Rajesh_g, I do concur. The example I chose (the particular chapter of Andrew Dickson White) was an unfortunate one, I should have chosen education and medicine as examples instead. But the stuff that I highlighted in blue in my previous post is generally true, in that it showcases the process that Christianity indulges in.
Theologians don't just appropriate <i>full-fledged</i> ideas, because sometimes different members of the church jump on the bandwagon of any discovery <i>early</i> on - not because they believe in it (though they may sometimes), but because they want to control its direction, making sure it does not drift too far away from biblical teachings.
So, even as Voltaire and some others hoped the ancientry of India's languages might be the undoing of the stifling grip Christianity had over Europe which prevented progress, indologists loyal to the one true religion (I don't mean islam, I mean the <i>other</i> one true religion, christianity) saw that 'field' of philology after Samskritam's discovery ought to still be controlled by injecting biblical nonsense into it. After all, the initial inclinations of 'philology' - whatever there was of this before Samskritam - were entirely based on the bible too.
Do agree that the AIT is christian in origin, being founded on the bible. I'd say that IE studies most definitely is too - in origin, even if IE has taken on an independent life at times.
There are some arguments that can be made that IE studies was used to pave another path than the christian one, but that is afterwards. There are arguments, that are at least as valid, for IE having had strong christian impulses throughout the field's history. In either case, IE serves and has served all these purposes. Look at the Indian communists clinging to the AIT, even as that Roger Pearson you mentioned (founder of the anti-communist league) did the same. IE today is flexible enough, probably because it is vague enough.
But no doubt we will eventually see christians trying to extricate their lame religion from being culpable for the AIT, arguing that the secularists or anybody else were to blame for it and its evils. Just like a WASPy reviewer (highlighted in acharya's post) argued that racism and race theories were not christian inventions but blamed the Jews instead.
Theologians don't just appropriate <i>full-fledged</i> ideas, because sometimes different members of the church jump on the bandwagon of any discovery <i>early</i> on - not because they believe in it (though they may sometimes), but because they want to control its direction, making sure it does not drift too far away from biblical teachings.
So, even as Voltaire and some others hoped the ancientry of India's languages might be the undoing of the stifling grip Christianity had over Europe which prevented progress, indologists loyal to the one true religion (I don't mean islam, I mean the <i>other</i> one true religion, christianity) saw that 'field' of philology after Samskritam's discovery ought to still be controlled by injecting biblical nonsense into it. After all, the initial inclinations of 'philology' - whatever there was of this before Samskritam - were entirely based on the bible too.
Do agree that the AIT is christian in origin, being founded on the bible. I'd say that IE studies most definitely is too - in origin, even if IE has taken on an independent life at times.
There are some arguments that can be made that IE studies was used to pave another path than the christian one, but that is afterwards. There are arguments, that are at least as valid, for IE having had strong christian impulses throughout the field's history. In either case, IE serves and has served all these purposes. Look at the Indian communists clinging to the AIT, even as that Roger Pearson you mentioned (founder of the anti-communist league) did the same. IE today is flexible enough, probably because it is vague enough.
But no doubt we will eventually see christians trying to extricate their lame religion from being culpable for the AIT, arguing that the secularists or anybody else were to blame for it and its evils. Just like a WASPy reviewer (highlighted in acharya's post) argued that racism and race theories were not christian inventions but blamed the Jews instead.