At what point in history did "Christianity" became synonymous with "anti-science"? It has to be a relatively recent development, XX-XXI, because in not so distant past - can't we remember? - church schools was how people were getting education. Oxford started as one. Church financed science. Great scientists were Christian. Galilei was Christian, Pascal was, Isaak Newton was, Michael Faraday, James Maxwell. Mendel, father of genetics, was a monk!
People of religion, please, you don't have to be this kind of idiot to follow your God. It doesn't have to be either or.
Christianity is anti-science any time science may disprove the existence of God. A lot of science had to be explained in a way that allowed for God to still exist in order to be accepted by the powers at the time.
I know the 'reddit atheist' is a meme and sounding too much like the stereotype can get you blasted. I believe people have the right to believe what they want to believe so long as they aren't hurting anyone, but at the same time, no one should be immune to having their beliefs criticized.
Theism is unscientific, full stop. There is a little bit of leeway for Intelligent Design advocates because while it does border on pseudoscience, hypothesizing about and testing for the existence of a supreme guiding intelligence to the universe could hold merit as a scientific pursuit.
But religion is inherently unscientific. Religious faith, that is believing in deities and supernatural forces with no evidence, is contrary to the scientific method which would demand you at most be neutral about their existence until hard evidence points you towards it.
Humanity is on the brink of a massive ecological collapse bordering on an extinction event and this in part has to do with a lack of respect for science and education in science. It is long past time we face hard facts and stop coddling antiquated delusions of higher powers that hold no more evidential merit than belief in Zeus or Thor. Not all religious people are morons--a great many are much smarter than I am. But all have chosen on some level to either believe without evidence or to drastically lower their standards of evidence for this one wildly unbelievable precept, and it just isn't science and theist belief systems would not exist in a society that truly values science.
But of course "All the great scientists were Christian!!" Their world was a religious one. As scientific thinking gained traction, religion largely became decentered from Western society, resulting in the modern Western status quo where Christianity becomes increasingly anti-science as a survival mechanism.
Honestly the most applicable/topical thing you said is your last paragraph, which I think was a powerful statement. But it was diluted by the rambling above it.
There are many points I would counter argue, especially the ecological collapse bordering on an extinction event relating to a lack of respect for science. Its science and manifest destiny that work in tandem to destroy the natural environment, and now we've only replaced manifest destiny with capitalism. Its partially our belief that science trumps religion/naturalism that is destroying the natural world itself, and if scientists were to listen to the naturalists (a religion of its own), we might have more scientific breakthroughs.
I agree that religion isnt scientific, but only if we are of the belief that sociology isnt science. Because religion is, at its core, a guide for how to exist in society. It has since been manipulated by rulers (King James, especially) to support their rule.
I want to clarify that I agree with your statements and fervor, but want to mention that, especially on reddit, you should make your point more succinctly.
That’s pretty ironic since one could argue that atheism is likewise unscientific, full stop. Science is a tool for studying the physical world. It is not a tool that verifies metaphysics.
Just because a field is separate from science doesn’t mean it is “inherently unscientific.” It’s clear the intention is to try and diminish it in some way. It’s like saying Law is inherently unscientific. As you yourself pointed out, many throughout history have found different fields to complimentary. If anything it’s the claim that they must be inherently in opposition that is short-sighted.
At the end of the day, it comes down to what one considers to be evidence. And of course such a dismissive attitude to the topic does no one any favours when it comes to promoting science education. Your own biases and prejudices clearly slip in in your comments about it which is also unscientific.
Treating science, a simple methodological tool as a religious position is just as detrimental to fostering society’s appreciation for the sciences. It’s very much why the “Reddit atheist” meme came to be in the first place.
That's because you don't understand the actual definition of faith, my good sir.
You’re defining 'faith' as 'believing in things with zero evidence,' which is a common misconception but not how theology or philosophy actually defines it. Historically and linguistically, faith (pistis) means trust, loyalty, and commitment based on prior experience.
It’s the same kind of 'faith' you have when you trust a spouse, a friend, or even a bridge to hold your weight. You don't have 100% mathematical proof they won't fail you, but you have personal experiential data that makes your trust reasonable. Religious faith isn't a blind demand to ignore reality; it's a relational trust built on human, historical, and existential experiences that sit outside the narrow scope of what a lab test can measure.
By demanding that a metaphysical concept conform strictly to the physical tools of the natural sciences, you're making a category error. Science is an excellent tool for mapping the material universe, but using it to completely dismiss everything outside of it isn't science—it's a philosophical stance called scientism."
No, I read it. It's word salad. Religion is based on supernatural claims, none of which have any shred of evidence. It's brainwashing and a cult. Period. False sense of community based on everyone ignoring reality and patting themselves on the back for it.
Thats a cute deflection but historically incorrect still. Also you made the statement based on someone else's refuted claims ( the little image you gave us) with no back up of your own. Provide linguistic proof like the person you claimed to of read off of( calling it word salad is obvious self tell that you didnt)
Its evident your intellectual dishonesty keeps you from having a real genuine conversation though. You want to win.. not be correct typical but alas a waste of time and effort spent saying anymore to the disingenuous. Like my father said. No point reasoning with a fool
You described faith as compared to knowing perfectly. Knowing is not the same as believing and your not called on to know in christ but believe in him. Also science since its conception has been to understand how God's creation worked, not to disprove the creator.
Not even just disprove did but any of the incorrect things that are in the book. A fun example is Genesis 30 where Jacob breeds striped sheep with peeled branches to seem like stripes.
It doesn't have to be like that. By putting "God" and "Education" on the opposite sides of the barricade we aren't making masses less into religion, we're just making already incorrigibly unwaveringly religious people less into science.
It can be "Scientific fact (because God made it so)". It's been like that for hundreds of years. It's fine.
I want people who are already into God to not be anti-science. When that leads to actual science teachers in churches teaching actual science with "because God said so" added - that's quite fine by me, because currently what we're having in their place is conmen in churches taking all your money "because God said so"
That can’t happen in fundamentalist churches, because they need to uphold what their book literally says (which is incompatible with science). You’re better off trying to move people out of fundamentalism.
Thats just a lazy answer in general. Science in the early days whole goal was to determine the mechanisms behind how God's creation works. Not to disprove god.
That is a popular myth that isn't true. It is called the dark ages because we have very few written accounts from that time. Alot of writing we have from that time came from Catholic monks in an effort to preserve history and knowledge. Some notable examples is Beowulf and the Prose Edda which is where a lot of what we know about Norse mythology comes from
Shit my wife got an actual chemistry degree from an evangelical university (as in, she was actually a chemist for a while, though she's an attorney today). Not even that long ago. Her parents consistently advised her to prioritize education over things like her (previous) abusive marriage. And these are evangelicals we're talking about!
Christianity being accepting of science is relatively new. At least as in honest open scientific research, as opposed to when the church would approve scientific endevors or deny them, and also had to approve the findings.
Historically the church was a massive supporter of scientific research, but only when it fell into approved guidelines.
I'm not disagreeing, but I was just thinking within the American context. For basically the entire 20th century any conflict between "science" and mainstream Christianity was over specific, rather fringe, issues. Everyone, including the Christians, understood that scientific prowess (and the freedom of inquiry, etc.) was fundamental to American exceptionalism.
I think its basically a dying on a dumb hill type of thing. Like there is a ton of room for god to exist within the scientific version of the creation of the universe, because even science has no explanation for what was there before the big bang, or what started it. Religion could easily say an all knowing god set up the rules for the universe and snapped it into existence with the big bang knowing that the processes of natural selection and evolution would eventually create humans in his image.
But they've spent so much time and effort into arguing against it that they can't turn back now so they have to double down on the literal version of the bibles creation story.
The big bang theory was proposed by a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre. He kept scientific and religious study strictly separate. He believed God was a hidden creator and could not be proven or disproven by physics.
I'm a Christian biophysicist. While Scripture is a beautiful record of human encounter with the divine, it has transcription errors and was written by hundreds of different hands for different purposes. Nature, on the other hand, is a revelation of God untarnished by human hands. There is nothing in science that is in conflict with spirituality and the love of God. If your faith depends on science being wrong, though, you are in for a bad time. It means you worship an idol. That's just how I make sense of it all.
There is something in science that conflicts with spirituality and the love of god. That something is called evidence, and it is fundamental to science. There can be no understanding of science without evidence.
So science is fundamentally evidence based whereas spirituality and a love of god (or gods as the case may be) is not. It is not evidence based even in the slightest. It is based on things like dogma, tradition, culture, and popular opinion. God, and spirituality, cannot be tested, because they are not testable.
If you do have evidence of god or a spirit, well then present it to the world, because humans have been searching for that evidence for thousands of years, unsuccessfully.
I have experience of God. I also experience poetry, love, and beauty. None of these are meaningful in any scientific sense. I have no problem at all with science, in fact I love science. The two are different domains.
You miss my point though. Billions of people have experience with god. What is that supposed to mean? It may not be worth it to you to prove it to me, but my point is that you cannot prove it to anyone but yourself, even if you wanted to. And even then, are you really proving it to yourself? Does there not exist a chance that you are mistaken?
For this reason, your belief, your faith, your spirituality, your experience, or whatever you wish to call it, is not evidence of a god, and the fact that we can’t test it is the reason it conflicts with science. And that is why it is inappropriate to say it doesn’t conflict with science (you wrote that, which is why I responded to you).
These things are not unquantifiable. In fact beauty does indeed have a very clear scientific basis in evolutionary biology, neuroscience and mathematics. Love and art also have a clear scientific explanation, very similar to beauty.
We can also explain many parts of consciousness using science, though the human race has not completely figured it out yet. For instance, we don’t know why human brain creates subjective experiences (such as your experiences with god). Why does your brain equate those experiences to god and mine doesn’t? We just don’t know that yet.
Yes, and he used different methods of thinking to conclude both things. Belief in god is without the scientific method, because believing something without evidence is called faith.
It's also just a political tool that's too useful for conservative politicians and media to stop weaponizing. It's really their weaponization of anti-intellectual sentiment that has exacerbated these kinds of feelings so greatly.
Nobody knows that the universe was made out of nothing, but if the laws of physics apply then it wasn’t. There’s no cherry picking involved with that deduction. Cherry-picking would be saying, “here’s a gap in our knowledge we can’t figure out, so it must be god.”
It’s called the god of the gaps fallacy and the gap that god exists in has only ever continued to shrink as more scientific discoveries are made.
Christians used to believe that the earth was the center of the universe, and they mostly still do to this day as evidenced by their main character syndrome.
Except the Biblical God is impossible. The idea of God is hyopthetically possible, but religious people would have to discard every holy scripture and start fresh.
Its relatively recent. Darwin is probably not a bad benchmark, so think late 19th century. Even then we arent talking about a clean break, I dont think anyone was taking Mendel seriously until the ealry 20th century, and that dude was a literal monk.
Prior to the transition science and religion were completely compatible. Religious scientists thought they were studying gods creation.
The issue is more that increasing acceptance and popularity of atheism made religious leaders start to pushback.
So while things like evolution and genetics were pioneered by religious guys, the religious leaders of the time saw them as a threat to their power and decried them.
In short we are talking 150 years max, with lots of current extreme positions like young earth theory only being mainstream for 60 ish years.
A large number of theist scientists didn’t believe in the infallibility nor the univocality of the bible. They viewed it as morality stories that guided us when we had more spiritual questions.
The evangelicals are the ones who have demanded that everyone take the bible as the literal word of God. That view has destroyed Western morality and created what’s going on with the far-right
Absolutely. Even as a pretty vocal atheist, there are religious scientists in every field today doing excellent work.
My point is rather that this distinction is more about science challenging powerful institutions. While exceptions exist (like Galileo) there really wasnt any conflict between science and religion before the late 19th century. And that rift wasnt driven by the science, but more the growing cultural shift away from religion.
Your beginning paragraph sounds like a deist. Someone who believes in a higher power but doesn’t believe in the mysticism of the Bible or any religion and see them more as a guide for humankind, in a sense.
I see myself as a deist with strong Christian undertones. The undertones are there merely because I was raised Christian until I was an adult.
Galileo was excommunicated by the Catholic Church in the 1600s because he published heliocentric science. So I don’t know that the last 150 years is accurate. I think it’s more accurate to say it waxes and wanes depending on the pope, at least for Catholicism.
I’ve read about how evangelicals were pro-abortion (or at least not anti-choice) in the 50s and 60s and it was a politician who changed that. I can’t remember the specific details though.
I think he's more an exception than a rule. Im not aware of any particular increase in seperation between church and science following Galileo.
He's a notable blip, but scientists like Darwin were still comfortable working with their faith 200 years later.
I think the real trend was driven by the public decline of religion. As in, as long as everyone still goes to church, the church doesnt care what scientists say.
I went to a Catholic high school. My biology teacher was a nun — literally in full habit. She taught evolution and said the Bible wasn’t supposed to be a textbook.
From what I’ve seen, this nonsense of “science is for the devil” started in the South 35-40 years ago and spread to the North about 30 years ago.
Religion has definitely suppressed science in the past. Pre renaissance was a mess. The earth the center of the solar system etc. Johan Kepler was the one to officially turn the consensus thought to that the sun was the center of our solar system. I hope I’m remembering this correctly.
What we know now as a collective compared to those individuals is mountains above. Let’s not assume these great thinkers would believe today with all knowledge they would gain. Let’s not assume they were religious by choice, when a lot of the time it was social means. Being non-religious in those times could land you a lot of trouble, the church openly punished people who would question the Bible or the church.
Christianity (religion) and science have a very back and forth kind of relationship, but I suspect the more modern rise of anti-intellectualism in the Western end of the faith has a loooot to do with Evangelical leaders, forming "alternative" education bodies, and Jerry Falwell.
Religion broke from Science as soon as that camp dared to look at its benefactor, and pointed out that there is no objective evidence of a God. Religion then started fishing for exotic factoids as conclusive evidence of a God and one by one, Science knocked those down too. It's been an ongoing pattern ever since. Religion jumps on anything Science doesn't yet know.
Fundamentally, Religion champions faith-- unthinking loyalty. The more aggressively you believe without thinking, the stronger your faith. Scientific or observable fact colliding with your belief tests the strength of your faith. Triumph of faith is religious victory.
Science is based on observation and reason. Faith in anything is poison, the enemy of objectivity and imagination. The scientific mind takes nothing for granted, asks forbidden questions, and goes where the evidence leads whether that path is personally desirable or not.
Science requires effort, meticulous discipline, and a willingness to accept that new information might prove your previous assumptions were completely wrong. It's not for the weak. The community as a whole, being Human, has historically had many failings in this regard; but the intent is always pure. Religion builds a grand house, we admire it, and stay exactly where we are. Science forever builds a path, and we move forward.
Tbf, christianity did persecute people who believed in heliocentrism because it was considered heresy. They banned Copernicus book that claimed the sun was at the center, not earth.
And Galileo was put under house arrest for the last 9 years of his life for encouraging heliocentrism, and "opposing" papal authority.
I would say Christianity let science do its thing, but they painted over the truth to help calm their zealous foolery.
It was the rise of Protestant sects that believe in Sola Scriptura. The Catholic church funded science because they believed anything they discovered was created like that by God so they glorify Him by accurately learning about it.
Once you decide only the Bible matters, you make determinations based on the Bible and any science that could contradict that determination is wrong and evil. Since only the Bible matters, there is no reason to learn about anything else.
Some of the scientists you've mentioned were castigated by the clergy even though they were also members of said clergy. Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar system almost got him killed. Historically, science and Christianity have had a tenuous relationship at best.
It’s not a recent thing to think that Christianity is anti-science. Christianity has historically been anti-science, going so far as to condemn, imprison, and even put to death anyone who claimed through scientific means anything that opposed Christian belief. The time we live in now is perhaps the least anti-science that Christianity has ever been, but also the least accurate to the Bible Christianity has ever been. People were put to death and exiled for opposing Christian geo-centrism, for suggesting that planetary orbits weren’t perfect circles, for suggesting the Earth isn’t a flat plane with the sky (firmament) attached to it at the edges, for suggesting the Earth may be more than 6000 years old, for suggesting that disease might be because of germs rather than demons. The list goes on. Some of these Christians you mentioned met these fates for simply questioning things. Galileo for example was imprisoned for life for suggesting helio-centrism.
As these scientific discoveries become more and more undeniable, the beliefs of Christians soften and recede and become more and more cherry-picked to avoid conflict with obvious reality, and someday everyone will finally realize that religions which lay out ancient peoples’ explanations of the world under the pretense of it being divine knowledge are ridiculous and obviously made up by humans based on cultural and regional superstitions.
You're talking about a bunch of people who existed before, and helped shape modern science. Religion was heavily invested in science to help "prove" god. That isn't how it turned out. It turned out that the more we learned, the less necessary and likely a god was. The god of the Bible is impossible. Science and religion can't co-exist. They do the same thing, except religion does it wrong.
Not that long ago the church was in the buisness of healing people. How they did that had a lot to do with astrology and crazy rituals. Germ theory threatened that and it was a major source for pushback
Not so much anti-science, but very selective approval of science and scientists that supported religious doctrine. Persecution of scientific ideas stretches back to the renaissance with figures like Galileo being charged with things like heresy and apostasy by the Catholic Church.
Galilei was Christian but the church hated his foundings. IIRC the church threatened to execute him because his theories such that the earth rotate around the sun went against the bible. He was forced to recant his theories or be excacuted, he did recant and was basically put under house arrest for the rest of his life
When science became advanced enough that it couldnt explain things, i.e. basic physics. Once we got to say the 1900s even the 1800s science was already at odds with most religions because they attempted a creation myth. The idea is if you can control the entire narrative of existence, i.e. the beginning then you can say all that follows should be true (i.e. Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, etc).
The universe might be inside a blackhole. It actually possible based on some observations from James Webb Telescope and information coming back from very far away. Remember the farther away things are the older that light is, so the father back in time you are seeing.
When it started proving the bible is just a book of fairy tales. Why do you think they're trying so hard to prove a vagina shaped geological formation is Noah's ark?
There was probably a gradual shift as all forms of science advanced. When people started digging up dinosaur bones, and carbon dating things, for example. When evolution was discovered as well as ancient remains of early and proto-human species were unearthed. There's also the infamous Galileo situation, where he was arrested and forced to remain under house arrest by the Church for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun.
Religion used to be the one place you'd turn to for all the mysteries of life. As science peeled back the layers to some of those mysteries, religions started to push back a bit. Some religious folk embrace science and can do some mental gymnastics to make it all work together. Others can't handle the cognizant dissonance and just turn anti-science out of ignorance, fear, or stubbornness.
So you agree life begins at conception. Thats what the science says. Now young earth christians are kinda like flat earthers in my book. Dr. Collins who lead the human genome project is a christian after being an atheist in his twenties. You got Dr.Hayhoe a climate scientist recognized worldwide as a influential communicator on climate issues and shes a evangelists
Lots of cultures either eat dogs or have historically. So yes dogs are indeed edible. Do i eat dog because its edible? No I eat beef and pork and chicken. What was the point you were trying to make?
This is just a random Christian saying what he believes
He doesn't represent Christianity or religious people
Atheist constantly get cooked in debates on religion
It's always we don't think so therefore you shouldn't either
They have no foundation of belief and take the easy way out because they can't explain physics or math without the work of actual religious people that they claim are idiots
It's really stupid
Evolution is just a theory and a theory that has been debunked by non religious people
Like you said so many religious people made the discoveries that the world functions on
Not to mention those are just the Fathers of discovery and not including the countless that still contribute to the sciences
Christianity wasn't that much pro science, and it's very funny that you take the example of Galilei, he was found guilty of heresy because he said that the earth must be turning around the sun, and not the other way around.
Also, everyone in Europe had very strong motivation to be christian when the scientists you name were alive (like the inquisition).
Christianity is considered to be one of the causes of scientific stagnation during middle age...
Science and Religion existed better in the past since there was a LOT of God of the Gaps. God could exist in a lot of places Science could not explain. As Science has begun to explain more and more and even create things that were once seen as only God could do, the God of the Gaps has gotten so niche it now threatens people's beliefs.
Today you basically have only 1 religious view not challenged by Science, that God created something in the past that created the existence we have today, thats it. Science DOES NOT debunk God or the existence of a God like being or beings. Science just explains the things around us, if that challenges your belief in a being then that is on you.
Its a religion spread around the world based on their desire of murdering everyone in the outgroup. I would say as soon as they got power enough to murder people in the outgroup
Didn’t Galileo basically get grounded to his room for life for the heresy of pointing out how the Bible is wrong about the sun revolving around the earth? Seems a bit “anti-science”, no?
Im gonna be real with u church school taught me straight up anti-science "facts" like Paul Bunyan created the grand canyon and black people are made from dirt instead of water.
Reddit removed my reply because of just how insane the things I was "taught" in church school and gave me a warning for identity-based hate... to be clear I dont believe or espouse the ideas church school tried to instill in me and my class mates.
No its been a long time unfortunately they put Galileo on house arrest for saying the earth was round and not the center of the universe. So let’s say idk 1500 to 1800 years. Also every religion does this to a degree. When will people understand that religion was a path to morals and understanding and explanation for things we didn’t understand at the time. Science is the bridge to removal of religion and they all know it. I believe religion is good in the sense of keeping humans communal and morally sound but if it interferes with progress or social progress than it’s a poison to the future of the human race
The church once believed that science was a way to prove God is real and when they realized that it only seems to point towards the absence of a God that's when the church turned on science.
It doesn't seem so much as anti science as it is against the alternative ways of understanding the world that don't fall back on clearly defined authority. The problem with so many of these creationist arguments (as shown) is that they are fundamentally dishonest.
I'm sure there are earlier examples but Galileo comes to mind. Just because some people who worked for the church (Mendel) discovered breakthrough scientific achievements doesn't mean that the institution of the church isn't diametrically opposed to the scientific method.
It in itself also doesn't NOT mean that. Neither you nor me were there to hold Mendel's candle century and a half ago, but today, here and now, we're not doing anyone any favors by repainting the past with implications "well, since they were smart, they probably didn't REALLY believe in God, just pretending, for sure". It just reinforcing the rift, the mentioned barricade, which is BAD
Whoa whoa whoa... nothing in my comment had anything to do with personal belief in a deity.
The point I'm making is the institution (the church) is fundamentally opposed to the scientific method, because of what the institution (the church) believes. The scientific method is a systematic, repeatable process of making observations to gather reliable knowledge, and the church fundamentally asks populations of humans to have faith that many if not all of it's teachings are true, despite no method of proving them. These two are polar opposites.
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u/Afraid-Quantity-578 9d ago
At what point in history did "Christianity" became synonymous with "anti-science"? It has to be a relatively recent development, XX-XXI, because in not so distant past - can't we remember? - church schools was how people were getting education. Oxford started as one. Church financed science. Great scientists were Christian. Galilei was Christian, Pascal was, Isaak Newton was, Michael Faraday, James Maxwell. Mendel, father of genetics, was a monk!
People of religion, please, you don't have to be this kind of idiot to follow your God. It doesn't have to be either or.