| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Jos Flachs" |
| Date: |
14 Jun 2006 05:58:03 AM |
| Object: |
Fall of the West Roman Empire |
Dear people of AA,
I'm trying to make a point elsewhere that religion seriously
contributed to the fall of the West Roman empire. I have good
arguments for that, and can hold the fort.
I have a bit more trouble in proving what happened next: my opponents
claim it was christianity that kept the torch of civilization alight.
I agree they kept the torch alight, but mainly to start the bbq or to
ask inquisitive questions.
My position is that religious tolerance was wiped out by fundy xtians,
who more or less walked away with the proceeds of the empire. Only
caring about god (=themselves) and little else.
When the xtians took over the empire, the best and the brightest
joined the church rather than the army. That resulted in a collapse of
the empire within 150 years. Xtianity didn't cause the collapse of the
empire, but contributed heavily towards it.
Now, I could do with some arguments that show that the dark ages were
caused by the church.
Thanks for your help!
The pigeon with mango sauce is on me! (Don't visit the zoo afterwards.
People do tend to do silly things after eating it.)
.
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| User: "wbarwell" |
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| Title: Re: Fall of the West Roman Empire |
14 Jun 2006 06:57:38 AM |
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Jos Flachs wrote:
Dear people of AA,
I'm trying to make a point elsewhere that religion seriously
contributed to the fall of the West Roman empire. I have good
arguments for that, and can hold the fort.
I have a bit more trouble in proving what happened next: my opponents
claim it was christianity that kept the torch of civilization alight.
I agree they kept the torch alight, but mainly to start the bbq or to
ask inquisitive questions.
My position is that religious tolerance was wiped out by fundy xtians,
who more or less walked away with the proceeds of the empire. Only
caring about god (=themselves) and little else.
When the xtians took over the empire, the best and the brightest
joined the church rather than the army. That resulted in a collapse of
the empire within 150 years. Xtianity didn't cause the collapse of the
empire, but contributed heavily towards it.
Now, I could do with some arguments that show that the dark ages were
caused by the church.
Thanks for your help!
Much of the dark ages was because of secondary causes.
The rise of feudalism, and lack of papyrus.
Papyrus was common and cheap in Rome in its heyday, but
as the Empire fell apart into fighting and invasions of barbarians,
that along with other imports was cut off. Nothing to write on,
literacy takes a hit.
And with feudalism, peasants don't need to read anyway.
As the Roman empire fell apart, the invading barbarians
were not literate and didn't care much. By the time they
started to, about 600 CE, it was a bit late.
Closing down the Greek academies and burning heretical
books of couse did not help. By 400 CE when Rome was
first sacked, it had grown decrepit and far less well populated.
The remaining libraries were burnt, or left to rot. The few libraries
left were in fact mainly religious, and they ignored non-religious
works. By 600 CE, Greek was a rarity among Western Europeans.
What Greek works might have been left were unintelligable anyway.
What really revived learning was reimportation of paper
and paper making skills. Starting about 1200, paper making
was started in Italy.
The Church was a mixed blessing in all of this, but lack
of cheap writing material was probably more important.
--
"I used to think the brain was the most fascinating part
of the body. Then I thought, "Look what's telling me
that."
- Emo Phillips
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "L. Raymond" |
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| Title: Re: Fall of the West Roman Empire |
14 Jun 2006 05:10:04 PM |
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Jos Flachs wrote:
I have a bit more trouble in proving what happened next: my opponents
claim it was christianity that kept the torch of civilization alight.
This is patently false. It was the Christians who burned "pagan"
libraries, murdered the shamans and other "barbarian" knowledge keepers
and destroyed invaluable texts by reusing parchments, scrolls, wax
tablets and any other writing surface by overlaying them with their own
manuscripts - bibles, prayers, expansions on their mythologies, in short
with nothing that advanced the knowledge of humanity. It took the
Renaissance and the emergence of the various humanistic philosophies to
finally lift Europe out of the Dark Ages.
Do these people you're arguing with claim Christianity simply
maintained civilization or do they go so far as to say civilization
actually advanced under Christianity? If the former, it's easy to show
how the quality of life as well as freedom declined drastically once the
Church took over. If the latter, it'd be easier to have them provide
examples that you can then shoot down.
--
L. Raymond
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Fall of the West Roman Empire |
14 Jun 2006 06:55:48 AM |
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Jos Flachs wrote:
Now, I could do with some arguments that show that the dark
ages were caused by the church.
I doubt very much that the dark ages were caused by the
church, and there's even evidence that the dark ages
were literally "dark." That is to say, a climatic event ushered
in the dark ages. If true, this likely "caused" Christianity,
as a reality-warping experience would provide a reason
for people to re-examine their beliefs.
Interestiong note: There is little or no evidence that
Christianity had a hand in the end of many distinctly
unChristian Roman traditions, like the Gladiatory games.
In fact, there's no shortage of evidence for Christian
tolerance of the games.
If anything, barbarian influences, and Pagan at that (those
darn heathens) had more to do with it than Christianity.
Why? Because the games were a cultural tradition, even
if they began with religious overtures. Roman Christians
were products of that Roman culture, so even when they
switched gods they kept all the cultural trappings they
enjoyed, and that included the games along with our
Christmas.
The barbarians, ironically, rejected the barbaric games.
And, no, they didn't celebrate Christmas in any fashion
we would recognize today, but our ancestors living a
few centuries ago would have seen the resembalance.
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: Fall of the West Roman Empire |
14 Jun 2006 07:18:56 AM |
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On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:58:03 +0700, Jos Flachs <xwcruise@ksc15.th.com>
wrote:
- Refer: <6hqv82p964fh97a7cqcbjcu2vi3efck0f6@4ax.com>
Dear people of AA,
I'm trying to make a point elsewhere that religion seriously
contributed to the fall of the West Roman empire. I have good
arguments for that, and can hold the fort.
I have a bit more trouble in proving what happened next: my opponents
claim it was christianity that kept the torch of civilization alight.
I agree they kept the torch alight, but mainly to start the bbq or to
ask inquisitive questions.
My position is that religious tolerance was wiped out by fundy xtians,
who more or less walked away with the proceeds of the empire. Only
caring about god (=themselves) and little else.
When the xtians took over the empire, the best and the brightest
joined the church rather than the army. That resulted in a collapse of
the empire within 150 years. Xtianity didn't cause the collapse of the
empire, but contributed heavily towards it.
Now, I could do with some arguments that show that the dark ages were
caused by the church.
Thanks for your help!
The pigeon with mango sauce is on me! (Don't visit the zoo afterwards.
People do tend to do silly things after eating it.)
It is a pity that I am so very busy at the moment, and am only able to
submit cursory responses.
(It is the end of the financial year down under)
I have much damning medieval material that is at best in a
semi-collated state, and not ready to present at this stage.
In how much of a hurry are you?
(Oh, and it would really help if you could define 'dark ages', (as
being discussed), both temporally and especially geographically, as
there are many conflicting views on what this term actually means.
And another point: you seem to use 'empire' 'Roman Empire' and
'civilization' as though they were interchangable, and give the
impression that Christianity was an identifiable monolithic entity of
some description
Is there a good reason for this/these?)
--
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