Yesterday on his radio program, Michael Medved had on Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who made the provocative (but actually obvious) assertion that people in Judeo-Christian cultures are much more likely to survive natural disasters such as the earthquake a few days ago in Pakistan. For example, several years ago there were earthquakes of identical magnitude in Iran and Paso Robles, California. In Iran, some 30,000 souls perished, whereas in Paso Robles, only two unlucky victims lost their lives.
Lapin's point wasn't that God somehow favors Christian nations and punishes Muslim or pagan ones. Rather, it was that only in the Christian West was there the development of science and advanced technology, and with it, the ability to deal with the ravages of nature--floods, earthquakes, fires, famines, plague, etc. Local officials may have been inept in dealing with Katrina, but one can well imagine how many thousands would have died under the same circumstances in a second or third world (or non-protestant Christian or Jewish) country.
The sociologist Rodney Stark has written a fascinating book that touches on this topic, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch Hunts, and the End of Slavery. He marshalls the most recent scholarship disproving the cliche that Christianity was at odds with science, and shows instead that it was essential for the rise of science.
Put it this way: the scientific revolution occurred just once, in just one civilization--something like 99.98 percent of all scientific inventions and discoveries have occurred in western Christendom. Everywhere else, science either never appeared, or it petered out after some initial advances--for example, in China and the Islamic world. And the reason science could not be sustained in these civilizations is specifically religious.
Judeo-Christian metaphysics facilitated science in several unique ways. Remember, the practice of science is based on a number of a priori assumptions about the world that cannot be proven by science. Rather, they must be taken on faith--indeed, it would not be going too far to say that science is based on a foundation of revelation.
In short, Christianity depicts God as a rational being who created the universe in a rational, predictable, and lawful way that is subject to human comprehension. In other words, science is based on the faith that the world is intelligible, that human beings may unlock its secrets, and that doing so actually brings one closer to God. (Bear in mind that I am attempting to condense 100 pages of detailed evidence and argument into a paltry couple of paragraphs.)
Only does Judeo-Christian metaphysics posit the doctrine of God creating the universe "out of nothing" at a specific point. Images of God in non-Judeo-Christian religions are either too irrational or impersonal to sustain a scientific world view. Rather, they posit either an eternal universe without ultimate purpose or meaning, or an endlessly recurring one that either goes nowhere or is subject to decay.
Although there is profound wisdom in Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics, it really could not sustain science, because it regarded the world as unreal--as maya--and taught that the best way to deal with this was liberation or escape into samadhi or nirvana. This dismissive attitude toward the material world prevented development in India for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks are not really responsible for the rise of science. While they had a lot of speculative theories, they never developed any way to empirically test them. In fact, Plato thought that it would be foolish to try, as the material world was subject to constant change, and truth could only be found by ascending to a timeless realm where the eternal forms abided.
Likewise, Islam cannot really be regarded as part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Although science began to develop at the outskirts of Islam, it was eventually stymied because the attempt to formulate natural law and general principles denied Allah's absolute freedom to act in an arbitrary manner on a moment by moment basis. This has led to the stultifying fatalism that pervades the Islamic world, since Allah does what he pleases, and it is blasphemous to try to comprehend his ways.
In part two of this post, I will focus on the remarkable psychological transformation in human beings that was facilitated by the Judeo-Christian tradition and the rise of science: the mysterious and unprecedented development of the modern self in a vertical dimension perpendicular to history. We take this self for granted, but, like science, it developed to its fullest in ony one place and time, and one of the world-historical tasks before us is to generate the conditions that allow this psychological development in other, non-Judeo-Christian cultures.
In reality, geographical space is developmental time: different cultures achieve different levels of psychological development, and get stuck there. There is a historical precedent for success in this area. For example, we succeeded in vaulting the Japanese out of their developmental stagnation in a tribal group-mind, and now we are trying to accomplish the same thing in the Islamic world.
Historically, wars have been fought over territory and resources. Now the human mind is the turf, and the battle is being waged on a vertical dimension in order to "colonize" as many noggins as possible. In other words, our task in the "war on terror" has nothing to do with land, oil, or territory per se, but with the inevitable problems caused by a more primitive mode of psychological development that has access to weapons that, on its own, it could never have developed (because of its primitiveness). This is a war between different levels of psychological development.
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6 comments:
Rosecrucian:
Concur. It is entirely possible that Islam would not have survived had it not been for the fortuitous discovery of oil under their feet. Otherwise, their dysfunctional worldview would have gone the way of other cultures, such as the Aztec. The uncreated wealth of oil prevents them from receiving the feedback they need to correct course, and fosters the magical illusion that there is nothing wrong with their way of looking at the world. Sort of like a retard with a billion dollar trust fund.... No wait, that's George Soros.
As someone increasingly monomaniac on the usefulness of the Myers Briggs, I think in those terms. It appears to me Judaeo-Christianity and, perhaps, Buddhism, can find a place for all the temperaments (although the NTs seem to have staged a coup at the Episcopal Desk...)
Not really an explanation, but a way to look at breadth within the dogmatic boundaries of any religion. For instance, "submission" as a key meme disallows the reflexes so dear to SPs (pragmatic solutions) and NTs (reevaluating the system). On the other hand, NFs (relationship primacy) and SJs (cautious and responsible) probably do better in such tribal contexts.
Richard Grant Ph.D. in Austin is doing interesting work from which I blithely steal....
I see Christianity as a shell; in expending tremendous mental and psychological effort breaking out from it, society has developed the necessary strength to grow into a new age. Christianity was just the right hardness of shell; not too tough to be penetrable, but strong enough to demand those who rise from its fetters earn it.
Now generations have been born and raised without ever needed to escape from anything by their own efforts. Thus we have our leftist boobs who have never had to struggle with anything, mental or otherwise, in their life. They've never had to confront themselves as flawed and inherently sinful, but have had everything gifted to them from fawning parents eager for their children to love them.
"But, I detect some sort of dialectic- did not scientifc thought flourish in an atmosphere of receding religiosity, i.e., the enlightenment period? Clearly, the judeo-christian epistomology was necssary, and even foundational, but was it sufficient?"
Good point, clearing up. There is no question that the enlightenment brought with it a diminution of magic and superstition. However, I think the magic and superstition were a product of the "default" state of human beings, which involves a more primitive merger with the environment and a confusion between subjective and objective. Christianity accomodated this kind of thinking for a long time, in order to grow--especially Catholicism. I believe that even today there are places in South America and Africa that, although nominally Christian, are somewhat indistinguishible from paganism.
The real dialectic, which I hope to address in the subsequent post, is between religion and psychological development. The key is psychological development, however it occurs. There are definitely some unique aspects of the Judeo-Christian tradition that spurred the development of the modern self, although, like everything else, it took time.
It is not easy to overcome individual and collective superstitions. I don't see where orgnanized religion has foisted any more superstitions on people than say economics, politics and even psychology. Has it been that long since the mentally ill were chained? Remember lobotomies? 150 years ago, Blacks were property and how long has it been since women couldn't vote? I have a bit of trouble connecting all of this to monotheism.
To elaborate a bit on what gagdad alluded to, I noted when living in Africa in a predominately Muslim area, ju-jus were very prominently worn by many, many people and there were still some old-time pagan type ceremonies. I was in the Peace Corps and I recall one time during a dry spell a bunch of the women dressed like men, went into the bush and held a secret ceremony. It didn't bring any rain, nor did traditional prayers at the mosque.
Interesting post. I blogged something similar a while ago, on the OODA Loop and 5th Generation Warfare
Dan tdaxp
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