Comment by edwardbernays

It's also noteable that most of the history of Western civilization has been dominated by religiousness, primarily owing to the militancy of religious institutions. Secularization is still a relatively new phenomenon, and has yet to outstrip religiosity as a dominant societal force. Considering that the absolute boom in intellectual achievements seems to be both highly correlated to and fueled by secularism, I don't think this is a very convincing line of reasoning. While Catholic theologians navel-gaze over the precise nature of their God or hunt pagan heresies within their corpus, the secular activity of science advanced. Science and empirical methods are, at best, secondary motivations in the history of our religious society, and usually only to the degree they are instrumental towards coming to knowledge about their sky daddy.