On Devout Catholics

[schmuck]

The Dark Age is viewed as the stagnation of intellectual progress.
A graph I found on teh intarwebz


incidentally, the inquisition occurs somewhere in the early segments of the black part.

[regnauld]

did i say i didnt?

I was only asking for I really felt sorry and sad for those millions of men, women and children who were brutally killed, tortured and burned alive at the stakes including St. Joan of Arc! What a GREAT TRAGEDY and a GREAT IRONY!

[The_Child]

thats a graph, but what does that mean, besides its color? stagnation?

rabbies was discovered during the middle ages.
that astrolabe was invented during in between the last days of rome and the first days of the dark ages.
the banking system was discovered during the time.


stagnation!?! What year was the UNiversity born?
the oldest one, the UNiversity of Bologna, claims around the 11th century. (i had the opportunity to talk and accompany a medievalist, historian, from the Dutch speaking Leuven UNiversity who had a day trip the other day and he talked about the historical developments of the oldest universities in europe. bologna, paris, oxford, salamanca... ) SO if the university was born in the middle ages, how could it be, that there is nil! no intellectual progress during the time?

i wonder.


"that europe sprang from the christian culture, even before the fall fo the roman empire, at least since the Edict of COnstantine. Just as we cant conceive of the oriental world without BUddhism, we cant conceive of Europe without taking into account the role of the church, the various most christian majesties, scholastic theology, or the deeds and examples of its great saints...

"the christian middle ages built its theology on aristotle's thinking, rediscovered via the arabs, and while it knew almost nothing of plato, it knew alot about neoplatonism., which had a a huge influence on the fathers of the CHurch. Nor could we conceive of Augustine, the greatest christian thinker, without the absorption of platonic ideas. The very notion of Empire, which lies at the roots of a thousand years of struggle among European states, and between states and the Church, is roman in origin. Christian Europre elected Latin as the language of holy ritual, of religious thinking, of law and of university debate..."

-Umberto Eco, Turning back the CLock, p.269-270

p.s not to mention semiotics started in the middle ages.

[The_Child]

sir regnauld! yes, indeed. not to mention the holocaust. the mongol invasion. the sack of rome. the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. World War II. the NPA purgings. how the west is ****ing up africa and have the guts to condemned somalia for their piracy. yes, you should not be selective in feeling sorry for human misery, there are alot of them, now and the past. Of all the past human tragedies, you have to, across the long list... pin down a specific event. Whats the motivation? (no, its not millions)

[regnauld]

sir regnauld! yes, indeed. not to mention the holocaust. the mongol invasion. the sack of rome. the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. World War II. the NPA purgings. how the west is ****ing up africa and have the guts to condemned somalia for their piracy. yes, you should not be selective in feeling sorry for human misery, there are alot of them, now and the past. Of all the past human tragedies, you have to, across the long list... pin down a specific event. Whats the motivation? (no, its not millions)

My point is: The Catholic Church had or has its DARK SIDE and it's haunting her again and again!

[schmuck]

^
I can only wonder sir, what they could have taught in those universities, I suspect religious dogma. When the sun circled the earth and that men came from mud...

[regnauld]

^
I can only wonder sir, what they could have taught in those universities, I suspect religious dogma. When the sun circled the earth and that men came from mud...

Me too. I wonder why!

[The_Child]

^
I can only wonder sir, what they could have taught in those universities, I suspect religious dogma. When the sun circled the earth and that men came from mud...

the sun circled the earth or that line of thought, was Ptolemy. , and that was way before the middle ages.
your looking at it from hindsight, we could say those were ridiculous theories, but during the time it was very advance. you suspect, but as ive said, without the universities, would the age of reason and the Renaissance ever come to be ? of course not. point is, there was no intellectual stagnation, it is an unfounded conclusion and half-baked assertions.

[The_Child]

My point is: The Catholic Church had or has its DARK SIDE and it's haunting her again and again!

of course it has. dark sides or what have you, the world operates through tensions. BUt i dont understand why the CHurch should be singled out - is it really out of hate? or does it just look 'cool' to do so?

[schmuck]

the sun circled the earth or that line of thought, was Ptolemy. , and that was way before the middle ages.
your looking at it from hindsight, we could say those were ridiculous theories, but during the time it was very advance. you suspect, but as ive said, without the universities, would the age of reason and the Renaissance ever come to be ? of course not. point is, there was no intellectual stagnation, it is an unfounded conclusion and half-baked assertions.

when people are persecuted because their ideas are contrary to that of scripture, I'd call that intellectual stagnation. Wouldn't you?