Excuse me? Straw man history? I said nothing about "Islam" (Baghdad) not being a center for scientific advancement, as well as the protection of numerous priceless ancient scientific texts, what I objected to was the false, biased, and previously disproven (Evidenced in this very thread!) view of the Catholic church as "out to destroy knowledge,"
Where would we be today if not for the Dark Ages?
- Thread starter Armored Diplomacy
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Excuse me? Straw man history? I said nothing about "Islam" (Baghdad) not being a center for scientific advancement, as well as the protection of numerous priceless ancient scientific texts, what I objected to was the false, biased, and previously disproven (Evidenced in this very thread!) view of the Catholic church as "out to destroy knowledge,"
It is even a NEED to proove this? I mean, seriously? Only for the early part of Middle-Ages, we have Isidore and Leander of Sevilla, Anselm of Canterbury, Boece, Cassiodorus, Bede, Gregory the Great...i stop here, even before the Carolingian Renaissance, because it would be too much easy.
Almost all of them were monks, bishops, religious.
If you consider the 16th and 17th centuries part of the Dark Ages you have serious problems with chronology.
IIRC, Protestant churches were actually much worse about the Witch Burning (Catholic doctrine of the time being that "Witches" were either charlatans or imbeciles)
Well, how else will you interest schoolboys in history?
That said this thread makes me miss IBC and his complicated history thing...
Wait, something happened to IBC?
Can i point something? When the catholic church was virtually undisputed, yes the witches were seen as insane people and the Church tried to avoid mob-killing of them.
But the Malleus Maleficarum, "Witches's Hammer" was written by catholics inquistitors and it considered the Witches having real powers and all the known folklore. Not only it preceeded the protestantism, but it was inspired by earlier treaties.
If it's true the more important Witches' trial happened in the religious borders (in a "i'm more pure than you" contest), it's exaggerate to put the protestantism the only responsible of this, or the first one.
By creating the Inquisition, it went quickly out of hand and the simple trials against heretics transformed itself in a persucution of marginals in the plagued and religiously-worry atmosphere of Late Middle Ages.
But, it's true that Protestantism did it so, no less brutal or encline to burn "witches" than Catholics.
NothingNow
Banned
It's a fucking Strawman (strawperson?) key-party!
Hell, Pope Sylvester II promoted the adoption Arabic numerals, re introduced the Abacus, and Astrolabe, and was in all a great patron of intelectual pursuits, even writing textbooks for his students. Of course, the guy got accused of sorcery for being able to do complicated mathematical equations using an Abacus, but he was also the first of the french popes, and made more enemies than you could shake a stick at.
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Faeelin
Banned
Do you need coal immediately?
Scandinavia and New England got their start with waterpower, of which Japan has aplenty.
This is the question, ain't it?
Take away the steam engine from England in 1790. Is it still undergoing an industrial revolution?
This. You can find too many occurences on HOW the religion and the science were not only not opposed but tied that it became ridiculous to try to count them.
For Sylvester, being the creature of Otton III helped him to create the pope a bunch of ennemies too.
For the "french", yes he was from the theorically southern part of Kingdom of France, but seeing how much the Duke of Aquitaine ruled as a vice-king (and taking almost this title) i think the "occitan pope of 1000 A.D" to have been more disliked because of the imperial policy rather than being "french", except if by french you meant "no-italian, no-roman".
Anticlimacus
Banned
As autonomous as bad communications in the era. They always vowed loyalty to Rome and they were never accused of any heretic teaching.
It was a skeptic magazine that might have exagerated the issue given its editorial line. Several books pop up if you type "Agobard Lyon Magonia" in Google books though.
Oh no, they didn't. In fact the bishop is transcripting every little description made by the "abducted", i've a complete text here : it's even more insane that you'll believe.
I wanted to say something, but as I read this I changed my mind. I wholeheartedly agree.
It so happened that on the ruins of the Great WRE conquered by the (much 'wilder')Germans there slowly appeared the conditions for Industrial Revolution.
Nobody wanted it deliberately, it just happened. Dumb luck.
This assumes that the flowering of Hellenistic and Roman science which produced great thinkers and inventors like Archimedes of Syracuse and Heron of Alexandria would have continued if the "Dark Ages" and "Church rule in Medieval times" hadn't happened. But the sad fact is that this flowering of science didn't really continue much beyond the 2nd Century A.D. The Roman Empire from the 3rd Century on...well before Constantine and the adoption of Christianity as the State Religion of the Empire...was pretty much a time of scientific stagnation. The Great Crisis of the late 2nd and 3rd Centuries changed the Roman Empire and made it a place which no longer encouraged great scientific discoveries. Funding for patronage of artists, scientists and philosophers dried up. You see a drastic decline in the quality of the artwork during this period which also attests to the overall decline of the civilization.
So blaming the Medieval Church for "holding us back" is ridiculous. Progress had pretty much ground to a halt before the Medieval Church came into existence.
AtriumCarceris
Banned
I would like to read or possibly make a timeline in which the "dark ages" continue. The idea being that if the political and social organisation prevalent at the time continued, things would be different, not worse.
Then again I'd probably focus just on the science. I'd like to think that if Scholasticism continued, things would be far more interesting in science.
Then again I'd probably focus just on the science. I'd like to think that if Scholasticism continued, things would be far more interesting in science.
I think you should Rescind that statement because the idea of 'progress' in history is an awful brain bug. Unless you actually specify in which area 'progress' was halted.
I think I did that already in my earlier post. I don't go in for "relativism" or accept that the idea of "progress" in history is a "brain bug," either. You are free to disagree, if you like, but I see no reason to rescind my statement.