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kant
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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.kant said: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.kant said: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 Chapmankant said: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?
kant said: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 0-7546-3623-2kant said: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?
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.
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.brodix said: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.
brodix said:.
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 said: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.
selfAdjoint said:Les Sleeth said: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.
kant said: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...
arildno said: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.
arildno said: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.
arildno said: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.
arildno said: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.
kant said: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?
kant said: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?
Astronuc said: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.
Phrak said: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.
Monotheism is the belief in one singular, all-powerful deity or god. This is in contrast to polytheism, which is the belief in multiple gods.
Monotheism played a significant role in the development of science by promoting the idea of an ordered and rational universe. This belief in a single, all-knowing god who created the world and set natural laws in motion led to the belief that the universe could be understood and studied through observation and experimentation.
The scientific method, which is the systematic process of conducting research and experiments to test hypotheses, is rooted in the principles of monotheism. The belief in a single, all-powerful god who created an ordered universe encouraged the idea that the natural world could be understood through logical and empirical methods.
Monotheistic societies, such as ancient Greece and the Islamic Golden Age, provided a supportive environment for scientific inquiry and discovery. These societies valued education and encouraged the pursuit of knowledge, leading to advancements in fields such as mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.
One example is the belief in a single, all-knowing god who created the universe with a purpose and order, which led to the idea that the natural world could be understood and studied. Additionally, the belief in a divine creator also sparked curiosity about the origins of the universe and the search for scientific explanations.