The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.- H L Mencken
In Galileo, Bertolt Brecht underlines the tension between religious authority and scientific inquiry. This struggle has existed for nearly the entirety of Christianity. Christians today like to pretend that the hands of contemporary religion are clean from the blood of scientific martyrs. Despite their delusions, religions like Christianity are doing just as much damage today as they did in the time of Copernicus and Galileo.
Rather than doubting the veracity of the heliocentric model of falling bodies, today's religious autocrats handle scientific research which they feel is of much more moral weight. Studies in stem cells and bioengineering have been halted because the faithful feel as if man is tampering with and destroying valuable life, and unfortunately they have voting power. Evolution has been all but abrogated by God's elect simply because it differs with the authoritative reading of Genesis. Religion interferes with the social sciences as well. Because they felt that condom use encouraged licentious behavior, Christian groups actively oppose sending condoms to sub-Saharan Africa to stem the flow of AIDS. Never mind that these situations feel eerily similar to the ones encountered in the day of Galileo and the Inquisition. Christians like to think that its opposition to science today is somehow different than the Church's opposition to heliocentric theory. The church refuses to acknowledge its behavior for what it is: the obstruction of progress – progress which serves the good of humanity.
Why is Christianity so good at suppressing the rising tide of scientific progress? I do not recall any situations in which belief in Athena or Poseidon stifled the progress of the Greeks, or in which Jupiter prevented the Romans from advancing in their society. The Egyptians believed the Pharaoh to be a god, yet they accomplished many great feats. These religions seem to have been equipped with the ability to change and adapt with the times. Religions that claim to have the word of God in written form (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) cannot change; they are slaves to a book. Such religions are static. Christians treat the Bible, not science or rationality, as the sole infallible authority in their lives. If the Bible does not support the scientific claim, the science is wrong. The only reason the church finally caved to the heliocentric theory was because it was embarrassing. The truth was too obvious, and what's more, the masses could look through a telescope and see for themselves. Fields like climate change and evolution are more complex. They are harder to observe, but their truths are just as cogent as the idea that the earth revolves around the sun.
The tyranny of the printed God-word survived even the Reformation. Although Luther took a rather cavalier approach to the Bible – he did not like the doctrines espoused in James, so he relegated it to the category of extra-canonical – he still believed in absolute authority. He doubted that the pope, or even the Church, had exclusive access to this authority. The Anabaptist movement took this idea even farther. For them, the interpretation of the God-word was a matter of public domain. This of course led to further massacres in the name of God, between not only the infidels and Christians, but between the members of God's own family. Although Christians now have the freedom to reinterpret the Bible to accommodate scientific claims, this merely creates degrees of scientific ignorance within the church. For example, some Christians accept anthropomorphic climate change claims, but others reject medicine and instead rely on the healing powers of prayer. It should be noted that Christians accept scientific evidences only to the degree that they read the Bible in an allegorical sense. The point is that the written God-word is itself a threat to science, and only by ignoring it or perverting its meaning can a reader make its teachings cohere with even some of the most basic scientific principles.
The Christian religion's tendency to obstruct science doesn't just make humanity more ignorant: it delays the formulation of potentially life-saving research. In other words, religion is killing us. Robert Oppenheimer recognizes why dogma cannot exist alongside science without one of them being destroyed:
There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.
May we loosen ourselves of the shackles of religious literalism and live in freedom.
Comments
Instead of develop here our opposed points of view, I think it will be more interesting to find out what is religion exactly doing to stall science progress now a days. I think there are other hidden powers stalling and rotting science like the greed ( http://you-just-think.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-is-science-going.html ) that are very different and even enemies of religion ever since. This hidden powers are vile and implicit, while religion powers are explicit and sincere.
Deric: "I do not recall any situations in which belief in Athena or Poseidon stifled the progress of the Greeks..."
Ever read Plato's "Republic"?
Or, if you'd prefer a modern example of a non-Christian ideology hindering "progress", try the early eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and its influence on the Holocaust and the subjugation and genocide of the aboriginal peoples of sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. These peoples were mercilessly and systematically attacked on the basis of "scientific" (but ridiculously biased and erroneous) studies on their supposed "inferiority." (By the way, this eugenic philosophy as held by early modernists has been driven underground, politically corrected, or decried outright by the general thinking public of the twenty-first century because--wait for it--it's so EMBARRASSINGly wrong).
With all due respect, Deric, be circumspect when you attack a particular worldview for its hindrance of progress--all you're really doing is attacking human tendency in general. Every human worldview--including the naturalistic ones--hinders progress at times in suppression of the truth. We ALL interpret and filter the data according to our presuppositions. NO person is exempt from error, and neither is any worldview. And a worldview which elitistly claims to be above this tendency only betrays its own self-delusion and self-importance.
P.S.: Luther did NOT excise James from the canon. He included it in all of his Scripture translations (1522 etc.), and, while he first called it an "epistle of straw", he later retracted his remarks.
I have only read excerpts of the Republic. I'd like to see the relevant passages, though, if you wouldn't mind.
My idea was that a religion that survives only in oral tradition will adapt to the culture as it progresses, while the written religions will be more apt to lag behind the culture's findings, because people have to go through the reinterpretation process. It's only an idea though.
This could apply to anything written down - Karl Marx, Adam Smith, etc. It's still just an idea though. Don't treat it dogmatically. And don't purport that my blog accused Christian ideologies as being the sole culprit hindering progress.
While you say I'm attacking human tendency, I say that humans have no propensity to slow progress. Dogma does. As long as people keep an open mind and continue to search for truth - and I mean continual searching - we should progress.
So much for progress. As for Luther, he considered both James and Jude non-canonical. And my understanding is he felt the same way about Revelation and Hebrews. Now, he included these in his Bible, but he also included the Deuterocanonical books in his Bible.
We just finished going through some of Luther's writings. Among them, we read his preface to James and Jude. Here are some of his comments from those prefaces:
Though this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God. However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle, and my reasons follow.
In the first place it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works... This fault proves that this epistle is not the work of any apostle.
...In a word, he wanted to guard against those who relied on faith without works, but was unequal to the task in spirit, thought, and words. He mangles the Scriptures and thereby opposes Paul and all Scripture. He tries to accomplish by harping on the law what the apostles accomplish by stimulating people to love. Therefore I cannot include him among the chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him.
And Jude:
Concerning the epistle of St. Jude, no one can deny that it is an extract or copy of St. Peter's second epistle, so very like it are all the words. He also speaks of the apostles like a disciple who comes long after them [Jude 17] and cites sayings and incidents that are found nowhere else in the Scriptures [Jude 9, 14]. This moved the ancient Fathers to exclude this epistle from the main body of the Scriptures. Moreover the Apostle Jude did not go to Greek-speaking lands, but to Persia, as it is said, so that he did not write Greek. Therefore, although I value this book, it is an epistle that need not be counted among the chief books which are supposed to lay the foundations of faith.
Oops, make that Plato's "Apology" (though "Republic" touches on the ancient poets' ridiculous portrayals of the gods, and may also contain some examples of polytheism's inhibition of political progress). I'm no classical scholar.
In "Apology", Socrates' accusers make the argument that his exploration into the realms of natural science proves his atheism. Then one Meletus, accuses Socrates of being variously a heretic and/or an atheist. He is condemned on charges of corrupting the young and atheism, and sentenced to death by poison. I will email you the relevant passages. I am willing to be corrected in my interpretation on this point, but in any case, it was only an example which may or may not be worth your time.
Re: Luther
I still think you miss the point that Luther later recanted his most vitriolic remarks on the "disputed" books in all of his later German translations, and even preached from them. To say that the passages you quote represent his definitive and final views on the "disputed books" goes too far, in my view. However, I think a protracted discussion of either of these (Luther or Plato) would be quite off the subject (as it already is). But it's your blog.
Re: Textually-based religions "lagging behind" culture
My final word: It all depends on one's definition of the word "progress"--which, again, is unavoidably colored by one's philosophical starting point.
Keep searching,
JK