In Response...

A comment made on James Kim's last blog, and featured in the Knight News, didn't settle right with me, so I feel there is something that needs to be discussed. Andrea, I believe it was, made a comment that "religion prevents us from thinking." This statement always sends chills down my spin and rubs me the wrong way. It was a similar idea about religion that inspired me to write my last article "Religion Stigma", and that is a poor generalized, and ill-informed view of what religion really is.
First of all, I would like to challenge the idea that religion is archaic and restricts an individuals ability to "think." I think the group of believers in history that best counters that argument would actually be medieval Muslims. Islam, today, has been portrayed as a backwards life-style immersed in radical rhetoric and illogical concepts of reality. However, as historians have been pointing out for the last few decades, the civilization under early Islam has contributed some of the most important scientific discoveries, which are still significant today.
Early Muslim Astronomers made great observations of celestrial movement, and expanded on the work done by Greek astronomer Ptolemy. Muslims also built the earliest known public hospitals and made great advancements in medicine. Interesting, Adrea cites the bubonic plague as an example of how religion restricts thought, however if we widen the scope of our discussion it is clear that religion has helped to make great advancements. Now you might be wondering, how do these advancements necessarily relate to the Islam, rather than the secular society? Well first of all, there was no distinction at that time period between religion on the rest of society, and most importantly, many of these advancements were made under the patronage of the caliphs and other deeply religious people. This civilization also greatly expanded on mathematical concepts, most of which was borrowed from India. You don't need to be a Math major to be familiar with many of these contributions, including algebra and the decimal system.
Early Islam also produced some of the best philosophers of the ancient or medieval world. As a matter of fact, if it were not for the Muslim philosophers, most of what we know about Greek philosophy would have been lost. If anyone is familiar with the work of Al-Ghazali or Ibn Sina, you would understand what I am talking about.
This brings me to my next point, euro centrism. We tend to think of religion from a European understanding, but if where "religion" and "philosophy" are two different subjects. However, in places like India, for nearly 7,000 years, the two have been inseparable. We tend not to pay much attention to Indian religious practices, or Hinduism, because it seems very foreign to us with their many gods and goddess. However, ancient texts such as the Bhagvad Gita and oral traditions connected to the Vedas have offered complex philosophical arguments and ways of understanding the world that have not been reproduced in quite the same way anywhere else. India even produced perhaps the best and most influential philosopher in history, Siddhartha, or better known as Buddha. In Buddha's teachings, he outlines the principles of psychology literally thousands of years before it is recognized as a field of study anywhere else in the world. Buddha's teachings have even been strengthened, according to modern followers, by recent discoveries in physics, theoretical and niro-psychology, and biology (If you are interested, read the book What the Bleep do we Know, and then read any book about Buddhism, and compare!).
By no means am I trying to discredit western religion either. Perhaps it is true that the Catholic Church in particular has been very unreceptive if not in direct opposition to scientific inquiry. However, it is very short sided of us to cite this as the general rule for all religions, even Christianity. To further this point all we need to do is look at perhaps the most significant theory of our time, which has revolutionized the way we look at our universe; the so called "Big Bang." Much of what we know about the universe can be traced back to one brilliant man, Albert Einstein. Although Einstein was brilliant, as I have said, he was not perfect. Perhaps his biggest mistake was that he believed in some Universal Constant. He lacked the information necessary to come to the conclusion, that most people would agree with today, that the universe is expanding, not lock in a constant size constriction. It was actually none other than a Catholic Priest named La Mantra who came up with the theory that, due to evidence that the universe was expanding, that the Universe at one point must have been an infinitesimal point. The origin of our origin, which we tend to agree with, was the product of a Priest. Now I am not trying to argue that it is a direct result of religion, but to say that religion prevents us from thinking seems like an absurd statement after considering this.
Also one must remember that many of the early science that was conducted in Europe was done by either Monks, or under religious patronage. Individuals like Franis Bacon never saw a conflict between faith and science. Many might recall that genetics was a theory produced by a Monk.
So from Math to Astronomy to genetics, and from Buddhism, to Islam, to Christianity I think I have covered all the grounds...oh wait, what about Judaism? Now I am not particularly familiar with Jewish contributions to science in modern context, however many might be familiar with such great Jewish philosophers and scientists such as Maimonides, who contributed greatly to the world of medicine that was practiced in the public hospitals established by Muslims. I would also like to mention what I see as hard evidence that religion does not prevent us from thinking, but rather encourages us to think, the Talmud. If one would read just a few selections from this book you will find the greatest example of the art of debate and rhetoric. You will find the intricate arguments displayed in point-counter point formations where contextual arguments are formed based on Torah, reason, and precedence. This, by no means, is your typical commandment "Do as I say" holy book, but rather a genius example of modern logical thought put forward by the best minds of the time.
Please do not misunderstand me, I am not trying to say religion is responsible for all our progress in history. I am not trying to say that these points prove that any particular religion, or religion in general, is the right way to view the world. All I am trying to say is that religion does not prevent people from thinking. As a matter of fact, religion practiced well, will encourage thought. If we can break out of this very euro centric idea of what religion is, we can see that religion is not the antithesis of thought or reason. When the secular state permitted slavery to continue in this nation, the earliest abolitionists were Quakers and evangelicals in the back country who believed the Spirit could touch anyone, and disregarded cultural rules of race, gender, and class.
There are so many cases where religion and other forms of inquiry and social justice have worked well together. These examples listed here were done very quickly and superficially, and if you are interested I would recommend you look deeper into the issue. If I may, we can also be self-reflecting for a moment, and realize that perhaps the best evidence that religion supports thinking, debating, questioning, and challenging, is this blog and section of the paper that we have dedicate our time to. Its very existence speaks volumes that religion can be used as an inspiration for many fields of inquiry. So does religion really prevent us from thinking? I think not.