Religion: the biggest science brake through all the history

Luis G

Luis G

<i><b>Problemator</b></i>
Staff member
If there were no religions we would probably have much more better technology and knowledge by now.

Braking the development of knowledge and investigation, of people like Galileo among others, and punishing many people for sorcery/heresy if they could heal some disease sent by god or if they contradicted religion.

Also, all the holy-wars (not meant for only islamic) destroyed many of the knowledge of several ancient cultures, knowledge that had to be rediscovered centuries later by other scientists.

Right now we are also living the same situation, religions against genetic manipulation and clonning, they are making investigations go slower and placing ideas in their believer's minds ("don't play God" comes to my mind right now).

Religions might give some relief to many people, but i think they are just holding us back from our total capacity and intelligence as humans.
 
equally though, those ancient cultures [and some modern ones if we use the clonaid religious cult as example] were often driven by religious investigation and religiously based science. without the monastic tradition we would not have developed much of the basic sciences we take for granted [chemistry, biology, optics].

many people of science have faith and it does not hold them back - the difference is the perception of organised religious groups making doctrine as being obstructive as compared to the fulfilling, enriching and enabling aspect of personal religious choice.
 
If not for religion, we'd still be living in mud huts. Religion is the major reason for the rise of most civilizations, and religion's decline usually it's fall. Think the egyptians would have developed the engineering skills to build the pyramids without religion? Or dedicated the resources?

And don't forget, many of the various technological breakthroughs were done to advance the war machine. Even our beloved internet started off as a defense dept project.
 
If not for religion, we'd still be living in mud huts. Religion is the major reason for the rise of most civilizations, and religion's decline usually it's fall. Think the egyptians would have developed the engineering skills to build the pyramids without religion? Or dedicated the resources?
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Correct as far as it goes, Prof. The christian church was directly responsible for the dark ages. Where would we be today without that millenium of suppression of knowledge?
 
I think the rise of slave driven cultures was of more ultimate importance in the derailment of scientific progress than organized religion. Though, organized religion sure seemed to embrace the slave culture for quite a long time.
 
chcr said:
Correct as far as it goes, Prof. The christian church was directly responsible for the dark ages. Where would we be today without that millenium of suppression of knowledge?
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Good point. In fact, a great point. The point being how religion changes when you go from worshipping a god to worshipping a man. Gods don't often tell you to go to war. Religious leaders (men) do.
 
Well, Prof, I don't worship either. Still, if most people actually paid more than lip service to the tenets of religion, I might not be so much against it.
 
You mean the people who commit the seven deadly sins the other six days of the week, but think they're saved because they go to church and praise the Lord for an hour and a half on Sunday?
 
Well, since I don't accept the concept of sin, it's a little broader than that, but that works too.
 
Inkara1 said:
You mean the people who commit the seven deadly sins the other six days of the week, but think they're saved because they go to church and praise the Lord for an hour and a half on Sunday?
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And hour and a half!?! Shit, if my pastor ever kept us past a full hour, all the starving people in the congregation would riot!

:lol:
 
Luis G said:
If there were no religions we would probably have much more better technology and knowledge by now.
[...]
Religions might give some relief to many people, but i think they are just holding us back from our total capacity and intelligence as humans.
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While there is no-one on this board who is more critical of organised religion than I, I would suggest that perhaps this braking of knowledge is more a good thing, for those presently alive at least, than it is bad.
We've seen what humans are capable of given the technology (especially weapons) that we have developed thus far - is anyone in any doubt that once we have developed some SERIOUSLY powerful technology, that it will only be a matter of time before we turn ourselves into cosmic dust? We can perhaps be thankful that religion has slowed us down sufficiently so as to ensure that we are not yet at that stage..

[Cryptic Sci-Fi reference] Type 13 planet, anyone? :) [/cryptic sci-fi reference]
 
Ahhh...The evils of technology. Has anyone read Ted Kasinski's (the unibomber) manifesto? Its an interesting read. Very interesting.
 
a13antichrist said:
is anyone in any doubt that once we have developed some SERIOUSLY powerful technology, that it will only be a matter of time before we turn ourselves into cosmic dust?
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Yes, I have doubt that such a statement will prove true. I have at least some hope that we will make it through our technological adolesence.
 
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