@boxerdc Said 
Actually Christianity did quite a bit to slow scientific progress down. The fact that we're still debating evolution shows that christianity is still slowing down scientific progress.
And it's just plain silly to state that a different religion would have had the same effect, as there is no way to quantify that statement.
I don't think we could have made the jump from irrational fear based world view to scientific method without the stabilizing influence of the transition from pantheon chaos to monotheistic order. The elevation of gods to God...from God Law to individual free will (which is where I see faith going today)represents a maturing of the human mind. AS our minds mature so does our science grow more complex and accurate.
Today science has done more healing, more saving, more revelation of truth than all the combined millennium of religious attempts. However, to think it was science alone that elevated the mind to the place where it exists today is shortsighted and inaccurate. One must view the thing as a whole. True religion has at times suppressed science but did that suppression make science weaker or did it prompt scientists to make their truths even stronger to prove the church wrong?
Personally I see science replacing religion in the future. It is a natural progression of the maturing meat mind. Someday we will have to elevate beyond the meat and science is the only way I see to do that. The transition will be bumpy and it has been going on for many centuries already.Unfortunately, the war of religion is coming. I'm looking for cave to ride it out in.
Feb 11, 2011 @ 13:11:29
