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Modifying your analogy... But if rather than biblically literate medieval peasants, we had biblically literate medieval scholars founding universities to study

Modifying your analogy... But if rather than biblically literate medieval peasants, we had biblically literate medieval scholars founding universities to study not only the Bible but also the classics, mathematics, the sciences, the arts, we would have the early foundations of the modern world. Consider that the oldest universities (Bolonga in 1088, Oxford in 1096, Salamanca in 1134, Paris in 1150, Cambridge in 1209, and Padua in 1222, and Toulouse in 1229) were primarily founded by Christian scholars who sought administrative and academic freedom (e.g. Padua's founding) because of their convictions based on the Bible that free inquiry is essential to finding truth. My analogy, implied for tech, would be that free access to source code and technology is necessary to build strong foundations for technological freedom, as the biblical source code was necessary for building strong foundations for free academic inquiry. Jesus himself connects his word with knowing the truth and says the result is freedom - see John chapter 8.

boogies 6y ago
The Bible as a source of religious power is a great analogy. John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Johannes Gutenberg, and others in some cases risked and lost their lives and their freedom (Wycliffe was confined in Black Hall and his body was exhumed to be burned, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake) to make it widely printed and available to the common people in their vernacular. Eg. “The Anti-Wycliffite Statute of 1401 extended persecution to Wycliffe's remaining followers. The "Constitutions of Oxford" of 1408 aimed to reclaim authority in all ecclesiastical matters, and specifically named John Wycliffe as it banned certain writings, and noted that translation of Scripture into English by unlicensed laity was a crime punishable by charges of heresy.” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Last_days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Last_days

boogies 6y ago

The Bible as a source of religious power is a great analogy. John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Johannes Gutenberg, and others in some cases risked and lost their lives and their freedom (Wycliffe was confined in Black Hall and his body was exhumed to be burned, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake) to make it widely printed and available to the common people in their vernacular. Eg. “The Anti-Wycliffite Statute of 1401 extended persecution to Wycliffe's remaining followers. The "Constitutions of Oxford" of 1408 aimed to reclaim authority in all ecclesiastical matters, and specifically named John Wycliffe as it banned certain writings, and noted that translation of Scripture into English by unlicensed laity was a crime punishable by charges of heresy.” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Last_days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Last_days