Smyslov_Fan wrote on 08/13/11 at 18:53:59:

Mnb is Dutch he will contradict anything even if he agrees. That is also the reason why we have at least 100 variants of the protestant faith

MNb wrote on 08/13/11 at 16:39:52:

Depends on which areas you mean. By 1400 for example Western Europe was ahead in labor-saving devices and I think on a par with China on technology. I also think you overestimate the outer influences a bit. With philosophy and theoretical physics/math you are correct, but with engineering I think you're not.
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And greed, of course
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Yes and no. There was also Paris and Oxford, where it is very hard to point to any islam influence.
I also doubt that chauvinism and the likes have much to do with it. If you take countries like England and France it is very hard to point to direct influence, only indirect. Germany is even harder. It is also very hard to make a comparison between the universities s they had quite some differences.
Still imo it very hard to single out a religion as a source of certain developments. They play their role, but other factors do as well.

I enjoyed Agora, Willempie. It got many things very right about Hypatia's life. It also took quite a few licenses with the facts. Hypatia makes my list of historical people I'd like to have over for dinner. 

And yes, the way Hypatia was treated by Christians is one of the darker chapters in Christian history.

Thank you for mentioning the rise of medieval universities! I commented about the rise of universities in my first, longer draft of the note I wrote yesterday, but it got deleted when I went to post it.

Gambit wrote on 08/12/11 at 18:58:29:

This was not the only time "a rediscovery of ancient classics occurred". There was a true "Dark Age" of European history from about 576-800(CE). Historians describe several "renaissances" before Petrarch  famously announced that the previous 1000 years had been miserable. Some of the more famous ones  include the Carolingian, Ottonian, and Scholastic renaissances.

Christian monasteries saved many secular and religious texts. Pope Sylvester II, who was sent to school in Islamic Spain, designed and used a huge abacus that was built in Rheims Cathedral. He also invented an hydraulic organ and worked on mathematical proofs using arabic numbers and algebra. Christians formulated the great debate over the separation of Church and State. Almost all of the first modern scientists were devout christians. 

This isn't to say other religions were devoid of secular knowledge. In the 9th century, the son of Harun Al-Rashid (of The Thousand and One Nights and chess fame), Jaffar Abdul Al-Ma'mun, continued his father's work and built a House of Wisdom that sought to rival the Great Library at Alexandria. Chemists, philosophers, mathematicians, medics and scholars of all sorts gathered in Baghdad. 

It was Muhammed who wrote, 

"The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr”

By the way, according to at least one primary source, Julius Caesar destroyed the Great Library at Alexandria. 

The Avars, Vandals, Goths, and others destroyed many great cities and works of art. Yet nobody (that I know of) blames their religion for their acts of destruction.

Not quite. The Byzantine Empire still existed, falling only in 1453 to the Turks. At Constantinople, many old texts were saved. But other than Constantinople and a few other great cities -- Cracow for instance -- many old texts were forgotten and destroyed.

When the Renaissance came around the 15th century, a rediscovery of ancient classics occurred. That is when the spirit of learning and discovery re-emerged.

Markovich wrote on 08/08/11 at 17:31:36:

Yet in the areas where this was most common, a lot has survived as these were the areas where the muslems discovered them

Plus Charlemagne, with the help of the church, saved the classics. Basically all classical knowledge in the middle ages was due to him having it copied.

Btw there is a relatively new movie on the subject matter set in Alexandria, I forgot the name, but it was quite interesting.

To be frank, it was common practice to reuse parchment for other books. I think the reused parchment, with the old text still underneath, is called a palimpsest. One can hardly blame the Christians, since everyone was doing it. Besides, parchment was not easy to obtain.

These antipopes MnB mentions have a very miniscule following. Some of them are recognized only by less than 10 people, others, by dozens - low hundreds. The last internationally recognized antipope was Felix V, the former Duke of Savoy, in 1449 A.D. Since then, there have not been any real antipopes.

Gambit wrote on 07/26/11 at 06:12:00:

Who exactly is that "you"? Everybody but you, as usual?

Btw, only two years ago there were even three antipopes: Pulvermacher, Bawden and Corral. Still I would not conclude that RK-church is badly organized in our days.

Not strict at all. I just chose it as a convenient cut-off. If there's interest in discussing the events up to 1517 here, I have no problem. Perhaps if we get really involved in a specific question I'll send it to another topic.

ErictheRed wrote on 07/22/11 at 21:18:56:

At the time Constantine became Emperor Orthodox Christianity was well organized indeed - compared to other religions of course. So it remains an important factor.
Orthodox Catholicism was already well organized when Victor I became pope and that was still the 2nd Century. All other religions had nothing similar.

ErictheRed wrote on 07/22/11 at 21:18:56:

No, I didn't understand that indeed. I think we can speak of Orthodox Christianity already before the Council of Nicea. One reason is that imo that Council did not really cut down on variety. See Arius, Pelagius and Nestor to name the most famous ones; later also monophysitism arose.
In this respect both the Council of Nicea and Constantine's policy were a failure.

MNb wrote on 07/22/11 at 20:43:06:


I don't think it's accurate to say that Christianity was very well organzied from the beginning--it wasn't.  There was an incredibly diverse assortment of various groups that all thought of themselves as "Christians" in one way or another.  They argued vehemently amongst themselves, most lacked a clear leadership structure, etc.  Many Christians in one city differed substantially from Christians in another.  

Perhaps you don't understand what I mean when I say orthodox Christianity?  I essentially mean the Christianity that came out of the First Council of Nicea, and that has almost everything to do with Constantine's influence and desire to come up with "a" Christianity for his empire.  In many ways I think that the first 3 centuries of Christianity saw a religion that was far more varied in theology, doctrine, and practice than what we see today (and we all know how many differences between Christian churches exist today).  

Remember that one of the first things Constantine did as emperor was begin persecuting other Christians.  Not to sound too much like the Da Vinci Code (which I never read), but he really did instigate a Christian "purge."  When he was done, most non-orthodox Christians had converted to orthodoxy.  He also gave orthodox bishops secular powers to go along with the ecclesiastical ones.  Suddenly, a particular type of Christian architecture is permitted by the state.  Suddenly, the orthodox Bible is copied and distrubuted at public expense.  Non-canonical texts disappear; it's for these reasons that I say orthodox Christianity "made it" because of Constantine.