[OT] Plato's Pub and Philosophical Society

[Mephisto]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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First, you keep making a claim without any support material, while others are telling you you are wrong and using support material.

No, they do not have support material. I have seen them post no supporting material.

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And neither are you, Fyron.
Science and education were preserved in the Church during the EDA in the monasteries. Without the sanctuary of the monasteries and Church buildings most if not all of the ancient wisdoms from the Greeks and Romans would have been destroyed. And, finally, don't just forget the worldly rulers. Do you think they had any interest in educating the pawns, their minions?

[Chronon]

Well, this thread generated alot more discussion than I anticipated. It's good to know that many people are still interested in history. Perhaps this new thread isn't so redundant after all?

Tesco - Good idea, but since I would be on Fyron's team (if we're defining it along religious lines I'm definitely not a true believer - more of an agnostic really) we'd have to play the AI, and that just wouldn't be much fun.

Fyron - I thought that I did provide plenty of supporting examples on my points. Could you be more specific on the types of evidence you would like to see?

Narrew and Fyron - I won't argue that the world view of the Middle Ages seems somewhat limited from our modern perspective. But as Kwok has argued, the reasons for this go beyond the Church. Are you arguing that without the Church there would have arisen a kind of spontaneous Scientific Revolution?

[Unknown_Enemy]

Nice topic. Here are my 2 cents.
(dark Age timeset : 300 - 1500 for this post)



At the beginning of the Dark Age, the WHOLE of Europe was invaded by barbarians. Some of these, the Francs, conquered the roman province of Gaulle and settled down. Most of the barbarian rulers were completely illiterates. Do you remember Charles Martel (Charlemagne) ? Well he was not able to write his name, but he was the very first powerful King to adopt Christianism.

It would be a dream to think knowledge was transmitted in the population. Serfs were not much more than slaves, they did not have the leisure to learn read/write. Knowledge was only transmitted between priests and monks who all learned latin. Until Charlemagne, almost all the ruling nobles were illiterate.

So, until Charlemagne, there is no question that knowledge salvaged from the roman Empire had been saved by the Churche.
Sometime, you even had improvement, but it was very slow. For example, until 1095, everybody in Europe (spain excepted, but it was Arab...)used to count with roman numbers (I, II, III, IV etc..). Only a handful of monks in europe were able to do a complexe multiplication or division. And if you do not believe it, just try to compute 52384.124 * 9145687.1235 using roman numbers.
Good luck.
Then went the first crusade. Then went a bunch of monks who came back from the holy land bringing knowledge of arabs numbers. In less than a century, every single idiot in europe became able to work out the basic operations using arab numbers.

That was for the church.
Speaking of it, which church are we speaking of ? High level church ? Or lowly monks in their covent ?
High ranking in the christian church were often coming from noble families. I would suggest everyone to try reading historical report on reign of Hugue Capet (a few years before 1000), and you'll see noble warriors continuously betraying each other, with the help of some of their family members in the ranks of the church. At that time, it was not unknown to have an eveque or such murdered by an enemy noble.

Most of the high church was about politics and power. But for this topics, what is interesting is the low level monks and priest, who has been the true gardians of both the faith and knowledge.

So Fyron, I have to disagree with you, the Church was tremendous in gaining and keeping track of human knowledge during the dark age. Simply put it, the time was not right for big advances despite the Church.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by Unknown_Enemy:
Speaking of it, which church are we speaking of ? High level church ? Or lowly monks in their covent ?
High ranking in the christian church were often coming from noble families. I would suggest everyone to try reading historical report on reign of Hugue Capet (a few years before 1000), and you'll see noble warriors continuously betraying each other, with the help of some of their family members in the ranks of the church. At that time, it was not unknown to have an eveque or such murdered by an enemy noble.

Most of the high church was about politics and power. But for this topics, what is interesting is the low level monks and priest, who has been the true gardians of both the faith and knowledge.

Unknown_Enemy has brought up a very important point. Once the church was no longer oppressed, but rather became the seat of power, it attracted those who seek power, rather than just those who truly followed the teachings of Christ.

To this day there is a dichotomy between those who use the institutional church as a source of political power and those for whom the church is a place of fellowship with others who also seek to follow Christ. It is interesting that the only people that Christ was recorded as having harsh words for were the religious leaders who put extra burdens upon their followers.

Given that dichotomy, my response to this thread is that the power structure of the church did do things that hindered scientific advancement, as well as perpetrate other embarrassments such as inquisitions and crusades. On the other hand, the underlying structure of the church was instrumental in both the preservation of knowledge and education, both of which provided foundations for future scientific advancement. Thus the issue is not really black and white at all, but rather a mix of good and bad. I do not feel qualified to comment on whether the good or the bad is of more significance.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Mephisto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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First, you keep making a claim without any support material, while others are telling you you are wrong and using support material.

No, they do not have support material. I have seen them post no supporting material.

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And neither are you, Fyron.
Science and education were preserved in the Church during the EDA in the monasteries. Without the sanctuary of the monasteries and Church buildings most if not all of the ancient wisdoms from the Greeks and Romans would have been destroyed. And, finally, don't just forget the worldly rulers. Do you think they had any interest in educating the pawns, their minions?

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I think you people have misunderstood me. I never once said nor implied that the Church was the only factor. Of course other things were influences. What I said was that the Curch stifled new advancements. Of course the monastaries preserved old documents. I never once said they did not, or said anything that is affected by that fact. You do not get new advancements simply by preserving ancient texts. After the facts began overwhelming the Church's dogma, these texts were used to restore long lost knowledge. But, this still is not qualified as a new advancement.

Fyron - I thought that I did provide plenty of supporting examples on my points. Could you be more specific on the types of evidence you would like to see?

My point was that you did not cite any sources for your claims, which some people seem to think is only a problem when I make Posts.

Narrew and Fyron - I won't argue that the world view of the Middle Ages seems somewhat limited from our modern perspective. But as Kwok has argued, the reasons for this go beyond the Church. Are you arguing that without the Church there would have arisen a kind of spontaneous Scientific Revolution?

No, I am arguing that the Church's actions of clinging to old (false) beliefs about the nature of the world prolonged the European Dark Ages because questioning the Church was heresy. How can you come up with new ideas when you are branded as a heretic for doing so? If the Catholic Church was not there, there would have been a different Church that would have done just about the same exact thing.

It would be a dream to think knowledge was transmitted in the population.

Of course it would. I have not seen anyone argue this so far.

[Unknown_Enemy]

the underlying structure of the church was instrumental in both the preservation of knowledge and education

Indeed but I would argue that the biggest achievement of the Church has been the implementation of moral values which are still in effect in all western society. These values tamed the barbarians (Francs and others) and allowed the evolution of our civilization.

[Krsqk]

/me reluctantly enters the discussion...

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
My point was that you did not cite any sources for your claims, which some people seem to think is only a problem when I make Posts.

No, Fyron. You want other people to quote their sources, while your rebuttals consist of "I have objective proof that you're wrong. I have read it myself. I just don't have it available here right now." Fine, so you have proof that convinces you. So post it, so we can dissect and/or rebut it. I'm not saying anything about the validity of your sources, just that you can't expect everyone to accept your argument when what you've posted is basically "Take my word for it, there's good proof." To accept your proofs sight unseen is at least as grevious an error as to accept anyone else's assertions sans source.

Along the same lines, the burden of proof is on you to show the Bible was written ex post facto. Repeatedly asserting is was doesn't make it so. "Show me the money." (To dredge up the previous OT-topic of the previous thread.)

No, I am arguing that the Church's actions of clinging to old (false) beliefs about the nature of the world prolonged the European Dark Ages because questioning the Church was heresy. How can you come up with new ideas when you are branded as a heretic for doing so? If the Catholic Church was not there, there would have been a different Church that would have done just about the same exact thing.

The first two sentences are true (although old does not always equal false). The third belies your mistrust of religion (and of anything else not scientifically provable). Where's the proof that "a different Church...would have done just about the exact same thing"? The RCC (at least those in power) during the EDA (and, some would argue, even now) was hardly a Bible-practicing church, as has been previously alluded to. Should church and government not have been married ~AD325, things may have turned out quite differently.

BTW, there is at least some evidence that the pre-EDA was still a sort of "Dim Ages"--that is, that earlier civilizations had much better technology and scientific understanding that they are generally credited with (probably because of a prevalent "man-is-constantly-getting-better" bias, which the EDA would seem to belie). The pyramids (not just Egyptian) are probably the best-known example. Many of them are square to within 1/20 of a degree. There are also walls in South America built from huge stones--some up to 20 tons. Many civilizations also apparently understood that the earth was round. Much was lost in the repeated conquests of Greece and Rome, not to mention the later barbarian conquests.

[edits-stoopud keebored, removing an "n't"]

[ March 11, 2003, 00:11: Message edited by: Krsqk ]