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Notes -
I agree it's obvious that Christianity was intertwined with intellectual pursuits, the enlightenment etc. But to be clear I am looking for evidence that Christian ideas substantially influenced things in moving things forward, instead of holding us back.
I think without Christianity you can still have Kant (maybe that's a controversial take) because you still have Plato, ideas of "heavens" and the divine, and of key importance, you still have Judaism. These ideas would be around, especially in intellectual circles. There were also other movements towards monotheistic thought in antiquity, we didn't need a Christ cult for philosophy to necessarily see that become more prominent.
That kind of thought experiment of a world without Christianity can get kind of bewildering because of how ingrained it was, but consider that without the fervor it may have secularized sooner. Without the sin of greed, we may have discovered capitalism sooner, and with it liberalism. How many ways did the institution of Christianity resist that (many) and how does it compare to the sliver of insights it gave in return?
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