I've recently seen a couple of apologists talk about how Xianity somehow gave rise to science. One of the starting points of their argument is that in the Xian worldview, Xians hold that god created a natural world that is regular and conforms to natural laws that can be studied. Yet, upon reflection, this is a non-sequitor in that it literally does not follow.
Xians believe in a personal god, one that performs miracles. This goes directly against the idea that nature is regular. A god that performs acts that violate natural laws has not created a system that we can take for granted as being regular. Sure, things tend to fall towards the Earth, but who's to say that god won't cause a miracle to happen so that an object I drop won't float in the air in violation of natural law? This creates a situation where we can't actually count on the world to be regular and yield repeatable scientific results.
7 comments:
It wasn't a sexist post, but the post from before is being edited to include more info relevant to the topic at hand. Feel free to comment tomorrow night when I repost it.
Grace,
Jeremy
Whatever. Hey, I'm glad that you emphasized Paul's Biblical basis for his sexism.
The ancient Egyptians, Indians and Chinese already knew about science before Christianity.
This world is overcrowded: too many stupid theists who breed more stupid theists.
I see you've been to my blog.
Actually how would we know something was a miracle if we didn't first know the natural laws of the world to know that they've been broken?
cayden,
None of those civilizations brought about the age of science and the scientific revolution.
Karla,
"Actually how would we know something was a miracle if we didn't first know the natural laws of the world to know that they've been broken?"
How do we know something is a miracle period?
"None of those civilizations brought about the age of science and the scientific revolution."
Because science is a process, and knowledge is built upon as we go. You'll note that the Muslims also had a big hand in shaping the science of today (we actually use their number system) and in formulating the formal scientific method that we all should know. Besides, it wasn't rampant Xianity that caused the scientific revolution anymore than anything else. It was the process of science removing itself from the dictates of pre-conceptions about what was or wasn't true that allowed this. Xian thought pervading science led to scientists trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I'll say this for Christinsanity's contribution to science - if it wasn't for those insane theists going on the crusades to spread bloody murder, rape and the killing of innocent children to the lands of the east (which they hilariously did in a spirit of equality - they killed/raped jewish, christian and islamic equally), the scientific method never would have come to western europe. The works of aristotle et al would never have been available to isaac newton etc. Still, one wonders how many texts were lost due to the burning of cities and villages that they engaged in.
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