What if...

[drudkh44]

I would highly recommend "The Wonder That Was India" by A. L. Balsham for info on all that I mention, and a whole load more. Thorough in its scope and sourcing and a darn good read to boot. I would gladly lend it to you, but some ungrateful son-of-a-gun never returned it after I loaned it to him!

As for the issue of bias, unless someone has witnessed all the events in the history of the world firsthand, then I'll never believe anyone that claims to be unbiased.

mmm i have read that book many times...most of it is bollocks to tell you the truth...all his translations of seals are wrong...and how can a non indian try to tell us our history...wouldnt it be a bit stupid for one of us to try and imagine ur history and write books on our 'visions' ...bloody columbus..

 

[drudkh44]

Many would say that Christians did not 'invent' those things (except for champagne). Maybe I've got lost in your sarcasm Plotinus, but this reads like one thoroughly biased post.

your right...christians couldnt come up with anything apart from some drink that doesnt even taste nice...and they didnt even creat champagne...that was also stolen..

 

[drudkh44]

Ah, I'm never biased, you know that...

Perhaps I was being a little ironic with one or two of them (you could say that there was some kind of social welfare in pre-Christian Rome, though it wasn't up to much, and human rights are perhaps "recognised" rather than "invented"; also, I suppose that both of these have their roots in Judaism). But it is true that Christians invented the first hospitals, which appeared in the fourth century AD. Legal aid also appeared at this time in the form of the "episcopal audience", an innovation of Constantine which saw bishops handling civil cases for free. The first universities as we know them of course appeared in the Middle Ages as a development from the older cathedral schools, and musical notation was invented at around the same time, making possible the writing down of polyphonic pieces.

Seriously, I hope I'm not biased either way: I just wanted to point out that it's not as black and white as drudkh44 suggests. Accusing Christianity of destroying the world is as daft as it would be to claim the church has never done anything wrong. Yet it's surprising how fashionable it seems to be, in many quarters, to deny that organised religion has ever done anything good.

i didnt suggest this so called 'black and white'...there all facts, destruction is a fact...no religion has ever done anything 'good', well a few have...use 'polyphic' in the right way...it doesnt have anything to do with the middle ages..any if you think about it, most of christianity has its 'roots' in something else...maybe all of it..

 

[drudkh44]

Most of them...

Some more detail (and my own bias ) ...

Hospitals meaning what? We've seen them in many forms in many various places. I can instantly think of organised healthcare under Ayurvedic traditions that preceeded the birth of Christ, mainly located in Kerala, South India, which remains a centre of such medicinal traditions.

There was a University called Takshila, which came into existence c. 700BC, somewhere around the Karakorum Mountains. Nothing to do with Christians that one.

Social Welfare? Kind of a broad term that one.

Music Notation - actually Indian ragas have been penned down and memorised since well before (at least 500 years) Christ uttered a word of a parable.

good one, there was a university before this takshila...long before..

 

[drudkh44]

No India invented all of those before Europe.

mm...i really don't know wehther you are a little girl or not..

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I don't see why anyone should be criticizing Christians because they didn't invent hospitals. Is it a ripoff to operate a building to heal the sick, if you weren't the first to come up with the idea?

 

[Israelite9191]

No, they didn't.

Despite the various atrocities you mention, it's just ridiculous to blame Christianity for "two millennia" of "massive oppression". As I tried to indicate above, Christianity has been responsible for many good things as well as many bad ones. You're doing exactly what Eran mentioned - listing (inaccurately) Christian atrocities, ignoring those of other people, and concluding that Christians are worse. Perhaps there was no Muslim Torquemada, but then equally, there was no Christian Tamerlane. What Olaf did to Raud was no worse than what the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok did to Aelle II. If you really want to swap stories of medieval atrocities, I don't see how the Christians come off any worse than most other people. Even if they did, to generalise from that into "two millennia" of "massive oppression" is plain daft. I don't think most Christians today are in the business of oppressing people.

Sorry about the innacuracy of the number. I was originally going to say hundreds, but then remembered that it was more and went to change it thousands but forgot to get rid of the hundreds. Anyway, you are right. I was merely trying to make a point, that point being that Christians tend to gloss over and not take into account their history of attrocities, which is frankly all together more than most, if not all, other religions have committed. However, I agree with you. Christians were not the only ones to commit attrocities, far from it. However, the modern Christian tends to exagerate the attrocities of non-Christians and gloss over the attrocities of their own faith. I know, I go to a Jesuit highschool. If you listened to them, you would think the Spanish Inquisition was a fair and just court to try religious dissidents, not a thinly veiled method by which to rid Spain of Jews and Muslims.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

My Catholic high school was open about earlier atrocities. And my particular religion hasn't done anything, except for one incident that was blamed on church leadership.

 

[Israelite9191]

The Church of Latter Day Saints? They do have a somewhat cleaner record than most other Christian denominations, but it must be remembered that they are not perfectly clean, as no organized body is. It also must be noted that the Church of Latter Day Saints is tiny in comparisson to the more major branches of Christianity (see Catholicism for the best example) and etraordinarily young when compared to other branches of Christianity.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Not to nitpick but it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I think it helps that we started in the US in the 1830's, wherea religion couldn't get away with things like killing people (for the most part), but I do also think that we have done a fairly good job as far as our relations with other religions are concerned.

 

[Israelite9191]

Sorry, my mistake. And yes, the CJCLDS has done rather well in inter-faith relations. It is something of an exception to the rule, but I wouldn't call it perfection.

 

[Xanikk999]

christians didnt invent or cum up with anything...musical notation was coined by the greeks and other pagan peoples and simply copied by the christians a with eveyrthing else....hospitals aye??..the first ever hospital was in india and the first doctor and surgeon was a hindu...the first university was defintly not christian, infact it was egyptian...yes christaisn do drink a lot of alcohol don't they??...100,000 people a year die in ur america because of this alcohol...human rights cannot be christian....rememebr it was the christians that went round murdering people for their religion and burning them on the stake....is there anything in that that says 'human rights'...

They didnt come up with anything? I know you dont like christians but saying such nonsense is absurd.

 

[drudkh44]

ermm no its not

 

[Rambuchan]

mmm i have read that book many times...most of it is bollocks to tell you the truth...all his translations of seals are wrong...and how can a non indian try to tell us our history...wouldnt it be a bit stupid for one of us to try and imagine ur history and write books on our 'visions' ...bloody columbus..

I haven't heard anyone make a criticism of the translations in that book before. Do you have specific examples of where he makes errors? Also, I wouldn't condemn and confine historical works based entirely on nationality. I personally couldn't give a hoot if that history of pre-Islamic India was written by a Canadian, Peruvian or Dutchman. As long as the methods and interpretation are thorough, clear and as free of a particular slant as possible, it really doesn't matter. What would be stupid is if you only accept works on England by Englishmen, or histories of Nigeria by Nigerians etc etc. Then you've got problems! Finally, what does Columbus have to do with it?

 

[drudkh44]

They didnt come up with anything? I know you dont like christians but saying such nonsense is absurd.

#

yes of course i hate you christians...tell me what use have you done to our world??

 

[Rambuchan]

Taught you how to forgive them?

 

[Plotinus]

The ancient Greeks did have a system of musical notation, but it was forgotten by late antiquity. Musical notation as we know it in the west was invented by Christian monks in the Middle Ages, mostly by Guido d'Arezzo, who also invented "Do Re Me"...

Human rights: really goes back to Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis and the notion that laws are based upon universal principles rather than ad hoc precedent, via the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas. The idea that human beings have fundamental rights simply in virtue of their humanity was developed by figures such as Bartolome de las Casas and Pope Paul III in response to the abuses of the conquistadors in the New World.

It seems a bit odd to proclaim hatred of all Christians and deny that any of them has ever done anything worthwhile whilst putting a quote from a Christian in your sig. Apart from Leonardo, you might like to wonder what the religion was of Newton, Milton, Mozart, Dostoevsky, Chaucer, Descartes, Bach, Shakespeare, and Tolkien...

Now if you want to have a serious discussion then please do so. Otherwise, stop spamming the forum with these vitriolic diatribes. There's an Off-Topic forum specifically for that kind of "debate".

 

[drudkh44]

er,, newton was an occultist


and 'do re me' is in no way christian...

 

[drudkh44]

and i dont have a 'christian' sig...
darwin was hated by christians, and the reaosn why, he was intellectual..something that christianity did not approve of

 

[drudkh44]

Taught you how to forgive them?

oh yes...
many powerful boobies to you