That class
Some folks have expressed an interest in knowing a bit more about my Communication, Technology & Christianity class since I posted the midterm from hell yesterday. If you’re so inclined, the course page is here, and it includes the syllabus, links to many of the readings, and a downloadable version of my dissertation, which is the primary text for the course.
Or you could go watch basketball….
lullaby pit 
It looks like an interesting course, and I might look over your writings when I have time this weekend. However, I noticed this on the first paragraph of the class website: “It’s no exaggeration at all to say that without the efforts of Christians and Christian communities over the past two millennia, technology in the 21st Century would look a lot like it did in the 11th.”
This seems to imply that Christanity has had a positive effect on science — but it appeats to leave out the fact that from the Dark Ages throught the Renaissance, if any sicence was going to be done in Europe, it would, by default, be done by Christians. Furthermore, if Christianity did not have such a strangle-hold on European culture, one might argue that science and technology could be far advanced from what it is today.
Just a thought. Judging from your past posts I’m sure you address this possibility — it just jumped out at me as an apparently loaded statement.
You’re expressing what I believe is a fairly common perception here – and this is probably not far from what I thought before I dove into this stuff, too. In fact, there is a vast and complex history surrounding competing strains of Christian theology and their impact on scientific and technological development.
It’s impossible to say what tech would look like had there never been any Christianity, obviously, but an examination of the historical record makes clear that the Millennarian strain is responsible for driving massive advances in tech development. We tend to think, because of our recent history, that Christianity and Science are inherently opposed, but nothing could be further from the truth.
That’s what makes the first few weeks of this course so intriguing, actually….
Totally unrelated post, but I noticed you got your masters here at ISU. That is where I am working right now and I am considering getting my masters in a creative writing/communications area (its been a long time since I’ve taken any sort of writing class — the last being when I was a history major in the early 90’s — so I start as a non-degree student). I realize its been awhile since you attended ISU, but you do recall having a positive experience in this program?
It was two of the best years of my life. It was a really good program, although I’m not very in touch with who’s there and doing what these days. Is Neal Bowers still active?
The only trick about it is that Iowa has the MFA, the Writer’s Workshop, and the big rep. ISU’s MA isn’t a terminal degree and if you want to do something like teach CW at a university, they won’t regard the degree as being sufficient, probably (not that a couple national book awards wouldn’t overcome that).
So really it depends on what you want to do.
I believe I have read some material to this effect. I probably am judging (and misjudging) Christainty mostly on its modern role in society and culture. However, there are instances in history (the obvious being Gaellio, Bruno, Copernacus, Hypatia, etc), where the Church or church officials have actively worked against the advancement of science when it looked to conflict with doctrine.
Obviously you are right, it is impossible to say what science and technology would be like today without Christianity. However it is possible to say that at times Christianity (as an organization and a philosophy) has worked against the advancement of science.
I think if I took the program here, it would mostly be because I am currently ISU staff and can get most of it paid for and a pace of one class a semester. Given the choice, yeah, I’d go back to Iowa City.
Ahh – yes, the Roman Catholic Church acted against Science. Yes. But the scientists it was acting against were devout Christians who saw their study as fully part of the divine work. Further, you had the church declaring Millennarian theology heretical, despite the fact that its adherents included devout Franciscans, for instance.
So you had competing groups of Christians at odds over various issues, some ostensibly scientific, but mostly political. Meanwhile, Christians were forging ahead with advanced projects of sci-tech.
One of my points were that if you were a scientist in Europe over most of the last two millennia, chances were almost certain that you were a Christian. Also, if you are going around publishing and relaying on grants from royalty and the like, you better make it look like you are a devout Christian doing Christian science.
That said, I admittedly am in the dark about many of the detail here and do intend to do more reading on the subject.
Well, I’m sure they were all aware of the political advantages to being Christian. And at that point, EVERYBODY was Christian, period. There was a lot of interesting rationalization in places. But you read all this stuff – especially track back into the Noble book referenced in the syl, for instance, and you begin to see how very real it was for these folks.
BTW, when I set out to do my dissertation, I had NO FREAKIN’ IDEA this is where I was headed.
As a student in the course, I have to admit that it has made me view alot in a different light (DAMN YOU!!). I wish all courses were designed on such a level of thought and insight.
I was also of the belief that Science and Christianity are, and always have been opposed. I found the error in my ways (I have become a Gibson fan because of this course as well).
I’m currently reading the Oxford History of Islam for fun (not for the faint of heart – it’s one of my sister-in-law’s former textbooks) and the section on Islam’s influence on science has been absolutely fascinating. Specifically, it’s been fascinating just how much advanced mathematics (trigonometry, for example) was either developed or “perfected” by Muslim’s in Persia and Iraq. For example, Copernicus’ proposal that the planets orbited the sun and not the earth had been made a century earlier by Muslims in Persia, and Copernicus had acquired a significant amount of the research (which is not to say Copernicus was plagiarizing, because he did expand the idea significantly – it just wasn’t exactly new).
Which makes me wonder if part of why the RC hierarchy attacked people like Galileo was because they had the audacity to use science and math from the heretical Muslims. And don’t get me started on the cultural bias of how the “greatest scientists” of all time are Western.