Interestingly, about Newton, if he hadn't been so religious and thus so obsessed with keeping his mind off of sex, he wouldn't have occupied his mind so completely with math and physics.
Is that a good effect or a bad effect of religion?
Well, yes, Newton was religious, but I would doubt that his achievements had anything to do with religion:
"Until Hanna [his mother] returned to Woolsthorpe in 1653 after the death of her second husband, Newton was denied his mother's attention, a possible clue to his complex character. Newton's childhood was anything but happy, and throughout his life he verged on emotional collapse, occasionally falling into violent and vindictive attacks against friend and foe alike...In 1678, Newton suffered a serious emotional breakdown, and in the following year his mother died. Newton's response was to cut off contact with others and engross himself in alchemical research. These studies, once an embarrassment to Newton scholars, were not misguided musings but rigorous investigations into the hidden forces of nature. Newton's alchemical studies opened theoretical avenues not found in the mechanical philosophy, the world view that sustained his early work. While the mechanical philosophy reduced all phenomena to the impact of matter in motion, the alchemical tradition upheld the possibility of attraction and repulsion at the particulate level. Newton's later insights in celestial mechanics can be traced in part to his alchemical interests. By combining action-at-a-distance and mathematics, Newton transformed the mechanical philosophy by adding a mysterious but no less measurable quantity, gravitational force."
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/01-Courses/current-courses/08sr-newton.htmWe report a series of experiments carried out with Palestinian and Israeli participants showing that violent opposition to compromise over issues considered sacred is (i) increased by offering material incentives to compromise but (ii) decreased when the adversary makes symbolic compromises over their own sacred values. These results demonstrate some of the unique properties of reasoning and decision-making over sacred values. We show that the use of material incentives to promote the peaceful resolution of political and cultural conflicts may backfire when adversaries treat contested issues as sacred values.
PNAS | May 1, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 18 | 7357-7360
Yes, we can see there the contrast between the scientific objectivity in the report, and the religious subjectivity in the antagonists' position. The former is helpful and constructive, the latter divisive and destructive.
So what about now, and the future, where we have more choice; what language do we use to change priorities?
I predict that the language of religion will fail and the language of science, rooted in hamanitarian ethics, will succeed - because it's the universal language, the 'Red Cross' of languages, applicable to all.
