With considerable discontent, I just concluded a conversation with a young man (I assume he was young, and human — on the Internet one never knows) about the deleterious effect of Christianity on the march of science and progress. The exchange (I will not call it a dialog, since we were merely speaking past each other) consisted of his assertion that Christianity deters and discourages science, and my request for some historical evidence to back that assertion, and my request for some evidence to contradict my assertion to the contrary, namely, that the scientific revolution took place in Christendom and nowhere else because the ancient world and the Near and Far Eastern civilizations lacked the intellectual and metaphysical foundations needed for the theory of knowledge called empiricism.
I was told in condescending terms that since Catholics oppose infant stem cell research, ergo we oppose the march of science (or, rather, we oppose SCIENCE!). I pointed out that someone can oppose aborticide, contraception, experimentation on condemned criminals, euthanasia, and genocidal eugenic control of human breeding without being opposed to science, even if some scientific knowledge might eventuate from these practices. As if saying to oppose the Pharaoh’s using Hebrew slaves to build pyramids was to oppose the march of architecture. (ARCHITECTURE!) I did not bother to point out that infant stem cell research was a bust, and that the smart money is on adult stem cell research.
The other talking points raised in the exchange were of like quality: merely inchoate and unsupported opinions, emotion, error, mush.
But enough. The ability or inability of a random stranger glancingly encountered on the Internet says nothing of the merit or demerit of the argument. Allow me, in support of my argument, to introduce into the record an piece by Fr. Paul Haffner describing the theory of Stanley Jaki in his book CHRIST AND SCIENCE.
I came across this on the website of the Augustine Club of Columbia University. I reprint the whole piece without further comment, including footnotes and references, because I fear that the link might not long remain, and I should like to preserve the article even if it disappears from the Columbia U website.
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