B.P. Terpstra
One militant atheist strategy is to cling to anti-Christian mythology, with a vengeance, “arguing” that Christians (especially Protestants) are intellectual lightweights. The opposite is true. Indeed, Protestants have led fellow Christians and atheists in numerous fields, for centuries.
I’m not just talking about superior Protestant private schools in my region with high-ranking students either, although Geelong Grammar kicks butt.
When one is able to calmly sift through the records, there’s a very strong case to be made here, and it relates to Protestant-inspired literacy and sustainable liberation. Consider this. From A Short History of the World by the historian Geoffrey Blainey (pp. 352-53):
Initially, few women were literate. In the English diocese of Norwich in the 17th century, only about 11 percent of women were literate. Even male labourers as a group were slightly more literate than women. On the other hand, 65 per cent of yeomen or male small farmers were literate. Steadily the rate of female literacy began to grow. Prussia, a Lutheran stronghold, made education compulsory for boys and girls in 1717. Scotland and the Netherlands, both of which were Calvinist strongholds, encouraged literacy. In the Dutch city of Amsterdam in 1780, a remarkable 64 per cent of brides signed the register when they married, while the others clumsily drew a cross in the place where their signature of consent was called for. In England, about 1 per cent of women could read in the year 1500, but this had risen to 40 percent by 1750. Belatedly, Catholic countries followed this revolutionary trend.
The improved ability to read and write was a prelude to the extension of the right to vote. If, as late as the year 1900, most western Europeans had been illiterate, the trend towards democracy would not have travelled far.
By way of contrast, the Russian church appeared to promote a culture of anti-literacy (as opposed to just plain illiteracy, another post) and therefore her vulnerable citizens were less capable of fighting the forces of feral Marxism.
And, it’s a truth that one needs to repeat: Illiterate communities are more vulnerable to domination.
It’s also why communist nations ultimately failed, in part, because they were against critical-thinking and therefore (fake statistics aside) enlightened literacy.
The word-friendly Protestant revolution liberated women, in ways the world has never witnessed. It’s why I openly thank Christianity, not feminism and atheism.