Chapter 16 Religion and Science

Chapter 16 deals with the continued struggle, domination and emergence of the world's religions and the impact of science. 

Two items of particular note for me were:

Religion:

Emergence of the Protestant arm of Christianity.  Martin Luther, amongst many others, was essentially pissed off at the wealth the Catholic religion was demonstrating.  Popes, bishops etc were living lavish lifestyles, which he observed was much different than their teachings.  He wrote a memo stating such and had 93 statements within the memo.  This spawned a new Christian arm that believed more in the determination of the meaning of  the Bible by individuals not the church and its structure.  This new arm spurred many new forms of Christianity including, Lutharans, Anglicans and Quakers amongst many others.

Science:

The main reason the book states that the Islamic nations didn't lead the way with modern science after their already impressive work in mathematics and astronomy is the structure.  Islamic teachings were very formalized while the European schools were very anonymous.  They licensed their own teachers and began their own forms of teaching and thinking.  By doing this they were allowed to explore in an uninhibited environment.

See you all tomorrow.