I’ve been reading how, early on, Christian thinking gradually undermined and overwhelmed the philosophical tradition of the Greeks and Romans who had made great strides toward understanding the natural world through empirical investigation.
The Early Christians had found something better: a realm not of this world that promised, with certain caveats, eternal bliss. Faith was the key to finding one’s way to God’s good graces and came to supersede reasoned thought, replaced it actually, subordinated it to the extent paradox and contradiction became acceptable. The conjured god was simultaneously terrible and loving, torturing the sinful while embracing the virtuous. Faith came to mean a leap beyond reason into absurdity in the interests of eternal salvation.
I find it amazing how such conceptions remain embedded in so many minds even today. Thoughtlessness, I wonder, or just wishful thinking?
