Posted: Apr 21, 2019 12:07 pm
Pridefel Knowitelz wrote:Do you think we would be further ahead if it had been atheists who started the scientific tradition?
By scientific tradition I assume you mean empiricism.
The issue then is tradition - that clearly requires that it is not merely a solitary effort, but a widely accepted practice.
Empiricism was clearly proposed and practiced in antiquity - Kanada, Aristotle, Epicurius, the Stoics, most of whom leaned toward Atheism. It was a tradition among their followers for a period of time.
So presumably you mean by the 'scientific tradition' that which followed the enlightenment.
There seems to be little argument that progress in the realms of science was frustrated after the fall of Greece and the christian conversion of the Roman empire.
So perhaps, one way of looking at this is to question whether religious domination of societies has delayed progress in empiricism.