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| Author |
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| 25 new of 293 responses total. |
twenex
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response 210 of 293:
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Dec 16 15:22 UTC 2003 |
Heh. looks like I stand corrected.
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flem
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response 211 of 293:
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Dec 16 18:18 UTC 2003 |
I'll grant that Judeo-Christian monotheism made important contributions
to morality, but that it led to nationalism and industrialization?
That's a bit of a stretch.
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jep
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response 212 of 293:
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Dec 16 18:24 UTC 2003 |
re resp:206: That's wishful thinking on the order of "I wish people
didn't have to get sick", Rane. People didn't spring into being with
full knowledge of how the world works; they had to figure it out. (And
some of you still haven't got it all right. (-: )
Some day people may come to regard quantum physics and relativity in
the same way most of us regard phlogiston, astrology and the sun going
around the Earth on the backs of turtles. That doesn't mean any of
those things were "fantasy". Serious, intelligent people have believed
in all of them, because all of them have pretty well fit available
facts at some point or another.
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jep
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response 213 of 293:
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Dec 16 18:35 UTC 2003 |
re resp:211 (who slipped in): It's fodder for another item, but if you
look at the basic innovation which occurred in Dark Ages and Middle
Ages monasteries, where the monks were constantly striving to free up
time to exercise their devotions, the connection is there.
The striving for improvement, and exploration, that originated in
Western Europe was not an accident. The dominant influence in Europe
from 4th through 18th centuries was the Roman Catholic church. I'm not
claiming it *wanted* the change that it catalyzed, but it'd be pretty
blind to deny it didn't have a lot of influence. The Catholic religion
was *wildly* successful in a whole *lot* of ways.
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rcurl
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response 214 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:08 UTC 2003 |
Re #212: just to keep the subtleties straight...I did not say I *wished*
anything - just that I would have preferred it. I am aware of the original
ignorance of modern humans when they finally evolved and that they had to
figure out everything in a very complex and confusing world. History could,
of course, have taken other directions, but it is not surprising that it
is full of misdirections. I blame a lot of that upon people discovering
that they could control others by inventing fantasies - even coming to
believing them themselves.
I disagree, however, that we will ever "come to regard quantum physics and
relativity in the same way most of us regard phlogiston, astrology and the
sun going around the Earth". It has been known from the start that those
scientific concepts were simply workable hypotheses of limited accuracy.
They were presented in that spirit and challenged to be countered or,
rather, improved, even if that meant to be replaced. It was mostly
adherence to dogma, not to observation, that kept phlogiston et al alive
as long as the did (and have).
What will happen in the future is that the "whys and hows" of quantum
physics and relativity will be discovered. That, however, will not make
even the current manipulations of those concepts less valid within their
limits of accuracy.
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remmers
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response 215 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:13 UTC 2003 |
<remmers wonders what "available facts" supported the concept of the
sun going around the earth on the backs of turtles.>
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jp2
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response 216 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:17 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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flem
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response 217 of 293:
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Dec 16 19:39 UTC 2003 |
re #213: Well, I guess I'll cheerfully argue with you in another item,
then, if you start it. For here I'll confine myself to saying that I
disagree, mostly. :)
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twenex
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response 218 of 293:
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Dec 16 20:33 UTC 2003 |
Re: #2133. Don't forget that we had to come a LONG way in order to get
to Mediaeval Europe in the first place, and the journey started (as
far as my hemisphere is concerned) in China and the Middle-East.
I often wonder how much wisdom we'd have discovered if my ancestors
and ours hadn't destroyed the civilizations of the Americas, or even
if they'd simply written more of it down for us. Or if writing had
been invented separatrely in Europe, for that matter - how on *earth*
did the Mayans build their palaces without using wheeled vehicles; how
on *earth* did the prehistoric people of Britain build Stonehenge with
stone from over a 100 miles away in Wales, again without wheels? (And
what the hell was it for?!) Seems to me they would have needed
*incredibly* complex and organised societies. Btw, Roman and Greek
Chroniclers from Tacitius to Caesar report that Celtic and Germanic
societiews *were* highly complex, and that, possessing no written
language, their memory capacity (or rather their harnessing of the
capacity we all have) was phenomenal.
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rcurl
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response 219 of 293:
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Dec 16 20:44 UTC 2003 |
Re #216: you seem to be confused. I made no such claims as you attribute to
me. Would you care to explain what you are trying to say?
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keesan
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response 220 of 293:
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Dec 16 23:44 UTC 2003 |
Regarding monks 'freeing up time' - I have seen a drawing of a monastery plan
where there was one area of squares marked: sheep, pigs, cows, goats, horses,
servants.
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jmsaul
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response 221 of 293:
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Dec 17 03:09 UTC 2003 |
I admit this is drifting, but jep -- the monotheistic religions didn't invent
nationalism as opposed to tribalism (China had it, as did Rome, the Greek
city-states, the Aztecs, and many other societies). As for industry, there's
no reason to believe it wouldn't have evolved in a polytheistic society. A
number of polytheistic cultures attained great achievements in science and
engineering: Egypt, the Maya, China, Greece, Rome, etc.
Some of those societies are the ones that contributed the knowledge the
monasteries preserved during the Dark Ages.
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keesan
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response 222 of 293:
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Dec 17 05:46 UTC 2003 |
India is still polytheistic.
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gull
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response 223 of 293:
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Dec 17 14:48 UTC 2003 |
Re resp:213: I don't know. In some ways didn't the Catholic Church do
everything it could to *halt* progress? I mean, look how they treated
Galileo. (Granted, they eventually apologized...over 300 years later.
This is the kind of pace of progress the Church can deal with. ;> )
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bru
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response 224 of 293:
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Dec 17 14:50 UTC 2003 |
A recent study came out and showed that democrats are 2 -1 more likely not
to attend church, and republicans are 2 -1 more likely to attend a church.
Perhaps this means that most dems are godless and thus care little for the
opinions of those who are God fearing?
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gull
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response 225 of 293:
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Dec 17 15:13 UTC 2003 |
Or maybe it means the Republicans are religious zealots and thus care
little for the opinions of those who don't want other people's religious
rules forced on them?
(Hint: Both are overly-broad generalizations.)
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twenex
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response 226 of 293:
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Dec 17 16:45 UTC 2003 |
You read my mind again, gull.
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edina
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response 227 of 293:
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Dec 17 18:50 UTC 2003 |
Maybe us Democrats don't need to prove our "God Feariigness" by attending
church once/twice/three times a week.
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happyboy
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response 228 of 293:
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Dec 17 19:34 UTC 2003 |
re224: what church do you attend, fatty?
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jep
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response 229 of 293:
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Dec 17 20:03 UTC 2003 |
re resp:220: Are you disputing that some of the monasteries produced
innovations in labor saving devices?
re resp:221: Maybe other cultures could have produced the Industrial
Revolution. I don't know. (A characteristic I share with every other
person here.) Western Europe, dominated for a dozen centuries by the
Catholic Church, *did* produce it.
I agree, this is all drift. I apologize; the gay marriage debate
wasn't done.
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keesan
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response 230 of 293:
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Dec 17 20:23 UTC 2003 |
China was a lot more technologically advanced than Europe during the period
that Europe was dominated by the Catholic Church. Europe made more
technological progress after the church lost its stranglehold on knowledge.
It was not known for things like encouraging a belief in a round earth.
Or for questioning any accepted opinions.
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jmsaul
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response 231 of 293:
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Dec 18 00:49 UTC 2003 |
Re #222: Absolutely. As is Japan, mostly.
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jep
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response 232 of 293:
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Dec 18 01:27 UTC 2003 |
re resp:230: The people who grew up in Catholic Europe, and their
children and grandchildren, advanced a huge amount, inventing the
scientific method (which made use of the strenuous rules of logic
developed for the priests); advancing math far beyond what the Arabs
had given them; and applying all of the things they were learning to
technology.
The Church may not have invented the printing press, but the people it
trained certainly made great use of it. Likewise with the water wheel
and horse-drawn plows. The monasteries invented many kinds of clocks,
seeking the most accurate way to know when to do different prayers.
The mechanisms of some of them -- and probably the tools used to make
them as well -- were used for other developments.
Then there's sea travel, which was practiced for millenia, but no
ships from China, America, Japan or southern Africa came to Europe.
Why was that? It was because they didn't know how, and because their
cultures didn't encourage them to explore that much so they didn't
develop the urge to travel that far. Medieval Europe didn't invent
the sailing ship, but Spain, Portugal and England sure did the most
with it.
All I'm doing is suggesting there's a reason for all of this, and that
it's not plausible to say it all happened in Europe, while Europe was
dominated by the Catholic Church, but happened *despite* the Church.
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gelinas
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response 233 of 293:
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Dec 18 01:38 UTC 2003 |
jep, you should spend some time reading about the Hellenistic period.
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keesan
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response 234 of 293:
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Dec 18 03:22 UTC 2003 |
I read an interesting book recently about how the Chinese, in 1421-1423, built
a huge fleet of ships and sailed over the entire world, planting colonies in
the Americas, discovering Antarctica, etc. They decided after that not to
explore any more because there was a disastrous fire which led them to believe
that the gods did not want them to do so.
The Chinese ships were much more advanced than those of the Spanish or
Portuguese, who got hold of some copies of copies of the Chinese maps before
they set sail to the west. It was even claimed that C. Columbus used a faked
map to show that he could reach China by sailing west, and that he really knew
there was other land in the way. The faked map was made by pasting together
sheets of one based on a Chinese map and altering a few of them.
The Chinese sailors did not get scurvy because they sprouted beans along the
way.
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