Socraticgadfly’s review of The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success > Likes and Comments

Any viewing of NHK World TV programming, esp. Science View & J-Tech Innovation & Evolution, woul cast doubt on the author's premise. Note that, though comprising pockets of Christians, largely reminants of times when they were allowed for political expediencies, Japan has done quite well with their own Einsteinian-like "native-natural" Shinto-Buddhist religion, thank you! This includes sects localized to revere, investigate & exploit each of their 8-hundred-ten-thousand (hachi-hyaku-man) I.e. innumerable, deities & Buddha-natures, perspective that have allowed them to view reality without bias as to "intents" & proceed without the often negative results of Western ethic-less & extremely unbalanced modes, such as rampant eco-destruction for simple greed.

Where else would the solution to harvesting Japan-discovered IPS retinal cells cultures without tearing, be found in the way vending machine makers developed to transfer cuts of scrambled eggs onto breakfast muffins! The Japanese thus have no need for palliatives, such as this tome, to justify & assuage the guilt Chistians justifiably feel for running roughshod over everything in sight, much like the bully running through the classroom brandishing scissors. But then again, that is just the main tactic of Christianity to "forgive" its followers, absolving them of any evils they can conjure for self gain & greater "glory" of the Church, at the expense of life, itself.

I haven't read this book yet, but the idea that the "Deism" of Isaac Newton and Adam Smith was informed by any religion other than Christianity is false. Deism, as believed in the 18th century, was basically Christianity minus Jesus.

MyNameIsTim wrote: "I haven't read this book yet, but the idea that the "Deism" of Isaac Newton and Adam Smith was informed by any religion other than Christianity is false. Deism, as believed in the 18th century, was..."

Did I say that this wasn't so? No. I simply said Deism isn't "orthodox" (post-381 CE Council of Constantinople "orthodox") Trinitarian Xianity.

Additional note: Stark himself identifies as a secularist of some sort (even though now teaching at Baylor!) unless he had some sort of conversion experience. But, even secularists can perpetuate the legends of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" Christianism.

Just read this recently and what I hated about it is the presumption that other religious faiths never embraced "logic" or "rationalism". Literally the entire Mu'tazila movement and vidya philosophy prided itself on the pursuit of knowledge. To act like Europeans were the only civilization that had any form of rationalism or inquiry in the entire world is made even more ludicrous at the idea that somehow we're supposed to believe medieval Europeans were far more advanced than Cheng Du or Baghdad? lmao.

One other note: As I learned after reading this book, Stark himself isn't an orthodox Christian. IIRC, he is, or was, an agnostic. Essentially, he's peddling Samuel Huntington-type cultural Christianism.

Hey, modern Japan was dragged kicking and screaming out of instincts that led straight to WWII, which culminated in so shocking a defeat it decided it had no choice but to finally accept the methodology of the West. Let’s not be disingenuous here. Stark, if you’ve read the book, isn’t arguing that Christianity still dominates as it did when it invented the modern world, but without Christianity, the West could not have defeated Japan so devastatingly, and as such, Japan’s embrace of the West would be meaningless. No WWII, no modern Japan. They resisted the modern world for centuries. Now they don’t.