That's an interesting take. Many years ago, I was chatting with a coworker who had emigrated from China; we got into topics like these, and something he said stuck with me all these years. He basically lamented that Chinese civilization is so deeply driven by Confucius thought, and expressed envy at the Western world's Christian underpinnings saying that it was better at driving people to search for "the truth."

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dh2022 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Christianity is built upon “believe and do not doubt”. Sorry, I think your Chinese friend was a bit starry-eyed about Christianity…

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svieira 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding) is almost literally a millennium old at this point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fides_quaerens_intellectum (and much older if you take it back to Saint John's response to the resurrection John 20:8-9)

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dh2022 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

And to add another famous example: Galileo Galilei 500 years ago was persecuted by the Christian Church because he (Galileo) defended helio-centrism. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

Sorry pal, but Christian Church is firmly in the "believe and do not doubt" camp.

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dh2022 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

What you wrote is quite obscure.

Much more popular is "believe and do not doubt".

Also: Jesus' response to Apostle Thomas after his resurrection from the dead is recited during every Easter mass: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

	▲	foobarian 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, on the surface the religion is the textbook antithesis of free thought. And yet I think my friend was getting at something deeper I can't quite pin down easily. Maybe it was just a lucky combination of aristocrat philosophers justifying their pursuits? Then there was the Enlightenment thing...