01-06-2010, 10:00 AM
Hi,
As you've probably noticed, I'm no great defender of religion, but to blame Christianity or any other religion for the fall of Rome is wrong. Equally wrong is to attribute the survival of the ancient knowledge to the monks. They destroyed much more than they preserved, scraping manuscripts of ancient writings to reuse the vellum and parchment for their endless copies of the Bibles, Lives of the Saints, and other superstitious nonsense. Recently some previously unknown work of Archimedes was found by examining an old religious manuscript under UV light.
What little preservation of the ancient works that did happen was because of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire which lasted a millennium longer than the Western. And these works were reintroduced into Western Europe by returning crusaders and later traders who acquired them from the Muslims. Until Genghis Kahn devastated the Islamic world, its civilization and society were far in advance of the west.
Credit where credit is due, and the same for blame. Not all that we do is right, not all that our enemies do is wrong.
--Pete
Quote:Which is the official written history.....to me the main problem of the roman empire was that they converted to christianity....then the chaos started.Sorry, the problems with Rome, and its decline, started even before there was a Christianity. Look at the civil wars at the time of Julius Caesar which eventually led to his assassination and the eventual rise to power of Octavius. In that evolution from a republic to an empire, indeed even in the events leading to that evolution, are the seeds of the eventual downfall of Rome. Many factors contributed and by the fourth century, when Christianity became the official religion, the fall was well under way.
As you've probably noticed, I'm no great defender of religion, but to blame Christianity or any other religion for the fall of Rome is wrong. Equally wrong is to attribute the survival of the ancient knowledge to the monks. They destroyed much more than they preserved, scraping manuscripts of ancient writings to reuse the vellum and parchment for their endless copies of the Bibles, Lives of the Saints, and other superstitious nonsense. Recently some previously unknown work of Archimedes was found by examining an old religious manuscript under UV light.
What little preservation of the ancient works that did happen was because of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire which lasted a millennium longer than the Western. And these works were reintroduced into Western Europe by returning crusaders and later traders who acquired them from the Muslims. Until Genghis Kahn devastated the Islamic world, its civilization and society were far in advance of the west.
Credit where credit is due, and the same for blame. Not all that we do is right, not all that our enemies do is wrong.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?