Rodney Stark Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.

Rodney Stark

Far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (ca. 285-337) caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax.

Rodney Stark

It has been said of many modern Christian theologians that their primary aim is to find ways to express disbelief as belief.

Rodney Stark

Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.

These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and no where else.

Rodney Stark

Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable—th e rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars.

Rodney Stark

Theology is in disrepute among most Western intellectuals. The word is taken to mean a passe form of religious thinking that embraces irrationality and dogmatism. So too, Scholasticism.

Rodney Stark

Rodney Stark

Rodney Stark

Born: July 8, 1934

Died: July 21, 2022 (aged 88)

Bio: Rodney William Stark was an American sociologist of religion who was a long time professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington.

Known for:

The Rise of Christianity (1996)
God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (2009)
The Churching of America, 1776-1990 (1992)

Rodney Stark on Wikipedia

Suggest an edit or a new quote

American Sociologist Quotes

Sociologist Quotes

20th-century Sociologist Quotes