But even in these habitual clichés there is a grain of truth, which, if taken seriously, can free the mind from the spell of atheistic propaganda. This grain of truth is that science is indeed born as mankind emerges from the Middle Ages.

Well, now - questions.

The first is that if science is born in a certain era, does it mean that it has not always accompanied humanity? Man was always interested in the world around him. I always tried to get to know it. But the scientific way of knowing the world appeared not with the birth of man, but with the birth of science. This means that science is not just the desire to learn something about the world, but cognition with the help of certain methods. This means that there are several ways of human cognition of the world, and science is only one of them. This way is remarkably effective. But is it universal? Is it suitable for solving all the problems that arise when a person learns his place in the world? Has man solved at least some of his problems in non-scientific ways? And are these extra-scientific and pre-scientific discoveries always in a relationship of mutual exclusion with solutions obtained in the course of strictly scientific research?

The second question is: if science was born at a certain stage of the historical development of mankind, can it only be in conflict with the world that gave birth to it? Of course, at a certain moment the child makes an effort to get out of the mother's womb, and the mother makes an effort to push the child out of herself. But does this mean that the relationship between the child and his mother should be described only in terms of conflictology? If science was born at the exit from the world of the Middle Ages, it means that it was in this world that it was at least conceived and nurtured...

The third question is: is science1 born at the moment when all mankind, or only a certain part of it, emerges from the Middle Ages? If only parts, then maybe the medieval history of this particular part was somehow specific? If science is born at the end of the Western world from its Middle Ages, does this mean that it was in the Western Middle Ages (as opposed to the Indian or Arab) that there was something that contributed to the birth of science?

The fourth question is: if science contradicts Christianity, then why did other cultures not lead to the birth of science? Why did Christianity, with its supposedly profound anti-science, create a culture in which the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took place?

The fifth question is that if the scientific revolution takes place at the end of European culture from the Middle Ages, then what exactly did it come to? After all, it is not enough to say that something happened when leaving the prayer room. It is interesting to know what kind of room began outside the threshold of the prayer room. Was there a dance salon or a library, a bathroom or a laboratory? Where was the one who was leaving? And from a subjective point of view, where did he himself intend to enter, opening a new door for him? Was he sure that he was leaving the church, or, on the contrary, did he believe that he simply moved from one chapel to another?

All these questions boil down to one thing: why were Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Descartes Christians? Why not Buddhists? Not Muslims? Not Confucians? "One may ask why the discovery of Copernicus was not anticipated by the ancient Greeks. The ready-made answer that Copernicus was a genius is in fact a common evasion of the question, all the more so because among the ancient Greeks there was no shortage of geniuses in astronomy" (S. Jaki)2.

Science is not where man is simply interested in nature. Science is not where a person even correctly records certain natural phenomena or expresses hypotheses that are then justified. A reindeer herder rides through the tundra and sings a song, composing it according to the principle "what I see, I sing about". Everything in this song can be true: the snow is really white, and the deer are really fast... But, despite all the truthfulness of this text, it cannot be called scientific. In science, it is customary to demonstrate not only the caught pike, but also the rod and bait with which the fish was caught.

Science exists where clearly conscious, reflective methods of collecting and verifying information and judgments are proposed. In the study of nature, the first such methods were the method of experimentation and the method of mathematical modeling of physical processes. And both of these methods appear just at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries.

Science must be distinguished from proto-science, from natural philosophy. The set of pre-scientific knowledge was more or less the same in different ancient civilizations (give or take two discoveries). But why did it "explode" in Europe?

Of course, it is possible to describe the history of science in a triumphalist way – from India to China, from Egypt to Greece and the Arabs, and then to Europe. But what about the agony that fills the gap between them? Why did science, except in Europe, turn out to be a frail child who died soon after childbirth?

Why didn't the Chinese use their discoveries? "In the very spiritual lining of Eastern culture, something important was missing, something thanks to which the West was able to give birth to technology."3

So why the West? Why not earlier? Why not in another place, but in Europe? And - in what Europe? In Europe, still Christian, or in Europe, already secular, unchristianized?