Did Christianity oppose and hinder science? NO. It actively supported it with astronomical amounts of manpower, financing, facilities, instruments, training, political support and in other ways.
Dr. Hannam just released a new book, "The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution" This and his book "God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science" have been reviewed very positively by major secular organizations:
"Well-researched and hugely enjoyable". New Scientist
"It is engaging, informative and I heartily recommend it." says Ruth Francis, Head of Press for Nature
See his website:
http://www.jameshannam.com/articles.htm (esp. the 1st 2 articles)
Dr. Hannam gave a presentation at the Royal Society (1st scientific society in history and started by a creationist Christian John Wilkins who also published ideas on speciation in the 1600s, LONG before Darwin.) about how Christianity and the creationist view of the world laid the foundations of modern science that no other culture ever achieved. Dr. Hannam has degrees in physics and history from Oxford and London universities and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Cambridge University and isn't a creationist, yet agrees that the creationist view was fundamental to the development of modern science.
http://tinyurl.com/68s462b
The story of modern science begins centuries ago. These are 4 areas where medieval Christianity science made unique contributions that laid the foundations for modern science:
1) CHRISTIANITY WAS OPEN TO NEW IDEAS
Christianity was open to and assimilated knowledge from other cultures (one of the biggest sins in the Bible is pride).
-Toledo in Spain was captured by a Christian army in 1085 with its tremendous library. Clerics from around Europe traveled there and began translating many of the seminal works of the Greeks and Arabs culture such as Ptolemy's Almagest, Euclid's Elements, Aristotle's works, commentaries on Greek science, etc.
-Renaissance humanists didn't do much new in mathematics or natural philosophy (science).
2) CHRISTIANITY PIONEERED UNIVERSITIES
A brand new institution, the university, started in the Middle Ages. It created a home for science and helped it flourish. Universities were independent corporations, not controlled by govt.
3) THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW HAD THE CRUCIAL FOUNDATIONS FOR MODERN SCIENCE
Christianity provided cultural and metaphysical philosophy foundations that made working in science acceptable, logical and admirable.
-Most supposed conflicts between church and state, never happened. NONE of these ever happened:
*Church tried to ban zero.
*Tried to ban human dissection.
*Banned alchemy (No. It tried to stop fraudulent alchemists selling fool's gold as gold).
*Pope tried to excommunicate Haley's comet.
CREATIONIST PHILOSOPHY AIDED SCIENCE (note again that Dr. Hannam is NOT a creationist)
Because nature was God's creation and its laws were ordained by God, studying it was legitimate, respectable and very admirable and valuable. To understand them is to understand our Creator more in depth. They also thought that those laws will be true long term because God is reliable.
"Because the things in the world are mutable and corruptible, it is necessary that they should have an author. Because they are arranged in a rational way and in a very beautiful order, it is necessary that they should have been created in accordance with wisdom. But, because the Creator, rationally speaking, is in need of nothing, having perfection and sufficiency in himself, it is necessary that he should create what he does create only through benevolence and love."
The criticism that Christians couldn't do science because they thought was directly running everything was God's will...is not true at all and doesn't represent medieval thought.
4) CHRISTIANITY PRODUCED IMPORTANT THEORETICAL ADVANCES
Christian scientists made important theoretical advances to show that their model was working such as the mean speed theorem, advances in understanding relative motion and the rotation of the earth, impetus theory (Newton's 1st law) and others. The Clergyman Buridan wrote, "In the celestial motions, there is no opposing resistance. Therefore when God, at the creation, moved each sphere of the heavens with just the velocity he wished, he then ceased to move them himself and since then those motions have lasted forever due to the impetus impressed on the spheres." John Buridan, Commentary on the Physics (c. 1350)
CONCLUSION
There is no way that ancient science could have made the transition to modern science without the contributions of Christianity. Some were very good at mathematics...but they were light years from modern science. Will people finally give up this myth of a conflict between science and religion? We can hope that they will. Science can continue to progress. But, Christian principles made that possible.
Loading...
47:18
Pen and Parchment - The Beautiful Evidence of Medieval Drawingsby metmuseum10,215 views
@PhantomOfChaosSkin You consistently fail to understand how science works.Processes we see operating now are assumed to operate the same in history in general (there are a few exceptions, but not many). Without this, universal common descent has not a shred of basis in science. Neither does the Big Bang and many other things in forensic and historical science. Your delusions are only evidence for me to use in my university classes to demonstrate that atheism makes people stupid about science.
TruthIsLife7 4 months ago
@TruthIsLife7 "Invincible ignorance and assertions are not arguments"
You really should take your own advice in argumentation their, because remaining utterly retarded about the fact that Pasteur's work had nothing to do with the biochemical origin of life does not constitute a valid argument.
So tell me what part of;
Pasteur's work only involved modern life
do you fail to understand?
PhantomOfChaosSkin 4 months ago
Um, I have quotes from geologists in the 1800s...saying explicitly what you call wrong. You are changing the goal posts yet again. I know very well what uniformitarianism is and what they claimed and how modern evolutionists are trying to rewrite history to cover up yet ANOTHER failed prediction.
Do you really think there is only ONE canyon in the world? There are quite a number of large canyons in many places. Just google it or check wikipedia.
TruthIsLife7 7 months ago
@gregrutz You need to read much more. You just are not comprehending. I didn't claim that dinos or mammals should be found on the tops of mountains. But, youtube comments are way too limited to explain things in detail. This video deals with the Cambrian Fossils in detail and in the notes, I wrote a simple summary of what creation predicts and several links to scientists who explain it in more detail. The detectingdesign one has studies on the Coconino.
watch?v=eZJxbBQKvBA
TruthIsLife7 7 months ago
@TruthIsLife7 Scientists don't find more mammals on the tops of mountains. Dinosaurs lived on the plains like cows, ever been to Nebraska. IT IS FLAT DUMMY> STOP MAKING UP SHIT.
gregrutz 7 months ago
@gregrutz Do you not know about gravity? Heavy objects don't move very well up steep inclines...try getting an elephant to the top of Everest for example. They would have drowned LONG before that. Thus we wouldn't expect to find the dinosaurs at the top. I know quite a bit about the Cambrian&have quotes from many evolutionists,such as Dr. Gould of Harvard,agreeing that it doesn't match evolution predictions.It actually is one of the BEST confirmations of creation in the fossils.
TruthIsLife7 7 months ago
@TruthIsLife7 '' RAN from the flood waters'' LOL And the dinosaurs ran half way up the hill and forgot why they were running. So silly.
Have you ever seen what was living in the Cambiran Period? Only strange marine creatures. The dinosaurs lived in three different time periods with different dinosaurs in each period. You people need to look at the fossil record so you don't look so stupid.
gregrutz 7 months ago
@gregrutz You don't seem to be comprehending what I have said.The layers you mention are NO PROBLEM for creation. In creation theory, we would should not find bunny fossil or human fossil in the lower layers (unless earthquakes massively displaced layers or something like that)...why? Bunnies and humans have legs and RAN from the flood waters. Once correction on the below..the marine fossils would not only be in the lower layers...but all over ocean layers and some higher due to flood.
TruthIsLife7 7 months ago
@gregrutz Sorry, but NO, 65 million years ago isn't any more of a fact than geocentrism or steady state were. You have profound misunderstandings of science and esp. the philosophy of science. There are ~100 methods that point to a young age for life. There are at best 40 that point to an old age...and many of those 40 are completely debunked by the discovery of soft tissue in fossils. Do you know what it means to follow the weight of evidence? Which is greater, 100 or less than 40???
TruthIsLife7 7 months ago
@gregrutz I didn't move any goal posts. That's what evolutionists have done TIME and TIME and TIME again...such as claiming that everything in the rocks was explainable by uniformitarianism a century or so ago...when creation said much would be due to catastrophism...who was right? Evolution is moving closer to creation science, not the other way around. And the flood DID leave layers all over the planet and there is a scholarly book explaining how all necessary life could be on Noah's ark.READ.
TruthIsLife7 7 months ago