Quote: (06-27-2014 04:09 PM)Samseau Wrote:
So far everyone is focusing on what happened to the Catholics, while conveniently ignoring the Orthodox who were the richest group of people for nearly 1000 years.
The catholics were rebuilding the rubble of rome. They had mad work to do. However the Orthodox were left with the best and the brightest of old Rome in Constantinople.
They had all the works of Aristotle preserved, as well many others.
The actual enlightenment in Europe didn't start until Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1452. The Byzantine scholars fled the city and landed in Italy, and brought over 1000 years of undiscovered history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissanc...e_humanism
Again, there's simply no point in denying the importance of Christianity. You're deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Even the most atheist professors in my philosophy department understood the simple fact that there is no Western Civilization without Christianity.
Nah, I respect the role that christianity played in building a 'Europe' that defined itself as a civilization, but christianity is a foreign entity which influence has been greatly overrated.
Christianity, like jewry and islam, is a religion born of an arrid desert among warring primitive people.
The European people were pagans, their gods were if anything just archetypes, the earliest attempts at psychology. The greek tragedies were magnificent at explaining common human themes. Jung and Freud didn't seek for meaning in christianity, islam or jewry, but in fables and stories of pagan Europeans.
The Europeans had a connection to nature, they sat and watched the streams, the mountains, the abundance of life and pondered what it all meant, the beginnings of biology, chemistry and physics.
Christianity was spread through violence and deceit. The west-roman empire fell moments after adopting christianity as a gimmick. Very much like how Europe fell after adopting marxism. Lets remember Nietzsche, christianity = primordial marxism. Christ was misrepresented to the nordic people as a great warrior, sold on his epic battle with satan. Even then, it took until the 15th century for much of northern europe to be christian.
What is christianity for northern europeans, Christmas = Yuletide, Easter = Eostre, Christmas three = Ygdrasil. Northern euro christianity is nothing but repackaged paganism.