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Bass
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Exposing Christendom
« on: 2006-11-11 18:07:23 » |
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(my apologies Hermit I was unaware I was not suppost to post in the FAQ section, I look forward to your reply)
Hitler did horribly evil things, much based on the bible and how he was influenced by it, but the same could be said for teenagers who shoot up schools after playing Grand Theft Auto. Books and video games do not kill people, the other people do. Hitler was an evil man that used what he could to fuel the people of Germany, and would use what he could. Why not use Catholicism to fuel a Catholic nation? He wasnt a Christian, despite any membership.
Whether we non-Christians want to admit it or not, the religion played a major role in shaping world events, both positive and negative. One can point to the wars, but you fail to look at how the organized religion put Europe out of the Dark Ages and gave the poor hope.
Yes there are some Christian nutters out there, but then there are also some Athiest nutters out there too.
I think that Christianity (as a historical religion) deserves respect, based on some evidence here. I mean many say that it is a religion made up and copied from other religions (pagan) and that its not unique, but this is in error.
Why does Christianity deserve respect? it is simply based on the following (respect = evidence here)
For example a large chunk of the historians I meet (and probably most of the people who would call themselves "biblical experts," since they're probably all theologians or something) say that Jesus wasn't fictional. Maybe some of the accounts of his exploits were blown out of proportion (and maybe some were entirely made up), but the existence of the dude is pretty probable, most historians agree.
At the simplest, the existence of this dude Yeshua (became Jesu pronounce "Yesu" and then became Jesus with a coupla steps in the middle as it became Hellenized) is pretty much agreed on by historians. We can believe he was a pretty accomplished rabbi (in the old sense where rabbi didn't have any connotations of specific religious duties... just scholarly knowledge) with pretty revolutionary teachings. The nature of the teachings allowed for the recruitment of non-Jewish people, and he was probably a pretty significant cultural force within the times too. We can also believe that he got executed for it (I aint gonna say anything about the resurrection though).
From the practices of early Christians and the actual events in the Bible, we can also figure some of the main ideas of his teachings. He has a ministry of eating, which you'll find in the many meals he shares with people throughout the bible and you can also find it in the earliest "masses" of early Christians, which were actually just feasts in some secret place (Christianity was illegal during its early years) where all the local christians would gather and bring all their surplus food for eating and just having a general good time... and then at some point setting aside bread/wine and taking a solemn moment to do the stuff that still carries over in masses today.
The Bible itself actually maintains it was written for the people of its times. Mark/Matthew have endtimes prophecies in them that suggested the followers reading it only needed to wait a generation or so for the world to end. Luke has an introduction which suggests it was commissioned.
Look at halos. Halos actually come's from a universally recognized symbol for the sun... a ball of light. There's nothing particularly "pagan" about it. Specifically, the halos in drawings are old-timey artistry trying to represent that a dude glowed. Nothing special there.
Or look at the trinity, it didn't come from pagan triad gods, it actually just comes from theologists thinking over the Bible itself. Jesus says to his disciples at one point: "Baptise in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". The Father is God, the Son is Jesus himself... so his recognition of both just comes from his existence as a Hebrew. The Holy Spirit was a weird Hebrew concept that was very closely tied to the early Hebrew Prophets, it represented God's agency and stuff. Christianity getting a lot of stuff from traditions that aren't Hebrew, the meaning of God/the Holy Spirit changed and thinkers trying to maintain a monotheistic standpoint while acknowledge the divinity of Jesus/the Holy Spirit came up with the concept to make it work.
the Christian doctrine regarding the "afterlife" actually makes the life we're living matter even more in terms of our moral obligations, since the consequences of everyone's personal actions extend into infinity.
Yes, it does make people endure suffering in this life needlessly... but so does Hinduism/some forms of Buddhism.
Another example is Endtime philosphy, which is cool and seems normal for any healthy religion (perhaps the CoV needs one). The actual philosophies of Christianity doesn't allow most "endtimers" to directly want or try to achieve thermonuclear war. They accept it as a possibility and perhaps more interesting than people without a clear end-time theory, they expect it, but I don't think war's are gonna be started in order to end the world. By the Bible, it'll come when it comes and there's really nothing you can do to bring it about. It'll be marked by strife when it does come according to the Bible, so I'm sure the war has worked its way into end-time rhetoric in order to encourage repentance.
If you wanna hear about a really interesting (although silly/very dogma-filled interpretation) of endtimes, look up a book series called: "Left Behind". After you learn about it, understand that it's selling pretty well here in America. You can assess the end-timer attitude pretty well by that.
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Hermit
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #1 on: 2006-11-11 20:53:21 » |
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[Bass] (my apologies Hermit I was unaware I was not suppost to post in the FAQ section, I look forward to your reply)
[Hermit] No harm done. Thanks for moving your material.
[Bass] Hitler did horribly evil things, much based on the bible and how he was influenced by it, but the same could be said for teenagers who shoot up schools after playing Grand Theft Auto. Books and video games do not kill people, the other people do.
[Hermit] I somewhat agree. However, religion has inspired or aggravated much more than its fair share of horrors, so when somebody who doesn't know any better attempts to argue that it was because Hitler was an "evil atheist/satanist/pagan" (take your pick), opposed by the virtuous Christians, then it is appropriate to address that claim with historical facts. And the facts are that the Catholic and Lutheran churches not only supported the National Socialists, but their dogma inspired and enabled the "last (hopefully) pogrom" of Europe.
[Bass] Hitler was an evil man
[Hermit] I doubt that he was. Never mistake propaganda for history. Chamberlain, Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman and many others all expressed admiration for Hitler right up into 1939. Churchill even said that if England were ever defeated, that he hoped there would be a Hitler to save it. For an opinion from somebody who definitely did not always see eye to eye with Hitler, see the last line of this post. I suspect that Hitler, as we all are, was merely a product of his upbringing, who happened to be attracted to a highly patriotic, god fearing cult, where his ability to inspire others took on a life of its own. As his sister said after the war, "What a pity he did not become an architect." It seems fairly clear to me, that far from a paragon of evil personified that Hitler was a little man with petty bourgeois tastes, like most men, trying to do the best that he could in the circumstances he had. I see very little difference between how Hitler spoke or behaved and how own Our Dear Misleadertm sees the world. That is not intended as a compliment or a criticism of either, merely an observation. GW Bush merely has somewhat better press, at least in America if not in the rest of the world. Certainly by 1942 Hitler was, like the allied leadership, so caught up in sleep deprivation and amphetamine abuse that he could no longer be called rational. That still didn't make him evil.
[Bass] that used what he could to fuel the people of Germany, and would use what he could.
[Hermit] I very much doubt this. In Hitler's secret conversations discussions from the 1930s which were not only private but undertaken in confidence (i.e. never intended for publication), he asserted his deep belief as a Christian, beliefs which he was to reiterate in the 1940s in private audiences. These fervid beliefs permeated his public utterances and struck chords with the population of Germany, in the same way that Bush's "simple faith" resonates with certain American audiences. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that parallel beliefs are very powerful motivators. Whether the preacher is a Christian or Islamic fascist.
[Bass] Why not use Catholicism to fuel a Catholic nation?
[Hermit] Despite being a Catholic, he saw Catholicism and Lutheranism as corrupted, and in combining the two into a State religion, I think that he saw himself as a reformer that could take Christianity - and Germany - through the fire transforming both into a stronger much more closely melded body. This comes out repeatedly in his writing and speech over a period of some 20 years. So it isn't as if he had a brainstorm which he later discarded, or even just a means of goading people into doing what he wanted, but rather it was a very important motivator for his actions.
[Bass] He wasnt a Christian, despite any membership.
[Hermit] No, how did you ever figure this out? How do you tell if somebody is a "Christian" (bearing in mind that Christianity is not a monolithic entity with a sole "authorised source", but a vast range of mutually contradictory (and frequently self contradictory) belief systems)? There are many examples of prominent Christians who denounced religions who opposed their own personal beliefs. Indeed, the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther who was once a Catholic monk, denounced the Catholic hierarchy as the work of the anti-Christ and established by the Devil [Against the Papacy established by the Devil (1545)]. Yet I have yet to see a Lutheran accuse Luther as being a non-Christian. The history of Christianity is filled with examples of people of differing Christian faiths denouncing each other. I have personally conversed with many Christians who have denounced all forms of religious organizations, yet they have a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ. [Hitler Sources, infra] I suggest that the only way to tell is to ask them.
[Hermit] As shown in our protoFAQ and at wikipedia, Hitler repeatedly affirmed his Christianity, and his dealings with the Church, and the support they gave him confirmed this. I recommend that you study Hitler through his speech (available at wikimedia) (being careful of translation as, e.g. Table Talk is available in multiple translations, all (including Trevor-Roper's) based on M. Genoud's rather poor translation from German to French, which introduced serious errors of interjection and elision some of which were admitted fabrications. You might also find Hitler Sources helpful.
[Bass] Whether we non-Christians want to admit it or not, the religion played a major role in shaping world events, both positive and negative. One can point to the wars, but you fail to look at how the organized religion put Europe out of the Dark Ages and gave the poor hope.
[Hermit] The Dark Ages are so named by some, principally because Christianity instigated it by extinguishing the lights of tolerance and learning, managed the known world to its advantage, taxing the populations, suppressing knowledge and killing those who disagreed with them. The Dark Ages ended only when the power of the church was broken by the massive depopulation consequent on wars and plagues, and consequently when the people of the enlightenment rejected the teachings of the church.
[Bass] Yes there are some Christian nutters out there, but then there are also some Athiest nutters out there too.
[Hermit] Notice that the word "nutters" needs careful examination. Are they inspired to nuttiness by their religion, or by something else? On the one hand, atheism is not a religion, but its absence, so it clearly cannot inspire nuttiness. On the other hand, Christianity is, like all conventional religions, capable of being used to inspire nuttiness to positively divine levels. Consider the 100 year wars. Or the Crusades, including the children's crusade. Or the campaigns against the Albigensians. How about Justinian's order that baptized Christians who lapsed into paganism were to be put to death?
[Bass] I think that Christianity (as a historical religion) deserves respect, based on some evidence here.
[Hermit] I disagree. Respect is earned, not granted. I have to date seen little from any conventional religion which compels my respect. Disgust, often. Disdain, frequently. Respect, seldom.
[Bass] I mean many say that it is a religion made up and copied from other religions (pagan) and that its not unique, but this is in error.
[Hermit] Saying so does not make it so. Prove your words, and you can. The difference between us is that I am persuaded by vast amounts of study and evidence. I think you are saying what you do because you have been told so. As I recommend with Hitler, so too I recommend with Christianity. Do your own research, rather than merely repeating the assertions of others in disagreement with the carefully researched data presented to you.
[Bass] Why does Christianity deserve respect? it is simply based on the following (respect = evidence here)
[Hermit] My opinion is that Christianity is the unattractive offspring of the mating of the poodle of gnosticism, to the ugliness of the Mexican Hairless Dog of fanatic and brutal Mosaic law, with a strong smearing of both neoPlatonicism and Mithracism over the top. If there ever was a Judaic prototype, it was Jesus the brother of James, who was a nasty revolutionary zealot fortunately lost in the mists of history in an unmarked grave. The works of Julian, educated as a neoplatonist and the last of the "pagan" Emperors of Rome make for interesting reading on this score.
[Bass] For example a large chunk of the historians I meet (and probably most of the people who would call themselves "biblical experts," since they're probably all theologians or something) say that Jesus wasn't fictional.
[Hermit] I'm removing the balance of the Christian stuff, if you feel the need to pursue it, I suggest that you do so in Religion and Philosophy forum where I would be quite happy to discuss it with you, preferably after you have had a shot at reading "James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls", Robert Eisenman, Penguin, 1998 so that we are on the same page so to speak.
Let me finish with what I hope is an apposite quote, addressing both issues, from Otto Wagener who was until 1933 Hitler's main economic advisor, in Memoirs of a Confidant, p.147, "I do not remember even a single occasion when Hitler gave any instructions that ran counter to the true Christian spirit and to humanness." What a pity so few Christians of today can aspire to such an epitaph.
Regards
Hermit.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #2 on: 2006-11-12 15:58:00 » |
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Hermit you said
Quote:| The Dark Ages are so named by some, principally because Christianity instigated it by extinguishing the lights of tolerance and learning, managed the known world to its advantage, taxing the populations, suppressing knowledge and killing those who disagreed with them. The Dark Ages ended only when the power of the church was broken by the massive depopulation consequent on wars and plagues, and consequently when the people of the enlightment rejected the teachings of the church. |
But how did you come up with this?
Although this is a complete side point that I'm quoting, I must comment. That's just not true. The Dark Ages were called such because of the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the lack of learning that was preserved by the invading barbarians. It would be quite a few centuries before these barbarians had any interest in starting to rebuild civilization and therefor, all of western Europe was left in the dark, so to speak. It was in fact the church that saved civilization during this time. One of the main tasks of the priesthood was copying books and that's exactly what they did. They also made various attempts to reestablish a Roman - like empire in the region, as did the Byzantines. Without this knowledge and the books to reveal the old works of Plato, Aristotle and the like, Western Civilization would not have survived the Dark Ages. The church isn't ALWAYS bad. Things are hardly so black and white.
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Hermit
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #3 on: 2006-11-12 19:28:39 » |
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[Bass cites popular legend] I must comment. That's just not true... It was in fact the church that saved civilization during this time.
[Hermit responds]
What little ancient knowledge has survived, has survived despite the church, not because of it. Think I exaggerate? I am only telling you the official position of the Church. St Augustine is still regarded by many Christians as one of the great men of learning. Rather than the mythical "learning" you refer to, here in his own words, you can discover what that meant.When the question is asked, what we are to believe in regard to religion, it is not necessary to probe into the nature of things, as was done by the Greek scientists. We need not be alarmed should the Christian not know the number of elements; the motion of the heavenly bodies; the shape of the cosmos; the species of animals and plants; the nature of stones, rivers, and mountains; about time and distance; the signs of coming storms; or about a thousand other things which these scientists have either found out, or think they have found out.
For even these men themselves, endowed as they are with so much genius, burning with zeal, abounding in leisure, tracking some things by the aid of human conjecture, searching into others with the aids of history and experience, have not found out all things; and even their boasted discoveries are more often mere guesses rather than certain knowledge.
It is enough for the Christian to believe that the only cause of all created things, whether heavenly or earthly, visible or invisible, is the goodness of the creator, the one true God; and that nothing exists but Himself that does not derive its existence from Him. And that he is the Trinity, meaning he is the Father, and the Son begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, all being one and the same spirit. So now you know the mindset established by the sainted barbarian Augustine and what the church actually thought about learning.
By the way, you probably don't know that the "Trinity" was a relatively late invention, about halfway through the fabrication of what is today refered to the bible. This resulted in the deliberate destruction by the church of early christian documents, to camouflage the earlier lack of a "trinity." You can imagine the amount of time they spent on "pagan" works.
The Christians copied Christian works, not pagan ones. They carefully scraped clean the vellum upon which only the most significant ancient works were written, and scribbled their own works on top of them. Those writings which could not be scraped clean were burned or thrown in the trash. In a few cases we have recovered small pieces of significant ancient works through careful forensic analysis of later Christian works which has allowed us to recover some of the priceless works over which they scribbled their self-admitted lies (google for luminous liars) and silly prayers. Think I exaggerate?
Archimedes' hidden writings revealed with particle accelerator
Quote:Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.
Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.
The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment.
...
Born in the 3rd century B.C., Archimedes is considered one of ancient Greece's greatest mathematicians, perhaps best known for discovering the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath.
The 174-page manuscript, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest, contains the only copies of treatises on flotation, gravity and mathematics. Scholars believe a scribe copied them onto the goatskin parchment from the original Greek scrolls. |
The documents and the story can be viewed here http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org.
This wasn't the only method of destruction. Some of our most valuable document repositories have come out of the middens of monasteries where "heretical" documents not written on vellum (which could be reused), or papyrus (which could be used for starting fires), tended to be thrown. I don't speak of supposition but of fact. Do some research. I suggest that your view of history is an almost complete inversion of what the record says. Note that to a serious historian, amateur or not, the record is to be found in accounting books, not in accounts. The accounting would not be complete without mentioning that the emperor Theodosius twice ordered the burning of the "heretical" libraries of Alexandria - which on each occasion resulted in hundreds of thousands of ancient works going up in smoke - in the greatest destruction of learning this world has ever seen.
So much for the Christian's love of knowledge and preservation of important works. The rest of your paean is even less accurate, but would take a lot of time I don't have to address. Once you are up-to-date on your current reading list I recommend you read Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which is available on the Internet in at least two editions:
The Rev. H.H. Milman edition of 1845
The J. B. Bury edition of 1906.
You might find chapters XV and XVI especially interesting, because it is there in particular that he demolished most of the Christian myths, including the alleged "martyrs" (Rome was highly tolerant of alternate religions, it was the Christians who made martyrs of one another), of their learning (as above) and of the idea that it was external attacks rather than the rise of Christianity which doomed Rome. While later historians have expanded on this territory, and some of his ideas are now considered outdated, the modern methods of history including punctilious translation of primary sources, and the reliance on evidence of activity, not stories, can be attributed directly to Gibbon and it is for this reason that his work is still regarded as seminal. Well worth the time if you find this area of history fascinating.
Regards
Hermit
PS On Jesus as an historical figure (not), you might find this informative: http://www.jesusneverexisted.com, particularly http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #4 on: 2006-11-13 11:40:46 » |
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Hermit I may be misinterpreting what has been said here but it doesn't seem to make sense. My last post was based on University study, but you seem to think that I am wrong? please explain how you came to this conclusion.
Your statement that their repression was the cause for the dark ages is simply untrue with respect to what I have learnt, since my last post was taken directly from a University classroom.
Now I may be off the mark a bit here, but last I checked, doctors are fairly credible.
You look at the small details so closely that you seem to blind yourself to the larger picture here. Yes, many aspects of the church were repressive at the time and many things were thrown away due to being un-christian. However, considering the priesthood were really the only literate people with a comfortable enough position to copy books, they were still leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else in the dark ages when it came to keeping the light on. They attempted to mold the things they found to benefit Christianity, obviously, but be that as it may, Western Civilization would still not have recovered from the collapse of Rome without the Church (at least not as quickly).
You have listed sources for what? The church being repressive and throwing certain things away? Yes.
However that in no way disproves my point that it was the Chruch that was the main driving force in keeping learning alive in the dark ages. All you've proved is that they were not unbiased, and had their own motives but how is that different than normal?
It doesn't change anything. As I said before, your focus on little details seems to have blinded you to the big picture. The barbarians couldn't read, save a very select few, the lower class of the Roman empire that was still left certainly couldn't, nor did they have the time to copy books, trying to live and all. Only the Church had the resources to do so. I'm not saying that they were good semeritans for doing so, nor am I promoting their bias, I'm simply saying that they were the main driving force behind learning at the time. Common sense itself dictates this.
Those with wealth and security have the best chance to learn and to teach and with all the Roman nobles dead or under direct jurisdication of the church, there was no one left other than the church to do it. Yes, you can harp on the fact that the church was interested only in the progression of their own goals all you want and provide an unlimited ammount of sources, but it is completely irrelevant as I never claimed the Church's intentions either way.
No matter how you look at it, they copied down more books than anyone else at the time and were therefor, and pardon the pun, a godsend to keeping civilization alive.
Thanks again.
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Hermit
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #5 on: 2006-11-13 13:19:58 » |
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1) As somebody who has been intimately involved with academia for most of my life, I can assure you from observation and personal experience that a PhD does not grant wisdom or guarantee accuracy, particularly out of field.
2) When quoting somebody, particularly when asserting that because something originated from a particular source it must be accurate, it is customary to cite one's sources in an accessible format in order to permit others to evaluate the author's credentials (and competence within the field), the opinion of others in the field, and their work in context.
3) When asserting that something is one way or another, it is customary to cite reasons to establish whether or not it is relevant, appropriate and accurate. Otherwise it disintegrates from an argument (An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition (Thank-you Monty Python)) into mere contradiction. I'm not sure that I have seen any arguments from you yet, despite your apparent impression that assertion and contradiction comprise argument.
4) Not knowing me, what I have studied, what qualifications I have, what I think on these issues, except for the very limited amount I have written here, it is invalid (not to say impolite) for you to make assertions about the breadth or lack of it of my perspective without at least attempting to sustain your assertions.
5) My comments to your lack of knowledge (e.g below) are based on specific failures of knowledge, of specific instances of argument showing a lack of background, of your lack of familiarity with the usual agreements and disagreements in the field of study you are referencing; and most especially your use of utterly specious arguments based on assertions made only by the Church - and known for 300 years or more, to lack any kind of evidential support. So far as possible in the limited time available, I have indicated where I thought you needed to study further, suggested sources where you could find the information in accessible form, and given my reasons for why I thought you were wrong.
6) When the world finally escaped the clutches of the Church, for reasons I have already raised (but you seem to have missed), being the death of most of the population of Europe with the consequent increase in the value of people and the breakdown of the system of nobility by the Merchant Princes (who invested in science, art and philosophy rather than the church), and with trade with the East and Islamic nations bringing long lost classical works back to light, people began to rediscover the ancient masterpieces that the Church had not managed to stamp out (why it is called the Renaissance), the Church nevertheless attempted to maintain a rearguard action and a great deal of the light you refer to was the burning tallow melted from the limbs of scientists and philosophers dragged, not altogether willingly to the festivities of the Auto da Fe and Italian bonfire parties.
7) Referring to non-members of the Roman church as barbarians, and suggesting they were illiterate demonstrates a lamentable lack of learning. You might compare the unwashed, but baptised Franks, where reading was, by law, reserved to the Church, with the Moors, where most of the population was schooled and literate and where great Universities preserved hundreds of thousands of scrolls and codices. You might also recognize that the Eastern Roman Empire lasted a 1000 years, and that the Chinese and Hindu also did perfectly well, all of them having large literate classes, without the alleged benefits of the Church of Rome which undoubtedly burned more books than it ever saved.
8 ) Suggesting that the barbarians within the walls responsible for the end of tolerance and the destruction of civilization were then responsible for preserving it, because having burned everyone else's literature they kept their own tracts from the fires, and even reproduced them, seems to lack a certain kind of quality of persuasion. At least for me.
9) At this point I suggest that we agree to disagree, because your rejection of alternatives to your unsupported assertions (an argument from authority is a debating fallacy, not support) tends to suggest that even were I to spend more time on trying to guide you to better sources than those you seem used to, that you are not sufficiently open to examining them to learn from them. As such my limited resources are better spent elsewhere.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #6 on: 2006-11-13 16:49:27 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-13 13:19:58
4) Not knowing me, what I have studied, what qualifications I have, what I think on these issues, except for the very limited amount I have written here, it is invalid (not to say impolite) for you to make assertions about the breadth or lack of it of my perspective without at least attempting to sustain your assertions.
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I am sorry if my post sounded harsh or impolite Hermit, I really didn't mean it in quite that way...guess it just all came out wrong. My bad.
I have to say based on many of your replies here I have great respect for your knowledge and logic, its just sometimes I misintepret something and things just come out in the wrong way of my part either because I'm lost or confused, I had you giving me one way of looking at it then my University class another.
But I will follow your sound advice and look into finding sources to support my claims before I post any more on the subject, because you seem to have pretty much covered everything. Thanks.
I guess I just need to learn to be a little more empathetic...
Thanks again Hermit for your time, and sorry for seeming rude, I really actually do value your opinion and will spend more time looking into it here, or try to, lol.
regards, Bass
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Bass
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #7 on: 2006-11-13 20:56:21 » |
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After looking over your sources Hermit (very good by the way) I have come up with the following.
1) I agree, but your sources explained things that seemed irrelevant to my point.
2) Again I agree, but it's pretty hard to cite something that happened in a classroom.
3) My argument has been mostly how you've been interpreting my post and acting as if I've said that only the Church was learning; when I said that they were the main force in keeping western civilization alive through the dark ages.
4) Agreed; sorry again for that impression.
5) Unfortunately (from what I can tell), your reasons are all based around the church being biased in what they kept/taught when I never claimed that they weren't.
6) Okay, you're talking about the renaissance now almost as if it has something to do with the dark ages. The fact that normal, everyday people learning was so revolutionary at the time pretty much proves (at lest to me) that it was the church doing all the teaching, which is what I've been saying the entire time.
7) I refer to them as barbarians because it's a general term that includes all the post-roman Germanic tribes. Before the Franks and the Ostrogoths, they certainly couldn't be called civilizations. Most of the scholars from their civilizations were priests.
 The barbarians weren't civilizations at the time. Civilization is not the same as culture. It wasn't until the Franks set up their kingdom that they started to become a civilization. Therefore, by destroying Rome, they nearly caused the death of civilization.
9) In all respect I'd really like to resolve this, providing you don't mind of course. If you could find me a source that said the Church was outdone in book copying and teaching, then that would settle your point to me, but all you have given me was the fact that the church was far less than perfect at it, and as that is true, they still did the best.
And I have some evidence. http://www.bede.org.uk/literature.htm#preserve
Quote:
The Preservation of Literature
The preservation of what classical Latin works that we do possess was almost entirely down to the Christian church. It helped in a number of ways:
- It preserved the use of the Latin language and hence ensured that classical works could continue to be used and understood;
- Its monks copied texts as they wore out. Not a single complete text survives from Roman times but instead those we possess were recopied from the ninth century in monastery scriptoria.
- As Christianity is a highly literary religion it had to ensure that enough people remained literate in order to use sacred texts. This naturally spilled over into secular work as well.
- The monastic libraries were safe havens for valuable and delicate manuscripts that Christian raiders (though not pagan ones like the Vikings) generally left alone.
It might be claimed that as the Church was the only institution that contained people able to read and write it is hardly surprising that the Latin that survived was in their hands. This misses the point. There is no evidence that the church was in any way jealous of its learning and anyone who paid could have received an education. But among the upper class warriors of the Franks, Saxons and Goths there was simply no such desire until Charlemagne encouraged them in the ninth century. For this reason, had the church not occupied its unifying, educational and preserving role no other institution would have done so. The amount of classical Latin literature that has come down to us is a pitiful remnant of what there once was, but we can thank the church for what we have.
In the fifteenth century humanists (in the context the term simply means a classical scholar) like Poggio searched the libraries of the monasteries seeking to acquire, by fair means and foul, copies of ancient works and by 1450 nearly all the classical Latin known today had been recovered.
In the Eastern Empire there was no sudden collapse but instead a thousand year decay. This meant that learning was carried on for much longer and something like ten times as much classical Greek survives as classical Latin. The amount that was still extant in the ninth century when Photius compiled his Bibliography was considerably more than still known today. Unfortunately, Byzantium was hammered over the next five hundred years by successive invasions by Turks and Normans who, between them, destroyed it utterly. As these disasters unfolded, Byzantine learning, despite some brief revivals, shrunk so that it could not replace what the invaders took away. On the other hand, only a tiny fraction of late Byzantine manuscripts have been edited and there remains that chance that substantial parts of earlier classical works have been copied and remain to be discovered.
Of course, the Greek works that survive are those that the Christian Byzantines choose to preserve for us. Hence they give a very skewed view of what Greek thought was actually like. For instance, we have seen that the medical works of Galen make up a full fifth of the entire surviving classical Greek corpus. Add Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and the mathematical works and we find that Christians were by far the most keen on copying scientific and medical writings. The papyri from Egypt and epigraphical evidence show that this was not the concern of most Greeks. In other words, we think Greeks were a rational lot because Christians were interested in their rational thought. Hence, the preponderance of Greek science in the surviving corpus tells us that the Christians who preserved it were very interested in science - not that the classical Greeks were. Oddly, Stoicism, the Greek philosophy that comes closed to Christianity is severely under represented as is Epicurianism and Cynicism. And yet these three schools rejected much of reason and science, concentrating instead on ethical issues. We are left with the strong impression that it was Christians who appreciated Greek science a whole lot more than the Greeks did.
The final destruction of Byzantium coincided with the Renaissance in the West. The extent to which the two events are linked has long been debated but there is no doubt that the rediscovery of the Greek language by the humanists helped preserve much of the detritus left by the loss of the Greek Empire. The conquering Ottoman Turks were also happy to let most of the Greek monasteries continue in peace and discoveries were made in their dusty libraries well into the twentieth century.
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Hermit
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #8 on: 2006-11-13 22:51:41 » |
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[Bass] Apologies.
[Hermit] Very well. Accepted. Let's try again.
[Bass] ...when I said that they were the main force in keeping western civilization alive through the dark ages...
and
[Bass] ...you're talking about the renissence now almost as if it has something to do with the dark ages. The fact that normal, everday people learning was so revolutionary at the time pretty much proves (at lest to me) that it was the church doing all the teaching, which is what I've been saying the entire time...
[Hermit] What civilization? The West, well represented by the brutal and brutish Franks, was reintroduced to civilization by the Moors, by the Byzantines, by the Arabs, by the Persians, by the Turks, by the Semites, and through contact with the Chinese. This was how the West was introduced to vast numbers of inventions and eventually became reacquainted with its heritage. A heritage which, except for a few carefully selected sources which they felt supported their POV, so far as it was in their power, had been eliminated by the Catholic Church.
[Hermit] The Renaissance happened only after the Church had lost much of its power, and I am saying, despite everything you have been told, not just after but rather because the Church had lost its power. The Moorish culture and accomplishments (including publishing and book collecting) in Spain, a culture which lasted over 700 years until their conquest first by the Arabs, who broke up the University, but rather than destroying it, dispersed both the scholars and the books of Cordova, and then by the Franks who willy nilly, imposed Catholicism and burnt those that would not accept not just Christianity but specifically the Church of Rome, along with all the books. The Franks and later the Society of Jesus wrote proudly about their wonderful work for the Lord in doing this. Unfortunately this is material I have read in hand written manuscripts which don't seem to have made it to the net yet. But comparisons should give you some idea of what I'm trying to convey.
From http://www.xmission.com/~dderhak/index/moors.htm (which is really worth spending some time visiting)
Quote:At a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that "could not boast of a single streetlamp" (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova "there were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards". (Digest, 1973, p. 622) "Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries." (Burke, 1985, p. 38).
In his book titled, "Spain In The Modern World," James Cleuge explains the significance of Cordova in Medieval Europe: "For there was nothing like it, at that epoch, in the rest of Europe. The best minds in that continent looked to Spain for everything which most clearly differentiates a human being from a tiger." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 70)
During the end of the first millennium, Cordova was the intellectual well from which European humanity came to drink. Students from France and England traveled there to sit at the feet of Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars, to learn philosophy, science and medicine (Digest, 1973, p. 622). In the great library of Cordova alone, there were some 600,000 manuscripts (Burke, 1978, p. 122).
This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths. tolerance was unheard of in the rest of Europe. But in Moorish Spain, "thousands of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The society had a literary rather than religious base. Economically their prosperity was unparalleled for centuries. The aristocracy promoted private land ownership and encouraged Jews in banking. There was little or no Muslim prostelyting. Instead, non-believers simply paid an extra tax!
"Their society had become too sophisticated to be fanatical. Christians and Moslems, with Jews as their intermediaries and interpreters, lived side by side and fought, not each other, but other mixed communities." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 71) |
[Hermit] When ready for adult History, consult Arnold Toynbee on this subject.
[Bass] The barbarians weren't civilizations at the time. Civilization is not the same as culture. It wasn't until the Franks set up thier kingdom that they started to become a civilization. Therefor, by destroying rome, they nearly caused the death of civilzation.
[Hermit] Alright then. Please read up on some barbarians. [It is short, and for the purposes of attaining some enlightenment, you need read only so far as printing.]
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s10/gifts.pdf
[Bass] If you could find me a source that said the Church was outdone in book copying and teaching, then that would settle your point to me, but all you have given me was the fact that the church was far less than perfect at it, and as that is true, they still did the best.
[Hermit] So having read about Cordova's 70 libraries and the University with its 600,000 manuscripts, and the Chinese where, hopefully on page 8 you found
Quote:The world's oldest existing printed book is a Buddhist sacred text, dated in the year A.D. 868, and beautifully printed in Chinese characters. It was recovered some forty years ago from a cave in Northwest China, just at the point where the great Silk Road leaves China proper to plunge into the deserts of Central Asia. This book was not folded into pages like our modern books, but was a single roll of paper 16 feet long. Its dedication states that it was printed by a certain Wang Chieh "for free general distribution, in order in deep reverence to perpetuate the memory of his parents."
Less than a century later comes the first example of really large-scale book printing in China. This achievement was the printing of nine of the major Chinese classics in 130 volumes. It was carried out between the years A.D. 932 and 953 under the direction of a famous official named Feng Tao. From this time onward the flood of printing became ever greater. One modern writer has even estimated that up to the year 1800, more books were printed in China than in the entire rest of the world put together. |
[Hermit] Now Charlemagne, the founder of the "Holy Roman Empire", at least the Western half of it, was considered learned, even though he had difficulty reading and while he knew his letters, had such trouble writing that he referred to himself as "homo illiteratus". Nevertheless, he was, for his day, educated, founded the Karolian Renaissance, and important for this discussion, owned some books. Ancient works that he had obtained from the Moors. These books were so rare and precious that they were specifically mentioned in his will (Refer Einhard's Vita Karoli Chapter 33).
Quote:| If, however, any vessels, books or other articles be found therein which are certainly known not to have been given by him to the said chapel, whoever wants them shall have them on paying their value at a fair estimation. He likewise commands that the books which he has collected in his library in great numbers shall be sold for fair prices to such as want them, and the money received therefrom given to the poor. |
The entire list of books, his private books and the state collection, individually catalogued and described, fitted onto one small scroll, a transcription of which is found in "Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne" by Bernhard Bischoff, translated into English and republished by Cambridge University Press in 1994 (ISBN 0521383463).
[Hermit] By the way, in Capitulare de litteris colendis ("Letter on the Study of the Arts") [787 CE] Charlemagne upbraided his ecclesiastics for their "uncouth language" and "unlettered tongues." If the Church were as literate as you seem to imagine, it would be difficult to explain why Charlemagne needed to encourage them to found schools and learn to read and write.
[Hermit] Similarly, if the Church had been so prolific as you seem to imagine, do you not think that the learned and lettered founder of the Holy Roman Empire, who generously donated most of his vast treasury to his grateful subjects, and who clearly prized books, might have owned more than could be individually listed on a single scroll - and might not have imagined that this was a "great number" of books?
Hermit
PS I won't address how ridiculous I find the use of a self-admitted Christian apologist's web site in a putative argument where your opponent has repeatedly observed that it is precisely the Christian apologists and those maleducated by them who make the claims you do. I'll leave you to visit http://bede.org.uk/index.htm, read about the author who appears to have joined the ranks of the luminous liars (aside from appearing to be far out of field), and do some thinking for yourself.
PPS A rather nice resource site for the period (though not for our discussion specifically) here http://www.lib.unc.edu/reference/instruction/Hist11.html.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #10 on: 2006-11-14 06:51:38 » |
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[Blunderov] It might be worthwhile reflecting on the moment when all the trouble began; when Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I don't think it is facile to wonder whether the real problem here is the knowledge, not the good and evil, which we are left to assume existed in any case.
The subsequent history of Christianity seems to reflect this idea of knowledge as a "problem" very consistently. If it wasn't for the fact that the Bible was a collection of text rather than, say, a totem pole it might quite easily have spelled the demise of literature altogether.
When Luther said "Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason" he was telling it like it is.
Positive Atheism's Big Scary List of Martin Luther Quotations
Civilization:
1 a : a relatively high level of cultural and technological development; specifically : the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained
I suggest that in order to qualify as a civilization both conditions must be met; it is not sufficient to merely keep written records. Viewing its history, it does not seem to me that the Christian church can be described as an enabler of civilisation. Rather the reverse.
Best regards.
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Hermit
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #11 on: 2006-11-14 13:18:55 » |
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Thank-you for the reminder Blunderov.
It always helpful to bear in mind that conventional, irrational, non-visionary, dogmatic religions are useful primarily to enslave the feeble minded and benefit only those sufficiently ill-disposed to man to wish to wield their evil as a whip against others. In our entire recorded history there is no recorded instance of conventional religion doing anything beneficial for mankind. Conventional religion has not cured a single disease, fed a single starving person, or saved an hour of labor in a field. No. On the contrary, conventional religion has been the sponsor and is the author of self-reinforcing, humanity harming delusions.
As Bass said at the start of this thread, "Hitler did horribly evil things, much based on the bible and how he was influenced by it, but the same could be said for teenagers who shoot up schools after playing Grand Theft Auto. Books and video games do not kill people, the other people do." On the one hand, as I observed then, this is not accurate at all. Clearly, Hitler was inspired and enabled by his Christianity, by his religious background, by the religious mania he shared with his supporters. He was able to ignite UTism precisely because of the disparate values assigned people because of the different religions they adhered to. In the absence of the religious motivation, Hitler's persecution of Jews, Rom, communists, homosexuals, intellectuals and other "evil people" simply could not have taken place. It needed religion, a god, to tell people that their brutality was justified, that their victims were sinners.
On the other hand, Bass' argument is of course true for the good things that are ascribed to conventional religions. Each and every attribute we regard as beneficial for man can be identified as happening in the absence of religion, and thus cannot be said to be dependent on conventional religion in any way.
As we come to the end of cheap fuel, and the climate threatens us with potentially nasty changes, while the ease of movement around the world and ever more ingenious methods allowing individuals and groups to engage in mass-murder, makes some men fearful and terrifies others; the idea of conventional religions, tending to set men apart, becomes an ever greater threat to all mankind. It is time to dispose of this menace as the threat that it is, and no longer politely excuse the evil role of conventional religions simply because the weakness of their supporters' intellects means they are incapable of fully grasping why their beliefs are harmful.
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Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #12 on: 2006-11-16 08:30:44 » |
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I invite Bass to visit the brilliant http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk site. Amongst many other "scraps" of history, rescued from the middens* of the past, he will find on page 4 of the introduction, these luminious words
Quote:
The traditional classical world leaves us no actual books: the great Library of Alexandria, the twenty-eight public libraries of imperial Rome have disappeared without trace. We are left with copies of copies, chance survivals through the Empire and Middle Ages. We have ideas of what’s missing, but these losses seemed final.
Sporadically and in fragments, the dumps of Oxyrhynchus are changing all that. Oxyrhynchus restores to us authors famous in classical times, who went under in the Middle Ages: the songs of Sappho, the sitcom of Menander, the elegant and learned elegies of Callimachus that Roman poets liked to boast of imitating. These Egyptian Greeks read Greek tragedies that to us had just been names — and the satyr plays that went with them.
*"My first impressions on examining the site were not very favourable ... the rubbish mounds were nothing but rubbish mounds" — Grenfell |
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Exposing Christendom
« Reply #14 on: 2006-11-30 21:56:11 » |
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Accelerator deciphers Archimedes’ secrets
X-rays reveal text written over by medieval monk
[Hermit: Old, but topical. Follow the link.]
Source: MSNBC
Authors: Alex Dominguez
Dated: 2005-05-23
External Links:
Archimedes Palimpsest Project
Caption: The Archimedes Palimpsest sits under plexiglass at the Field Museum in Chicago, as seen in a 1999 photo. A particle accelerator is being used to decipher parts of the 174-page text that have not yet been revealed through other technologies. Beth A. Keiser (AP)
A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages.
Highly focused X-rays produced at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to begin deciphering the parts of the 174-page text that have not yet been revealed. The X-rays cause iron in the hidden ink to glow.
"One of the delightful things is, we don't know what it's going to say," said William Noel, head of the Archimedes Palimpsest Project at the Walters Art Gallery.
Scholars believe the treatise was copied by a scribe in the 10th century from Archimedes' original Greek scrolls, written in the third century B.C.
It was erased about 200 years later by a monk who reused the parchment for a prayer book, creating a twice-used parchment book known as a "palimpsest." In the 12th century, parchment — scraped and dried animal skins — was rare and costly, and Archimedes' works were in less demand.
The palimpsest was bought at auction for $2 million in 1998 by an anonymous private collector who loaned it to the Baltimore museum and funded studies to reveal the text. About 80 percent of the text has been uncovered so far.
"It's the only one that contains diagrams that may bear any resemblance to the diagrams Archimedes himself drew in the sand in Syracuse 2,000 years ago," Noel said.
What the accelerator sees
While reading an article on the text, Stanford physicist Uwe Bergmann realized he could use a particle accelerator to detect small amounts of iron in the ink. The electrons speeding along the circular accelerator emit X-rays that can be used to cause the iron to fluoresce, or glow.
"Anything which contains iron will be shown, and anything that doesn't contain iron will not be shown," Bergmann said.
Bergmann normally uses the accelerator, in which electrons are pushed to near the speed of light, to study the structure of water and how water is split to create oxygen during photosynthesis.
What the manuscript says
Most of the text has been revealed by scientists at Johns Hopkins University and the Rochester Institute of Technology, who used digital cameras and processing techniques as well as ultraviolet and infrared filters developed for medicine and space research.
The so-called Archimedes Palimpsest includes the only copy of the treatise "Method of Mechanical Theorems," in which Archimedes explains how he used mechanical means to develop his mathematical theorems. It is also the only source in the original Greek for the treatise "On Floating Bodies," in which Archimedes deals with the physics of flotation and gravity.
Three of the undeciphered pages were imaged last week, and the rest are expected to take three to four years to complete, Noel said.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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