Why was it Western world ?

the scientific method, the work ethic, and the ability of the society to accept rational organization...

I may accept that some religions were driving people backwards, for example the catholic church had a council to determine whether or not women had a soul and that impacted the entire Europe, as result of that, people decided on seperating the religion from the state and it was a good way out of darnkness, while if you look at approximat. 620 AD is the time that the Prophet Mohamed was sent to the most backward people in the world with the message of god, 20 years after that, he managed to transform nomads living in the Arabian peninsula to be the super power with true justice in political, economical, social, etc.fronts and they were wondering why would the earth orbit the Sun, for example, Ibn Rushd he expalined with Sceintific reasoning the sonspots, while in the same time he was an islamic philosopher and was specilizing in astronomy, however, if you look at the last 400 years or so, when Muslims parted from their religion they actually went back to the dark days.

I agree with Knight here. Some people in this thread are putting way too much emphasis on religion's role in the West's development. Sure, partitioning it from state was part of the answer, but it was not the entire answer. So many other factors gave European peoples their head start.

certain questions dont lead to anywhere.

I partially agree with Brit here..the OP's question has to do with many factors including social economic and cultural as Adey as elaborated in his long post earlier.

But, I would add, where social and cultural philosophy of the state and its people purely emerge out of religion, the conditions would not help scientific progress. However, I don't blame everything on religion.

It's those few overlapping fundamental concepts which do clash with that of religion. Theories on evolution and models for the beginning of our universe have not developed under religious background but despite the prevailing religious background.

It is a good word and was used in 2008 in the following post by Tpin :O)

"It is precisely an ideology to claim that religion is the enemy of science, an ideology which can be traced back directly to the Enlightenment. If you are truly a free thinker then why are you so constrained by a centuries-old reinterpretation of history formed on ideologies? Have you used your reason to arrive at the conclusion that religion is inimical to science, or have you bought into hackneyed rhetoric about Galileo, burnings at the stake, etc.?"

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/yellow_number_five/science/11757?page=1

QED!

nice word - haven't seeen it used in a long time

LP: This's precisely an ideology to claim that religion is the enemy of science, an ideology which can be traced back directly to the Enlightenment. If we are truly free thinkers then why are we so constrained by a centuries-old reinterpretation of history formed on ideologies? Have we used our reason to arrive at the conclusion that religion is inimical to science, or have we bought into hackneyed rhetoric about Galileo, burnings at the stake, etc.?

LP, its your personal character, a very logical person right from childhood. i became with close to that mentality in teenage. I was always a lazy boy. The biggest thing i needed to know was how " petrol make a Car/motorcycle rolling"? It was doubt from my childhood,still in this 24th age, i did not clarified it clearly. But i don't think its because of certain faith but of personal nature. Also, religion with Science never conflicted in my mind so far as i am a user of science not a thinker of science. Still, if you say there is a few things in Qur'an which is scientifically wrong, I'm very curious. :P

The answer to the OP's question has to do with many factors including social, economic and cultural. Yet,it is all too easy to blame everything on religion and forget that the initial breakthroughs in science occurred under a religious background..

so the universities in the Abbasid era and Grenada were there just counting legs of flies???

Trigonometry, canons of medicine all came by counting the legs of flies I presume

No, brit, because it doesn't claim the TRUTH!! It is only a MODEL.

Isn't theoretical Physics a form of faith ?

If you'd ask why the Earth was orbiting the sun and the answer you'd get was because God made it like this, how could you be satisfied with this answer??

Religion stops you from asking further questions.

anas, when I was a small child I asked my father or mother why some things were as they were. They gave me answers based on their religious beliefs. However, they did not satisfy my thirst for knowledge. Therefore I continued asking instead of going to pray! I clearly broke with them (and religion) at a very early age.

Brit, Let's put it this way..Religion will not be a 'blocker' for progress if it is screened and interpreted by nations only to form societies and individuals having good human values. If you take the church to the class rooms, there's going to be a clash.

Personally, I would call a person a hypocrite if he believed in the creation theory just to get acceptance from his faith-fellows and pursued space research based on experimental evidences. One has to be true to himself in his pursuits for best results.

In religious point of view, ""Muslims has been advised to seek knowledge from across the globe"" - From Prophet's Mohammed's teachings. Initially some people tried that way and that's why the University kind of thing came to existence(if my knowledge is correct). But later practicing in religion reduced to its basic rituals and people were lazy to go to classrooms. it is people like me who select academic course which is comparatively easy to pass(in examination), who stopped thinking loudly. But there are certain things in Islam, it weigh than everything. So making a Spaceship never become more important than going to Makkah for Hajj! :P

You only get second choice, brit. I attended some George Town lectures, and I was surprised that most of the professors come from Eastern Europe. It's a bone-American university. Isn't it? But not in Qatar!

Brit, I agree with your last line. But again, they import knowledge instead of developing it domestically. And so they will always run behind.

As a member of The Flat Earth society, i would suggest that the same occcured in the west .

The only difference I see is that those in the Arabian peninsula sat back on their laurels and talked about old achievemnents rather than moving forwards.

If as you say religion is the "blocker" then there would not be a push for universities and new research and technology centres in the Middle East.

They have realised their mistakes - a little late, but finally.

Or take the observation of the universe. Yes, the astronomers of Babylon (Arabia?) have made countless records. But then everything was explained as God's miraculous creation, and therefore they never ended up with the Big Bang model.

Counting the legs of flies is necessary, but the Arab science stopped there. Because the theory behind the number of legs of flies was already explained in the Qur'an. And that is exactly why religion stops science!

"Arab Science" is all about tools and skills. There are no major theories which originate in the Arab world! Do not confuse science with counting the legs of flies.

Islam was the catalyst for the advancement of knowledge in the Arab world which in turn helped the Europeans to get away from the dark ages.

Brit, If religion, science and learning are to co-exist, they must be kept separate from each other because, as you know, there are some fundamental theories that do not tally with each other. Countries that succeed in doing so, are the ones that progress.

When american politicians say "In God we trust" they just use it superficially as a cliche' but don't mean much. These are the people who also fund NASA and other space research organisations that have nothing to do with the cock n bull stories of the Torah or the New Testament.

Cost may be a factor but doesn't seem so when we see India's progress in space research. It's primarily the will of the country which matters. India is a secular country and that's the reason education is separate from religion.

The Middle East was too fragmented. China wasn't fragmented enough (so stupid ideas affected too many people). Europe also had access to certain resources other areas did not, like land that could grow every kind of plant and animals that were large and tamable. Plus, Europeans lived in and amongst each other's sh!t for centuries, which gave their descendants immunity to certain viruses that were deadly to the natives of the lands they visited.

that the obsession with religion is clearly the reason that societies fail to make much progress.

The discord in the world would be much lessened if we adhered to Lennon's plea to 'Imagine no religion'

I am not a staunch Muslim.. I am religious and firmly believe that religion, science and learning can co-exist.

As for space research, the reason for many countries not going in that direction is the cost. By the way, India is a country with a number of religions , yet it has joined the space race..

Brit, I understand you are a staunch muslim. How would you feel if your son or daughter studied astrophysics and told you whatever the Prophet told about the universe was all false and that there was no evidence of seven heavens above us. Also, would you go with him if he told you that men evolved from cyano bacteria and blue green algae...or our earth must have formed from condensing clouds out of a supernova explosion?

brit, It is said that philosophy was the forerunner of science. Tell me, why was Galileo jailed or why Darwin deferred his theories for so long.

People who have separated religion from the class rooms have benifitted. Countries who still don't allow anthropology and astrophysics to be studied in their countries would never progress in these fields.

For example, Israel and some Islamic countries have managed to make nuclear bombs but that's because Torah or the Quran doesn't talk anything about nuclear physics. But unfortunately, they have not made any significant strides in space research...the reason being, they still probably believe in the creation theory and the story of seven heavens above and seven hells below us.

Countries like Israel and Japan have learnt from their hardships in the past and have not allowed their religions to come in the way of their progress. China is doing well for many other reasons and not because of its religious orientations.

I doubt whether religion makes them reactionary. Conservative is some aspects perhaps - but that is subjective.

Would you say that Israel has been held back because of religion; or for that matter the USA where the official motto is "In God We trust"

Lastly, surely it is the non religious countries like Russia and China that have lagged behind..

brit, You are beating around the bush..LP has said it rightly... its the religion which makes people reactionary and conservative. People who dare to overcome the religious dogmas and embrace the world of reasons, are the ones who reap the benifits of science.

You can either be religious or logical..

But according to our Islamic beliefs, we do believe that God does grant a person success either as a reward for their good endeavors or as a means of a test.

However we also believe that God helps those who help themselves.In order to be successful one needs to always strive to be good, better best and not give up.

Which is what wen't wrong with many once successful nations. Instead of continuing to advance in life and better themselves, they chose to become both lazy and overconfident and attempt to ride on their ancestors success alone. This was a cause of their downfall.

Today we see many leaders of these once glorified nations seem to have realized where they went wrong, and are now scrambling to better themselves and perhaps regain some if not all of their past eminence, and good for them.

But again I hope they do it right this time instead of merely being imposters of currently successful dominions and then failing big time!

Sister Fatimah: I don't think this has anything to do with God.

God neither gives success to a person nor does He deny a person success. Those who undertake hardships, on the path to sucess, know how to sort out their problems , know how to turn difficulties into bright opporetunites, and show strength and firmness of purpose, have been promised sucesse and this is justice.

But those who create ignorance, force oppression and suppression and those who take steps towards extravagance, laziness,independance and injustice, and then choose to blame God for thier faluires, take away their possibility of sucess.

A normal cycle. Wait for the next turn....

The historian Dr. Niall Ferguson produced a documentary series entitled 'Civilization: Is the West History?' on this very subject last year.

'Niall Ferguson asks why it was that Western civilization, from inauspicious roots in the 15th century, came to dominate the rest of the world; and if the West is about to be overtaken by the rest.

Ferguson reveals the killer apps of the West’s success – competition, science, the property owning democracy, modern medicine, the consumer society and the Protestant work ethic – the real explanation of how, for five centuries, a clear minority of mankind managed to secure the lion’s share of the earth’s resources.

Competition. The first programme in the series begins in 1420 when Ming China had a credible claim to be the most advanced civilization in the world: ‘All Under Heaven’. England on the eve of the Wars of the Roses would have seemed quite primitive by contrast.

Science. In 1683 the Ottoman army laid siege to Vienna, the capital of Europe’s most powerful empire. Domination of West by East was an alarmingly plausible scenario. But Islam was defeated: not so much by firepower as by science.

Property. Professor Ferguson asks why North America succeeded while South America for so many centuries lagged behind. The two had much in common (not least the subjugation of indigenous peoples and the use of slavery by European immigrants), but they differed profoundly on individual property rights, the rule of law and representative government.

Medicine. The French Empire consciously set out to civilize West Africa by improving public health as well as building a modern infrastructure. Yet in other European empires – notably Germany’s in southwest Africa – colonial rule led to genocide. What was the link from medical science to racial pseudo-science?

Consumerism. Today the world is becoming more homogenous and, with increasingly few exceptions, big-name brands dominate main streets, high streets and shopping malls all over the globe.

Work. The sixth element that enabled the West to dominate the rest was the work ethic. Max Weber famously linked it to Protestantism, but the reality is that any culture, regardless of religion, is capable of embracing the spirit of capitalism by working hard, saving, and accumulating capital.'

Here is a link to the first episode:

http://www.documentarytube.com/civilization-is-the-west-history

Agree !

God gives success to whom He wills and withholds from whom He wills. And many times misguidance,blind following, ignorance coupled with impudence and cocksure attitude can prove to be the downfall of many an individuals and indeed even nations.

follow the peaceful religion no one wil go astray

You are right LP, religion is the opium of the masses, and we all know that when anyone is hooked on a narcotic he can't recognize it even if his house is burning down around him.

Even C. Darwin was reluctant to publish his evolution theory. He was afraid of being attacked by the church and associates!

Read the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Wikipedia it will answer a lot of your questions.

Brit, without Catholic religion (and supression) people would have know that the Earth is a sphere 400 years earlier!

Unlike the centralized systems of the old-styled Arabian Monarchies and dictatorships, where any new idea will have to go through a gauntlet of bureaucracy, and where the bean counter guys would quickly shoot down any idea that is “politically incorrect/threatening to the chicken shack system". now try and compare that with, ethnically diversified rich in civilizations Europe people try and become more advanced through partnership and cooperation . Can you imagine a French getting sponsorship or exist visa from his Swizz employer? He'd be laughed out of court instead.

Not relion. The Western World prospered because they ventured out and tried to compete, whereas the Arabian penninsula stayed insular.

It's not funny, guys, it's sad.

So true.

hahaha! LP ! pi couldnt have said it any better!

Because they separated religion from everything else and made it a private issue.