Danes feel Obama is greater than Jesus

[kandrathe]

here you suggest that Atheism equates to moral bankruptcy.

Actually, I never mentioned atheism. Is it an organized social construct?

Everything before then that did not fit the strict Christian teachings was branded heretical and would land the scientist in no ends of trouble, often including death.

Myth. The not so dark ages.

Rome actually fell due to a lot of reasons and indeed, Christianity was named as one.

Who is N.S. Gill, and why would I trust anything posted at About.com? I see she has a graduate degree from the University of Minnesota, and does freelance writing.

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romefal.../fallofrome.htm

The article is actually a review of about a dozen sources all of which do not agree on why the Roman Empire fell. Only a few list Constantine's transformation as a root cause, but it probably does have some merit in that it caused schism's throughout the empire. The empires disintegration began well before Constantine's rise to power with the decisions of Diocletian and the Tetrarchy, which resulted in outright warfare between rivals. The Christian (Catholic) church that emerged from the 4th century was far more authoritarian, hierarchical and strayed pretty far from the various paths of early Christianity. Politicians were in positions to select the bishops for political, rather than spiritual reasons. A condition not remedied until the reformation, which unfortunately was a bloody mess in Europe as well.

It was the 1000 years of state sponsored intolerance (in the name of religions) which prompted the founders of the US to opt for the wall of separation between matters of the church and matters of the state. The danger is not any one religious philosophy for all their backwardness, but the marriage of religious intolerances to the government apparatus of power. The danger is when the state uses its power for the moral good of us all. In the case of the US, it means literal bankruptcy (which being impossible for a nation, will result in the Treasury printing many trillions of dollars to pay off our debts -- which will devalue all of the US.)