We could be exploring the galaxy by now

[Beldaran]

Saw this in a thread on Fark.

http://www.forrestkyle.com/darkagespw7.jpg

[Archibaldo]

Dude, we get it. You hate religion. Way to beat a dead horse.

[Russ]

Oh ya, blame it all on the Christians. Sheesh. You remind me of Nero. "Something bad happened, it must be the Christians!"

I can understand not believeing a religion, but I still fail to grasp your hatred of religions.

[Daarkseid]

That charts bullshit.

The drop in scientific development had already started during the Roman period(after it peaked during the Hellenistic era). It only dropped off so immensely during the so called "dark ages" because of a process of de-urbanization in Western Europe that begun during the 3rd century, when a prolonged period of civil war and barbarian invasions into the Roman empire caused a break down in the trade network that resulted in the cities becoming depopulated and eventually the economy of the western half of the Empire became reliant on large farming estates worked by landed peasants and were mostly self sufficient.

Finally, the western Empire collapsed and was overrun by Germanic barbarians, who unlike the Romans, were uncivilized and were almost completely bereft of the knowledge and technology that had helped build the Roman empire. Perhaps ironically, Roman knowledge, the Latin language, and books were actually preserved and collected by Christian monasteries. As well, the Eastern Roman empire, while Christian and still developed, had to contend with being assaulted on all fronts by the new Slavic invaders coming from east Europe, the Persians, and then the Arabs.

Christianity, at the very least, preserved parts of what the Romans and Greeks had achieved until European society was stable and developed enough to use it.

I dare say, without the Christian monasteries, we might not even be using computers today. Roman and Greek developments would've been completely lost and much of it would've either had to be relearned, or make its way west from east Asia.

Also, China by itself achieved a scientific and economically advanced civilization in the 11th century that would not be matched by European nations until around the end of the late 18th century.



I can understand not believeing a religion, but I still fail to grasp your hatred of religions.

Probably because of the assholes killing people in the name of God and doing all sorts of other shitty things, all of it justified by a belief in the metaphysical.

[rock_nog]

To be fair, I think the Dark Ages pretty much do fall on the Christians. You know, what with destroying centers of knowledge and the suppression of independent thought and all. I mean, I suppose you could argue it was a political move, because the Church was trying to consolidate power over Europe, but still, it really sucked ass and I think this is one of those times when the Church really was at least partially to blame. Oh, and also the whole "bathing is a sin" thing was just nasty.

[Daarkseid]

To be fair, I think the Dark Ages pretty much do fall on the Christians. You know, what with destroying centers of knowledge and the suppression of independent thought and all.

The dark ages weren't the product of Christian attitudes towards learning or independent thought.

The were pretty much the result of the old Roman civilization collapsing in on itself, replaced with a proto-feudalistic economic structure which then passed into the hands of unlearned and unsophisticated barbarians.

There were certainly cases where Christian fanatics were antagonistic towards non-religious academic pursuits. Like the murder of Mathmetician Hypatia, the burning of the library of Alexandria, and Justinian's closing of Aristotle's academy in the 6th century because of the belief it encouraged the old pagan ways.

The biggest impediment, however, to learning and scientific development wasn't Christianity though. As I mentioned, Christian monasteries preserved literature and knowledge and the monks themselves were highly literate. The big problems with the dark ages was a feudalistic society where nobles essentially held title to large tracts of lands and had control over the people populating those lands. These estates, as well, were completely self sufficient, limiting the extent to which trade and the spread of ideas could manifest. The people who could travel and maintain contacts between geographic regions was the clergy, one of two groups who had any sort of wealth in the dark ages. The others were nobles and occasionally the rare King who could maintain any sort of control over his vassals, however their money was often spent conducting military campaigns.

Also note that the renaissance occurred in the 14th century in spite of the Christian establishment, and a lot of the artistic works that came out of the renaissance were heavily inspired by Christian themes. What really helped the renaissance however was the re-establishment of trade in Europe and when the black death struck, it helped to break down the old feudal systems that were a huge block to economic development. Another big factor in the re-establishment of said trade were the Crusades, which helped make Italian merchants into economic titans. Venice, a well known city in the advancement of the renaissance, became a significant naval power in this period, due to its merchant fleets traveling between Italy and eastern Mediterranean.

[rock_nog]

I'm not denying that the fall of the Roman empire was a major factor here, certainly. I'm just saying, for instance, the burning of the library of Alexandria itself was a pretty major setback. But maybe I am oversimplifying things, but come on, that one just really pisses me off. One of the largest repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, and they go and freakin' burn it down!

One must admit, though, that regardless of cause, the Dark Ages really are just incredibly frustrating, what with us only recently getting to the point we were at technologically and everything that we were when the Dark Ages started.

[Daarkseid]

, but come on, that one just really pisses me off. One of the largest repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, and they go and freakin' burn it down!


Yeah, and while it was being burned, the Emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire were building up a substantial library of ancient texts in Constantinople. Much of the contacts between the west and the Byzantine Empire were hampered first by repeated slavic invasions of Thrace and the Balkans, and then by the division of the Christian church between Catholicism centered in Rome and Eastern Orthodox centered in Constantinople, however when the crusades occurred, one of the things that travelers between the west and the Middle east brought back to Europe were some of the books that were unknown to the scholars of the middle ages, but were well known and studied by Byzantine literates.

Normally my antipathy towards religion would find the graph amusing, but its oversimplification of human achievements and advances is just grating. Even if Christianity hadn't appeared or at least remained a persecuted cult, human history would've probably ended up similar to what it was today if we were to (perhaps safely) assume that some other group of individuals other than the clergy came in and preserved what knowledge could be preserved even as Germanic barbarians would inevitably overrun western civilization and set it back a few centuries.

Christianity isn't the reason we're not exploring the galaxy right now, is perhaps the big point I'm making.

[Beldaran]

Or it could be a god damned joke targeted at people who don't have a history book shoved up their butt.

I'm aware that you can't blame christianity 100% for lack of scientific progress. I'm also aware that the dark ages would have been IMPOSSIBLE without religion, plain and simple.

[Trevelyan_06]

You don't have to have a history book shoved up your ass to find that graph grating Bel. Sure Christianity has done more than its share to retard the progress of human achievement. However, to try to blame the dark ages on the church alone is just dumb.

You can, of course, continue to blame everything else up to and including world war II on Tony though.

[Beldaran]

I just think christianity is stupid and evil, so I find things like this funny. It's a joke graph, not a historical analysis.