Did Christianity inhibit intellectual progress?

As Plato sought abstract truth from the mind and banned poets from his republic, so the medieval Catholic Church, following Augustine, fixated on doctrinal controversies and persecuted heretics and pagans.
 
BidenPresident said:
Christianity, in its intellectual iterations, didn’t replace Greek thought, Mr. Freeman argued in that earlier book, but adopted one part of it: that of Plato rather than Aristotle. Western thought consequently became inward, rational, deductive and “authoritarian,”

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And wasn’t Aquinas’ scholasticism, which defines the Catholic Church today, based upon Aristotle, why else would he even attempt to rationalize explaining the existence of God?
 
archives said:
And wasn’t Aquinas’ scholasticism, which defines the Catholic Church today, based upon Aristotle, why else would he even attempt to rationalize explaining the existence of God?
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Yes, Aquinas calls Aristotle, "The Philosopher." But he also admitted Aristotle would not believe in Aquinas' God.
 
The American strand of Evangelicalism too frequently is safe harbor for ignorance. The Creation Science Museum is a manifestation of that.

Taking history as a whole, western intellectual history is inextricably bound with Christianity at least until the 18th century.

The Christian Platonists and Christian scholastics resurrected Greek thought and Greek logic in western Europe.

In late antiquity and the early Middle Ages the monasteries were the only centers of literacy and learning in western Europe.

The first universities in Europe were all founded by Christian theologians and intellectuals. Harvard and Yale were established as religious schools to give the sons of the landed gentry a classical education.

Astronomy and literacy were kept alive through the Dark Ages by European Christianity because scribes needed to be trained to copy bibles, and precise astronomical calculations were needed to identify when Easter and associated holidays fell on the calendar year.

I would say humanist education started to put down roots in the Italian Renaissance, but a truly secular education wasn't firmly established until the 19th century.
 
I can only speak for the religion that in past history afflicted my own family [although not that much], Catholicism.

If they had stuck to paintings, statues, music, architecture, etc,
they'd have been OK. We were really good at that stuff, and it had actual value.

Instead, they started talking about religion, and now they're starting to sound like those crackers in the little white wooden churches, "God" help us.
I blame moving from Latin to the local regional languages in the services. [At least I'm told that they did that.]
We became common, and as with all populists, stopped being socially relevant in the civilized places.
 
BidenPresident said:
Christianity, in its intellectual iterations, didn’t replace Greek thought, Mr. Freeman argued in that earlier book, but adopted one part of it: that of Plato rather than Aristotle. Western thought consequently became inward, rational, deductive and “authoritarian,”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-re...n2l3tudgyt8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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This is idiotic. Harvard and Cambridge were frickin' monasteries... The church veritably created the university system. Pretending something created by the church itself is somehow inhibiting an intellectual process that you participate in readily and daily is simply absurd.
 
Damocles said:
This is idiotic. Harvard and Cambridge were frickin' monasteries... The church veritably created the university system. Pretending something created by the church itself is somehow inhibiting an intellectual process that you participate in readily and daily is simply absurd.
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They tried to kill Galileo. That's not a good thing.
 
Damocles said:
This is idiotic. Harvard and Cambridge were frickin' monasteries... The church veritably created the university system. Pretending something created by the church itself is somehow inhibiting an intellectual process that you participate in readily and daily is simply absurd.
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Harvard was not a monastery. But it did start as a divinity school. But that was when most people were not very literate and expected the clergy to explain the Bible.
 
Damocles said:
This is idiotic. Harvard and Cambridge were frickin' monasteries... The church veritably created the university system. Pretending something created by the church itself is somehow inhibiting an intellectual process that you participate in readily and daily is simply absurd.
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The Jesuits were teachers of Aristotelian logic, and when they succeeded, their students became less religious with the knowledge.
That's why places like Boston College and Holy Cross and Fordham and Georgetown are doing at least some good for society,
while places like Liberty Baptist and Oral Roberts and Bob Jones University are training right wing domestic terrorists.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
The Jesuits were teachers of Aristotelian logic, and when they succeeded, their students became less religious with the knowledge.
That's why places like Boston College and Holy Cross and Fordham and Georgetown are doing at least some good for society,
while places like Liberty Baptist and Oral Roberts and Bob Jones University are training right wing domestic terrorists.
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Jesuits educated Descartes. Then he told them to fuck off.
 
BidenPresident said:
Harvard was not a monastery. But it did start as a divinity school. But that was when most people were not very literate and expected the clergy to explain the Bible.
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Ok. It wasn't a monastery, but a divinity school... which changes nothing of what I stated. The reality is the church created the university system in which you believe "intellectualism" is somehow instilled into their students. They educated many, including those who never were Christians and never would be. Again. This is like asking if Ford is killing the automobile industry because KIAs suck. Folks should think before they just absorb stupidity and start spreading it around like it was KY jelly and you needed to lubricate everyone.
 
Damocles said:
Ok. It wasn't a monastery, but a divinity school... which changes nothing of what I stated. The reality is the church created the university system in which you believe "intellectualism" is somehow instilled into their students. They educated many, including those who never were Christians and never would be. Again. This is like asking if Ford is killing the automobile industry because KIAs suck. Folks should think before they just absorb stupidity and start spreading it around like it was KY jelly and you needed to lubricate.
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Heidegger studied theology. And then became a Nazi. He kept talking about the coming of a new messiah.
 
BidenPresident said:
Heidegger studied theology. And then became a Nazi. He kept talking about the coming of a new messiah.
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Which still isn't "the death of intellectualism"... Again, pretending that Ford is killing the auto industry because some car someone bought sucked doesn't pass muster any more than this does. Students aren't manufactured, and some idiot doing bad things doesn't stop folks believing they are elite intellectuals after they participate in the system that the church actually created.
 
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