Unbiased scientific progress made by Religion.

[ShootMyMonkey]

I would say it's very hard to make this sort of an argument for religions like Christianity. Islam, for example, actually does value the advancement of knowledge as part of its tenets. Only problem is that it doesn't really make clear what constitutes knowledge and learning. Indeed, the advancements made by Muslims in the 9th-12th centuries is pretty unparalleled. It stopped dead more or less because someone decided that "knowledge" should equal the advancement of understanding of the "truths" of the Qur'an. What you have to wonder, though... who was more manipulative with their interpretation of the religion? Those who did advance science and believed their faith said they should? Or those who served to arrest the advance of science and believed that their faith directed this action? The original scripture is pretty flatly nonspecific on this particular matter, so you can just as easily say one of them, none of them, some of them, or all of them.

Hinduism being the mythology of my upbringing also has this sort of a valuing of knowledge. The caste to which I belong actually pretty flatly has a tradition of saying that mathematics is a higher calling than the divine. That's pretty darn cool from my perspective, which is probably one of the reasons why I was suckered early on. Problem with saying this, though, is that Hinduism is pretty much the most vague religion that can ever possibly be conceived. By its own decree, it is meant to be interpreted on an individual level, which basically means anybody can make anything they want of it -- and that's exactly what happened. Now, for the most part, Hindus never so much as lay eyes on Vedic scripture at all. Instead, they lay eyes on the works of philosophers and poets who provide their own interpretations and follow along with local community traditions. But in ancient times when information exchange was much harder and scripture was the only "knowledge" which was widely spread, it kind of followed that people who sought out learning would try to form their own interpretations of what the dogma told them. So when you say that an ancient Hindu scientist advanced science at the behest of his faith... to what do you really give the credit? The faith itself? Or that person's own personal interpretation thereof? I know it can be putting a fine point on it, but the more freedom you offer to play willy-nilly with the meaning of a religious dogma, the more you reduce its relevance.

That's also why it's much harder to make a case for Christianity or Judaism or Islam for that matter, because they are so rigid.

 

[Pennies for Thoughts]

Alas, I am over questions about the religious credentials of what is perhaps the greatest religiously motivated discovery of human times. For me the fact that the church didn't torture or kill Kepler after he published his laws is proof enough that he was working for his god. Need references to his religious life aplenty? Enter "Kepler" into Wikipedia.

But are the Kepler deniers really interested in that sideshow or are they determined to hold to the hypothesis that religion has never done anything to advance science? :? My point has only been that Kepler will make defending a perceived lack of religious contributions to science tough. So will the Vatican Observatory. So will the Islamic Enlightenment of the 9th-10th centuries. And so will the Dark Age refinements and inventions of scientific instruments for measuring time and latitude.

Clocks, whether evenly marked candles or the earliest water clocks, were invented by followers of a divine for the purpose of worshiping said divine at specific times of the day. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070701a.htm

Medieval predecessors to the octant and the secant were first used to scan the deity's domain rather than to help ships navigate. http://www.nfo.edu/family/italy/meridiana.html

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Alas, I am over questions about the religious credentials of what is perhaps the greatest religiously motivated discovery of human times. For me the fact that the church didn't torture or kill Kepler after he published his laws is proof enough that he was working for his god.

That's your idea of proof? That's garbage of the highest order. So what if he wasn't tortured? That doesn't mean his ideas were accepted. In fact, they weren't for quite some time. Galileo wasn't tortured or killed either, and in fact the Catholic church initially offered full acceptance of Galileo's findings... Where he really screwed up was in reinterpreting religious dogma after the fact to reconcile religion with the reality.

But are the Kepler deniers really interested in that sideshow or are they determined to hold to the hypothesis that religion has never done anything to advance science? :? My point has only been that Kepler will make defending a perceived lack of religious contributions to science tough.

What we're denying is your idea of a causal link between religion and Kepler's discoveries. You say he was religious... fine, that he was. That means nothing whatsoever. There was that idea that Kepler found problems with his religious beliefs in comparison to what the real observed data told him. Again, that's not my telling of it; that's YOUR version of the story. If you want to say that is a causal link between religion and scientific advancement, then so be it, but just be wary that that is a causal link based on the wrongness of religion. A weak link at best, and not one that can be thought of as "promotional" in any sense.

And without a real solid defense against that, you claim that it's self-evident out of a collection of disparate realities, which is unarguably wrong. You've thrown dots on the paper without showing how they're connected and just pretend that they're already connected. There is no bunny or kitty or whatever it is you think is there. You need to be more precise in showing exactly what it was about the religious beliefs which made those particular advancements possible.

So will the Vatican Observatory.

ACH... That's pitifully wrong. I already addressed that when I mentioned that you can't simply say that an individual institution supporting individual study and advancement is not the same thing as religion itself driving progress. The Vatican is not Christianity itself, and that which the Vatican supports is not intrinsically that which Christianity supports. In fact, as Christian denominations go, the Vatican has, in recent decades, been among the most liberal when it comes to science. Something that is owed mostly to John Paul II, since he was one of the most, if not the most progressive popes ever. Again, he's not religion itself... he's the dictator who just happened to be slightly less malevolent to science than his predecessors (or his successor, for that matter).

So will the Islamic Enlightenment of the 9th-10th centuries.

Hogwash... that one never crossed your mind until I mentioned it. And it was very good of you to completely ignore the aforementioned ambiguity of it. It's possible, I'll grant that... but not a certainty. There simply isn't enough information.

And so will the Dark Age refinements and inventions of scientific instruments for measuring time and latitude.
Clocks, whether evenly marked candles or the earliest water clocks, were invented by followers of a divine for the purpose of worshiping said divine at specific times of the day. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070701a.htm

Medieval predecessors to the octant and the secant were first used to scan the deity's domain rather than to help ships navigate. http://www.nfo.edu/family/italy/meridiana.html

These are pure baloney. Religion isn't the drive here, but previously identified problems driving the need for new solutions. That has always been the case. It wouldn't have been any different if the problem came from a different source. If anything, religion carries with it the hefty weight of tradition, and it would be more prone towards keeping with old technologies.

 

[biology4life]

But are the Kepler deniers really interested in that sideshow or are they determined to hold to the hypothesis that religion has never done anything to advance science?

Kepler may well have been religious, he may also been inspired by religion but that is not quite the same as saying religion advanced science.
Maybe this is just how we differ in how we understand the OP question, I say that religion has never advanced science because all scientific advancement has been by finding naturalistic explanations. There have been no cases of science advancing by introducing a supernatural explanation from a religion.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

I've noticed the pattern that he is evading using the "Isn't it obvious?" fallacy. As ShootMyMonkey says, it's not enough to show the dots and assume the connections are obvious to anyone looking at them (just because it seems obvious to you). You need to draw those connections and show them to others clearly. Else, our default position would be that there are no connections, just your imagination.