I want to highlight a few posts that I have made recently and tie them together. Recently I have been getting some hits concerning the idea that "religion is holding us back".

First, I want to point out that this sword easily cuts both ways. I submit my recent post on survey results that came to the conclusion that "religion is holding back nanotechnology" ... In that post I concluded about the Samsung SilverCare line of washers.

It is receiving much scorn from environmentalists willing to apply the "precautionary principle" to it -- ... The washer uses a process to create what Samsung calls "nanosilver" ... not much different than processes used in drinking water treatment and pool water disinfection. ...

Now, to be consistent, I wonder when they are going to subject all those water treatment plants to the same thing ....

Same problem, different religion.

For the dense, the religion I am referring to is environmentalism - and I am referring to it in a sense where it is an idol driving the motivations for nearly everything someone does or demands that we do as a society. Second, in my post titled "The breakdown of Christian teaching leading to approval of the sexual revolution" I cite a few interesting facts discovered regarding the modern day practice of NFP. Still those facts were not congealed and put into great use because everyone else was using artificial contraception. The largest groups of those not using contraception are Catholics, some Protestants and Muslims. I wonder what role religion has played in focus being placed on this technology? In the Catholic Church we even have the Paul VI Institute dedicated to the study of a method the secular world has, in its brilliance, written off because there is supposedly no need.

In the end we have a very effective method of birth regulation using ONLY natural signs. Research into how those methods can be effectively used to fight fertility issues is ongoing and showing promising signs -- no pun intended -- of life. The end of this could be technological advances that help women monitor their cycles, even electronically, in order to help achieve pregnancy, modify various hormone imbalances and whatnot, all without resorting to methods with known dangerous and unnatural side effects.

Whether you like the motivation or not, this is science folks; science that the increasingly anti-religious secular world has left nearly exclusively to the religious of the world to explore. In this example, who is really against progress here? It isn't those who aspire to the great religions of the world. In fact often times it is the same folks who cry to the hills that religion is the great halter of all progress. Now it would be logically inconsistent at best for me to say that a single example (or even many) proves that religion is better suited to advancement in science. That isn't my point. My point is that it is precisely matters of doctrine which have borne the necessity of these methods and thus the advancements in technology regarding them. In this area we are just scratching the surface and in 100 years I suspect all of mankind from the religious to the not so will be thankful.