Did the church influence science?

[svalbard]

Wait a minute there Ace. There is no Bibin 2 ical law againinn Deutt eating milk and meat. Even Abraham served lamb and cheese to his 'visitors.' That law is of Jewish Tradition.


And please tell me where Leviticus says that you stone a woman for preaching to a man. The only stoning laws for preaching were if the preacher was trying to lead people away from God, from what I remember.


Sorry to get off topic, but I dislike it when someone says that Jewish traditions are the laws of God. There hasn't been any Biblical basis for any of the ones that I've seen. And I've read the whole Bible multiple times.

I am sure there are mentions of not mixing certain kinds of meat and milk produce in 2 passages in Exodus and also in Deutronomy (sp).

 

[Parson]

Svalbard,

I'd assumed that the milk and meat thing was an extension from Exodus 23:19; Exodus 34:26; and Deuteronomy 14:21 where Israel is commanded "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk." But the issue there isn't the mixture but the use of the mother's life/milk to cook her offspring.

I'd also assumed that the stoning a woman for preaching to a man was a reach from either Rev. 2:20 -- Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. --- Of course here we are dealing with a "false" prophet. Not one of the true God. Or Paul's injunctions against women in leadership roles. (this a real shortsighted reading of Paul and the New Testament. Paul calls Phoebe a "deacon" not a "deaconess" which could be construed to be the wife of a deacon so obviously she's a leader in the church, plus we have Priscilla, an associate of Paul's, who was one of those who taught Apollos in Acts the "truth about the Holy Spirit" in Acts. Added to this we have Philip's 4 daughters who were prophets in Acts. In the Old Testament as well there are examples of women who are prophets (Huldah) and leaders of the country (Deborah), plus in Corinthians Paul gives instructions for how a woman is to keep her head covered when prophesying in church. 1 Cor. 11:5)

On the whole I would say that you characterization of those Biblical injunctions was flawed at best.

 

[svalbard]

To be honest I wouldn't know the Bible well enough to qoute chapter and verse. What I do feel is that it is open to interpretation and can mean different things to so many people. My reading of Paul would be contrary to yours, but that is not the subject of this thread.

On topic, I would think the Catholic Church over the course of millenia has on the whole had a positive influence upon science with some blips along the way.

 

[Parson]

Agreed. Didn't mean to take us off course.

 

[Aquilonian]

Overall, any dogmatic system of belief will tend to retard scientific progress, because science depends on freedom of thought, ie following a chain of thought where the logic leads, without fear of contravening some prohibition. Nowadays science itself is treated as a religion, and scientists are treated like priests were treated in medieval times, ie deferred to without question, but also expected to have the answer to every problem. Real scientists don't take this attitude, it's more people who "respect" science without having actually studied it. Also, politicians (very few of whom are scientifically educated) use scientific evidence when it backs their proposals, but ignore it when it does not- just as kings used religion in former times.

There is no such thing as "the Church" unless you belong to a specific church that is so bigoted that they don't accept any other churches as being real Christians. Even in Medieval times there were the Catholic and Orthodox churches, plus many other small groups who worked in secret due to being classed as heretics by the big two.

Finally, you have to distinguish between "The Church" as an institution (or group of institutions) and people who happen to be members of a church. Same goes for other religions- those who favour Islam often quote the great Muslim scientists of the Middle Ages, who were far more advanced than Europeans of that period. However this has more to do with the fact that Muslims had conquered several areas that had the longest history of civilisation, eg Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and the Eastern Roman Empire. If Muhammad had been a Viking and his warriors had conquered Scandinavia and Germany, it would have been a different story.

 

[AlexanderSen]

An interesting note regarding the spirit of science is the Zambia's 1964 Space Program. In some ways it was more of a church than an actual Space Program. They sure got in the spirit of the times. In the spirit of science!

Meet 'The Afronauts': Zambia's Forgotten Space Program (Photos) | Space.com

Zambia's forgotten space program 1964 - YouTube