59 Quotes by Rodney Stark

The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.

Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They’re aggressive on the attack and tenacious on defense. They’ve got really short hair and they always go for the throat.

People value religion on the basis of cost, and they don’t value the cheapest ones the most. Religions that ask nothing get nothing.

Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable – th e rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars.

It is well known that the Chinese had gunpowder by the thirteenth century and even cast a few cannons. But when Western voyagers reached China in the sixteenth century the Chinese lacked both artillery and firearms, whereas the Europeans had an abundance of both.

The European Middle Ages collected innovations from all over the world, especially from China, and built them into a new unity which formed the basis of our modern civilization.

So much, then, for the “mystery” of how Muslim culture was somehow lost or left behind. The notion that in the medieval era Islamic culture was advanced well beyond Europe is as much an illusion as recent ones about an “Arab Spring.” The Islamic world was backward then, and so it remains.

Evolution has primarily been an attack on religion by militant atheists who wrap themselves in the mantle of science in an effort to refute all religious claims concerning a creator – an effort that has also often attempted to suppress all scientific criticisms of Darwin’s work.

It needs to be emphasized that the Church vigorously advocated and defended democracy in northern Italy. Not only did the Church unequivocally assert moral equality, but it also ventured into the political arena, with bishops and cardinals playing a leading role on behalf of expanding the franchise.