Monotheism and the emergence of science

[kant]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

 

[Dawguard]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

Rather vague, but in my opinion monotheism did away, over time, with mysticism and simple explanations. For example, in greek mythology they could explain famine, drought, wars, etc., by the wrath of gods. You don't know what causes it? Make a god and blame it on him. However, with monotheism, and specificly the Abrahamic religions, the purpose of god was not only to explain natural phenominon. The turning point for this was the advent of Christianity, when people like the apostle Paul developed, for the first time in religion, theology. This practice argued the metaphysics and legality of religion, and during the rise of christianity theology became the sole focus. This placed the emphasis, not on natural phenominon, but on the afterlife and metaphsyics. Without mysticism to explain science the way was open for true science to emerge.
If you want books about the subject, I don't know any on that subject. If you want books about the time, I suggest Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas. Also, the very complicated, legallity of theology lent itself to critical thinking, which managed to keep alive the old writings of Aristotle, Plato and other Greek works.

 

[0rthodontist]

Maybe you could focus on the development of church architecture. Or you could say how monotheism relates to conquering and colonization, and an understanding of siege weaponry, and navigation and buoyancy laws. If you could make something up about monotheism causing feudal lords and the concentration of wealth, which leads to the leisure to perform scientific research, that would work for you. Be sure to mention Mendel. I really don't think you have a tenable premise overall.

 

[Astronuc]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

That might be a stretch.

Think of Aristotle - (c. 384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) who studied with Plato (c.427–c.347 BC). Science, or rather critical thinking was already beginning, but Greek society was polytheistic (the Olympian gods - Zeus, Hera, etc of the Greek Pantheon).

Even the Egyptians had some rudimentary science, and many polytheitic cultures had some form of arithmetic.

Rather, perhaps one could look at the mindset or thought process which is necessary to develop science and see if that type of critical thinking supports a monotheistic perspective.

 

[chronon]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

Gods in the Sky by Allan Chapman

 

[kant]

All valuable insights, thank you.


--------

 

[brodix]

Of course, the opposite might also be argued. The Romans adopted monotheism as the classical age was in decline and critical thinking didn't really begin to re-emerge until the age of enlightenment, which was basically a rebellion against the monolithic group think enforced by the church. Thinking is a function of distinguishing among variety.

The logical problem with monotheism is that the absolute isn't one, it's zero. So a spiritual absolute would be the element out of which we rise, not an entity from which we fell.

 

[sd01g]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

One of the great events in human history happened when the Gutenberg Bible merged with the Protestant Reformation. Since that time, billions of Bibles have been printed. The need for such a large number of Bibles resulted from the belief the common man should be properly informed about a monotheistic god by reading the Bible, which provided a compelling reason why the common man must be taught to read. This event helped produce a large number of literate people who slowly began to learn more about the world,and produced a much faster and superior way to exchange ideas. Prior to Gutenberg and the Protestant Reformation, knowledge was reserved for the elite and all progess was slow. Since this event, knowledge,including advances in science,has been accelerating at an ever-increasing rate.

Without this need for all to become literate to read the Bible and properly worship God, we, and our science, might still be in the 16th century.

 

[Garth]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

"Theology and Modern Physics" Peter E. Hodgson Ashgate Science and Religion Series 2005 ISBN 0-7546-3623-2

It is Hodgson's thesis that the emergence of the scientific revolution was a direct product of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic culture of Europe at the time.

From the 'blurb':

P.E.Hodgson is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford UK, he has lectured on physics and mathematics at Oxford for over thirty years and his main research interest is the theory of nuclear structure and reactions.

Garth

 

[brodix]

As is well known, there are potentially any number of facts to support any argument one wishes.

Monotheism is a fundamental stage of intellectual, social and civil evolution. Given that Eastern societies developed any number of technological innovations, without being monotheistic, not to mention the foundation of western thought that originated in pan and polytheistic societies, it requires a serious myopia to argue monotheism is the source of scientific purpose. As an organ, the brain is a navigational tool and the most technologically successful societies were those which required a significant degree of hardship in order to survive, but not an overwhelming amount. Science and technology are a product of solving specific tangible problems; irrigating land, building boats, clearing land, fighting enemies, etc. This intellect is than applied to problems lacking clear solutions, such as explaining the existence of life, honoring the dead, etc.
Other then its central premise, today's monotheistic religions are little more then narrative story-telling. The most observant monotheistic traditions are not the most innovative, given their usually strict adherence to past concepts.

 

[brodix]

The reason monotheism is fundamental, but not universal is because it represents half the conceptual model, that of the unit, while eastern philosophies tended to promote the process side of the equation.

 

[Dawguard]

Given that Eastern societies developed any number of technological innovations, without being monotheistic, not to mention the foundation of western thought that originated in pan and polytheistic societies, it requires a serious myopia to argue monotheism is the source of scientific purpose.

Kant, nor anyone here, has said that it is the source of science and learning. The question was if it helped promote it, not created it. Since that is the case, a better look would not be at the creation of the science, but at how it was spread. Did monotheism help its progress? If so, why? I personally think it does, and offered my opinion as to the reasons why, and others too have been very helpful in answering the question.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I don't see the relationship between monotheism and science. What distinquished science from all other epistomologies was the addition of experience to the formula. One hypothesizes somehing and then tries to set up situations where what has been hypothesized can be observed. I suppose it might be that monotheistic culture created some stability which in turn allowed clearer thinking, but that helped lots of things, and so doesn't seem particularly specific to science.

My guess would be that practical-minded thinkers understood that just because something can be thought doesn't make it real, and so finally realize they needed to "see" (i.e., observe) if reality was as had been theorized before continuing with endless speculations.

 

[selfAdjoint]

With all due respect Les, I think you are missing a point here. The Chinese civilization had lots of respect for and practice with experience. Read Needham's great Science and Civilization in China, especially Volume 2, which demonstrates the practical and empirical side of Chinese thought.

To contrast, in Europe in the 11th century nobody looked into the sky at night because Theory told them it was unchanging. The Chinese emperors, on the other hand stationed five keen eyed observers to watch the heavens every night; four to look in the cardinal directions and one to look straight up. They were looking for whatever changes might occur, to be interpreted by the soothsayers for the emperor's benefit, and woe betide anyone of them who missed a clue!

Which civilization do you think discovered the Nova of 1086 that became the Crab Nebula? Yet which one produced Galileo and Newton?


This little story is just to suggest that empiricism isn't all there is to science, and the role of theory is more important, conflicted, and contingent than many accounts would imply.

 

[arildno]

Actually, I'm kind of fond of Hegel's idea as to how the rise of monotheism may prepare the ground for science (for the interested reader, it is basically his chapter "Unhappy Consciousness" in the "Phenomenology of Spirit" leading up to the section "Reason"):

1. In the belief structure of monotheism, divine "essence" is basically sucked out of nature and gods intimately connected with it, and that "essence" is postulated as a single God, immeasurably far removed from "nature", which is thereby rendered a godless, desolate place.
No longer can the "divine" be intuited in a stone, a tree, or in the play of light on water, as was possible in the polytheistic/animistic mindset, everything surrounding humans seems abandoned, left to its own fate.


(2. Essentially, the yearning for the divine and mind's inability to perceive the divine in its immediate surroundings produces the despair called "unhappy consciousness")

3. However, by leaving nature to its OWN fate, i.e, as being subject to (godless) laws of its own, a mindset becomes possible in which we may study "Nature as it is", a mindset that is rather ridiculous if you have the conviction that sprites and spirits at any time might wreak havoc on the so-called "patterns" you might observe in Nature (a conviction monotheism did away with).
Now, such patterns become regarded as Laws of Nature, rather than just accidental existences mainly persisting only due to the lack of spiritual interference.

That is, monotheistic dualism between the worldly and the otherworldly can be regarded as a painful intellectual catharsis, in which the human mind matures so that it can finally observe "Nature as it is" (i.e, the scientific mindset).

 

[sd01g]

.

The logical problem with monotheism is that the absolute isn't one, it's zero. So a spiritual absolute would be the element out of which we rise, not an entity from which we fell.

I was trying to understand what meaning you were conveying with the above statements. (I am familiar with the works of Schelling and Hegel)

My attempt to understand it resulted in the following: the absolute is 'The Asolute' which is conceptually similar to an omnipotent creator God. The notion of "isn't one, it's zero" is the Buddhist concept of Nirvana.

I could not tell if we 'rise' from the resurection of Christ or 'fall' from grace in the Garden of Eden or of some combination of Hinduism and Budism.

It seems to me you are writing 'feel good' poetry instead of good philosophy. Maybe you could help me understand a little better.

 

[tuco]

SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief
by Lewis Wolpert

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-534-2087237-534,00.htm l

CV of Lewis Wolpert

http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/wolpert/cv.html

Articles written by Lewis Wolpert

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/list.php?author=2121&issue=517
---

unfortunatelly don't have the book, however, suggesting that "belief is evolutionary advantage" is rather interesting thought to me .

perhaps not exactly on the topic of "monotheism and the emergence of science" but rather on the topic of "brain development and belief" but those are closely related as is sicence and tools making i would think.

 

[brodix]

I was trying to understand what meaning you were conveying with the above statements. (I am familiar with the works of Schelling and Hegel)

My attempt to understand it resulted in the following: the absolute is 'The Asolute' which is conceptually similar to an omnipotent creator God. The notion of "isn't one, it's zero" is the Buddhist concept of Nirvana.

I could not tell if we 'rise' from the resurection of Christ or 'fall' from grace in the Garden of Eden or of some combination of Hinduism and Budism.

It seems to me you are writing 'feel good' poetry instead of good philosophy. Maybe you could help me understand a little better.

You're right, I don't read philosophy, generally I read physics. If you want to look up the concept of top down vs. bottom up, check out complexity theory. It's one of the defining concepts of the new business models of the last fifteen years. Check out the Santa Fe Institute;

http://www.santafe.edu/index.php

Here is an extended version of my own thoughts;

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=937707

As for that last reply, it does sound a bit new age, but professionally I break and train race horses for a living, so I spend my life getting inside horses heads and it rubs off on occasion.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I don't see the relationship between monotheism and science. What distinquished science from all other epistomologies was the addition of experience to the formula. One hypothesizes somehing and then tries to set up situations where what has been hypothesized can be observed. I suppose it might be that monotheistic culture created some stability which in turn allowed clearer thinking, but that helped lots of things, and so doesn't seem particularly specific to science.

My guess would be that practical-minded thinkers understood that just because something can be thought doesn't make it real, and so finally realize they needed to "see" (i.e., observe) if reality was as had been theorized before continuing with endless speculations.

With all due respect Les, I think you are missing a point here. The Chinese civilization had lots of respect for and practice with experience. Read Needham's great Science and Civilization in China, especially Volume 2, which demonstrates the practical and empirical side of Chinese thought.

To contrast, in Europe in the 11th century nobody looked into the sky at night because Theory told them it was unchanging. The Chinese emperors, on the other hand stationed five keen eyed observers to watch the heavens every night; four to look in the cardinal directions and one to look straight up. They were looking for whatever changes might occur, to be interpreted by the soothsayers for the emperor's benefit, and woe betide anyone of them who missed a clue!

Which civilization do you think discovered the Nova of 1086 that became the Crab Nebula? Yet which one produced Galileo and Newton?


This little story is just to suggest that empiricism isn't all there is to science, and the role of theory is more important, conflicted, and contingent than many accounts would imply.

I agree with your point about the importance of a culture’s theoretical foundations, but it seems to back up my argument too. I’d say the theoretical foundations for Western science were established by the Greeks. That foundation included a passion for philosophy and the search for truth. Those two ideals encouraged the continued search for some epistemology which “worked.”

After a couple of thousand years of unsubstantiated speculation, it was the empiricists who broke the philosophical monotony of proposing interesting ideas but with no means to test the actuality of them. Today the best science theory is that which can be put to the test of observation; in fact, it is a common criticism of nascent theories, such as string theory, that they lack enough observational data to support the theory.

Getting back to the question of this thread, since our theoretical foundations descended from the Greeks who, as you know, were not monotheists, I still can’t see that monotheism per se has contributed much to the development of science. Of course, I don’t think paganism had anything to do with either (I am assuming we are talking about the personal belief in one God, and not the effects of religion). I see our search for spiritual truth and the search for effective rational tools as two distinct realms that developed independently.

 

[quantumcarl]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

Monotheistic religion has developed in spite of the many inquiring minds of scientists through the ages. Science does well to tolerate differing views, like religion, because in each view there is the probability of a truth that may or may not lend itself to one of the goals of science which is studying the truth about nature.

The only way I can see monotheistic religion helping promote the continuation of scientific endevours is because the religion did not satisfy the many questions about nature. So, naturally, people continuously turned to hard science in search of the answers.

 

[Tojen]

I tend to agree with Les Sleeth and quantumcarl. In fact, I would go further and say it might be the other way around: science helped promote the emergence of monotheistic religion (this just occurred to me while responding to dawguard's post, below, so it's pure speculation):

Dawguard wrote:

Rather vague, but in my opinion monotheism did away, over time, with mysticism and simple explanations. For example, in greek mythology they could explain famine, drought, wars, etc., by the wrath of gods. You don't know what causes it? Make a god and blame it on him. However, with monotheism, and specificly the Abrahamic religions, the purpose of god was not only to explain natural phenominon. The turning point for this was the advent of Christianity, when people like the apostle Paul developed, for the first time in religion, theology. This practice argued the metaphysics and legality of religion, and during the rise of christianity theology became the sole focus. This placed the emphasis, not on natural phenominon, but on the afterlife and metaphsyics. Without mysticism to explain science the way was open for true science to emerge...

That was an interesting way of looking at it, but after thinking about it, I have to disagree. I don't think mysticism necessarily discouraged empirical observation. It didn't stop Archimedes from pondering the displacement of water in his bathtub, for example.

I think the root of modern science was the desire to understand the fundamental workings of nature as a whole--not to just come up with technological innovations that would improve life for the band or village, but to ponder the underlying, universal nature of air, and matter, and the whole universe. That seems to have formally begun in pan-theistic Greece and it has been more or less part of our culure ever since.

When you start discovering universal laws--that there's some measure of consistency through the whole universe--maybe that triggers ideas of one universal God for the whole works. In that way, science can be said to help promote the emergence of monotheistic religion.

Or maybe not. As I said, it's pure speculation.

 

[arildno]

That hypothesis ought to imply that intellectuals/scientists were relatively more attracted to monotheism than to polytheism.

However, when you look at the history of Christianity, this is hardly the case:

Most of the Roman and Greek intelligentsia in antiquity was of an agnostic (in our sense of the term) persuasion, and scoffed at the superstitions of the common populace and even more so of the illucid ramblings of the Christians (if they had heard about the sect).

The social stratum from which Christianity drew its primary supporters was the low-lifes, slaves, servants and suchlike.

So, this would indicate that monotheism isn't particularly appealing to men of a scientific bent; agnosticism is.

 

[selfAdjoint]

That hypothesis ought to imply that intellectuals/scientists were relatively more attracted to monotheism than to polytheism.

However, when you look at the history of Christianity, this is hardly the case:

Most of the Roman and Greek intelligentsia in antiquity was of an agnostic (in our sense of the term) persuasion, and scoffed at the superstitions of the common populace and even more so of the illucid ramblings of the Christians (if they had heard about the sect).

The social stratum from which Christianity drew its primary supporters was the low-lifes, slaves, servants and suchlike.

So, this would indicate that monotheism isn't particularly appealing to men of a scientific bent; agnosticism is.

The scientific thought of the Hellenistic age was already petering out before the Empire was seriously drawn to Christianity. Theophrastus in
around -100 was about the last of the line of mathematicians that came down from the early founders of geometry, and productive astronomy ended even earlier with Hipparchus. After that there were revivals (Ptolemy ~ +200, Pappus ~+300) and commentators (Theon and Hypatia in the +5th century) but not much in the way real new, deep, results.

So the interaction of Greek thought with Christianity, in spite of the lurid story of Hypatia, was essentially null, and nothing of the higher levels of Hellenistic science was passed on to the West. The Eastern Empire had most of the canon but did little with it and at points came to using the manuscripts for scratch paper.

Science was rediscovered in the West in the middle ages, at first through Arabic works, both original and translations from the Greek, and then from the Greek originals. Aristotle in particular became the official doctrine of the Catholic Church. And Aristotle's thought then was modified by a series of medieval writers such as Okham and Buridan until a rational basis for science was laid by the middle of the +14th century. The subsequent birth of modern science was at that point delayed for a quarter of a millenium for various reasons, but a very large one was the hostility of the Church to anything that contradicted a naive reading of scripture. Buridan and the mathematician Oresme were discussing the consequences of a rotating Earth publically, and that couldn't be allowed. Buridan disappeared (maybe due to the plague, maybe due to umm, something else). Oresme was offered a Bishopric in the faraway rural town of Normandy, Lisieux.

Now there is no evidence that I know of that Galileo ever read Buridan's reasoning. which lead to a beginning concept of momentum (he called his idea impetus, not to be confused with the later Church-sponsored definition of impetus which meant almost the opposite thing). But some of his contemporaries certainly did, and an influence cannot be ruled out.

 

[arildno]

Thanks for the info on Buridan!

If the Hypatia incident tells us anything, it indicates that those individuals in Late Antiquity who were most versed in the sciences were indifferent to/hostile to Christianity and not attracted to it all (contrary to Tojen's hypothesis).
Furthermore, Christians at that time were vigorously opposed to such secular thinking.

As for the stagnation of Greek science, it is an interesting question in itself:
By the end of the Hellenistic era, the principles of statics (including hydrostatics) were well mastered, but kinematics remained a stumbling block.
I have a suspicion that this has to do with
a) the "inherent" difficulties of developing a sufficiently strong maths to deal with it.
and
b) The added difficulty of a cumbersome counting system.
Archimedes played with the idea of other ways of representing numbers (as in the Sand Reckoner), but seems to have been content with what he was used to (alas!)
The development of a more abstract mathematical language like that of Diophantos didn't yield any benefits in the applied areas, as far as I can tell.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Thanks for the info on Buridan!

If the Hypatia incident tells us anything, it indicates that those individuals in Late Antiquity who were most versed in the sciences were indifferent to/hostile to Christianity and not attracted to it all (contrary to Tojen's hypothesis).
Furthermore, Christians at that time were vigorously opposed to such secular thinking.

As for the stagnation of Greek science, it is an interesting question in itself:
By the end of the Hellenistic era, the principles of statics (including hydrostatics) were well mastered, but kinematics remained a stumbling block.
I have a suspicion that this has to do with
a) the "inherent" difficulties of developing a sufficiently strong maths to deal with it.
and
b) The added difficulty of a cumbersome counting system.
Archimedes played with the idea of other ways of representing numbers (as in the Sand Reckoner), but seems to have been content with what he was used to (alas!)
The development of a more abstract mathematical language like that of Diophantos didn't yield any benefits in the applied areas, as far as I can tell.

You don't need much more geometry than Archimedes and Apollonius produced to follow Newton's Principia. What the Greeks were missing was not math, but a decent approach to limits. Eudoxus made a beginning with his Proportions (Book X of Eucliid's Elements). and of course Archimedes made considerable progress. But their work was ignored by the later Hellenistics.

The people who did profit from Proportions were the medieval mathematicians who created the doctrine of Forms. A Form is essentially, in modern terms, a function from the set of proportions to itself. The domain variable was called the latitude and the range variable the longitude. Over three generations writers in the 14th and 15th centuries went from uniform forms (constant function) to difform forms (linear function - constant "first derivative") to difformly difform forms (constant "second derivative"). They proved theorems like the "Merton College Mean Speed Rule" "The longitude made good by a difform form over an interval of latitudes is the same as made good by a uniform form having as slope the mean of the longitudes of the initial and final latitudes of the difform form. Work this out and it gives the law of distance under constant acceleration. Oresme even used a two dimensional representation of latitude and longitude in proving this theorem by appealing to the formula for the area of a triangle.

When you think that Buridan asserted that the speed of a falling body is described by a difform form (i.e the rate of change of the speed is constant), you see that they were trembling on the brink of modern mechanics.

 

[quantumcarl]

That hypothesis ought to imply that intellectuals/scientists were relatively more attracted to monotheism than to polytheism.

However, when you look at the history of Christianity, this is hardly the case:

Most of the Roman and Greek intelligentsia in antiquity was of an agnostic (in our sense of the term) persuasion, and scoffed at the superstitions of the common populace and even more so of the illucid ramblings of the Christians (if they had heard about the sect).

The social stratum from which Christianity drew its primary supporters was the low-lifes, slaves, servants and suchlike.

So, this would indicate that monotheism isn't particularly appealing to men of a scientific bent; agnosticism is.

Yes, and it was bad for business to follow monotheism, even in ancient Egyptian times. When the Pharoah, Akenaten, brother of Ramses II, declared that the only god was the Sun god... Aten... to the Egyptians, there were about 600 priests out of work and very grumpy.

The uproar happened because the 600 priests were the representives of about as many gods. The moment Akenaten's monotheism was in place, there were plots against his life, he was run out of Egypt and all records of his life and achievements were erased from the walls and pillars of his own structures.

You raise an important point about Christianity drawing support from the Slaves and the Poor of ancient times... of which there were many. These would have been uneducated people who only understood the monotheism of Christianity by way of word of mouth or mosaics and other art.

However, these same uneducated riff raff were drawn not only by Christianity but also by the idea of communication through a book... or two. And this may have spurred what was lacking before the religion which was a desire to learn to read.

Reading supports the idea of self-directed education. One cannot predict what books one's subservient parishers will read and perhaps in this way... in fact, in all probability... Christianity promoted the proliferation of learned reading (or as some would say, "book learnin'".

This development of a desire to read (since 90% of christianity is based on texts)... in part... would tend to serve as evidence of Monotheism promoting or at least supporting the study of recorded sciences and other forms of literature.

So to answer the question, monotheism may not have promoted the emergence of science but did promote the popularization and proliferation of the desire to learn to read. This development, in turn, led to the proliferation and wide spread acceptance of (certain aspects of) scientific inquiry and by all means the continuation of scientific endeavors.

 

[Les Sleeth]

That hypothesis ought to imply that intellectuals/scientists were relatively more attracted to monotheism than to polytheism.

However, when you look at the history of Christianity, this is hardly the case:

Most of the Roman and Greek intelligentsia in antiquity was of an agnostic (in our sense of the term) persuasion, and scoffed at the superstitions of the common populace and even more so of the illucid ramblings of the Christians (if they had heard about the sect).

The social stratum from which Christianity drew its primary supporters was the low-lifes, slaves, servants and suchlike.

So, this would indicate that monotheism isn't particularly appealing to men of a scientific bent; agnosticism is.

I would say that agnostism is the most intelligent response to religious nonsense, whether it is polytheistic nonsense or monotheistic. But to say you don't know doesn't mean someone else hasn't figured out a way to know.

To recognize religious nonsense doesn't mean there isn't, or hasn't been, spiritual expertise. See, the problem, IMHO, is that religious stupidity has spoiled it for anything that might remotely be associated with the inner path. That path has had some true geniuses. I'll cite just two for your consideration (and I could list many more): Kabir and Meister Eckhart. I mention them in case you think all inner practitioners are morons of the sort you see rolling around on the floor, or mindlessly following a belief.

There are the morons, and there are the serious practitioners. Yet all in all these discussion, guess who is referenced, ridiculed, quoted . . . ??

Getting back to your point, agnosticism is an intellectual position I highly respect if it means one will open one's mind when new information encourages that. Men of science merely haven't been exposed to such information because it isn't normally available or discussed where their natural inclinations are leading them.

 

[Parabox]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

even though a consequence of organized religion was institutions that could allow great research

it was just a consequence, religion would certainly discourage any outside interpretation that could conflict with their teaching

 

[Subashni]

I am doing this research paper. In it, i will argue that monotheistic religion help promote the emergence of science. Do you have any ideas on this topic? Any nice links? research papers from periodicals? books?

this topic is very close to d vedas nd the hindu mythology ...d vedas are also known to contain gr8 scientific theories also...

 

[baywax]

That might be a stretch.

Think of Aristotle - (c. 384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) who studied with Plato (c.427–c.347 BC). Science, or rather critical thinking was already beginning, but Greek society was polytheistic (the Olympian gods - Zeus, Hera, etc of the Greek Pantheon).

Even the Egyptians had some rudimentary science, and many polytheitic cultures had some form of arithmetic.

Rather, perhaps one could look at the mindset or thought process which is necessary to develop science and see if that type of critical thinking supports a monotheistic perspective.

Good example Astronuc.

There's more too, and on the down side of monotheism remember the Pole, Capernicus, was forbidden to speak of his discoveries about our solar system and was actually detained for some time in the Vatican.

One has to look at the advent and history of monotheism in the northern hemisphere. It was Akenaten, a ruler of Egypt around 3600 years ago who abolished the many traditional Egyptian gods and even more priests in favor of the sun god "Ra". He was soon ousted by the laid off priests and had to get out of town with the monotheistic hebrew slaves he ended up running with.

Whether under a multi-theistic or monotheistic religious system, the Egyptians pulled off some incredible feats of engineering science.

 

[Phrak]

The OP and much of the following posts attempt loft positions of generality I don't see. There was only one Enlightenment. This occurred in Europe in the monotheism of Catholic Christianity. The fear of Christianity is so thick it takes a knife to cut it. So we call it monotheism instead. It wasn't the Hindus, it wasn't the Chinese, and it wasn't the Greeks or Ancient Egyptians from which modern science evolved.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

The OP and much of the following posts attempt loft positions of generality I don't see. There was only one Enlightenment. This occurred in Europe in the monotheism of Catholic Christianity. The fear of Christianity is so thick it takes a knife to cut it. So we call it monotheism instead. It wasn't the Hindus, it wasn't the Chinese, and it wasn't the Greeks or Ancient Egyptians from which modern science evolved.

Not so much regarding the op, as this post, it wasn’t strictly Catholic at the time of The Enlightenment, and influences espoused ideas like tolerance and pantheism, e.g.,
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/voltaire.html
Locke was born into a puritan household and urged tolerance.
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0631208445.html