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Did Christianity hold Europe back?

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ruveyn
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07 Feb 2013, 10:21 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
]

That's not from the Gospel :P

Sorry, just being pedantic. It does illustrate the point that Christianity was never intended to be a power religion.

I had this in mind:

http://bible.cc/mark/12-17.htm


any religion can become a "power religion" if it is co-opted or hijacked by power hungry politicians.

ruveyn



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07 Feb 2013, 11:01 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
^

Lol. I think Newton's prophecy was 'correct' by sheer luck (his prediction for the date of the apocalypse didn't work out). I think that story provides a good reason not to be closed-minded, whatever side you are on.


To be far, Jesus did say "No one knows the day nor the hour."

CHRISTIANITY WINS AGAIN! YEAH! 40MPH!



Tensu
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07 Feb 2013, 11:41 pm

A lot of important scientific discoveries were made by christian monks.

For example, Joseph Mendel(sp?) discovered heredity.

A monk named Thomas Aquinas more or less proposed that humans evolved from animals centuries before Darwin.

Christian monks also studied medicine, light, magnetism, etc.

Christian monasteries were safe houses for books during the fall of rome.

The Bible never claims the universe is geocentric.

Europe was held back by various power-hungry people taking advantage of the fear and illiteracy that was rampant in the middle ages. While the Roman Catholic Church got in on a lot of that, it is the because of the moral failings of the people involved and not of Christianity itself.



xenon13
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08 Feb 2013, 1:58 am

The High Middle Ages were actually a pretty good time and there was a lot of advancement then. They analysed skeletons of people who lived during the High Middle Ages and found evidence that they were healthier than people in every century after that until the last one! The 1300s was really when things went downhill as far as quality of life goes. Also that's when witch burnings began, as before it was considered to be heresy to believe in witches at all.



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08 Feb 2013, 2:38 am

xenon13 wrote:
The High Middle Ages were actually a pretty good time and there was a lot of advancement then. They analysed skeletons of people who lived during the High Middle Ages and found evidence that they were healthier than people in every century after that until the last one! The 1300s was really when things went downhill as far as quality of life goes. Also that's when witch burnings began, as before it was considered to be heresy to believe in witches at all.


The High Middle Ages (13th century onward) is not what we normally mean by the Dark Ages. That was actually beginning of the Renaissance in the sense that the recovery of knowledge from the ancient Greeks and Romans and the initial stage of people think of new ideas that later led to the Renaissance started at that time. However, that still leaves a 1000 year gap where there was virtually no scientific advancement at all compared to the ancient times.



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08 Feb 2013, 4:03 am

Yeah Image


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08 Feb 2013, 10:15 am

Tensu wrote:
A lot of important scientific discoveries were made by christian monks.

For example, Joseph Mendel(sp?) discovered heredity.

A monk named Thomas Aquinas more or less proposed that humans evolved from animals centuries before Darwin.

Christian monks also studied medicine, light, magnetism, etc.

Christian monasteries were safe houses for books during the fall of rome.

The Bible never claims the universe is geocentric.

Europe was held back by various power-hungry people taking advantage of the fear and illiteracy that was rampant in the middle ages. While the Roman Catholic Church got in on a lot of that, it is the because of the moral failings of the people involved and not of Christianity itself.


Gregor Mendel discovered heredity in the nineteenth century, not in the middle ages.

Besides, the Church didn't get along well with Galileo and Copernicus' ideas, because they defied the Christian dogma. Granted, you could argue that Galileo was also trying to make his own interpretation of the Bible, but the Church still generally didn't like things that went against their dogma.



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08 Feb 2013, 10:17 am

ruveyn wrote:
any religion can become a "power religion" if it is co-opted or hijacked by power hungry politicians.


You're forgetting that politicians can basically make their own religious cult as well.



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08 Feb 2013, 2:33 pm

Jono wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
The High Middle Ages were actually a pretty good time and there was a lot of advancement then. They analysed skeletons of people who lived during the High Middle Ages and found evidence that they were healthier than people in every century after that until the last one! The 1300s was really when things went downhill as far as quality of life goes. Also that's when witch burnings began, as before it was considered to be heresy to believe in witches at all.


The High Middle Ages (13th century onward) is not what we normally mean by the Dark Ages. That was actually beginning of the Renaissance in the sense that the recovery of knowledge from the ancient Greeks and Romans and the initial stage of people think of new ideas that later led to the Renaissance started at that time. However, that still leaves a 1000 year gap where there was virtually no scientific advancement at all compared to the ancient times.



The High Middle Ages is 1000 to 1300 thereabouts... what is known as the Dark Ages is really the period of migrations that preceded this. There were significant discoveries in the Late Middle Ages, it's just that the onset of the Little Ice Age combined with overpopulation caused great hardship what with the Great Famine and Black Death following in succession. This was the time of the beginning of witch burnings, for example, which really mostly characterised the Early Modern Period than it did the Middle Ages.



ruveyn
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08 Feb 2013, 3:22 pm

xenon13 wrote:


The High Middle Ages is 1000 to 1300 thereabouts... what is known as the Dark Ages is really the period of migrations that preceded this. There were significant discoveries in the Late Middle Ages, it's just that the onset of the Little Ice Age combined with overpopulation caused great hardship what with the Great Famine and Black Death following in succession. This was the time of the beginning of witch burnings, for example, which really mostly characterised the Early Modern Period than it did the Middle Ages.


That period was the re-boot of the intellectual life of Europe following the demise of the Roman empire. Fortunately the eastern portion of Rome situated at Constantinople was the gateway by which ancient Greek knowledge plus important increments developed in the Islamic domains came back to Europe.

ruveyn



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08 Feb 2013, 3:27 pm

Would paganism or celtic, Roman and nordic polytheism have sped up progress any more? I doubt it.


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08 Feb 2013, 5:13 pm

Tensu wrote:

A monk named Thomas Aquinas more or less proposed that humans evolved from animals centuries before Darwin.

Aquinas has an awful lot to answer for. People like him who presumed Aristotle was infallible held back progress in Europe more than Christianity IMO. Of course, Christianity (particularly Catholicism) adopted a lot of Aristotle's views, so it can be hard to tell them apart.

Put it this way- without Aristotle, the Pope would probably be encouraging condom use to stop the spread of AIDs and the escalation of the population problem.



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08 Feb 2013, 5:16 pm

What exactly has Aristotle got to do with condom use? It's past midnight and I can't seem to connect the two.



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08 Feb 2013, 6:58 pm

xenon13 wrote:
The High Middle Ages were actually a pretty good time and there was a lot of advancement then. They analysed skeletons of people who lived during the High Middle Ages and found evidence that they were healthier than people in every century after that until the last one! The 1300s was really when things went downhill as far as quality of life goes. Also that's when witch burnings began, as before it was considered to be heresy to believe in witches at all.

The 1300s were bad because the prosperity of the centuries before (Brought by progress of agriculture; no the middle age was not stagant.) brought overpopulation. The overpopulation was brought down by the black death, but then the miasma theory (A secular theory) came and has been a sanitary catastrophe.

It's not true that the middle age has been 1000 years of stagnant science and technology, and the roman empire has not been brought down by christianity but by the barbarian invasions and the take over of power by the roman army to the depend of the capital of a overly centralised empire.


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08 Feb 2013, 7:13 pm

thomas81 wrote:
Would paganism or celtic, Roman and nordic polytheism have sped up progress any more? I doubt it.


I totally agree with you there.



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08 Feb 2013, 7:25 pm

Dragoness wrote:
thomas81 wrote:
Would paganism or celtic, Roman and nordic polytheism have sped up progress any more? I doubt it.
I totally agree with you there.

Good point, and it supports my opinion that religion in general is holding back progress.

Consider Islam - this religion considers women to be lesser beings than men, and demands that they conceal themselves from men's eyes so as to not cause men to sin. This is not progressive; this is religion.


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