It’s kind of a weird situation, because on one hand you hear all about how Christians destroyed ancient Rome and plunged Europe in a dark age for 500 years, cutting off all their infrastructure like aqueducts and banning anything that is “pagan,” along with other superstitious abuses like witch trials, holy wars, heresy charges, and church corruption like sex abuses.Then you hear about how Christianity’s efforts in humanitarianism, such as banning Aztec human sacrifices, instituting hospitals and universities, helping the outcasts such as prostitutes and sex slaves (St Nicolas and there’s a reason why so many women in Ancient Rome flocked to early Christianity), and the inquisition having better due process and fair trials than secular courts at the time. Science is kind of a blurred line; on one hand some of the most brilliant scientists were Christians, but on the other you see many of those science deniers or suppressors. Art could be a good point, but the Renaissance basically combined elements from Ancient Greece and Rome.I think it mainly varies by denomination (eg. Hispanic Catholicism is more beneficial, whereas American Evangelicalism is nothing but a cult).
>>18516320also the whole “preserve classical work” caseone could argue it was le monks who saved le civilization during le dark ages, but would it be necessary in the first place had it not been for christian radicals banning pagan works?
>>18516320>such as banning Aztec human sacrificesNever happened>Science is kind of a blurred line; on one hand some of the most brilliant scientists were ChristianNothing to do with Christianity.
>Was Christianity a net positive or negative?Neither. This kind of binary ass thinking is just pinning two strawmen against eachother. Religion is the predecessor to modern science, it wasn't a net negative or positive, it was just how ancient peoples tried making sense of the world. Christianity for all its faults also made strides in advancing scientific understanding and the Church was instrumental in financing and supporting scientific achievement because ultimately their goal was to try and understand the world better just like modern sciences goal is.
>>18516320Rome didn’t collapse due to Christianity. Rome was already in crisis decades before Christ. Hence the need for Caesar and Augustus. People that say Rome could have continued on indefinitely without Christianity don’t understand what the Roman Empire actually was or how it worked. It was going to fall apart and splinter at some point. Even if in some form the Western Roman state miraculously persisted to say the 8th or 9th century, it would look far different from what we imagine as “classical Rome”Christianity likely stopped the Dark Ages (in Western Europe) from being darker. The church was the one continent wide system that survived the collapse of state infrastructure. It gave rulers legitimacy and monasteries and abbots were centers of literacy. Without Christianity it would have been a total reset of the culture in the West. And so much of what we think of as “Western” in culture is shaped by Christianity. In a hypothetical timeline where Europe remained pagan it would be a fundamentally alien culture to what you and I would recognise as Western European.
>>18516326Exactly. Net positive or net negative to what? What baseline? What is the control group here.
>>18516337>The church was the one continent wide system that survived the collapse of state infrastructureYes because it hollowed out and looted every other institution. Funds that should have gone to the army instead went to giving churches tax exemptions. The libraries of pagan temples that already persisted multiple disasters were shut down due to paganism being outlawed. People who should have become politicians or military generals instead became shitty monks or priests.
>Was Christianity a net positive or negative?You tell me.
>>18516320The Romans invaded Germany, they got conquered by the Germans. FAFO.
>>18516320Part to the whole christian thing were zombie like aspect to the continuation to institution and beliefs and this other texture and time that empties out institutions and beliefs to time and part of that were christians appearing as weird christ zombies with no mind speaking and muttering gibberish that does not make any sense self representally absurd theology and living practically at rome as if rome were already fallen to ruin and the apocalypse already happens but there’s this other philip k dick aspect where the time is always the time to the gospels and the gospel time is rome and all the characters and everyone in reality had figure with symbol to gospel symbol globe symbol except that this rome and that globe to the gospel seem almost about globe building and reality and realism to town then religion and orgimmar and those plane dimensions are part to some disc spin logos and this goes to the stoics and iamblichus about that sort to platonist thing pattern to those plane dimensions to data and pattern and campanella and augustine are also important cities to that town of god idea The other matter were the movements that the goths made as this anon alluded >>18516866 where the goths pushed from the east as result from genghis khans steppe conquests those goths partly suspended institutions partly introducing and extending this feeling to suspended time that allowed to the vision between moments to the idea to town that was idea or something like that
>>18516320if for nothing else, we have the medieval church to thank for establishing the 12-tone music system we are all familiar with and used globally
>>18516792Conveniently left out that all those countries at the bottom are in rapid population decline and are experiencing historic levels of inequality.
>>18517427Somalia on the other hand is doing fantastic
>>18516320Christianity led to the rise of a civic society where nepotism and corruption were at a minimum compared to the extent it was prevalent in other cultures, mostly due to Catholicism which reuqired people to distribute land to the church upon death instead of their children, and thereby leading to the weakening of blood ties, a prerequisite for allowing voluntary associations like tradesmen guilds and academic groups to flourish. Ironically it has also led to the weakening of the family in the long term, to the point where the state is seen as a substitute for role family typically plays in the course of human life.
Haven't thought about it but the Tom Holland Dominion argument gist seems sound. Went from a world where majority of people (living in civilizations) were slaves and might be tortured to death for some bullshit to one where the meek and poor will inherit the Earth, are chosen by the most powerful God who will make it so they'll not have suffered in vain, where love grace compassion and Christian virtues are nurtured. If all invented, would it have been even better if there were a reincarnation scheme and meditation and whatnot? Maybe but might point to caste systems and shame cultures and all of that. Big dick question, question's too big,
>>18516320Abrahmism is a net negative and a cancer on the world. We're still living in a time where wars are fought over the schizophrenic writings of desert people 2000 years ago
There have been countless people who've fucked up or been fucked over and suffered immensely for it, having a narrative window into love that permeates entire world comes in handy for them. It's a religion for truly suffering people and probably eases suffering more than it adds to it. Until the psychos and the state get involved at least. Northern Europe probably wasn't going to reach Mediterranean civilization levels any time soon by the time Rome fell as is. Pure uninformed guess.
>>18516320>Was Christianity a net positive or negative?Christianity was never the issue - Rome was.The first Rome (latin Rome) was made up of people who were genetically hard capped in IQ and who actively lowered that cap through the consumption of led-laced booze. They simply could not follow mathematics more complex than additions and subtractions and used multiplication and other tables written by greeks whenever they had to use mid-tier maths. Their conquest also destroyed the Greek Hellenistic international science community and brought an end to the active research grants Hellenistic kings had maintained. The ethnic Greeks countinued to carry on the scientific endeavor in private, through temples and academies though.The Second Rome (Byzantium) directly attacked and destroyed that Greek scientific community that had been keeping the sciences alive and kept pushing them forward in private and in spite of the Roman Empire's ignorance. It did so through an intensive campaign of Romanificiation, which eventually turned genetic Greeks into cultural Romans.The Third Rome (the Latin church of Italy) temporarily broke the transmission of everything the Greeks had achieved before and during the Roman Empire. They were poor provincials wrecked by constant civil wars and invasions who stood in conflict with the fortune, power and stability of the Greek-speaking Eastern Church and Empire, and their solution to winning the theological war was to ban the transmission of all Greek texts in Europe. That ban naturally was no longer enforced after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, which oddly coincided with the beginning of the Renaissance.Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.
>>18517886Unless, you can cite any trustworthy sources, you're basically talking out of your ass here. I can't find a single source that claims that the people of Rome had a biological ceiling on intelligence, and were any less intelligent than the Greeks. Need I remind you that Rome too produced its fair share of lawyers, architects, generals, administrators, etc.
>>18517922romans and greeks had different standards of intellectualismthe greeks were brilliant philosophers, scientists, medical, artiststhe romans were brilliant administrators, militants, architects, engineersit’s like peanut butter and chocolate, they’re great when separate, but when they combine, they make the morning time epic
>>18517922>I can't find a single source that claims that the people of Rome had a biological ceiling on intelligenceIt's emergent from the fact that the sciences remained firmly in the hands of ethnic Greeks and ethnic Greek institutions through the period of Roman dominance.
>>18516320Negative
>>18516320Historians don't even use the term "Dark Ages" anymore because of pseudo-intellectuals using it wrong.
>>18516320>>18516321You've framed this well because you're asking the right question: was the preservation of classical texts necessary BECAUSE of Christian destruction, or was it a rescue from a broader collapse?The answer is the latter. The Roman Empire didn't fall because Christians banned Virgil. It fell because of civil wars, economic collapse, plague, and Germanic invasions over two centuries. The Western Empire was already dysfunctional when Constantine legalized Christianity. The Church didn't cause the collapse. It survived it.As for witch trials: the worst period of witch hunting was the early modern period (1500-1650), not the Middle Ages. And it was often secular courts, not ecclesiastical ones, that did the burning. The Spanish Inquisition actually had stricter evidentiary standards than secular courts and executed far fewer people than popular imagination claims.Holy wars: the Crusades were a response to 400 years of Islamic military expansion that had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world. That doesn't justify every atrocity. But it's not "Christians randomly attacked Muslims for no reason."The Church's record is mixed. It did real damage and real good. But the claim that Christianity "plunged Europe into a dark age" is 18th-century Enlightenment propaganda, not history. The monasteries preserved the classical inheritance. The universities were Church foundations. The scientific revolution happened in Christian Europe, not despite Christianity but partly because of it -- the belief that a rational God created a rational universe that could be investigated.
>>18518919>>18516320I think obvious to assume at the outset as heidegger or hegel would do with self-awareness that christianity were taking an adversary position for roman christianity with regard to roman literature as compared with the way roman christianity appropriated hebrew literature and hebrew prophecy and roman prophecy and directly appropriating Virgil’s eclogue and other writers and here i would dispute that especially with virgil what were getting appropriated as similar how the prophetic and mantic hebrew book of daniel was appropriated and defused by christian logocentrism that was purposely adversarial and part to the concern and dispute was that this version to christian were at odds and dispute with later versions to christianity that absorbed earlier versions to roman christianity and market economy institution and democratic institution and republican institution and further and father part of the post modernity of modernity to everything after the fall of republic to roman empire and then to the hre were christians illegitimate because after christ death and each revival to Christianity were just that revival to something that was already and to hegel that part to why christianity has access because already happened and situated but this situated before were partly illusion because what were before were the source and not acts because acts emerging while sources are always historical especially within the context to the critique to presence and logocenteism and christians are starting out at end of history but then there are other individuals that come after christians starting doing post modern stuff at about -30CE and there there are other individuals that come much later after that or something like that
>>18516792But Anon, those are Islamic countries, not Christian.
>>18517607From personal experience, the most nationalistic, government supporting people mostly come from heavely dysfunctional families.
