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While the premises may have been superstitious craziness, the Christian Church in the West developed an astonishingly successful and huge range of social instit
by forkandwait 9y ago
While the premises may have been superstitious craziness, the Christian Church in the West developed an astonishingly successful and huge range of social institutions. I believe this infrastructure has been a huge driver of our political and economic dominance in the last 500 years. Even the science that is overthrowing religious superstition would not have been possible without Church supported universities and general education.
Also, as a social service bureaucrat, my job would have been within a religious organization until 1875 or so. And probably better executed than under modern "scientific" paradigms.
I just hope we throw out the baby but keep the bathwater...
- baumandm 9y agoVarious religious groups have been the dominant social and political organizations for large swaths of the world, across large time periods. This is true of Christianity but also Islam and other religions. As a result, many achievements are credited to religious individuals or religious cultures. But is this anything more than a coincidence? It seems obvious to me that culture dominated by religion will produce religiously-motivated social institutions, and that historically-notable men and women will themselves be religious.