Science's Historical Nemesis

What is the one event in history that has hindered the advancement of knowledge? The greatest blow to knowledge has been the rise of Christianity. Christianity changed focus from logical goals, such as politics, science, and security of an empire, to a mythological heaven, where people focused on the afterlife, with less care to the immediate life. This new philosophical outlook laid the foundation for Rome’s decline. Christianity ignored Roman technology, lost Roman inventions, persecuted scientists, and today challenges scientific breakthroughs.

In the days of Rome, new technologies abounded. Roman cartographers had mapped most of the eastern hemisphere, enabling Roman merchants to consistently trade with Sri Lanka and eastern Africa. Few things are as important as a transportation system and Rome was no different with its extensive network of maintained roads. Ungrateful to “pagan” technology, Christian bishops overused the roads without paying road tolls, essential for maintenance. Thus, these roads, which were more advanced than our modern roads, fell into disrepair. Roman technology declined as Christianity rose.

New inventions were rapidly appearing in Rome. Using Archimedes’s screw, Romans had improved the wine press; the printing press should have followed. However, the printing press was not invented until 1440 because Christianity did not advance Archimedes’s technology. Despite its invention, the Church regulated printing because it undermined their power. Sewage systems and flush toilets existed two millennia ago in the heart of the Roman Empire. On the other hand, medieval European cities had no sewage system. Moreover, the modern toilet was not reinvented and mass-produced until the eighteenth century. When Rome fell, so did the number of inventions.

Throughout history, Christianity has pressured, threatened, and persecuted scientists. Copernicus remained quiet, until shortly before his death, about his theory that the sun was the center of the solar system, yet Catholics could not resist slandering him in his epitaph. Christians, including Protestants, fiercely censored Galileo, a Christian with the first evidence supporting Copernicus’s theory, for his “atheistic” findings. Many Christians disagreed with Newton’s theories because they supposedly changed God’s direct action on human lives to material mechanism. Numerous scientists either faced persecution or waited until their dying moments to come public due to fear of persecution.

To this day, Christianity has wielded its influence upon science. In the 17th century, Protestants opposed quinine, malaria medication; in the 18th century, Catholics objected to smallpox vaccination; in the 19th century, Christianity questioned the usage of anesthetic. Today, sects of Christianity remain against blood transfusions and organ transplants. From its rise to power until contemporary times, Christianity has preferred superstition over knowledge.
Apart from actions, Christianity has openly spoken against science. “There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiousity…It is this which drives us to try to discover the secrets of nature, those secrets beyond our understanding which can avail us nothing which man should not wish to learn.” – St. Augustine. Where would we be today if Christianity had not risen to persecute, then bully, science?


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