Comments
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@ThePandaPool , probably would have colonies on Mars and warp drives by now.
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@ThePandaPool , the dark ages actually never happened. They're characterised by a 'lack of information and text' almost as if there was a jump straight from the beginning of the dark ages to the very end. It makes no sense why barely anyone would record the dark ages. There's evidence though, that the so called 'dark ages' are actually the result of different calendars being unified to one since the different nations differed in year. All of them deciding to suddenly change the years to be the same ended up with a bunch of missing years in texts. Of course this is just all just a conspiracy theory you can look up more on it, but some arguments are seen above.
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@ThePandaPool , the dark ages is a misnomer. Do you really think the renaissance appeared out of nowhere? The time between the fall of Rome and the rise of western enlightenment wasn’t empty. Significant advancements in government, agriculture and a general build up of population that was necessary before a renaissance was possible.
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@Hot Coffee, Yeah? There was also an absolute ton of censorship, corruption, and most forms of education where under the direct control of the Church. There is a reason why there were practically 0 advancements in science, mathematics, and philosophy until the Reninessance. Yea sure, practical advancements in engineering and agriculture saw a extraordinarily slow, but steady incline. There is a reason why it took the crusades bringing, often smuggling, textbooks into Europe from Muslim countries for Europe to get back on track. If I remember correctly you are the big Catholic Church defender guy right? The one who believes the Catholic Church is some divine organization that can do no wrong? Apologies if I have the wrong guy. But it would explain why you think the dark ages were some era of scientific and philosophical advancement. Allow me to assure you, it wasn't. Again the proof is there for anyone not biased or blind. (TBC)
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@Hot Coffee, (CON) There is a reason after all why it took until the Renaissance for scientific advancement to really spark. And look how far we have come in such a short amount of time! The dark ages lasted almost a full thousand years! No great or noticeable advancements where ever achieved in that time. As of now it has been a measly 700 or so years since the Great Italian Renaissance. And look where we are! Vaccines, airplanes, modern refrigerators etc. The point is imagine how much further humanity would have gone had the dark ages never happened. The thought both boggles the mind and breaks ones heart. How many potential scientists, mathematicians and philosopher's where killed during the Churchs witch hunts, crusades, and iron fisted control of knowledge and education? It makes me really fing sad.
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@ThePandaPool , some people theorize that the dark ages in Europe would've happened without Christianity even. As faith in some imagined order is a key part of any civilization so without Christianity they would've just followed something else as fanatically and there were a number of social and economic changes that needed to be made to make way for scientific advancement
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@LaDarkProphet, I think a lot of the same corruption and suppression would have been there even if the church wasn't in control. corruption is corruption and the corrupt will justify it using anything they can.
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@LaDarkProphet, and? Judging the past exclusively by contemporary standards only robs you of the opportunity to learn from the past.
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@LaDarkProphet, you’re ignoring the effect Middle Eastern Caliphates also had on the dark ages, many Islamic sects during the dark ages and before executed scientists and burned academic literature, plus Native American and African religions never relied on scientific research since their tribes were constantly warring, just enslaving and sacrificing each other for their fairy tales. It isn’t a Catholic Church thing, it’s an organized religion thing, just humans being humans.
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@ Seductive Cheeto, I 100% agree. I thought I made it abundantly clear religion has been and always will be the problem halting back human progress. Well... That and basic human nature of course. I just used the Catholic Church as a prime example because Coffee here is a Catholic Church defender who firmly believes the Church can do no wrong. He quite openly defended the Church in their handling of the massive pedophile scandal that took place some years ago. You remember the one right? Where the Church aided, abetted and hid known pedophiles by moving them around countries? Yea he defended that. Smh.
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@LaDarkProphet, you're wrong, you're stupid, and here's why: 1) you say that "religion had been and always will be the problem halting back human progress" as if: a) humanity would exist beyond the first few homo sapiens generations without religion and b) as if most of the greatest scientific achievements of history weren't made by religious people. Sir Isaac Newton was a Christian who died a virgin because he never got around to falling in love or getting married, and to say he's smarter than you is like saying a lightning storm is more powerful than a 9volt battery. 2) it was the early Christian monks who promoted literacy across Europe during the early to mid Middle Ages, and while they weren't very successful, they tried. The fact that the church was the most powerful unifying force among the people rather than any one government of man is what led to the ideals that shaped the Magna Carta and Western philosophy in general. The ideals of personal freedom and responsibility.
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@LaDarkProphet, @LaDarkProphet, your entire view of "muh dark ages" is childish, outdated, disproven, and anyone who's not a complete Romaboo moved on from it ages ago. "Oooh, but muh Arabic numerals". Yeah, we use some loosely Arabic numbers and a few mathematical formulae. It's not like people could have built pyramids and aqueducts without them oh wait. "But muh Catholic church pedos". Yeah so what, I'm a Protestant. We've known the Catholic "church" were corrupt faux-Christians for 500 years. Just behead the pedos and fake "pope" and move on. "NOOOO YOU CAN'T BE SMART AND RELIGIOUS AT THE SAME TIME I FORBID IT NOOOOOO!" Haha Louis Pasteur go observe, hypothesize, experiment, repeat.
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@ThePandaPool , The worst technological atrocity that occurred to humanity was the burning of the Library of Alexandria
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@ThePandaPool , we'd still be in the copper/bronze age?
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@ Seductive Cheeto, I think you're forgetting that the dark ages was actually a huge golden age of scientific advancement for Islamic cultures. They sent missionaries in search of books and even invited Jewish and Christian scholars to help advance current studies. Granted this is at about the end of the dark ages but still, huge technologically breakthroughs happened because of this.
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@Captain Swordsman, You seem very angry and upset. Its like you read half of what I wrote and filled in the rest with half baked fevered delusions. It would be humorous if it wasn't so jarring and sad. I recommend you take a few deep breaths, relax a little bit, maybe go outside and enjoy some tea. Afterwards come on back and actually read my comments, the ones I wrote. Then get back to me ok pumpkin?
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Look their been a lot of different incorrect information in this thread to correct some. No the dark ages never really happened most historians will correct you now a days to call it the Middle Ages it was caused mainly by feudalism and yes partially religion. However at that both of those were just different forms of the government at this point in time. Literacy in Europe was mainly because church their were also great strides in agriculture at that time. The Dark Ages basically came from a group of people that were Greek and Roman fanboys that that thought the church writings weren’t as good as the Greek and Romans. The renaissance wasn’t caused by a upending of the religious Ruling it was caused by translations of Greek and Roman writings being available and trade with countries becoming wide spread.
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@Prince super Vegeta , as someone who has deeply studied this time period, I can almost be certain in saying that there wasn’t a cataclysmic fire that destroyed the library. There was a fire under Caesar, but we know it recovered from that and the damage wasn’t extensive. We also know it continued to operate for another ~300 years at least, with various philosophers and other learned men mentioning it and studying there. It was however, part of the Mouseion, a large research institution that was gradually funded and maintained less and less and eventually fell to ruin— particularly under Ptolemy VIII (seven generations after Ptolemy I established the library) where Aristarchus of Samothrace, the head librarian, resigned from his position and was exiled to Cyprus. It took another ~150 years for the library to be destroyed, likely during the Alexandrian rebellion between 270-275 CE.
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They had us going in the first half
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We were this close to perfection
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@megamanx181x, the irony is Western Ethos is founded on a Christian worldview that can be summed up as: God created the World, God created man with the ability to know and understand the world, and so it follows that it honors God when we learn about the world He created. There’s definitely more to it than that, but it’s a belief that was somewhat unique to the Christian faith. Most other religions, historically speaking, have seen the world through a somewhat mystical veil and asserted a certain unknowability to God/gods which extended to the natural world as well. Again, this is a gross simplification, but it’s interesting even if you reduce the Faiths to simple organizational philosophies.
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@Hot Coffee, How did the New Age Christian Movement of the 19th century change the existing philosophies? It appears that many Eastern religious tenets had permeated what had largely been divided into Protestant & Catholic orthodoxy. Simply curious, since the topic has a linear structure that expanded once mankind essentially threw themselves into the deity game a la Ron Hubbard, Crowley, Jones, etc. I ask, what New Age changes occurred and still not be considered occultism?
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@Hot Coffee, SMH. Is that why pretty much every nation on the planet uses the Arabic-Hindu number system? Because those cultures where just to uncultured, uneducated, uncivilized and to zealous to understand the sciences? You. Are. A. Moron. Plain and simple. India, China and the Middle East discovered more about the way the world worked far earlier then Europe did. Its funny actually. Just how brainwashed, ignorant and naive you are. There was a document discovered somewhat recently of a textbook written by Arcamedies and other authors that was discovered to have been written over with useless, pointless Church babble. That? Is all the proof anyway needs to tell how moronic and incompetent the Catholic Church really is. Smh.
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@Che D Lay sir, not sure I follow. I’m referring to the Christian philosophy leading up to the renaissance. By the late 19th century atheism had insinuated itself into the scientific institutions which turned to attacking religious institutions via scientific theory, effectively arguing a non sequitur that can be reduced to scientific processes are effective in describing the natural world ergo God doesn’t exist. All this did was alienate a massive segment of the population and established the foundation of modern racism. Hurray for science!
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@LaDarkProphet, man. I may be a moron, but you are a witless idiot. All you’ve demonstrated is a marked deficiency in history. You’re probably a Richard Dawkins fan boi that just gobbles up half-baked reductionism. Sure, eastern cultures developed some concepts well before the west did, but how is it that they sat on “progress” of thought for hundreds or sometimes thousands of years without doing anything with it? Why was the epicenter of the amazing advancements we’ve had in the last 500 years reside in Europe? 19th century Chinese thought wearing white would stop bullets. Wow. What amaze culture! They had black powder for how long? But it was the west that created firearms. I am well aware of the diversity of thought and philosophy that exists throughout the world. You have demonstrated an excellent example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Congratulations.
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@Hot Coffee, So which is it? Are you "well aware of the diversity of thought and philosophy that exists throughout the world" or are you amazed by how fantastic and great the mighty west is? All you did was prove what a massive hypocrite you are. How typical of a Catholic. Hate to break the news to you kiddo but corruption, greed and incompetence gets to everyone. The Chinese invented gun powder as a by product of experimenting. Funny how it took until it entered the west for its full killing potential to be fully realized and expanded. Great example there. And most of that progress and discovery was stopped and halted by the very thing that stunted European growth for nearly a thousand years. Religion. The very thing you praise in west and condemn in the east, is in fact the very same thing that stunted Europe. The fact you are so brainwashed as to be unable to see the common factor is laughable. (TBC)
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@Hot Coffee, (CON) You are not aware of anything beyond your own nose. Dunning-Kruger effect indeed. All you did was prove my point. The Chinese, Hindu and Islamic golden ages all took place during the parts of history where religion was at its weakest in those countries. Europe's dark ages, modern Islamic and Hindu countries, all occur when religion gets to much power. Again this simple universal fact is so obvious most children could point it out. It took Europe nearly a thousand years to get out from the Churches thumb in order to re jump start progress. And look at us now! Secularism is at an all time high and our technological progress is scaling exponentially. It is you, my self projecting friend, who has a serious deficiency in history. But then. What else should be expected of a Catholic?
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@LaDarkProphet, I’m not catholic. I’m not praising everything from the west, you have a perception filter that seems to be rendering you incapable of hearing what I’m saying without making wild assumptions about what positions I hold. The only thing you’re demonstrating is a terrible grasp of causality and a strong propensity towards confirmation bias. Go find some people who are smarter than you and explore the ideas you’ve put forward here. Maybe an irl conversation will help you see things from a different perspective.
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That’s what happened in China when Confucianism took over.
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@Dimir FTW, Most people are to ignorant or brainwashed to realize that religion is the ultimate disease of stagnation. The Chinese, Hindu and Islamic golden ages, even the great Italian Renaissance all happened when religion was at its political weakest. The moment religion gets to much power and you get the European dark ages, and modern day Islamic Theocracies etc. Smh. Sad really.
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This reminded me of The London Hammer. Which is a name given to a hammer made of iron and wood that was found in London, Texas in 1936. Part of the hammer is embedded in a limey rock concretion, leading to it being regarded by some as an anomalous artifact, asking how a man-made tool could come to be encased in a 400 million year old rock
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Islam banned mathmatics in the 6th century, so precedents are often ignored.
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@Che D Lay sir, I know I am being that guy, but Islam wasn’t founded until the early 7th century. But your point stands, people always try to ban and suppress ideas that threaten them.
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@Hot Coffee, 👍I couldn't agree more if being incorrect is by a century or so. And, for any time you are absolute about anything, don't ever worry about being that guy. That guy is the one usually on top of an issue.
I really do wonder what civilization would look like today if the dark ages never happened.