| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
03 Mar 2006 08:58:19 PM |
| Object: |
How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Book Review
National Review, July 28, 2003 by David Klinghoffer
For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science,
Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery, by Rodney Stark (Princeton, 496
pp., $35)
Would the peoples of the Arab world be better off with a Bible in their
hands or a Koran? In the recent debate about Christian evangelizing in
Muslim lands, that's the question implicitly raised but rarely
addressed in an explicit fashion. Time magazine devoted a cover story
to the general subject -- "Should Christians Convert Muslims?" --
without ever touching on the most interesting and relevant point of
all: the belief of Western missionaries that to Christianize is to
civilize.
No one doubts that Muslims have a civilization, and a very impressive
one in many ways. But Rodney Stark argues powerfully that the
civilization of the Bible, of the Western nations, possesses advantages
over those of the Koran and other non-Biblical religions precisely
because Western culture emerged from Christian and Jewish Scripture.
A professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of
Washington, Stark is a brave guy. His publishers at Princeton
University Press are brave too. To say the things he does in an
academic setting, or to publish them, is to invite contempt from
professional colleagues, or worse. The fact that he writes with a
clarity and concision that make him a pleasure to read, never cloaking
his message in jargon, with flashes of mischievous humor, makes it all
the more likely he'll drive the "liberals" (his word) nuts.
Stark's main point is that in the development of a civilization, what
counts is how the people think and feel about their gods. The
transition from gods to God is a key step. Oddly, he doesn't make clear
the profoundest implication of monotheism: If there is only one God, a
God who cares about how people treat one another as well as about how
they relate to Him, then that implies there can be only one
transcendently true foundation on which all of ethics is built.
Relativism becomes impossible.
But the rest of the consequences of monotheistic faith are drawn out
here in detail and with vigor. This is no whitewash job. Two of Stark's
four chapters deal frankly with consequences that may make Christians
wince: sect-formation and witch-hunts. Believing in one universal Deity
implies that others who profess different understandings of that God,
or who engage in supernatural practices from the pre-monotheistic past
(magic), are not only mistaken -- but possibly have strayed into areas
of belief that need to be forcibly suppressed.
Stark's most powerful chapter deals with the rise of science -- which,
he emphasizes, arose only once, in Europe and nowhere else, and as a
direct result of the researches of medieval Catholic scholastics. This
fact has been obscured by three centuries of "atheist attack[s] on
faith," seeking to propagate the false notion that there is a necessary
conflict between science and religion. On the contrary: Science is the
union of theory with empiricism -- one without the other is not science
but mere speculation or craft. Aristotle, for instance, is full of
speculation, but he disdained empiricism. He reasoned that two rocks
dropped from a height will fall at the same pace only if they weigh the
same. A heavier rock will fall faster. This is of course false, as
Aristotle would have known if he had tried dropping a big rock and a
small one off a cliff.
A number of fondly held myths get demolished in this book. Stark
acknowledges that medieval Islam preserved a knowledge of classical
Greece and its culture (so did medieval Christian learning, albeit in
Latin translation), but he points out that Muslim veneration of the
Greek philosophers actually held the Arabs back: "The result was to
freeze Islamic learning and stifle all possibility of the rise of an
Islamic science, and for the same reasons that Greek learning stagnated
of itself: fundamental assumptions antithetical to science." Science
never took root in the Muslim world for the additional reason that
Muslims lack a Biblical perspective on God. For believers in Biblical
religion, God is the creator not only of existence, but of the laws of
nature. To discover those laws is to meet Him through the medium of His
creation. By contrast, "Islam did not fully embrace the notion that the
universe ran along on fundamental principles laid down by God at the
Creation, but assumed the world was sustained by his will on a
continuing basis." There were, therefore, no general principles to
discover -- no theorizing to do. The same goes for Eastern faiths,
which entirely lack the belief in a God as Creator.
Stark quotes John Maynard Keynes, commenting on the deeply held
Christian faith of Isaac Newton: "[He] looked on the whole universe and
all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by
applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which
God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure
hunt. . . . He believed that these clues were to be found partly in the
evidence of the heavens and in the constitution of elements . . . but
also partly in certain papers and traditions handed down . . . in an
unbroken chain back to the original cryptic revelation in Babylonia. He
regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty."
A "cryptogram set by the Almighty." This is a beautiful thought,
rightly depicting science and religion as twinned disciplines, both
seeking to find out God's secrets.
As a final instance of what religion has wrought in the West, Stark
gives us an economically rendered history of anti-slavery activism.
Here, Jewish Scriptures were the first in the ancient world to set down
laws so restrictive of the slave owner as effectively to make slavery
as it was known impossible. The owner was obliged to treat the "slave"
with many of the considerations you would extend to a guest in your
home, being forbidden, for example, to give his slave cheap wine while
he himself enjoyed a more expensive variety. If the owner drinks fine
wine, so must the slave. But as an advocate of total abolitionism, the
Catholic Church was far ahead of everyone. "In the thirteenth century,
Saint Thomas Aquinas deduced that slavery was a sin, and a series of
popes upheld his position, beginning in 1435 and culminating in three
major pronouncements against slavery by Pope Paul III in 1537."
Muslims could muster no such outrage at the practice since Muhammad
himself "bought, sold, captured, and owned slaves." So Muslim slavery
was perpetuated (and still is not entirely stamped out), though the
current, physical evidence of its history is not as apparent as that of
slavery in the Americas. Muslims preferred to import African women, not
men, and the children of these slaves by their owners were often killed
at birth, which is why you don't see many blacks today in Islamic
countries.
Believers in other non-Biblical faiths similarly find little support in
their traditions for opposing enslavement. In their forms familiar to
Western adherents, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism posit no personal
deity at all but rather an impersonal universal "essence" underlying
the universe but possessing no will, no ability to command human beings
in any way about their treatment of others. This "essence" cannot take
a view, one way or the other, about slavery. It's natural to wonder
what Stark himself believes. He writes as a sociologist and historian,
not a theologian, and is careful to say nothing about his own faith
except that he is not a Catholic. The very last sentence in his book is
intriguing: "In these ways, at least, Western civilization really was
God-given." He means that, for all the basically structural reasons he
lays out in For the Glory of God, religious faith made our culture what
it is, namely the envy of the world. But, read another way, the
sentence may convey a truth that Stark chooses not to state
unambiguously.
As I was reading this book I thought of a rather cryptic teaching from
rabbinic tradition. It's said that when God started to create the
universe He first looked in the Torah, like an architect consulting a
blueprint. Is this supposed to mean that somewhere in the Pentateuch we
should find a little map of North America that the Lord was gazing at
when He made the California coastline? No, the point is that Scripture
gives its readers the key to understanding how the world works. In that
sense it's a blueprint. If you understand the Bible, you understand the
world. A corollary is that the civilization that possesses such a key
is bound to flourish beyond the advancements of rival cultures. It's no
coincidence that Biblical civilization developed as it did. Happily for
those other cultures, the key can be duplicated: The fortune enjoyed by
Christians and Jews is fully transferable. If Rodney Stark is right, it
would follow that introducing the Bible to other peoples is indeed to
impart a gift. Whether others are ready to accept the gift is another
question.
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| User: "Paul Duca" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 09:43:48 AM |
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Must have been behind His back....
Paul
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 11:23:04 AM |
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In <1141441099.230289.168470@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>, "Sound of
Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> wrote:
Stark's most powerful chapter deals with the rise of science -- which, he
emphasizes, arose only once, in Europe and nowhere else
Wow. Talk about racist clap trap...
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
I just love this...
"For those of us who grew up in Louisiana,
'The Wizard of Oz' was like a documentary.
Dorothy left Kansas and simply went to Mardi Gras."
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2EA439BC
Um... didn't foresee what exactly?
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B5CA129BC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 12:02:31 AM |
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In <1141441099.230289.168470@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>, "Sound of
Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> wrote:
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
The bible condones slavery. Lie yourself blue in the face, that won't
change that it is in the text.
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
I just love this...
"For those of us who grew up in Louisiana,
'The Wizard of Oz' was like a documentary.
Dorothy left Kansas and simply went to Mardi Gras."
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2EA439BC
Um... didn't foresee what exactly?
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B5CA129BC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
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| User: "Josef Balluch" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
03 Mar 2006 11:43:03 PM |
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In a message sent 'round the world, Sound of Trumpet poured fuel on the
fire with the following:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science,
Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery, by Rodney Stark (Princeton, 496
pp., $35)
Ah yes! Rodney Stark! Still stuck on the idea that association
establishes causation.
....
Oddly, he doesn't make clear
the profoundest implication of monotheism: If there is only one God, a
God who cares about how people treat one another as well as about how
they relate to Him, then that implies there can be only one
transcendently true foundation on which all of ethics is built.
Relativism becomes impossible.
Rodney obviously understands something that you do not.
....
Stark's most powerful chapter deals with the rise of science -- which,
he emphasizes, arose only once, in Europe and nowhere else, and as a
direct result of the researches of medieval Catholic scholastics.
Yawwwwn.
http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/ancientgreecescience/
http://www.aldokkan.com/science/science.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/03/content_3302258.htm
....
Aristotle, for instance, is full of
speculation, but he disdained empiricism. He reasoned that two rocks
dropped from a height will fall at the same pace only if they weigh the
same. A heavier rock will fall faster. This is of course false, as
Aristotle would have known if he had tried dropping a big rock and a
small one off a cliff.
Uh huh. And yet Aristotle influenced christian "thinkers" such as
Anselm, and more particularly, Aquinas.
A number of fondly held myths get demolished in this book.
But not all, unfortunately.
Stark
acknowledges that medieval Islam preserved a knowledge of classical
Greece and its culture (so did medieval Christian learning, albeit in
Latin translation), but he points out that Muslim veneration of the
Greek philosophers actually held the Arabs back: "The result was to
freeze Islamic learning and stifle all possibility of the rise of an
Islamic science, and for the same reasons that Greek learning stagnated
of itself: fundamental assumptions antithetical to science."
And it only took four hundred years or so for christianity to shake off
the Aristotelian influence, thanks to Aquinas, and allow science to
flourish.
....
As a final instance of what religion has wrought in the West, Stark
gives us an economically rendered history of anti-slavery activism.
Very economically, no doubt.
....
But as an advocate of total abolitionism, the
Catholic Church was far ahead of everyone. "In the thirteenth century,
Saint Thomas Aquinas deduced that slavery was a sin, and a series of
popes upheld his position, beginning in 1435 and culminating in three
major pronouncements against slavery by Pope Paul III in 1537."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0901/p16s01-wogi.html
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/vier30/31esclav.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/03/08/women.trafficking/
....
Regards,
Josef
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-- Aldous Huxley
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| User: "*nemo*" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 05:26:39 AM |
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In article <1141441099.230289.168470@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>,
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> wrote:
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Where do you find all this incredibly stupid material? There are no
"monotheist" religions in the world, so it obviously can't have led to
any of this stuff.
Now, the xian religion, on the other hand, certainly led to witch-hunts,
so that part is okay, but there is no way that it could be credited with
a "reformation" unless it first was responsble for creating a mess that
needed reforming in the first place. As for science and the end of
slavery... I've read the book-o-blood, you idiot. The central "holy
text" of Christianity exudes disdain for knowledge and its central theme
is built around UNIVERSAL SLAVERY.
Obviously, you've posted nothing but a pack of lies... which only
hilights the total lack of decency at the heart of your religion.
Congratulations.
--
Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations.
Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!)
BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all!
Charter member, SMASH!!
http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
Quotemeister since March 2002
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
03 Mar 2006 09:17:35 PM |
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Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Hey, Strumpet -
Explain how during the debate over the US constitution, the secular
states wanted to abolish slavery and the southern xian states
wanted to keep it.
Bob Dog
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
03 Mar 2006 11:20:12 PM |
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Puritanism began up North. The abolitionists were heavily driven by
religion. Al Gore was born Episcopalean; He became Baptist. Lincoln
was a Baptist. The Scotts Presbyterians and German Mennonites of the
Appalachians weren't slaveholders. Mountains and slavery don't work
together. Most of the slaveholders were secular Anglos in the flatter
lands. It was the cotton gin which made slavery widespread. It was
the influx of industrial Germans which tilted the balance against
slavery. You're letting your leftist urban stereotypes blind you.
- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Remorse begets zeal] [Windows is for Bimbos]
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
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| User: "Matt Giwer" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
03 Mar 2006 10:06:51 PM |
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wrote:
Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Hey, Strumpet -
Explain how during the debate over the US constitution, the secular
states wanted to abolish slavery and the southern xian states
wanted to keep it.
The boy posts material which he never defends. He spams newsgroups for the lord.
If Jesus had wanted to abolish slavery he would have said so.
--
The holocaust is a very strange kind of history. It is the only kind of
history that will disappear when the witnesses die.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3585
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
environmentalism http://www.giwersworld.org/environment/aehb.phtml a9
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 12:03:50 AM |
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In <vn8Of.32997$_c.18165@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>, Matt Giwer
<jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
bg12345@apexmail.com wrote:
Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Hey, Strumpet -
Explain how during the debate over the US constitution, the secular
states wanted to abolish slavery and the southern xian states wanted to
keep it.
The boy posts material which he never defends. He spams newsgroups for
the lord.
If Jesus had wanted to abolish slavery he would have said so.
Christians cited the Bible all the time to defend slavery. I can see why
Christians spend so much time trying to bury history...
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
I just love this...
"For those of us who grew up in Louisiana,
'The Wizard of Oz' was like a documentary.
Dorothy left Kansas and simply went to Mardi Gras."
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2EA439BC
Um... didn't foresee what exactly?
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B5CA129BC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
.
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| User: "Matt Giwer" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 12:11:35 AM |
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Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
In <vn8Of.32997$_c.18165@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>, Matt Giwer
<jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
bg12345@apexmail.com wrote:
Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Hey, Strumpet -
Explain how during the debate over the US constitution, the secular
states wanted to abolish slavery and the southern xian states wanted to
keep it.
The boy posts material which he never defends. He spams newsgroups for
the lord.
If Jesus had wanted to abolish slavery he would have said so.
Christians cited the Bible all the time to defend slavery. I can see why
Christians spend so much time trying to bury history...
In Exodus the Hebrews took their slaves with them.
--
If the Nazis had persecuted the Palestinians they would get at least some
sympathy.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3589
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
antisemitism http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ a1
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 12:36:45 AM |
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In <rcaOf.54443$g47.3355@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>, Matt Giwer
<jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
In <vn8Of.32997$_c.18165@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>, Matt Giwer
<jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
bg12345@apexmail.com wrote:
Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Hey, Strumpet -
Explain how during the debate over the US constitution, the secular
states wanted to abolish slavery and the southern xian states wanted to
keep it.
The boy posts material which he never defends. He spams newsgroups for
the lord.
If Jesus had wanted to abolish slavery he would have said so.
Christians cited the Bible all the time to defend slavery. I can see why
Christians spend so much time trying to bury history...
In Exodus the Hebrews took their slaves with them.
Well, you didn't expect God's Chosen to carry their *own luggage did you?
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
I just love this...
"For those of us who grew up in Louisiana,
'The Wizard of Oz' was like a documentary.
Dorothy left Kansas and simply went to Mardi Gras."
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2EA439BC
Um... didn't foresee what exactly?
http://makeashorterlink.com/?B5CA129BC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
.
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| User: "Matt Giwer" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 07:30:19 PM |
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Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
In <rcaOf.54443$g47.3355@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>, Matt Giwer
<jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
In <vn8Of.32997$_c.18165@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>, Matt Giwer
<jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
bg12345@apexmail.com wrote:
Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
Hey, Strumpet -
Explain how during the debate over the US constitution, the secular
states wanted to abolish slavery and the southern xian states wanted to
keep it.
The boy posts material which he never defends. He spams newsgroups for
the lord.
If Jesus had wanted to abolish slavery he would have said so.
Christians cited the Bible all the time to defend slavery. I can see why
Christians spend so much time trying to bury history...
In Exodus the Hebrews took their slaves with them.
Well, you didn't expect God's Chosen to carry their *own luggage did you?
Not when they had to stoop to stealing pots and pans.
--
After a US attack on Iran, Iran will be accused of not playing fair when it
counterattacks. For example when it sets off bombs in the US.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3577
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
http://www.giwersworld.org
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| User: "Matt Giwer" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
03 Mar 2006 10:11:56 PM |
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Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_55/ai_105408306
The Civilizing God - "For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to
Reformations, Science, Witch- Hunts, and the End of Slavery"
If Jesus had wanted to abolish slavery he would have said so.
If there was a problem with slavery this god had shitloads of prophets to announce it.
But monotheists did not discover god's secret prohibition until it was cheaper to hire workers than
to own them.
--
If the Nazis had persecuted the Palestinians they would get at least some
sympathy.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3589
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
http://www.giwersworld.org
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| User: "Douglas Berry" |
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| Title: Re: How Monotheism Led to Science And Abolition Of Slavery |
04 Mar 2006 10:37:53 AM |
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What's so funny about peace, love and "Sound of Trumpet"
<soundoftrumpet@lycos.com> posting the following on 3 Mar 2006
18:58:19 -0800 iin alt.atheism?
Stark's most powerful chapter deals with the rise of science -- which,
he emphasizes, arose only once, in Europe and nowhere else, and as a
direct result of the researches of medieval Catholic scholastics.
Absolute, utter, complete *****. Islamic scientists named most of
the bright stars in our skies, and created accurate tables for
predicting short=period comets and eclipses. Chinese astronomers did
the same thing a thousand years earlier.
Then there's the supernova of July 4th, 1054. This was the event that
created Crab Nebula. This nova was visible for several days in
daylight, and for at least two years at night. Chinese astronomers
made detailed observations of the "guest star;" noting its brightness,
position, and variances. North American Indians also saw the event,
and recorded it in rock paintings.
Europeans? Nothing. No record of anyone even writing down the fact
that a new star was in the sky.
--
Douglas E. Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.
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