double checking, and you're wrong, Paladin. Should also note that Rome had at least some form of democratic processes, which were conspicuously absent in Christendom for the next 1500 years.
I didn't claim that Christianity was spotless and, indeed, it isn't. I merely said that it may have been a positive step from what preceded it. Through most of history, the alternative would've simply been another religion.
Did you read your own link? I think you stretch the word "democracy" a little bit. If you weren't a member of the higher classes, you had virtually no say in the affairs of the Republic. People were organized into voting blocks to prevent just such a thing.
This is stupid and ignorant. Our current numerical system is called "Arabic numerals" for a reason. Alternately, have fun working in Roman numerals, kids. The Moors brought a great deal of science and innovation across Europe and the Catholic monks preserved our knowledge in the days before the printing press. The Jewish Ten Commandments are a keystone of our idea of law, and pretty much all of the universities were founded by Christian religions. The Medicis were a big patron of the arts during the Renaissance, but an even bigger patron was the Catholic Church. Most of Rembrandt's work, along with many of the other great masters, was commissioned by the Church. The prevailing theory of Creation, the Big Bang, was posited by a Jesuit priest. I should come up with a nifty way to wrap all this up, but I think I'll just say to go stand in the corner, dumbass.
I'm told Chinese numbers are much more convenient, but that's not the point. I'm pretty sure it's possible to import numbers without importing beliefs. Maybe three or four of them, if they didn't already exist in other cultures. Do you think murdering, lying and stealing were all completely acceptable before Moses said something?
And this is why it's difficult to answer such a question. To remove religion from the equation also means removing motivations for some of the world's greatest contributors to humanity: Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael, and where would we be without the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Nowhere. That's where.
Would it? Who's to say those contributors didn't credit religion with inspiring them in the hopes of financial support, or to prevent their works from being condemned by the church?
But that's just it, we'll never know how many unbeliever geniuses we lost, cuz they were burned at the stake, or boiled in oil, or whatever. Who knows what they had to contribute? We can get a taste of it with Spinoza, he had to run for his fucking life, but at least we have his stuff. If the Papacy had their way, his existence would have been erased.
Umm... actually, 'Arabic numerals' were invented by Indian mathematicians. Arabs were just the ones that introduced the concept to Europe. Ancient Arab traders actually called them 'Hindu numerals'... But, yes, Muslims did contribute many other artistic and scientific advances in their heyday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age But that doesn't necessarily mean those advances were a result of religion. What if there was a great Arabic Empire in those days which did not have anything to do with Islam? Who is to say they wouldn't have made those same advances, or maybe even more? I think, in any great and prosperous civilization, people have more time for artistic and scholarly pursuits. When the people are living in poverty, there isn't much time to think about the next great work of art or the next great breakthrough in science... you're probably thinking more about feeding your belly. In fact, I've noticed that people from lower socioeconomic status tend to drift more towards religion...
Do you deny that they had a love of knowledge and valued the search for truth in all its particulars? The categories you and I recognize separating theology from science did not exist for them. Even so, Newton, for example, wrote more papers on bible interpretation and the occult than on hard science. Both men were deeply religious. But to make the grander point, the history of rational thinking in the West is one that originated on the subject of God. How can we prove that God exists, or that we exist? What is His nature? How can we know Him? How did He create and organize the known world? How do we act morally in His creation? Even pre-Christian, the Greek philosophers were obsessed with these subjects. So were the medieval Islamic philosophers that we don't hear much about. It was pretty late in the game, not until the late 18th century that these thinkers decided to deconstruct God entirely. But the tools they used were forged in a strong tradition of philosophical and religious zeal.
I did read the link. Also read what you posted about the LATE empire, 81 BC ain't late period. 228 BC would actually be early, IIRC... and a total of 4. As for comparing democracies.. again, not much of a stretch, even now. Somewhere it mentions about 25% of Romans could vote... sounds like almost as many Americans who choose to vote in the average election. Even at that margin, it still beats the Divine Right of Kings that Christianity gave us afterward.
Turkey, you seem to be having a lot of problems with reading comprehension. Here is what I said. I've embolded the key words in your post above and mine below so that maybe you can see where you're having a disconnect. Kingship that claimed to be justified by the gods was nothing new in the world; Christianity seems no more prone to that than any other religion. But, as I said earlier, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was a template for a modern state and their codification of Canon Law a basis for the modern rule of law. So, there were benefits to Christianity, as well. In any event, Rome had gone a long way to restoring kingship in its Imperial period, even before Christianity had taken hold. I'd argue that Augustus had as much unconstrained power as any medieval European king, and he died decades before Christianity was even established.
Newton was a bit of a bastard in general. But that incidental trait has as little to do with his scientific genius as his religion. The forerunner of modern science was known as "natural philosophy" and was a seperate field to other, less worthwhile branches. The tools used were forged largely by Aristotle and others whose work was not dominated by religion. The Christian Dark Ages produced little of value, comparatively speaking.
You pulled him up. Are you backtracking now? Incidental trait? The religious stuff dominated his work. What we choose to value about these people today does not necessarily reflect what they valued themselves. And who pulled Aristotle from the ancient ruins, if not the medieval Christian scholastics? Value is where you find it. But you can't just cut out Christianity and dismiss the historical progression of Western philosophy, or the role of the Church in promoting intellectual ventures. If you want to ret-con the Early Modern thinkers as a bunch of butthurt atheists, that's simply not the case.
Alternatively, you can view the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church as what it was (and the main reason Luther, et al. took the piss): a power broker that controlled every aspect of the life of every individual in the West, both before and after death. Even IBM can't make that claim.
EXACTLY. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm bucking for defensor fidei, because I'm certainly not about to overlook the Inquisition or impovershing people through the sale of indulgences, but the simple truth is that the truth isn't simple: Western society--for both good and ill--has been shaped by Christianity, so profoundly that one can't even BEGIN to imagine what the West would look like today had Christianity never emerged.
How does observing that he was a bastard constitue "backtracking" on anything? He was a scientific genius who was also a complete asshole. Does that mean that science is an evolution of assholism? Those traits are incidental to his scientific work. Everyone was religious in the 16th century. There was no other way to be. Is it especially prasieworthy that they maintained his thinking to some degree? That's quite a climbdown from saying that they "forged the tools" for the Age of Reason themselves. I don't want to do that at all. Christianity has been an integral and important part of western civilisation. It just hasn't been a positive part, generally speaking. I suggest that the advances of the last few hundred years would have likely come much earlier if paganism had retained its dominance. That lacked some of the exclusivist "zeal" you keep talking about.
It must've been at least a litle part of Roman culture since it wasn't explicitly outlawed until 81 BCE.
Non believers go to such lengths to justify their disdain.. and believers can simply enjoy their own hearts, having not been to the Inquisition, nor burned or drowned a witch.. I may not qualify as christian that paints with a broad brush.. but I sing with a community and feel peace in my heart.. what Heathen I am
