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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is the answer stark and right?
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Croesus:
quote:
The biggest problem with arguments like this is they mostly depend on cherry-picking a very narrow set of examples. For instance, if Christianity is required for economic prosperity, why is non-Christian Japan (GDP $34,871 per capita) more prosperous than Christian Romania (GDP $9,157 per capita)? Or why was Christian Europe much less economically prosperous than the Muslim middle east or imperial China in the Middle Ages?
The obvious problem with that comparison is that economic development in Romania was retarded by a command economy foisted upon them from the late 1940s to 1989 by a government that could hardly be characterised as Christian.
But the example of Japan, I think, points to a more profound objection. One the West had started developing science, industry and representative governments other societies could follow suit. Christianity wasn't an integral part of the model. Which obviously raises the question as to what extent it was a cause of the rise of the model in the first place. To be honest I would be somewhat surprised if it made no contribution but to some extent there was the introduction of something truly novel which some Christians were unable or unwilling to suppress and which other Christians sought to justify with Christian arguments. Macaulay's essay 'On The Civil Disabilities Of The Jews' is a case in point. Macaulay sincerely makes the case for giving Jews full civil and political rights from a Christian point of view, but we would hardly deduce from this that Christianity was inherently and intrinsically philosemitic.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
It is probable that later theological changes in christianity enabled more stable populations to communicate ideas and kick off the technological revolution.
Another take on this idea is not that Christianity caused the technological revolution. Rather, God caused the technological revolution to facilitate the spread of Christianity. Which it did.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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