Christianity contributed nothing

Response to the Pope October 16th, 2006 (posted by ray harris)

Christianity and Abrahamic monotheism has always had a conflicted and contradictory relationship with logic and reason. Far from creating an harmonious synthesis of faith and reason the Church actually held reason and scientific progress back. It is also true that some Abrahamic scholars (including Muslims) studied the classics, thus preserving the Greco-Roman tradition, but other scholars (and fanatics) also distorted and corrupted the GR tradition. Many important GR works were lost or intentionally destroyed. And even then the more fanatical followers of each of the traditions struggled against reason and science.

But the Pope is being disengenuous to suggest that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment was somehow fostered by the Church. Far from it. The sources of the Renaissance actually come from the influence of high Muslim culture. The Church may very well have had monks and scholars who could read Greek and Latin and therefore read the classics, but this knowledge was largely kept within the Church with the fist of blasphemy always hanging over proceedings. Contact with Muslim scholars undermined Church control and allowed the beginnings of the secular study of the classics.

It has always amused me that the very Church that suppressed the findings of Galileo and Da Vinci (particularly his studies of anatomy - stopped because some fuckwit thought he was practicing the witch’craft’ of necromancy) tries to make the claim that Christianity was a necessary component to the development of science.

But what of India? Was there no science in India? Anyone who has studied Indian philosophy knows that it developed reason and logic. In fact Indian culture has always had a genius for mathematics and science, a natural extension of Indian logic. And what of China? I just don’t buy it - Christianity contributed nothing, nix, nada. It was only ever (and still is) an impediment to reason.

The ‘theological’ development of a god of reason was the result of the power of logic and reason. Early Christian thinkers who understood reason and logic very quickly realized there were enormous problems with early Christian theology, enormous contradictions and inconsistencies. So what they did was change the nature of God and turn him from a capricious tyrant into a rational designer. The tail did not wag the dog - that is, Christianity did not modify reason, reason modified God.

I would add finally that by the time of Joshua the Nazorean the Greeks had understood that the gods were metaphors for the human condition. An early Greek criticism of Christianity attacks it for its ‘primitive’ literalism and its extraordinary irrationality (pointing out the glaring logical errors). Unfortunately the literalists eventually gained power and suppressed the more nuanced Greek view. So when ‘pscychology’ was first developed who did they turn to to explain the human condition? Why, the Greeks. ‘Psychology’ - psyche and logos, the ‘word of the psyche’. Christianity has offered f*** all insight into the psyche.

And why does science invariably turn to Greek and Latin to name theories, states, types and conditions? ie Homo Sapiens, homosexuality, the Oedipus complex, anima and animus? Even the name Jesus Christ is a bastardized Latin and Greek concoction (in English he should be called Joshua, the Messiah).

What Christianity has been very good at is inserting itself into the story and appropriating classical ideas. And this is exactly what Ratzinger is trying to do, make out that Christianity has something to do with the growth of reason. No, it happened despite the Church. Incidentally, the whole story of Joshua wandering the land with a group of disciples is a Greek idea. Rabbis did not collect ‘disciples’. Joshua, in dressing simply and taking a vow of poverty, was copying Greek mystery and philosophical schools such as the Pythagoreans and Cynics. Posted in Ray's Integral Blog 2 Comments » show comments »