Christianity put a stop to science according to Victor Stenger. “Greece and Rome were well on the way to modern science when Christianity interrupted its development for a thousand years. It was no accident that the scientific revolution of the eighteenth century happened only after the revolts against Church authority in the Renaissance and Reformation opened up new avenues of thought,” he said
“Granted, the competition is tough and the candidates are legion. But I think that Victor Stenger—’Physicist, PhD, bestselling author’!—has thrown down the Gray Gauntlet of Lumpish Twaddle, and has done so in the span of just six paragraphs!” replies Carl E. Olson in Insight Scoop
“Never mind that the Romans didn’t even figure out how to engineer a drafting chimney. Oh well; I’m sure they were only a few years from splitting the atom when the barbarians overwhelmed them. Which is not to make light of Roman and Greek achievements. By the way, didn’t the Romans and Greeks believe in multiple gods? So how is it that Romans and Greeks were scientifically brilliant while being religious but Christians were/are decidedly anti-scientific because they are religious? Huh?”
Read Stenger’s blog in the Huffington Post
Read Olsen’s response
Victor Stenger is a particle physicist, outspoken atheist, and author, now active in philosophy and popular religious skepticism. As of June 2010, he has published nine books for general audiences on physics, quantum mechanics, cosmology, philosophy, religion, atheism, and pseudoscience, the latest of which is The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason.
Carl E. Olson is a Catholic, husband, father, author, editor, apologist, smart aleck, illustrator, designer, music collector, book lover, and lousy tennis player. He is editor of the online magazine IgnatiusInsight.com and moderator of the Ignatius Press web log, the Insight Scoop blog.
Image: Word on fire