He posted, Sunday, 2 November 2008 08:27 (European time, it might still have been Saturday 1 November where he was):
Robert J. Hutchinson: Atheists take credit for science when they had nothing to
http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Bible-Guides/dp/1596985208/ref=pd_sim_b_6
9:10 PM PDT, October 17, 2007, updated at 10:48 AM PDT, October 19, 2007
For the past 400 years, the partisans of irreligion-from the Marquis de Sade to Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins-have deliberately misrepresented the way science actually developed in the West as part of their ideological crusade against Judaism and Christianity.
What's worse, the partisans of atheism have been intellectually dishonest in the extreme: They have tried to take credit for the development of science when, in fact, they had little if anything to do with it.
Many of the most ideological and dogmatic of atheist crusaders, although continually referring to science, and seeking to use science to justify their own philosophical assumptions and declarations, were not scientists themselves.
In dramatic contrast, most of the true giants of empirical science-the people who founded entire scientific disciplines or who made landmark scientific discoveries-were primarily devout Christians who believed that their scientific studies, far from being in conflict with their religious faith, ultimately was dependent upon it.
My response (Monday, 3 November 2008 10:55):
Ah, a book link with an extract!
I was just wondering where this came from and why!
"most of the true giants of empirical science-the people who founded entire scientific disciplines or who made landmark scientific discoveries-were primarily devout Christians who believed that their scientific studies, far from being in conflict with their religious faith, ultimately was dependent upon it."
I was reflecting on the quote yesterday, and forgot "most". Here is what I thought upon that misunderstanding:*
Hippocrates reputedly founded western tradition of medicine and reputedly was a pre-Christian pagan. Freud reputedly founded psychoanalysis and reputedly was an atheist apostate from the synagogue. Are these reputations wrong, are these disciplines no sciences or are they exceptions? Or do you distinguish between them? On which side do you then put things like Darwinism, Heliocentrics, microphysics (sizes below what is seen in optical microscopes)?
Let us say medicine were actually founded by a devout Christian - how come it was attributed to a pre-Christian pagan? It would be a cock-and-bull story like that on Christianity founded by St Constantine and then retrospectively attributed to Christ. The answer in both cases is that Christians were around, even lots of them, in St Constantine's day, and so were doctors in the days of Christ. St Luke, remember. He was a disciple of Hippocrates before becoming one of Christ. The doctors who had failed to cure the bleeding woman cured by Christ's garment may have been hippocratic or Jewish or both in combination. I do not claim to know.
I happen to believe that most true and complete sciences - as distinct from both secondary applications and pseudo-sciences - came from before the time of Christ. Euclid is as pre-Christian as Hippocrates, and so is Aristotle. In technological discoveries the really useful ones were made before Christ. Adam, Tubal-Cain, Noah. A penitent, a tyrant and a just prophet: agriculture, metallurgy, viticulture. Grammar was made by God - Adam adding only the names for each animal species. C S Lewis cites anaesthetics as the one discovery that is really useful and really late. But wine can be used for that.**
Hans Lundahl
*No need for him to answer what I thought, since it was based on a misunderstanding of what had been stated, as said.
**One of the times when moral theologians considered it licit to get drunk was getting so soak drunk that a leg or arm with gangrene could be amputated without patient fighting too much.
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