Re: Ben Stein on O'Reilly Factor: Creationist Movie

þus cwæð TomS :
"On 25 Oct 2007 17:52:25 GMT, in article
<slrnfi1kci.eq.mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, AC stated..."

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:22:37 -0500,
Klaus H <badgerbadgerbadger@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
TomS wrote:
"On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:35:33 -0700, in article
<1193243733.026061.309670@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, LT
stated..."
Saw this today on YouTube.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yzgBj8deKE

I always thought of Ben Stein as an intelligent man, and still
do, but he's so clearly misinformed. He talks about "secular
persecution of intelligent design". What a foolish thing to say.
Religion persecuted science for centuries, and we were blessed
with the Dark Ages. In the end, after much death and torture of
enlightened thinkers, science and reason won out. We have been
through the Industrial Revolution, and are now well into the
Information Age. Science, and reality, have enabled us to do this.
[...snip...]

I know you're on the right side, but I can't let this
pass without some comment.

Religion did not persecute science for centuries, and
the European Dark Ages were not a result of any such
persecution. That seems to be (rather reminiscent of
the "belief in a flat earth" myth) 19th century myth.

I suggest that anyone interested take a look at the
Wikipedia article "Conflict thesis". That should
provide a basis for rational discussion - I am not
suggesting that Wikipedia is infallible.



Christianity (the Catholic Church) did indeed cause and maintain the
Dark Ages.

Oh BS. The Dark Ages have their roots in the failure of Roman
government and economy, which began before Constantine and can at
least be partly linked with the vast expenditures being underwritten
by debasing currency (clipping coins).

This is of course a simplistic explanation; the fall of Rome was due to
economic, social and military factors. There is no one reason; and
everybody has their own pet theory. It isn't even true to say the
economy declined; it /changed/, and the results of the change increased
social instability, which in turn left the Empire vulnerable to Germanic
and other peoples who, as a direct result of prolonged exposure to Roman
society and the Roman economy, were better armed, better organised and
much, much wealthier than their forebears had been. Had there been no
outside pressure, it may be that once the changes in the imperial
economy had worked themselves through, the Empire might well have
survived. Or not. The main change was the decline of the urban classes
in favour of the owners of massive rural estates; the latifundia class
was not greatly concerned with taking up their civic (or military)
responsibilities in the cities,and even less concerned with paying their
taxes. If the outside threat (first from Parthian Persia and then later
from assorted Germans, Huns, Alans, etc) had not meant the Imperial
government's miltary expenditure needed to expand massively, the change
from an urban economy to a rural\one might not have mattered so much. I
don't think Christianity had very much to do with it, except insofar as
the substitution of one state religion by another changed some social
attitudes, and altered the political\landscape by creating a new power,
the Church, as a rival to the old centres of power. This may have had an
effect on the unity of the governing classes. (And let us not forget, if
Rome was changed by Christianity, how much more so was Christianity
changed by Rome).

The Dark Ages started with St. Cyril, the BISHOP of
Alexandria slaughtering the students and instructors at the Great
Library, as well as burning the books and brutalizing and murdering
Hypatia, and desecrating her corpse. Afterwards, the Church
canonized Cyril and conducted an organized campaign against
science. The ONLY REASON that the Dark ages ended was because
reformers were able to break the Church's power in Europe, which
led to the Renaissance.

I just love how people will pick some random moment in history and
then build a vast conspiracy out of it.

Rome was in decline long before Cyril of Alexandria came along, and
it was that decline which lead to Rome's fall and to the so-called
Dark Ages. Blame the bloody Germans, and the Roman generals that
kept hiring them and thus let the enemy through the gates.


I suggest WIkipedia again, "Library of Alexandria". It says:

"Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the
destruction of the Library:
Caesar's conquest 48 BC;
The attack of Aurelian in the 3rd century;
The decree of Theophilus in 391;
The Muslim conquest in 642 or thereafter."

(And it goes on to cast doubt about each of these, but that is another
issue, not relevant to Cyril.)

And I find it "interesting" chronology to place the Reformation
*before* the Renaissance.

Not to mention extending the 'Dark Age' by about 400 years ....


.

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