From: Richard Kerr <>

Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian,aus.religion

Subject: Re: Atheism – an Australian View

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 13:43:40 +1100

Hi Folks,
I wanted to write a detailed response to Danny and Chris on the subject

of the role of the Church in the rise of science, but it looks like I’m

just not going to have time before Christmas. I’ll have to make do with

an attempt at a summary of everything that’s been said and a few

responses.
I am essentially making two claims:
1) The Middle Ages were not really “Dark” for science. Although comrade

Death would like us to think that the Church was antithetical to science

in all its forms there is plenty of evidence (from the invention of

clocks to the establishment of Universities) that this is not the case.
I don’t want to gloss over the spectacular abuses that also arose in

this period (in fact I introduced Copernicus to illustrate these), but

it is just not fair to say that religion, even organised religion, has

always been and will always be opposed to freedom of scientific thought.
I take it that we are all agreed on this.
2) The spread Christianity was a unifying force that made science

possible. This is a more difficult position to defend, especially given

the widely varying societies in Europe at the time, but it seems like a

pretty good general rule to me.
Regarding this Chris Ho-Stuart wrote:
> I think the

> assertion about unifying faith making science possible is shooting

> in the dark. I think we may agree that a stable and affluent society

> helps (which is not to say this is a sufficient condition). However,

> it is unreasonable to give special credit to the church for this. To

> say that there “was no other body that could have ruled during

> this time” is simply stating that the church happended to be the

> most powerful political organization at that time, which does not

> (to my mind) mitigate the defects of their rule.
I am aware that I’m skirting perilously close to historical speculation,

but there are some very good reasons why I say this.
There are other examples of religions unifying regions in turmoil. I’ve

already made the comparison with the Arab Peninsular and Islam, but

another good example is the Nile, from the delta to Nubia, united by the

ancient Egyptian religion. The wealth of that region was harnessed when

people learned to work together rather than strictly enforcing their

tribal boundaries.
Regarding this Danny Yee wrote:

>

> Richard Kerr  <> wrote:

> >

> >Rome’s hold on Europe north of the Alps had

> >always been tenuous. The “provinces” had always been problematic for the

> >empire.

>

> I don’t think this is true for Gaul, or for Illyricum, or even Britain.
I’ve forgotten where Illyricum was (and I don’t have time to go to the

library), so I can’t comment on that.
Gaul is a good example for your case, it was united by the Roman

occupation well before the rise of Christendom. In my defense I will

point out that Gaul straddled the Alps and was the closest European

territory to Rome outside what we now call Italy (if my geography is

good enough, that is), so it seems to me that the further you get from

Rome the more fragile the pax Romana and the more necessary some

unifying force after the fall.
On the other hand Britain is a spectacular example of what I’m talking

about. In 410, when Rome was sacked, the Brits were told that they had

to defend themselves. This was a real problem because the Welsh were

always in turmoil, the Scots had to be locked out of the empire

altogether by Hadrian’s wall, and the Irish were under observation

rather than control.
By 428 Wales and the land as far south as York had largely moved back to

tribal rule and things were looking decidedly dodgy for a united

Britain. It was only when the Evangelist Saints arrived from the

continent that the population started to redefine itself away from a

tribal structure.
A good example of this is St Patrick in Ireland. Before his arrival the

Picts were united only in their hatred of everybody else. After his

death, not only had he rid Ireland of snakes but the people were

beginning to cross tribal boundaries to work together.
Some random tidying up:
I used the word “Urbanise” to describe the effect of the Church. Danny

quite rightly picked me up on this. The forces leading to urbanisation

are more complex than just a unifying worldview, but the fact that

tribal boundaries were broken down by Christianity contributed.
The rise of Christianity did not end factional tension altogether.

Unfortunately, it seems to have allowed tribes of the same language to

unite, but even the parable of the Good Samaritan did not help the

French to see the Germans or the Spanish as their brothers.
Danny mentioned Norway and Sweden as potential Nation States prior to

Christianity. This may be true, but I would want to look into the

strength of tribal allegiences in the area before conceding the point.

If I remember correctly the Danes were united briefly under

Vercingetorix by the threat of Roman rule. He was defeated and they

fractured again into a state of tribal tension that outlived the Pax

Romana and was only ended by Christianity. If Norway and Sweden are

roughly analagous to this, speculation about the rise of nation states

there without Christianity seems to me to be even more risky than my

position.
—

Regards,
Richard Kerr            Ph: (02) 9351 5320

SUHRF 2000 Project      Fx: (02) 9351 5323

University of Sydney