| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Gregory Gadow" |
| Date: |
28 Jan 2004 10:24:10 AM |
| Object: |
The space impact that saved Christianity |
An old story, but I don't think it got mentioned here. The article has a
picture of the crater.
From the BBC News, Monday, 23 June, 2003. Reprinted in full from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3013146.stm
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and
Christian history?
A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's
impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the
celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to
Christianity.
It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire
that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed his
subsequent victory to divine help from a Christian God.
Constantine went on to consolidate his grip on power and ordered that
persecution of Christians cease and their religion receive official
status.
Civil war
In the fourth century AD, the fragmented Roman Empire was being further
torn apart by civil war. Constantine and Maxentius were bitterly
fighting to be the sole emperor.
Constantine was the son of the western emperor Constantius Chlorus. When
he died in 306, his father's troops proclaimed Constantine emperor.
But in Rome, the favourite was Maxentius, son of Constantius'
predecessor, Maximian.
With both men claiming the title, a conference was called in AD 308 that
resulted in Maxentius being named as senior emperor along with Galerius,
his father-in-law. Constantine was to be a Caesar, or junior emperor.
The situation was not a stable one, however, and by 312 the two men were
at war.
Constantine overran Italy and faced Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over
the Tiber a few kilometres from Rome. Both knew it would be a decisive
battle with Constantine's forces outnumbered.
'Conquer by this'
It was then that something strange happened. Eusebius - one of the
Christian Church's early historians - relates the event in his
Conversion of Constantine.
"...while he was thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvellous
sign appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might have
been hard to believe had it been related by any other person.
"...about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw
with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above
the Sun, and bearing the inscription 'conquer by this'.
"At this sight he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army
also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle."
Spurred on by divine intervention, Constantine's army won the day and he
gave homage to the God of the Christians whom he believed had helped
him.
This was a time when Christianity was struggling. Support from the most
powerful man in the empire allowed the emerging religious movement to
flourish.
Like a nuclear blast
But what was the celestial event that converted Constantine and altered
the course of history?
Jens Ormo, a Swedish geologist, and colleagues working in Italy believe
Constantine witnessed a meteoroid impact.
The research team believes it has identified what remains of the
impactor's crater.
It is the small, circular Cratere del Sirente in central Italy. It is
clearly an impact crater, Ormo says, because its shape fits and it is
also surrounded by numerous smaller, secondary craters, gouged out by
ejected debris, as expected from impact models.
Radiocarbon dating puts the crater's formation at about the right time
to have been witnessed by Constantine and there are magnetic anomalies
detected around the secondary craters - possibly due to magnetic
fragments from the meteorite.
According to Ormo, it would have struck the Earth with the force of a
small nuclear bomb, perhaps a kiloton in yield. It would have looked
like a nuclear blast, with a mushroom cloud and shockwaves.
It would have been quite an impressive sight and, if it really was what
Constantine saw, could have turned the tide of the conflict.
But what would have happened if this chance event - perhaps as rare as
once every few thousand years - had not occurred in Italy at that time?
Maxentius might have won the battle. Roman history would have been
different and the struggling Christians might not have received state
patronage.
The history of Christianity and the establishment of the popes in Rome
might have been very different.
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you."
-- Benjamin Franklin
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| User: "Geoff" |
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| Title: Re: The space impact that saved Christianity |
28 Jan 2004 10:35:12 AM |
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"Gregory Gadow" <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message
news:4017E22A.394CC802@serv.net...
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
Of all the rotten luck...sheesh...
.
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: The space impact that saved Christianity |
28 Jan 2004 10:43:46 AM |
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"Geoff" <gebobs@yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:4xRRb.133140$5V2.675566@attbi_s53...
"Gregory Gadow" <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message
news:4017E22A.394CC802@serv.net...
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
Of all the rotten luck...sheesh...
So THAT'S what killed the dinosaurs.
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
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| User: "Ian" |
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| Title: Re: The space impact that saved Christianity |
28 Jan 2004 04:11:56 PM |
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In article <4017E22A.394CC802@serv.net>, said...
An old story, but I don't think it got mentioned here. The article has a
picture of the crater.
From the BBC News, Monday, 23 June, 2003. Reprinted in full from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3013146.stm
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and
Christian history?
A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's
impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the
celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to
Christianity.
It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire
that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed his
subsequent victory to divine help from a Christian God.
Constantine went on to consolidate his grip on power and ordered that
persecution of Christians cease and their religion receive official
status.
Civil war
In the fourth century AD, the fragmented Roman Empire was being further
torn apart by civil war. Constantine and Maxentius were bitterly
fighting to be the sole emperor.
Constantine was the son of the western emperor Constantius Chlorus. When
he died in 306, his father's troops proclaimed Constantine emperor.
But in Rome, the favourite was Maxentius, son of Constantius'
predecessor, Maximian.
With both men claiming the title, a conference was called in AD 308 that
resulted in Maxentius being named as senior emperor along with Galerius,
his father-in-law. Constantine was to be a Caesar, or junior emperor.
The situation was not a stable one, however, and by 312 the two men were
at war.
Constantine overran Italy and faced Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over
the Tiber a few kilometres from Rome. Both knew it would be a decisive
battle with Constantine's forces outnumbered.
'Conquer by this'
It was then that something strange happened. Eusebius - one of the
Christian Church's early historians - relates the event in his
Conversion of Constantine.
Up until this point I was interested but...
Eusebius? That sends my alarm bells off. The same Eusebius that openly
pushed the "Lie for God to advance His Kingdom" policy? The same
Eusebius that is the prime contender for being the source of the forgery
of Josephus' Testimonium Flavium?
You'll have to pardon me if I find his testimony a little bit...how
shall we say it...suspect?
--
To reply to me via email, drop the dash in the address.
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| User: "Roger Pearse" |
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| Title: Re: The space impact that saved Christianity |
29 Jan 2004 08:25:44 AM |
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Ian <masakado-kou@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1a81fdb473b11b4898969a@netnews.upenn.edu>...
In article <4017E22A.394CC802@serv.net>, said...
An old story, but I don't think it got mentioned here. The article has a
picture of the crater.
It was then that something strange happened. Eusebius - one of the
Christian Church's early historians - relates the event in his
Conversion of Constantine.
Up until this point I was interested but...
Eusebius? That sends my alarm bells off. The same Eusebius that openly
pushed the "Lie for God to advance His Kingdom" policy?
No such passage appears in his works. The whole thing was a fraud
circulated by Gibbon in order to smear Eusebius.
The same
Eusebius that is the prime contender for being the source of the forgery
of Josephus' Testimonium Flavium?
Only a single scholar thinks this, and his views have not been
accepted.
You'll have to pardon me if I find his testimony a little bit...how
shall we say it...suspect?
Have a look around the web. The anti-Eusebius smears in fact go back
to a political cause, the need to rubbish the Hapsburg emperor in the
1850's by undermining the ideological basis of Christian empire
(described by Eusebius). But Profs. Cameron & Hall in their recent
version of the Vita Constantini (Oxford University, 1999?) dismiss
this as simply prejudice.
It's annoying that people still circulate these smears without
checking them (I'm sure that's how they got you), but while they do, I
fear we've just got to get in the habit of checking them ourselves.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
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