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=== Christian origins ===
{{pull quote|science will forever be in the debt of millenarians and biblical literalists.|align=right|width=22em}}
Science ultimately rests on a number of axioms which cannot themselves be scientifically tested.
For example, one axiom is that we are able to trust our senses in making observations and running tests.
Another is that the universe which [[scientist]]s are investigating really exists, and is not just a figment of our imaginations.
Some cultures would not allow science, because they consider nature itself to be divine, and therefore inappropriate to study.
It is for reasons such as these that modern science arose due in large part to [[Christianity]], as Christianity holds the following beliefs:{{ref|Bumbulis, 1996}}
; Monotheism
Many pagan gods were themselves part of creation, and this didn't allow for a God who was capable of creating ''everything''.
Also, this meant that the heavens were created by the same God as created the Earth, so principles such as motion which were studied on Earth could be applied to the heavens.
; Lawgiving God
The theologians and early scientists reasoned that God was a law-giving God, and this would include the Laws of nature.
; Rational God
Because the world was created by a rational God, the world would make sense, so studying it would not be a waste of time.
Some pagan gods were capricious, so one could never be certain that things would stay the same.
; Nature separate from God
Nature, being distinct from God, is not itself divine, and is therefore allowed to be studied.
Many pagan religions considered nature to be manifestations of the gods, and therefore improper to study.
; Man created in the image of God
Because Christians believed that God created man in His own image, we could, as [[Johannes Kepler]] put it, "think God's thoughts after Him".
This also means that we could trust our senses to make meaningful observations and had the ability to reason.
; Existence was linear
Much pagan thought revolved around the idea that things kept repeating themselves in cycles.
So there was never anything new.
But Christian thinking was that the universe had a beginning, proceeded through a number of unrepeatable events (such as the [[Fall]] and [[Jesus]]' death and resurrection), and would one day finish (with Jesus' return).
This made possible the idea that we could learn new things; things that had never been known before.
; Man's dominion
God provided nature for the benefit of mankind, so it is ours to study as we wish. We have dominion over creation.{{ref|Genesis 1:28}}
; Adam's fall
The founders of science believed that prior to the [[Fall of Man|Fall]], [[Adam]] had encyclopaedic knowledge, and science was seen as a way of recovering this knowledge.{{ref|{{author|Jonathan|Sarfati}}, [http://creation.com/biblical-roots-of-modern-science The Biblical roots of modern science], [[29 September]] [[2009]].|name=roots}}
==== Quotes ====
Numerous writers have pointed out that modern science arose specifically because of the Christian worldview:
{{Quote|The fact that science arose at all is powerful testimony to the truth of Christianity. As Louis Victor de Broglie says, "We are not sufficiently astonished by the fact that any science may be possible." This is especially true of the Marxist and the Secular Humanist. They do not understand that science could never have been conceived in a society dominated by their worldviews. Historian and philosopher of science Stanley Jaki says that "the belief in a personal rational Creator ... as cultivated especially within a Christian matrix ... supported the view for which the world was an objective and orderly entity investigable by the mind because the mind too was an orderly and objective product of the same rational, that is, perfectly consistent Creator." Man believed science possible because man believed in a God of reason and order.
|source=[[David A. Noebel]]|ref={{ref|Noebel, David A., "The Battle for Truth", p. 355, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 2001 ISBN 0-7369-0782-3.}}}}
{{Quote|The philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation … . It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.
|source=[[Loren Eiseley]]|ref={{ref|L. Eiseley: ''Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It'' (Anchor, NY: Doubleday, 1961), quoted in {{author|Jonathan|Sarfati}}, ''Refuting Evolution'', [http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-chapter-1-evolution-creation-science-religion-facts-bias Chapter 1].}}}}
{{Quote|...theological assumptions unique to Christianity explain why science was born only in Christian Europe. Contrary to the received wisdom, religion and science not only were compatible; they were inseparable.
|source=[[Rodney Stark]]|ref={{ref|Stark, 2003, [http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7501.html introduction].}}}}
{{Quote|Here is a final paradox. Recent work on early modern science has demonstrated a direct (and positive) relationship between the resurgence of the Hebraic, literal exegesis of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of the empirical method in modern science. I’m not referring to wooden literalism, but the sophisticated literal-historical hermeneutics that Martin Luther and others (including Newton) championed. It was, in part, when this method was transferred to science, when students of nature moved on from studying nature as symbols, allegories and metaphors to observing nature directly in an inductive and empirical way, that modern science was born. In this, Newton also played a pivotal role. As strange as it may sound, science will forever be in the debt of millenarians and biblical literalists.|source=Stephen Snobelen|ref={{ref|Snobelen, February 2004, [http://creation.com/modern-science-owes-much-to-straightforward-understanding-of-scripture quoted] on the Creation Ministries International web-site.}}}}
{{Quote|As they believed in a law abiding creator God, even before the rediscovery of Greek thought, twelfth century Christians felt they could investigate the natural world for secondary causes rather than put everything down to fate (like the ancients) or the will of Allah (like Moslems). Although we see a respect for the powers of reason by Arab scholars they did not seem to make the step of looking for universal laws of nature.<br />...<br />The early modern scientists were inspired by their faith to make their discoveries and saw studying the creation of God as a form of worship. This led to a respect for nature and the attempt to find simple, economical solutions to problems. Hence Copernicus felt he could propose a heliocentric model for no better reason that it seemed more elegant.|source=James Hannam|ref={{ref|Hannam, 2009.}}}}
{{Quote|Of course, it wasn't just any ol' religion that helped to birth modern science. In spite of the fact that the laws of science are universal, modern science was born in a Judeo-Christian context. For where is the Muslim version of Newton - the Muslim who also independently discovered Newton's laws? Where is the Buddhist version of Mendel? Where is the Hindu version of Kepler?|source=Michael Bumbulis|ref={{ref|Bumbulis, 1996}}}}
{{Quote|In the ensuing three hundred years, the theological dimension of science has faded [note that science began with a "theological dimension"]. People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature- the laws of physics - are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they come from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is rational basis to physical existence manifested as lawlike order in nature that is at least part comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological world view.|source=[[Paul Davies]]|ref={{ref|Quoted by Bumbulis, 1996 (parenthetical insertion by Bumbulis)}}}}
{{Quote|The victory of Christianity over paganism was the greatest psychic revolution in the history of our culture....It is often hard for the historian to judge, when people explain why they are doing what they want to do, whether they are offering real reasons or merely culturally acceptable reasons. The consistency with which scientists during the long formative centuries of Western science said that the task and reward of the scientist was "to think God's thoughts after him." If so, then modern Western science was cast in the matrix of Christian theology. The dynamism of religious devotion, shaped by the Judeo-Christian dogma of creation, gave it impetus.|source=Lynn White, Jr.|ref={{ref|White, Lynn, Jr., 'The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis', ''Science'', quoted] by Bumbulis, 1996.}}}}
{{Quote|Although we seldom recognize it, scientific research requires certain basic beliefs about the order and rationality of matter, and its accessibility to the human mind . . . they came to us in their full force through the Judeo-Christian belief in an omnipotent God, creator and sustainer of all things. In such a world view it becomes sensible to try and understand the world, and this is the fundamental reason science developed as it did in the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, culminating in the brilliant achievements of the seventeenth century.|source=P. E. Hodgson|ref={{ref|Hodgson, P. E., Review of Science and Creation, ''Nature'' 251:747, Oct. 24, 1974, quoted by Mariano, [http://creation.com/atheism Athiesm], [[20 June]] [[2009]].}}}}
{{Quote|It is commonly supposed that when in the early modern period individuals began to look at the world in a different way, they could no longer believe what they read in the Bible. In this book I shall suggest that the reverse is the case: that when in the sixteenth century people began to read the Bible in a different way, they found themselves forced to jettison traditional conceptions of the world.|source=Peter Harrison|ref={{ref|Harrison, P., The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge University Press), 1998, quoted by Mariano, [http://creation.com/atheism Athiesm], [[20 June]] [[2009]].}}}}
{{Quote|Had it not been for the rise of the literal interpretation of the Bible and the subsequent appropriation of biblical narratives by early modern scientists, modern science may not have arisen at all. In sum, the Bible and its literal interpretation have played a vital role in the development of Western science.|source=Peter Harrison|ref={{ref|Harrison, P., The Bible and the rise of science, ''Australasian Science'' 23(3):14–15, 2002, quoted by Mariano, [http://creation.com/atheism Athiesm], [[20 June]] [[2009]].}}}}
{{quote|The very reason science flourished so vigorously in the 16th and 17th centuries was precisely because of the belief that the laws of nature which were then being discovered and defined reflected the influence of a divine law-giver.<br />One of the fundamental themes of Christianity is that the universe was built according to a rational , intelligent design. Far from being at odds with science, the Christian faith actually makes perfect scientific sense.<br />Some years ago, the scientist Joseph Needham made an epic study of technological development in China. He wanted to find out why China, for all its early gifts of innovation, had fallen so far behind Europe in the advancement of science.<br />He reluctantly came to the conclusion that European science had been spurred on by the widespread belief in a rational creative force, known as God, which made all scientific laws comprehensible.|source=John Lennox|ref={{ref|John Lennox, [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html As a scientist I'm certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can't explain the universe without God], ''Mail Online'', [[3 September]] [[2010]].}}}}
{{quote|As I try co discern the origin of that conviction, I seem to find it in a basic notion discovered 2000 or 3000 years ago, and enunciated first in the Western world by the ancient Hebrews: namely that the universe is governed by a single God, and is not the product of the whims of many gods, each governing his own province according to his own laws. This monotheistic view seems to be the historical foundation for modern science.|source=Melvin Calvin|ref={{ref|1=Melvin Calvin, Chemical Evolution Clarendon Press, 1969, p. 258, quoted by {{author|Ravi|Zacharias}}, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=3Nx_L1KfBuIC&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend], Thomas Nelson, 2008, p. 110, ISBN 9780849919688.}}}}
{{quote|Modern science must come from the mediaeval insistence on the rationality of God.|source=Sir Alfred North Whitehead|ref={{ref|1=Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modem World, Macmillan, 1925, quoted by {{author|Ravi|Zacharias}}, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=3Nx_L1KfBuIC&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend], Thomas Nelson, 2008, p. 110, ISBN 9780849919688.}}}}
{{quote|…Christianity has been responsible for a lot of good, including science by the way, which is somewhat ironic…|source=[[Richard Dawkins]]|ref={{ref|[http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3469101.htm Q&A] with Richard Dawkins and [[George Pell]], ABC TV, [[9 April]] [[2012]].<!-- 6:30 mark --> Dawkins did not explain ''why'' Christianity was responsible for science, just that it was.}}}}
=== Atheistic influences ===
Despite the Christian foundations of science, atheists have managed to impose their own ideas, particularly in the area of [[origins science]], specifically excluding God as a possible explanation for the origin of the universe, life, rock formations, etc.
* An early case of this was [[James Hutton|James Hutton's]] philosophy that "the present is the key to the past" in the study of [[geology]]. This view contradicted the biblical account which included past events, such as the [[great flood]], which no longer happened in the present. Hutton's view was adopted by [[Charles Lyell]], who said that it would "free science from Moses".{{ref|David Catchpoole and Tas Walker, [http://creation.com/charles-lyell-free-science-from-moses Charles Lyell’s hidden agenda—to free science “from Moses”].}}
* Lyell's views influenced those of [[Charles Darwin]], whose popularisation of [[evolution]] was an attack on the [[Genesis]] account. As evolutionist and science historian [[Michael Ruse]] put it, "...Evolution ... came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity."{{ref|Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? ''National Post'', pp. B1,B3,B7 May 13, 2000., quoted in [http://creation.com/michael-ruse-evolution-is-a-religion Leading anti-creationist philosopher admits that evolution is a religion]}}
This desire to avoid acknowledging God continued into the 20th century.
* In 1929 evolutionist D. M. S. Watson wrote in ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' that "evolution [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible."{{ref|D.M.S. Watson: ‘Adaptation’, ''Nature'' 124:233, 1929, quoted by Michael Bott and {{author|Jonathan|Sarfati}}, [http://creation.com/whats-wrong-with-bishop-spong What’s Wrong With Bishop Spong?], April 1998.}}
* [[Edwin Hubble]] documented red shifts—indicating movement of stars away from us—in all directions. Although the most straightforward explanation of this—which Hubble realised—is that we are near the centre of the universe, he rejected this explanation because "Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, ... But the unwelcome supposition of a favored location must be avoided at all costs ...".{{ref|{{author|John|Hartnett}}, [http://aufiles.creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j19_1/j19_1_73-81.pdf A creationist cosmology in a galactocentric universe], ''Journal of Creation'' 19(1):73-81, April 2005.}}{{ref|{{author|John G.|Hartnett}}, [http://aufiles.creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j17_1/j17_1_73-79.pdf Look-back time in our galactic neighbourhood leads to a new cosmogony], ''Journal of Creation'' 17(1):73-79, April 2003.}} Instead, he chose the alternative interpretation of a uniform expansion, which led to the [[Big Bang]] theory.
* Richard Lewontin admits that
{{quote|We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, ''in spite'' of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, ''in spite'' of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our ''a priori'' adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.|ref={{ref|Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of ''The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'' by Carl Sagan, 1997), ''The New York Review'', p. 31, 9 January 1997, [http://creation.com/amazing-admission-lewontin-quote quoted] in ''Creation'' 20(3):24, June 1998.}}}}
* Dr. Scott Todd wrote in ''[[Nature]]'', "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic"{{ref|Todd, S.C., correspondence to ''Nature'' 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999, quoted in [http://creation.com/a-designer-is-unscientificeven-if-all-the-evidence-supports-one A designer is unscientific—even if all the evidence supports one!].}}
* In an interview, [[Richard Dawkins]] said that if we found evidence of life being intelligently designed, the designer would have to be an alien race, not God.{{ref|''[[Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed]]'', documentary film with Ben Stein, 2008<!-- 1:26:59 -->}}
* Various scientists who fully accept the secular history of the universe have nevertheless been ostracised because they believe that God was the ultimate cause.{{ref|[[Suppression of dissent against evolution]].}}
Nobody tries to invoke God as an explanation for empirical observations, such as chemical properties, measurements of the strength of metals, etc.
But in the field of Origins Science, science is not the objective endeavour many atheists would have people believe.
== References ==
{{reflist|2}}