I enjoyed how Hobsbwan talked about the age of Enlightenment and its influence on the universe and different areas of science. I enjoy learning about different forms of science and their roots so this part was very interesting to me. I would have preferred he focused on the topic a little more and gave a better in depth idea about it though.
My question is: if science never played a key roll during this time and advances were never made in certain ares, how important would religion be to us today? If religion was more of an everyday thing for a larger portion of the world, compared to the amount now, would our world be the same?
Science and secularization played a huge role in the globalization process, and as other groups mentioned, the advanced cultures in Europe and the US took their sophistication as another justification for "civilizing" and conquering less developed nations. However, I believe that even without their scientific advances, their globalizing tendencies would have continued. The process of colonization started before the scientific explosion in the belle epoque. While technological advances, and a desire for new knowledge of foreign areas may have motivated some of the globalization, I think Europe and the US would have expanded for the economical reasons alone. And as for the effect on religion, it would probably be more prevalent in many regions. But we can't forget that religion is still extremely important in many of these secularized regions. Religion is still a major issue here in America, and across Europe. For an example of religion influencing politics here in America, just look at the pro-life/pro-choice debate, many of the moral arguments stem from religion.
ReplyDeleteNo I don't think that the world we be the same. As the previous commentor stated, there are issues that we are currently being faced with that stem from the separation of church and state doctrine that we in America have tried to employ. The fact that religion still plays a large part in our legislation and scientific advances (e.g. is cloning moral, stem cell research, abortion, etc.) shows that there religion is still a major influence in sociey today. Nonetheless, if the scientific revolution had not occurred, I think religion would still dominate the way in which we proceed in our every day lives and the emphasis on science would have been marginal. If this had happpened perhaps many of the scientific advances that we enjoy such a my microwave oven, or the internet which I am using to post this comment would not exist. How different the world be. Would the world have been better off it religion had remained the focus in the west? Maybe, but the change in emphasis from the theological to the rational had huge implications on the how the world operates today.
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