The Contributions of Religion to the Sciences

[Skwim]

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A few months ago paarsurvey posted a neat thread titled "The contributions of the sciences to Religion," asking for our thoughts.
Some very interesting remarks resulted, and some not so much, but in all it's generated 288 posts.
This got me wondering if anyone thinks religion has contributed anything to the sciences. So . . . . . . . as paarsurvey said:

Everybody is welcome to give one's valued thoughts here.
Regards

 

[Iti oj]

​

A few months ago paarsurvey posted a neat thread titled "The contributions of the sciences to Religion," asking for our thoughts.
Some very interesting remarks resulted, and some not so much, but in all it's generated 288 posts.
This got me wondering if anyone thinks religion has contributed anything to the sciences. So . . . . . . . as paarsurvey said:

Everybody is welcome to give one's valued thoughts here.
Regards

of course it has. You would need to ignore history to think otherwise.

 

[psychoslice]

I really can't think of anything ?.

 

[George-ananda]

I don't think it is religion's intention to contribute to science. Science and religion are different fields.

 

[Skwim]

of course it has. You would need to ignore history to think otherwise.

As an agnostic I don't pay much attention to what religions do outside their immediate sphere of operation so,care to list a few of these contributions?

 

[psychoslice]

Without science religion would still have us all back in the so called dark ages.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I really can't think of anything ?.

Religion has made a terrific contribution to the science of Psychology and the mind.

There is more than enough contributed material to keep the experts engauged and intrigued for centuries to come.

 

[psychoslice]

Religion has made a terrific contribution to the science of Psychology and the mind.

There is more than enough contributed material to keep the experts engauged and intrigued for centuries to come.

Yes I wonder why psychology, lets face it there must be many who are so confused with this god judging them all the time, I myself have been in mental wards and most are religious psychotic people, no I think religion has kept us back for years with its backward thinking.

 

[Valjean]

I'm leaning toward religion's being a brake on progress and understanding, in the main.

 

[psychoslice]

I think I heard somewhere that Iran, or around there did give us much in knowledge ?.

 

[Valjean]

The Muslim world was in the avant garde of progress and learning eight centuries ago -- till a right-wing, fundamentalist movement mandated an end to progress and return to Islam's fundamentals.

 

[Riverwolf]

The sciences themselves. Many of the early scientific fields had religious inquiries for their predecessors. Without Christian alchemy, modern chemistry wouldn't exist, for example.

 

[Riverwolf]

I think I heard somewhere that Iran, or around there did give us much in knowledge ?.

That's putting it mildly.

 

[Riverwolf]

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Funny fact: many mathematical schools literally were religions in Greece. I understand that the very notion that irrational numbers existed was very blasphemous in one of them.

 

[Skwim]

Funny fact: many mathematical schools literally were religions in Greece. I understand that the very notion that irrational numbers existed was very blasphemous in one of them.

And in some places, for quite some time a person needed the consent and support of Catholic church in order to pursue any kind of academic study. Of course, if ones findings didn't agree with the church's dictates it might mean your last breath.

 

[LuisDantas]

I sincerely feel that the only contribution of religion to the sciences is as a subject matter for study.

Sure, in many cases the historical origin of several events and institutions of significance to science happened to be under religious auspices... but all that shows is that religion is very much influential in human culture. To say that it contributed to science is to imply that its absence would make science in some sense poorer, which I find way too speculative to seriously consider.

 

[Riverwolf]

And in some places, for quite some time a person needed the consent and support of Catholic church in order to pursue any kind of academic study. Of course, if ones findings didn't agree with the church's dictates it might mean your last breath.

For a few centuries in a certain part of Europe, maybe, but I'm really starting to doubt that was actually the case through most of Europe's post-Christian times, and doesn't exactly contradict my statement.

The anti-religious misconceptions of European history are nothing new; the entire myth of Columbus scientifically proving a round Earth to a flat-Earth-believing church literally owes its existence to anti-religious history revisionism by Washington Irving. So I'm sure you'll understand my skepticism that the Church was actually that trigger-happy to anything that might have contradicted its teachings except for a few hundred years. I can't say for certain, because post-Christian European history isn't what I focus on, but I'm going on what I see whenever I poke at the issue.

 

[Laika]

This got me wondering if anyone thinks religion has contributed anything to the sciences.

"Science" as we define it today is rather odd compared to even two or three centuries ago in that it has come to largely divorce itself from religion and philosophy as it has become a relatively fixed methodology. It wasn't until the late 19th century that Science became an established method and distinct from philosophy, nor was Atheism popular until Darwinian theories of natural selection discredited genisis. Until then Science and Religion were viewed as complementing each other as "natural philosophy" (I think) with a handful of exceptions such as the French Materialists. This was when people started to develop the "conflict thesis" that there was an intrinsic conflict between science and religion. Historians of Science have largely rejected this view as highly selective, often focusing on Darwin and Galileo, whilst ignoring a much bigger picture. (keep in mind that Darwin denied he was an atheist and was a non-conformist Christian and then an agnostic and Galileo was a Catholic).

If you were to define this in terms of contributions by "religious people" to the sciences, the list would be vast. One example that comes to mind is Georges Lemaitre who was a Catholic Priest and Physics professor who also developed the expansion theory of the universe in 1927 (wrongly attributed to Edwin Hubble). Lemaitre's contribution to the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe has been argued to demonstrate it as a scientific validation for Catholicism.

However, establishing a direct relationship between a person's religious beliefs and their scientific discoveries would be "hard" at best, particuarly as we tend to re-write history to suit our preconceptions of the opposition between science and religion as @Riverwolf pointed out.

 

[paarsurrey]

"Science" as we define it today is rather odd compared to even two or three centuries ago in that it has come to largely divorce itself from religion and philosophy as it has become a relatively fixed methodology. It wasn't until the late 19th century that Science became an established method and distinct from philosophy, nor was Atheism popular until Darwinian theories of natural selection discredited genisis. Until then Science and Religion were viewed as complementing each other as "natural philosophy" (I think) with a handful of exceptions such as the French Materialists. This was when people started to develop the "conflict thesis" that there was an intrinsic conflict between science and religion. Historians of Science have largely rejected this view as highly selective, often focusing on Darwin and Galileo, whilst ignoring a much bigger picture. (keep in mind that Darwin denied he was an atheist and was a non-conformist Christian and then an agnostic and Galileo was a Catholic).
If you were to define this in terms of contributions by "religious people" to the sciences, the list would be vast. One example that comes to mind is Georges Lemaitre who was a Catholic Priest and Physics professor who also developed the expansion theory of the universe in 1927 (wrongly attributed to Edwin Hubble). Lemaitre's contribution to the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe has been argued to demonstrate it as a scientific validation for Catholicism.
However, establishing a direct relationship between a person's religious beliefs and their scientific discoveries would be "hard" at best, particuarly as we tend to re-write history to suit our preconceptions of the opposition between science and religion as @Riverwolf pointed out.

I much appreciate your post.
Regards

 

[rusra02]

True religion has, IMO. False religion, not so much.