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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 291.175
EAN num: 9781591020356
ISBN number: 1591020352
Label: Prometheus Books
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 180
Printing Date: 2003-01
Publishing house: Prometheus Books
Sale Popularity Level: 1690503
Studio: Prometheus Books
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Using the biblical dictum, 'the tree is known by its fruit', humanist George Erickson surveys the historical record left by the defenders of faith and the proponents of reason. His analysis challenges the commonly held belief that despite its many abuses religion on balance civilised the world. Tracking the unfettered progress of science in pre-Christian, polytheistic societies, he notes that this progress was soon thwarted when Christianity gained the ascendancy in the West. Its carrot-and-stick approach of heaven and hell, combined with a missionary passion and various superstitions and miracles, proved to be inimical to the advance of scientific reasoning.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I would like to add my support to the general statements that the reviewer Constance Edwards made and add a few of my own.
To begin, I am an atheist and pursuing degrees in history and philosophy. What is unfortunate about Erickson's book is that a well meaning idea of documenting the negative aspects of the church (of which there are many), is overhshadowed by a complete lack of scholarship (You know you're in trouble when the author uses as one of his primary resources a book of quotations!).
The book also continues to propagate ideas that are just plain false. Consider the idea that people of the middle ages believed the earth was flat. Anyone who has taken a college course in the History of Science, or Medieval History will have this illusion dispelled almost immediately (by reading modern scholarship and the original primary source material -- both things that Erickson does not do). Throughout the book he appears to quote someone, yet, when you look into his notes to discover where he got his information, you discover that (when it is not from George Seldes book of quotations), it is a secondary source, and many of these are from other atheist-friendly books.
Erickson states at the beginning of the book that he is attempting to counter other pro-Christian books, which is admirable and needed. Unfortunately, he falls into the same trap that he accuses many of his opponents of: a highly biased viewpoint using only sources that back up his view. And in Erickson's case, this is compounded by poor scholarship and an absence of primary source material.
If you are looking for a history of the relationship between science and the church, please look elsewhere.
Rated by buyers 
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A must read! A very factual and well written book. It's frightening how religion has worked, and still works, so hard to keep people from opening their minds and thinking independently. Thank goodness for those indivduals brave enough to face persecution, torture, and death to better our understanding of the world around us.
Rated by buyers -
Apparently anticipating that a few readers will complain that he has ignored the good works done by the religious, the author's opening notes plainly state, "Time Traveling with Science and the Saints is intended to counter the many pro-Christianity books that ignore its many sins. If the hundreds of authors of church history had been willing (or unafraid) to provide balanced accounts, this book would not be necessary."
I particularly liked two things: Time Traveling's very useful timeline that compares events in science and religion side by side through the centuries, and the narrative flow with examples of anti-science bigotry (from St Jerome to todays faith healing sects) that makes this easily readable overview so suitable to readers who would be put off by a thicker, more professorial, detailed book.
Those who might criticize Erickson for not crediting the churches for the music, literature and art they produced need to realize that most of those works were generated in an era when the church and the nobility had almost all of the money. Only they could afford pay for such pursuits, having for centuries gobbled up, with a seemingly endless list of frauds, threats, promises, taxes, tortures and extortions, whatever tiny surplus the masses might have.
If you want to know why so many people say "If it weren't for Christianity, Columbus would have landed on the moon instead of in the New World," read Time Traveling with Science and the Saints.
Rated by buyers 
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Before I'm beaten about the head and shoulders for being a theist, I am not. I am atheist, but I am also an historian by profession, specializing in the history of the Middle Ages. My freethought book club chose this as their selection and I went along.
Mr. Erickson is no historian. From relating "conventional wisdom" history - like Tycho Brahe's bladder, Torquemada, and witch burnings - to his lamentable lack of proper documentation citations, his work is a study in how not to be a scholar. Erickson and Prometheus should have hired an editor with a historical background, or at least a fact checker. I stopped counting the number of times he got something wrong when a google search could have kept him out of error. I admit I am being hard on him because I am a professional; however, we atheists make the claim that we are more intellectual and honest with ourselves than theists are. Therefore, our scholarship must be impeccable.
I also have issues with his editorializing. In the middle of a supposedly factual account, Mr. Erickson will break into stating his opinion. While his opinion has a place within the work, it does not have a place within the narrative text. It is jarring and makes the work hard to read. He also jumps around in time, so the book is far from sequential, juxtaposing Charlemagne with Frederick of Prussia and Napoleon.
I found his generally anti-clerical stance thoroughly prejudicial. I made an experiment of replacing every time he said Christian with Jewish, and found that in that case, this book was horribly prejudiced. Mr. Erickson could not see the (admittedly inconsequential compared to the great deal of evil) good works that religion has done through the ages at all. He also doesn't seem to realize that technological and scientific progress is based on many things, not just the presence or absence of a religious society.
He also falls for the myth that all people, in all cultures, separated their Church and State as we modern Americans do. Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth.
This is not a book for serious students of history, or for those of us who want to be able to argue from a position of historical fact. It is barely a good starting point for those who have little grounding in history.
The one good point is that he does highlight the evils done in the name of religion, and the counterweight that those evils are to the good works done. If he had worked with an editor to bring out that point instead of trying to write a history, he would have achieved a far better product.
Rated by buyers -
"Time Travelling with Science and the Saints" is a good starting point for people looking for a side by side comparison of the history of science and it's interactions with Christianity over time. As most history texts don't put the two together with a look over the long period of time, it's helpful to see how the two compare overt time. The book is a good starting point that will send you off to read more on "the history you didn't get in school."
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