world was endowed with spiritual aspects--events and conditions were caused by spiritual forces. As such, a careful examination of natural causes was not a natural extension of that worldview--not in the least. This is the same reason that modern science did not develop in Asia or India--where there were plenty of stable societies that would otherwise have been able to foster scientific pursuits.
It is only a worldview that held that the universe existed with a natural order and did not hold any special unseen properties, that would prompt large numbers to attempt to explain it. The only worldview anywhere near the timeframe of the rise of science that met that description was Christianity.
The perpetuated myth that Christianity was a foe of science is silly and unfounded. Show me where there was any systematic design/desire/process to hold science back. You certainly can't deny that most early scientist were Christians of some stripe--so how could "Christianity" have been a foe when the label applied to the people doing the science?
