response 250 of 293:

Dec 18 18:56 UTC 2003

It seems to me that there is a lot of significance in the fact that
technological progress in western europe was mostly stagnant before, and
increased rapidly after, the protestant revolution.  To pick a couple of
the specific inventions in resp:232 that jep uses as evidence of the
Catholic technological prowess:  The printing press was invented and
popularized by protestant men who wanted to print and distribute copies
of non-latin translations of the bible, in direct defiance of the
Catholic church.  And, most of the technological progress with respect
to clocks was made by people, mostly dutch protestants, who needed it
for navigation on long sea voyages.