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Most of the pioneers of science and rational thinking were religious. One can believe in one thing based on logic and evidence and still have beliefs that aren’t as well grounded. Newton was a genius and paved the way for so many things, yet dabbled in the mystics and alchemy. Doesn’t downplay his science work.
Most of them were forced to be religious or they’d be burned alive as heretics.
How many were actually atheists? Id wager most
Yep.
If you weren’t doing science under the church, the church was rarely happy someone was doing science.
Everything had to be approved by the church at every step. Not just science, but often art as well.
I really wonder what scientific discoveries the Vatican has stored away in their vaults
Imagine the world we would live in if the dark ages never happened…
Perpetual motion puppies.
Maybe deists, not necessarily convinced of the Christian god but thinking there could be something in control.
I bet some of the non devout were agnostic deists, believing in general “intelligent creation”.
Some of these folks view the pursuit of knowledge on the universe as understanding God’s designs.
Catholics don’t have a problem with science in fact the belief is that it is a sin if you have a talent given by God and waste it.
The problem are the Christian sects that decided to interpret the Bible literally that led to these conclusions.
Especially once you get into genetics and evolution. A lot of those theories directly contradict creationist theories.
They don’t know the difference between:
because
vs
despite
Counter point: Galileo.
And Giordano Bruno
I was not aware of Giordano Bruno. 😮
Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno’s pantheism was not taken lightly by the church,[2] nor was his teaching of metempsychosis regarding the reincarnation of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned alive at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori in 1600.
The Roman Inquisition still exists, though they have gone through a few name changes and are now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. They have the same goal, but they don’t have as much power so they can’t get away with murdering people anymore.
I think the whole Galileo Galilei affair demonstrates the attitude of the Church before and after the fact. Didn’t the RCC finally forgive him (irrespective of admitting he was correct) in the 1990s?
Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître a Belgain Catholic priest and cosmologist who hypothesized the primeval atom beginning of the universe, now the Big Bang Theory
Pope Pius XI was so impressed and glad to have a scientific theory that informed a beginning of the universe (where God could be inserted) that he gave Lemaître a promotion… right out of the astronomical department.
Lemaître, who was a much better scientist and mathematician than he was a bureaucrat petitioned his way back into astrophysics, not amused by how God works in mysterious ways, sometimes.
Jimmy Carr has a great perspective on the church. Preblack plague the priests were the smartest people in the village.
Post black plague the churches took anyone with a pulse. The Renaissance gave education and wealth redistribution organically to topple monarchies.
I mean, this is Catholic, a specific branch of Christianity. Fundamentalists like Jack Chick think that Catholicism is devil-worship, but I’m sure these people would be like, “yeah, he’s a weirdo, but I wanna laugh at atheists, not actual crackpots!”
