Reading this article indicates that the author can cheerfully ignore all the progress of mankind prior to the arrival of Christianity. That view ignores Egypt, the Library of Alexandria, the Greek civilisation and the science of Pythagoras and Archimedes etc.

It also ignores the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals.

As for the kinder aspects of human nature, even among our distant relations the baboons, the troup leaders care for the mothers and the young. A case has been reported of a blind pelican being regularly fed by its flockmates. We were human and capable of ethical behaviour well before Christ. I prefer Robert Ardrey's view that we are risen apes rather than fallen angels.

Yes, the Christian religion and its leaders played a part in civilising the barbarian invaders of Europe and in starting educational facilities to teach priests and develop theology but, throughout history the Christian religion and its churches have opposed education and scientific development whenever change extended beyond the very narrow scope of their vision.

We shouldn't overlook the trifling fact that the Islamic world acted as custodians for much ancient knowledge during the Dark Ages in the Christian West. They preserved in their many libraries things like Aristotle's philosophy, Ptolemy's geography, Hippocrates medicine, together with their own advances in astronomy and mathematics.

Nice if we acknowledged our debt to the preservation of these works and to the advancements made by Islamic scholars of the time.

Bill Muehlenberg,
thank you for an interesting review of an apparently not “politically correct” book by a non-Westerner that seems to be worth reading by anybody who still feels culturally part of the West, Christian or post-Christian.

Bill Muehlenberg wrote 'We are all in your debt Vishal Mangalwadi'...

...no...we are not...

we would be if he wrote the book titled...'how homo sapiens(renamed moronus extinctus) squandered time 'self_serving' while ignoring 'gifts of knowledge and understanding' given freely in ancient holy books'...

or even renamed his book to 'how the bible was used to form the tribe called 'christians' whom empowered themselves to 'disrupt to destroy' everything else on earth'

first the knowledge in the bible...take genesis, upto third day of creation god basically says...initially earth was dry and empty, everywhere else was dark, and suspended in water...then created 'suns'(light), darkness/light(spinning of planets), then created space(division of waters) and waters under the expanse collected to form sea on earth...and on...
(science is just now suspecting this...
first appeared here http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10519.html
now bbc(I renamed british_beasts_corporation) interpreted here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15181123 )

now if we approached the bible as individuals, applied just logic+reason, ignored the organized brain_washing of the religious institutions for benefit...we would have this understanding without any help from science...then read every other holy book, from Koran all the way to Upanishads...imagine the base of knowledge we would have to test and build science on...to knowledge of proper civil conduct, and knowledge of our own soul and its journey in our life...

yes, each of these holy books has great knowledge that is beyond ordinary man of the time to know, let alone write. Its as if god interacted with ancient civilizations in the past with different unique approaches, mayans, egyptians, hindus etc so knowlege presented differently but the same god...currently bible rules as number one...think about that...

sam
about god_human_interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar#Avatars_of_Vishnu as god in human interacting form...from hindu knowledge...

“The book that made the world” - high praise indeed; though how do the Indians and Chinese rate it? And more to the point of world-making: blame that on the printing press - which emerged from China.
From humble beginnings as wood-cut blocks to print cards for games in that mystic East, the concept trickled west for re-surrection in Germany as Gutenberg’s printing press (about 1436). It then spread like a disease - about 40 years later to Caxton in England, and all over Europe.

The printing press ended the sky-pilots’ monopoly of transcribing texts, and their selfl-ascribed right to impose upon society their interpretation of “The Book” (and of pretty much all else). Universities, rate of scientific interchange, public media, -- all came of age.
Expanding away from “The book” has enabled progress away from slavery, and towards modern civilization.

If I may add to Bill's list: another author of Indian descent, Vinoth Ramachandra, makes the same case;
-Rodney Stark as mentioned, 'The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success';
-Robert Royal's 'The God that Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West';
-David Bentley Hart's Ramsay Prize Winning 'Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and It's Fashionable Enemies';
-2010 Royal Society Prize for science writing James Hannam's 'God's Philosophers: How the Mediaeval World laid the Foundations of Science'.(participant in this forum http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/)

There really is no competition between the Biblical and liberal traditions, one is robust and meets the needs of a human life in all its dimensions, the other is parasitic on Christian civilisation and incoherent in essence.

James Kalb:
"Although in public life the victory of liberalism has been complete, there are millions of dissenters doing their best to live by other views. As we have seen, liberalism is not sufficient on its own to sustain an ordered existence. As liberal societies fall into chaos and tyranny in the coming years the more ordered and comparatively successful ways of life non-liberal views make possible are likely to make them and the communities that adhere to them grow in importance."
http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/