Religious Children Meaner then Secular Counterparts??

[Joe Bagadonuts]

There is really nothing to "replace" religion in early human societies. It is a natural product of how humans think, and it arose in every human society without exception. When you look at it from that angle, then yes, the question becomes nonsensical because religion was a constant of society that cannot be disentangled from the rest. But if you look at the role of modern monotheism, it becomes a lot clearer. Compared to previous systems, God was a very powerful invention. The level of advancement attained because of it was unprecedented in human history. It even enabled vast progress in morality, compared to earlier societies. Take the Greeks for example. They were able to undergo a mini-Enlightenment within just a few hundred years. But it was eventually all lost because they lived in a perpetual state of war. As bloody as Christian Europe was, it was considerably less bloodthirsty than classical civilizations.

I can explore this a lot further, but I really got to go back to work.

This is spot on. Religion arose out of man's innate need to explain the phenomena around him. Very quickly religion became the basis of societal organization and the motivation for obeying its rules. Better religious systems literally gave one society a competitive advantage over another, and because religion was so central to identity, both individually and as a community, beliefs were worth going to war over. Weaker societies were eliminated by (or integrated into)stronger ones. The major religions that exist today owe their success (in my view) to the fact that they serve the needs of their particular societies so well.

Religion and science have an interesting relationship because the reason humans are attracted to them is the same: our need to explain our world. Religion releases it's grip very reluctantly even when overwhelming evidence demonstrates that its explanations aren't correct. But bit by bit it is being replaced. There is still a lot that science can't explain, but not nearly as much as there once was. This shrinking domain (except in the case of ignorance under which God's influence will always flourish) is the last stronghold of religion. Among most educated people, though, it's becoming increasingly obvious that we are at a point in human development where organizing society around religion is not the ideal choice.

 

[♪alt13]

The Church established universities and paid to send monks and priests there, then supported them to pursue a lifetime of study of natural philosophy. They were pretty much the only consistent sponsor of such pursuits for half a millennium worldwide. And during that time, human knowledge advanced by leaps and bounds. Even basic concepts of logical thinking comes from that period. For example Occam's Razor (Occam was a friar).

But it goes far FAR deeper than that. I recommended those books because they offer a good overview of the subject, and provide you with useful level of knowledge on the issue. Read them if interested, or don't. It's nothing to me.

There is really nothing to "replace" religion in early human societies. It is a natural product of how humans think, and it arose in every human society without exception. When you look at it from that angle, then yes, the question becomes nonsensical because religion was a constant of society that cannot be disentangled from the rest. But if you look at the role of modern monotheism, it becomes a lot clearer. Compared to previous systems, God was a very powerful invention. The level of advancement attained because of it was unprecedented in human history. It even enabled vast progress in morality, compared to earlier societies. Take the Greeks for example. They were able to undergo a mini-Enlightenment within just a few hundred years. But it was eventually all lost because they lived in a perpetual state of war. As bloody as Christian Europe was, it was considerably less bloodthirsty than classical civilizations.

I can explore this a lot further, but I really got to go back to work.

You've been had my friend.

The first universities were not established by the church. They coalesced around guilds, teachers, students and were based upon the Hellenistic schools of Plato and Aristotle(the platonic acadamy was closed in the 6th century by the eastern orthodox church, derp). They were student supported institutions. It wasn't until long after their establishment that they were "founded" by the church in an effort to control them. Even among the monks it wasn't graduates of monastic schools that pushed science forward, it was the ones that also attended academies and universities established by the people that had use for them. It wasn't religion. It was guilds. It was real world utilitarian education and the demand for it that created universities.

Don't believe me? University of Bologna/Paris/Oxford, it's the same story.

 

[Red]

Can't fail to be impressed by the quality of discourse in this thread. Thanks to all for your food for thought.

 

[fishonjazz]

If life gives you lemons, make beef stew.

Fixed

 

[Siro]

You've been had my friend.

The first universities were not established by the church. They coalesced around guilds, teachers, students and were based upon the Hellenistic schools of Plato and Aristotle(the platonic acadamy was closed in the 6th century by the eastern orthodox church, derp). They were student supported institutions. It wasn't until long after their establishment that they were "founded" by the church in an effort to control them. Even among the monks it wasn't graduates of monastic schools that pushed science forward, it was the ones that also attended academies and universities established by the people that had use for them. It wasn't religion. It was guilds. It was real world utilitarian education and the demand for it that created universities.

Don't believe me? University of Bologna/Paris/Oxford, it's the same story.

Platonic tradition did not make its way back to Europe until WELL into the middle ages through the spread of Islamic scholarly work. Here's the wikipedia section of roots of universities in Medieval Europe:

The university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[4][5] Prior to the establishment of universities, European higher education took place for hundreds of years in Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), in which monks and nuns taught classes; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6th century AD.[6]

With the increasing growth and urbanization of European society during the 12th and 13th centuries, a demand grew for professional clergy. Before the 12th century, the intellectual life of Western Europe had been largely relegated to monasteries, which were mostly concerned with performing the liturgy and prayer; relatively few monasteries could boast true intellectuals. Following the Gregorian Reform's emphasis on canon law and the study of the sacraments, bishops formed cathedral schools to train the clergy in Canon law, but also in the more secular aspects of religious administration, including logic and disputation for use in preaching and theological discussion, and accounting to more effectively control finances. Learning became essential to advancing in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and teachers also gained prestige. However, demand quickly outstripped the capacity of cathedral schools, each of which was essentially run by one teacher. In addition, tensions rose between the students of cathedral schools and burghers in smaller towns. As a result, cathedral schools migrated to large cities, like Bologna, Rome and Paris.

Some scholars such as Syed Farid Alatas have noted some parallels between Madrasahs and early European colleges and have thus inferred that the first universities in Europe were influenced by the Madrasahs in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily.[7] Other scholars such as George Makdisi, Toby Huff and Norman Daniel, however, have questioned this, citing the lack of evidence for an actual transmission from the Islamic world to Christian Europe and highlighting the differences in the structure, methodologies, procedures, curricula and legal status of the "Islamic college" (madrasa) versus the European university.[8][9][10]

And it is true that eventually universities started to emerge organically from need for professional training (in large part demand for professional clergy!). But the Church recognized them, financed them, protected their secular autonomy from political interests, forced them to include math and science in their syllabus, protected student and master free speech and gave them immunity from state prosecution, and later established publishing houses to spread scientific papers all across the continent (and did tons more actually). It really requires ignoring all the evidence in existence to deny the role of middle ages Christianity in pushing science forward.

History is complicated, and the world isn't black and white, and neither is the role of the Christian church. Anyone can cherry pick facts in order to confirm an established bias, but an objective look at history shows that The Church played a role in advancing knowledge that easily dwarfs its role in suppressing it.

I know you poopood the book recommendations written by secular historians of the Middle Ages, but I'll give a link to a nice article on the subject for those interested in a quick factual account of the time.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-science-make-little-real-progress-in-Europe-in-the-Middle-Ages

 

[moevillini]

And if life gives you corn, make high fructose corn syrup.

and if life gives you ****, use it to fertilize your corn and double your yield


at any rate, it makes perfect sense that a child from a more religious background would tend to be meaner because they more likely are raised to have a sense of moral superiority and with a belief that "God" is on their side

 

[Gameface]

and if life gives you ****, use it to fertilize your corn and double your yield


at any rate, it makes perfect sense that a child from a more religious background would tend to be meaner because they more likely are raised to have a sense of moral superiority and with a belief that "God" is on their side

Bingo Disco!