Medieval europe Quote by Rodney Stark

““SCIENCE AROSE ONLY IN Europe because only medieval Europeans believed that science was possible and desirable. And the basis of their belief was their image of God and his creation. This was dramatically asserted to a distinguished audience of scholars attending the 1925 Lowell Lectures at Harvard by the great philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), who explained that science developed in Europe because of the widespread “faith in the possibility of science... derivative from medieval theology.””

Rodney Stark

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“Keep in mind that democracy merely gives power to the people; it does not ensure that power will be used wisely or humanely.”

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“Laws requiring a certain frequency of church attendance, the taking of Communion, and baptism of infants soon appeared all across the Lutheran areas of…

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“But Christendom was not merely a community of warriors or even a community of the nobility. It was a civilization! Unfortunately, for generations everyone…

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“No doubt Western modernity has its limitations and discontents. Still, it is far better than the known alternatives—not only, or even primarily, because of…

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“By the seventh century, Christianity probably was far stronger and more sophisticated in North Africa and Asia than in Europe.”

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There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin…

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“But following these Stone Age discoveries, progress was slow. It is estimated that in terms of the standard of living, things were pretty much the same for the next seven thousand years.1 People ate about the same amount, lived about the same lifespan, and buried about the same high percentage of their children. Even in the West, as recently as…

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Mormons are an extraordinarily educated and professional population. They have all these virtues: They work hard, don't skip school, have no scandals. Consequently, you…

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Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs.

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“n medieval Europe, a new slave would place his head under his master’s arm, and have a strap placed around his neck, in imitation…

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America did not need to be discovered because quite simply America had the American-Indians. There were whole groups of people that already lived there including very developed societies such as the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Mayans. But then came the European vision that saw the conquest as a source of advanced growth away from medieval Europe. The new revolutionary…

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The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know…

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“The dominance of the man on horseback was challenged during the fourteenth century in what some historians call the infantry revolution. English longbowmen and Swiss pikeman proved to be more than a match for cumbersome heavy cavalry, the pikemen winning their first notable victory at Laupen in 1339, the longbowmen at Crécy seven years later. Firing longbows or holding pikes…

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“Beneath the pseudo-scientific terminology one can in each case recognize a phantasy of which almost every element is to be found in phantasies which were already current in medieval Europe. The final, decisive battle of the Elect (be they the ‘Aryan race’ or the ‘proletariat’) against the hosts of evil (be they the Jews or the ‘bourgeoisie’); a dispensation on…

Norman Cohn

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