Religion and Progress: From the Enlightenment to the Twenty-First Century - Guiding Paper
Daniel Chirot
University of Washington
In this original paper on religion and progress Daniel Chirot provides an erudite overview of various theoretical arguments concerning how religion affects scientific progress and political liberalization. He concludes that while the relationship is complex, progress tends to depend on freeing itself from religious dogma.
Please use the following when citing this paper:
Chirot, Daniel. 2010. Religion and Progress: From the Enlightenment to the Twenty-First Century (ARDA Guiding Paper Series). State College, PA: The Association of Religion Data Archives at The Pennsylvania State University, from https://www.thearda.com/research/guiding-papers.
Daniel Chirot is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School in the University of Washington. He has published numerous books exploring large-scale social change and is especially interested in political tyranny and violence. His most recent book, written with Clark McCauley, Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder provides a theoretical framework for understanding genocide.
