• Blueshift@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I interpret the image as saying: (some) religious people believe all answers worth knowing have already been revealed to us, and can only be found through study of the same few religious texts written hundreds of years ago. So those religious people don’t necessarily feel they already know everything, but they are convinced that the religious texts are the source of all knowledge.

    I don’t know enough about Islam to claim that this applies, but it certainly applied to Christianity up until the enlightenment: there was no point in doing experiments to find out more about the world, the answer was already in the Bible. If you couldn’t see it yet, you needed to study the Bible more.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      That wasn’t quite it. The church believed the natural sciences fit within a framework of metaphysical doctrine. The church engaged in all sorts of research and experiments because they believed it would prove the truth. People like Darwin and Copernicus and such were all commissioned by the church to develop and research their work.

      What happened was there became a growing body of work that did not align with the church that could not be reconciled. They did the science, they were just subject to the demands of political power of their time.

    • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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      3 days ago

      I don’t know enough about Islam to claim that this applies, but it certainly applied to Christianity up until the enlightenment: there was no point in doing experiments to find out more about the world, the answer was already in the Bible. If you couldn’t see it yet, you needed to study the Bible more.

      This is just plain wrong.

      Have a look at this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_and_technology

      What often happened was that rich people’s sons became priests, because it was a respected and not very time intensive endeavor. This would give them ample free time to engage with the sciences as much as they wanted.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      there was no point in doing experiments to find out more about the world, the answer was already in the Bible. If you couldn’t see it yet, you needed to study the Bible more.

      For the umpteenth time in my life: What the shit Christians? Anyway if that’s the standard we’re working with then no, Islam isn’t like that; in fact the Quran explicitly states that all of God’s creation contains signs of His greatness that must to be pondered. Lemme just…

      We will show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this [Quran] is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a Witness over all things?