Hence it's notable that the only text Stark quotes that actually seems relevant,
in fact says the exact opposite of what he claims. In this he may have been duped
byjaki (what excuse Jaki could have escapes me), but I think Stark's failure to
check the original is a mark of either incompetence or delusion.;? When
Aristotle says everything "had been invented several times over in the course of
ages, or rather times without number," Stark not only claims he is referring to
technology, but that Aristotle meant "the levels of technology of his time were at
the maximum attainable, precluding further progress," and (I suppose we're
meant to infer) as in technology, so in science.38 But here is the actual quotation
in context:
It seems it is not a new or recent discovery among political philosophers
that the state ought to be divided by class and ... have public meals.... So we
must suppose these and other things were discovered many times, over a
long period, or rather countless times. For it seems the necessities of life
teach men what's useful in and of itself, while it is reasonable to expect an
increasing refinement and improvement of those things established at the
start.... Therefore, one must rely on what has already been adequately
discovered, but also attempt to seek out what remains to be discovered.39
Observe: Aristotle is specifically referring only to political organization, not
technology, nor any scientific knowledge of any sort. In fact, he is only referring
to two political inventions in particular: the development of a class system and
of public meals, both of which he traces to long past civilizations in Crete, Italy,
and Egypt. He only concludes these (and certain "other things") must have been
invented everywhere because he sees them everywhere, as far back as recorded
history. And he still doesn't say no progress could be made in them. Rather,
when he says such things have been invented many times, all Aristotle means is
that necessity is the mother of invention, and therefore wherever a certain
necessity arises, we can expect to find men inventing what is necessary to deal
with it. Aristotle immediately adds that there are still many things left to be
discovered and we should look for them-exactly the opposite of what Stark
claims.
Similarly, when Aristotle says "it is reasonable to suppose that each art and
philosophy has been developed as much as possible and then lost again, many
times over," he does not mean progress has ended in his own day, nor even that it
would end anytime soon, but that in each cycle the arts progress as far as they
can before some world catastrophe casts us back into another Dark Age, and we
have to start over.40 Since no such catastrophe was at hand in Aristotle's day,
there is no indication he imagined his society had reached the end of its
progress-to the contrary, as we see in the Politics, he clearly believed there was
much more to be had, and even declares it our obligation to pursue it. Aristotle
expresses his faith in the future advance of human knowledge in many other
contexts as well.41 There is simply no evidence, from Aristotle or any other
pagan after him, of a belief in eternal cycles impacting anyone's confidence in
the value and possibility of scientific progress. To the contrary, we have ample
evidence that many pagans, especially scientists, not only believed in such
progress, but labored for it.
Pagan Animism
We're also told pagan animism impeded science. As Stark puts it, "if mineral
objects are animate, one heads in the wrong direction in attempting to explain
natural phenomena-the causes of the motion of objects, for example, will be
ascribed to motives, not to natural forces."42 This is simply false. Neither
Aristotle nor any scientist after him ever sought to explain much of anything in
this way, except when they should have (as in the study of human and animal
behavior) and when Christians did (as in the search for God's purpose and design
in nature).
Again we catch Stark not reading his own sources, and instead trusting Jaki
(who has no such excuse). They both imply Aristotle (and every pagan after
him) believed objects fall to the ground "because of their innate love for the
centre of the world." 43 But in his book On the Heavens Aristotle specifically
argues against this explanation. He instead says planets or falling objects must
move because of fixed innate tendencies-in our words, because they obey natural
laws.44 A strong indicator of deception, incompetence, or delusion is when you
claim your sources say exactly the opposite of what they actually say, and then
base your entire grand theory on that remarkable error. Yet had Stark checked the
explanations of motion, or any other behavior of inanimate objects, in Aristotle
or any pagan philosopher after him, he would have found the exact opposite of
what he claims.
Even D'Souza knows enough to admit it was the pagans, beginning with the
Presocratics, who originated the idea of "a universe that operates through
discoverable rules of cause and effect" and thereby "replaced the idea of an
`enchanted universe' with that of a `disenchanted' cosmos accessible to
unassisted human reason." 45 D'Souza then claims "their influence was short-
lived," but that's false. Far from being short-lived, it became the standard view
among GrecoRoman philosophers, driving scientific progress for five centuries.
All ancient scientists sought to explain everything as a conjunction of natural
causes, developing mathematical laws, mechanical explanations, and theories of
fixed natural properties and forces. Not one sought to explain anything in terms
of the arbitrary desires of physical objects. Even the notion that the gods actively
govern the world, thus rendering it capricious and unpredictable, was abandoned
in favor of a consistent rational order that could be studied, understood,
modeled, and predicted.
Though many among the illiterate masses retained the old animistic view, this
was ridiculed by pagan intellectuals. The Aetna, for example, an epic Roman
poem about volcanology, argues such ignorant animism must be rejected in favor
of mechanical explanation, and then proceeds to describe mechanical
explanations of volcanic phenomena.46 Medical scientists from Erasistratus to
Galen sought to explain all human physiology in terms of machinery or physical
principles.47 Astronomers from Posido-nius to Ptolemy could certainly imagine
modeling the solar system as a machine 48 The behavior of air, water, the
weather, everything was similarly explained 49 Even when "reductively"
mechanical explanations were rejected, they were not replaced with animism,
but physical theories of innate natural powers-which could often be correct, such
as Galen's theory of kidney filtration, which held that the kidney is no mere sieve
but contains smartly engineered forces of attraction that naturally select toxins to
extrude from the blood, a conclusion he proved by experiment.50 And far from
attributing planetary motion to unpredictable desires, Ptolemy attributed it to
innate natural po
wers that obeyed mathematical lawsdeveloping, for example, an
"equal angles in equal times" law that entailed planets varied their speeds in a
manner that clearly inspired Kepler's second law of equal areas in equal times.51
Though Ptolemy did suspect the force that propels the planets might be
"planetary souls," these were as fixed and predictable as Kepler's "planetary
souls," being as mindless as magnets or any other physical force.52
Hence Stark's contention that after Aristotle ancient scientists were explaining
the whole universe in terms of animistic motives is pure fantasy. That never
happened. Nor is there any basis for believing it did. And a belief that's not only
based on no evidence, but refitted by all the available evidence there is, certainly
looks like a delusion.
The Head-Hand Divide
Though Stark doesn't rely on it, another common premise is that pagans didn't
have science because there was a sharp divide between educated thinkers and
those who worked with their hands-due (we're told) to some sort of aristocratic
disdain for getting dirty. Since the ancients very clearly did have science, we
already know this theory is false. But not only is the causal connection
demonstrably absent, so is the alleged cause.
The evidence is abundantly clear that all ancient scientists were not only
superbly educated theorists, but also master craftsmen engaging in their own
handson experiments and even building their own instruments. All the works of
Ptolemy and Hero are filled with discussion of the machines and instruments
they had built, and how to build them, many of which had to be manufactured
with fine precision. All the works of Galen are filled with discussion of his
personal dissections and surgeries and vivisections, as well as his repeated
insistence on the importance of doctors developing and maintaining their manual
skills, and conducting dissec tions and vivisections themselves instead of relying
on others, and even making their own drugs. The Renaissance anatomist
Vesalius famously railed against a split between the surgeons as handson
workers and doctors as the "books and theory" guys, but in antiquity no such
split existed, as Galen amply attests and insists upon.53 Hero similarly
maintained that physicists and engineers needed both extensive book learning
and handson skill, especially in metalwork, construction, carpentry, and
painting.54 So if any split ever did occur, it can only have been on Christianity's
watch.
One of the most decisive proofs of this is the archaeological recovery of the
world's earliest known astronomical computer, a machine built by Greek
scientists shortly before 100 BCE that sank in a ship off the island of
Antikythera a few decades later. Using meticulous and superbly crafted epicyclic
gearing, the machine calculates the day and year in several calendars, the
positions of all the planets in the zodiac, as well as the sun and moon, and the
phases of the moon, and predicts lunar and solar eclipses, all up to two centuries
in advance, reported on a system of dials and displays." This computer is
superbly crafted, yet employs advanced astronomical and mathematical theory,
conclusively demonstrating that pagans imagined no conflict between theory and
learning, and craftsmanship and hard work. To the contrary, they had frilly
united them. Christians just weren't interested in preserving this knowledge.
CONCLUSION
In the colloquial sense, a delusion is any belief that is not merely false, but easily
shown to be false on even a cursory check of the facts, yet held with a conviction
out of all proportion to the evidence. On that count, this new idea that
Christianity was not only responsible but necessary for the rise of modern
science is certainly delusional. A delusion becomes pathological when this belief
is held with absolute conviction even in the face of compelling evidence to the
contrary. And on that count, I think people unmoved by the evidence in this
chapter are not just delusional, but off their rocker.
None of the premises on which this delusion is based are true. They all
misrepresent the facts or the texts, often quite egregiously. Nor are the arguments
employing these premises even logically sound. But more disturbingly, this
whole fantasy ignores what are, in fact, the values necessary for scientific
progress: embracing curiosity as a moral virtue, elevating empiricism to the
status of supreme authority in all disputes of fact, and valuing the pursuit of
progress. Many ancient pagans held to all three values, so strongly and
persistently that they made continual advances in scientific findings and
methods. Christianity, by contrast, for a long time never esteemed these values,
and in many cases even denounced them. There was nothing in the Bible or the
original Christian mindset that had any tendency to favor them. Only with
considerable ingenuity, and against considerable resistance, did some Christians
eventually figure out a way to reintegrate these pagan values into a thoroughly
Christianized culture, and then only after many centuries of nearly complete
disinterest.56
Nevertheless, like all good delusions, this one is built on kernels of truth.
Pagans did set the stage for the end of ancient science-just not for any of the
reasons Christians now claim. By failing to develop a stable and effective
constitutional government, the Roman Empire was doomed to collapse under the
weight of constant civil war and disastrous economic policy; and in the third
century BCE that's exactly what it did. Pagan society responded to this collapse
by retreating from the scientific values of its past and fleeing to increasingly
mystical and fantastical ways of viewing the world and its wonders. Christianity
was already one such worldview, and thus became increasingly popular at just
that time.57 But as one could predict, when Christianity came to power it did not
restore those scientific values, but instead sealed the fate of science by putting an
end to all significant scientific progress for almost a thousand years. It did not do
this by oppressing or persecuting science, but simply by not promoting its
progress and by promoting instead a deep and enduring suspicion against the
very values necessary to produce it.
Likewise, modern science did develop in a Christian milieu, in the hands of
scientists who were indeed Christians, and Christianity can be made compatible
with science and scientific values. Christianity only had to adapt to embrace
those old pagan values that once drove scientific progress. And it was Christians
who adapted it, craftily inventing Christian arguments in favor of the change
because only arguments in accord with Christian theology and the Bible would
have succeeded in persuading their peers. But this was a development in spite of
Christianity's original values and ideals, returning the world back to where
pagans, not Christians, had left it a thousand years before at the dawn of the third
century. Only then did the Christian world take up that old pagan science and its
core values once again. And only then did further progress ensue.
Had Christianity not interrupted the intellectual advance of mankind and put
the progress of science on hold for a thousand years, the Scientific Revolution
might have occurred a thousand years ago, and our science and technology today
would be a thousand years more advanced. This is a painful truth that some
Christians simply don't want to hear or accept. Hence they flee into the delusion
that it isn't true, that Christianity was instead so wonderful it not only caused
modern science, but was essential to it. But, as the facts prove, that simply isn't
true.
Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion Page 54
