The Greens, Religion, and Science

By Mark Musser

In December of 1966, Lynn White, Jr. (1907-1987) delivered a controversial speech in Washington, D.C. entitled "The historical roots of our ecological crisis." White charged that Christianity "bears a huge burden of guilt" in helping to foster the present-day "out of control" degradation of the environment. White singled out Western Christianity as being primarily responsible for the wedding between science and technology that has left a devastating ecological scar on the modern landscape. Modern science was solidly built upon a Judeo-Christian theological foundation, with Catholic Scholastic monks leading the way at first, after which the Lutherans took over. Both Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) were Lutherans. It must also be remembered that Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo (1564-1642) challenged the semi-pantheistic Aristotelian view of the universe, not the biblical one, something which is almost always completely misunderstood and misrepresented with regard to the Copernican revolution. The Catholic Scholastics often gave too much deference to Aristotle. On the other hand, however, both Galileo and Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) were strong.... (Read Full Article)