|
| Thread: Christianity and European history |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
yogi
Promising
Famous Hero
of picnics
|
posted June 16, 2013 09:21 PM |
|
Edited by yogi at 21:22, 16 Jun 2013.
|
Quote:
Can you read or you're just seeking for flame? I didn't say the whole science is against religion (that would be matter of opinion to say that), but that many influencial scientists are or were against religion and/or theism itself.
I believe you are projecting. Your post insinuates that the more intelligent scientists actively harbor hostile intentions towards religious thinking.. this is simply untrue. From my personal experience, the more true a scientist is, the less hostility they harbor (towards anything), especially the deep questions propelling their quest. To some degree, modern science in and of itself is a type of religion; and most modern religions actually stem from ancient sciences. Contrary to what the American media and education systems would have you believe, religion and theism are not inherently barbaric entities or degenerate thought patterns; politics is. The fountainheads of most religions, past and present, are quite critical, and benevolent beings. You might even call them scientists, who are performing introspective experiments, and making assertions that can only be understood by similarly developed minds. They are asking the same questions.
Politicians are false prophets. Health and happiness come from within.
I provided sources in my previous post substantiating my assertion that the most profound scientists are religious thinkers (including Schrödinger and Tesla; I can dig up some for Einstein, Newton, and more), please do the same for your claims. The inverse is also not difficult to demonstrate if need be - that the fountainheads of most religions are in fact much more critical in both the experiments performed to arrive at their assertions, and the resulting mindset, than most modern positivistic scientists. Ultimately however, I am not interested in debating somebody else's opinion on the matter. I am my own scientist.
____________
yogi - class: monk | status: healthy
"Lol we are HC'ers.. The same tribe.. Guy!" ~Ghost
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 09:55 PM |
|
|
|
Let's not mistake religion for philosophy, please.
|
|
Hobbit
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 10:11 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Your post insinuates that the more intelligent scientists actively harbor hostile intentions towards religious thinking
It's you who said that, and that's simply untrue. Instead of seeking for flame, read my and Elodin's posts again.
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 10:11 PM |
|
Edited by artu at 22:14, 16 Jun 2013.
|
Quote:
Let's not mistake religion for philosophy, please.
Yes, also keep in mind, the pantheism that Einstein sometimes get carried away with, or the deism of some earlier 18 - 19th century scientists are very different than even theism, put aside institutional religions and the mythical stories they bring. Deists arrive at a God by the orderliness of universe, that it is mathematically explainable. Theists on the other hand believe in an exactly opposite kind of personified God who can change the rules, create miracles and cheat on natural laws as he wishes.
However, there is already more than enough threads on that, I'd say sticking to historical aspect of things in Europe would be a better idea.
|
|
yogi
Promising
Famous Hero
of picnics
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 10:42 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Let's not mistake religion for philosophy, please.
The only distinction I can find between the two is that modern philosophy is stuck in semantics. I think what you mean to say is "let's not mistake the western political systems (religions) of the last millennium with the general notions of religious thought and philosophy".
Quote:
It's you who said that, and that's simply untrue. Instead of seeking for flame, read my and Elodin's posts again.
The tongue smiley at the end of your initial post and incorrect use of the word "hostility" insinuated sarcasm, my mistake. So you were actually attempting to support Elodin's post... I think that if you had used the word "even", instead of "especially", I would have found no reason to reply.
Quote:
However, there is already more than enough threads on that, I'd say sticking to historical aspect of things in Europe would be a better idea.
Agreed.
____________
yogi - class: monk | status: healthy
"Lol we are HC'ers.. The same tribe.. Guy!" ~Ghost
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 10:55 PM |
|
Edited by artu at 23:00, 16 Jun 2013.
|
Quote:
The only distinction I can find between the two is that modern philosophy is stuck in semantics.
There are many differences.The most important are:
a) Religion has sociological/cultural aspects, this is usually why someone who is religious becomes of that specific religion anyway. You don't have Hegelists or followers of Heraklitos densely in this area or that country. Religion on the other hand always spreads like that.
b) Philosophy demands cognitive conviction. You are expected to rationally make a point and follow logical rules when presenting it as an argument. Religion can be totally emotional or intuition based.
c) Philosophy is not dogmatic. Every major philosopher starts by criticizing the ones that came before him. Religion is the opposite, it is based on carrying the tradition as intact as possible. Religion only changes when social evolution demands it so inevitably, the other option is to become extinct like the gods of Egypt.
d) Philosophy has no rituals, social stuff like wedding ceremonies , funerals, bar mitzvahs, baptism etc etc are totally irrelevant when it comes to philosophy.
Also I don't remember who but someone famously said philosophy asks questions that may never be answered. Religion provides answers that may never be questioned.
|
|
yogi
Promising
Famous Hero
of picnics
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 10:59 PM |
|
|
|
Hobbit
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 11:05 PM |
|
|
Quote:
The tongue smiley at the end of your initial post and incorrect use of the word "hostility" insinuated sarcasm, my mistake. So you were actually attempting to support Elodin's post...
That's also untrue, because I actually used sarcasm. What I was telling is that there were or are many non-Christian authorities who wouldn't agree with what Elodin said about Christianity building the West since they were against the religion and theism itself (not nontheism nor pantheism etc. - e.g. Einstein did believe in some "god", but as a force; he stated he'll never agree with opinion that God might be a person). Not majority, not those "more intelligent", just many. Now you understand?
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
|
|
Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
|
|
posted June 16, 2013 11:28 PM |
|
|
Christianity has nothing got to do with any sort of development the Byzanties have a achieved. The only reason why Rome,Byzantine and any other empire heralded progression in science,philosophy and so on, is because of wealth.
The entire premise of this thread is to say that a bunny was the reason people learned to eat simply because a bunny was around when people ate.
Some orthodox lover here seems to want to portray his faith as it being the reason of human progression, so that he may feel more prideful.
Its amazing to how many lengths people will go to reafirm their own beliefs.
|
|
Drakon-Deus 
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 11:03 AM |
|
|
Seraphim, believe whatever you want about Christianity, but don't deny historical facts. Your bunny example has nothing to do with the facts, you either didn't understand my first post or did not want to, I think it's the latter, as always.
Christianity was not just "around", it was state religion of the Eastern Roman empire for centuries.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
|
|
Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 11:44 AM |
|
Edited by Seraphim at 12:05, 18 Jun 2013.
|
Quote:
Seraphim, believe whatever you want about Christianity, but don't deny historical facts.
I dont. I dismiss the implication of why you wrote them.
Quote:
Your bunny example has nothing to do with the facts
It does. Orothodox christianity just happened to be around when the byzantines happend to be wealthy. Remember, before christianity, it was paganism. We may aswell turn around and praise Paganism now.
Quote:
, you either didn't understand my first post or did not want to, I think it's the latter, as always.
I did understand this thread very well. Pretty insulting to flag me as "Not wanting to understand someone's pont".
Quote:
Christianity was not just "around", it was state religion of the Eastern Roman empire for centuries.
And? Paganism was the "State" religon for the roman empire for centuries aswell. Paganism was the state religion for Ancient Greece aswell.
You are trying to give credit to orthodoxy, your religion, but I dont agree with that.
Why? May I remind you the subject at hand is about an Empire that was responsible, just like its eastern half, for the enslavement of various population under its boot(Roman tax anyone?)?
It was a very wealthy empire, with lots of different ethnicities under its umbrella whose official language was greek.
I dont know about you, but I see little reason to either praise the byzantines or the state religion it used to appeal to the population.
Edit:
Your points...
1.
Byzantine scientists? I agree, they designed the "Ayasofya".
2. Hospitals....
Or faith healing. Great relief to those who died believing that they were going to be cured.
3. School of Medicone
This is amaizing. An empire who could afford having a Classy university. That happend before in Egypt, Greece and other places aswell, but later they were all burned down, just like in Constantinople.
4.
Orthodoxy maintained hospitals and perfomed faith healing...
5.
Russian history and developlemt. Well, I could not care less about russia.
6. Cyrillic alphabet and slavs being convereted to orthodoxy. Again, something I could not care less about.
7. You never asked anything, nothing to promote discussion. Just a thread that says "Hey, orthodoxy was good unlike catholicism" and thats it. You are lucky that mods seem to like you. If I had done this thread, my thread would be moved to the VW. If you had at least tried to put some questions, it would have masked the big "Advertsing" nature of this thread.
|
|
Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 01:31 PM |
|
|
Insulting? You're denying historical facts and then play the victim? Sorry, that won't work. Christianity is useless, cos you say so, right? I've nothing more to say to someone who keeps living in an anti-theistic bubble. Peace and long life.
And for the record, I'm not even Orthodox as I refused to accept many of their ways. I don't belong to any denomination. I'm just Christian.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
|
|
Hobbit
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 01:40 PM |
|
|
Guys, how about you give some proofs (like links to other sites) instead of just saying "You're wrong because I'm right"? It's the internet, not some historicians' teaparty!
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
|
|
Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 01:56 PM |
|
|
I've nothing to prove to anyone. I just stated some facts. Apparently, those facts bother some people. I couldn't care less.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
|
|
Hobbit
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 07:19 PM |
|
|
So you don't care about if people believe your "facts" or not? What's the point of this topic then? Is it just for stating that you're right and don't we dare not agree with you? That would work on some Christian site, but not here...
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 07:50 PM |
|
Edited by artu at 19:53, 18 Jun 2013.
|
Quote:
So you don't care about if people believe your "facts" or not?
No, the problem is, he is unable to understand the difference between the historical events he presented and the causality he implied between them.
|
|
Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 08:49 PM |
|
|
It's not me who doesn't understand here... but whatever.
Zenofex took parts of what I said and completed or corrected the information. That's the type of post I wanted to see. But myabe I'm asking too much, I just want a clear, civlized discussion.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted June 18, 2013 09:29 PM |
|
Edited by artu at 21:30, 18 Jun 2013.
|
No, he didn't just correct some detail of information, what Zenofex said is basically not different from what Serhapim says:
Quote:
the point is that they didn't spread it for the glory of Christ. They spread it mostly for the glory of the emperor, even though that was not necessarily mentioned explicitly in all cases
Saying Christianity was just around may be exaggerating it a little bit, since the relationship between religion and political power is never one-sided, but when it comes down to it, practical world shapes religion much more than religion shapes practical world. Any theory implying a process of civilization is based on religion is therefore wrong, it's priorities are flawed: The historical conditions of the civilization shapes religion much more. That's why there are many churches and sects including the institutions of Catholic and Orthodox church in the first place, not because of some theological debate but because Rome and its political power divided into two.
|
|
Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
|
|
posted June 19, 2013 06:39 AM |
|
|
When did I say it was "based" on religion? I did not mean that. But denying that religion had a role altogether like seraphim does is just as wrong.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 19, 2013 08:35 AM |
|
|
But that's not what your post is about. It's not a general post that says, RELIGION did something. It's about the fine things that, supposedly, a specific religion brought.
In my opinion this is a very difficult discussion.
There is the general term "religion". It may surprise you, but when it comes to "religion", the simple fact that every known people has one would make you think. To make this short, considering the development of the human race it would seem that for every sufficiently large body of people with societal bonds the development of a "religion" seems to have been a necessity, maybe even for sheer survival.
You can take all kind of other general terms, for example "government", "law" or even "sports", and it's not much of a problem to deal with the abstract idea behind it and to acknowledge the role of it over the course of human society development.
But that's not what this thread is all about. This thread is about a specific religion and it's specific form in a specific people and amount of time. If it was "government" instead of religion, we would debate, for example, "Enlightened Absolutism", 18th century in Prussia.
If I understand you correctly, you try to establish that the Eastern Christianity was much more "Christian" than the Western, doing a lot of good, as opposed to the tyranny of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church and so on.
Now that won't be easy - for the following TECHNICAL reasons:
1) Until the middle of the 11. century there was only one church.
2) In the Byzantine there was still an - or better - THE Emperor, and for the people there THE EMPEROR was the representative of God on Earth (not the Pope). They didn't need a separate "ruler" of the church, because there was already one in place - NOT, however, in Western Rome, which had been conquered. There simply was no Emperor there. So in the Byzantine there was still the "unity" of Church and State - the EMPEROR was the Pope there, which is why it may seem there was none; there would obviously no discord between the worldly and the spiritual leaders of the Christian world there, because they were one and the same, quite different from the rest.
Still, they had THEIR problems as well, for example, the Iconoclasm thing, when suddenly the icon question became QUITE important (think of the "graven image" commandment).
Anyway. The real question would be, whether the people in the Byzantine had a morally better - or more Christian-like - society than the other Christian Kingdoms and Duchys? Had they more human laws? Had the low classes more rights? Were rulers more merciful? Did they "do good" more often then anyplace else?
|
| |
|
|
