It's not misleading because this is scientific devellopement in western civilization. It follow western development.
Renaissance happened when western culture rediscovered the work done by arab copying greek book. WOuld not have been possible during the dark age, crusade and all...
When a religion emphasis on faith, and go all nut's, it is religion fault. Not it's faith.
The secular advances made by the Chinese empire immediately prior to the European age of exploration--which arguably even kicked off the European age of exploration--were destroyed in China by a completely secular problem: absolute kingship. When the emperor who sponsored the voyages of Zheng He died, his replacement wanted a clean break from the usurper who went before him. So the discoveries made by Zheng He's treasures ships were censored, just like secular learning was censored in Christian Europe. Christianity and Islam are basically the same problem, only the absolute monarch is a deity instead of a man. Absolute faith may be in one or the other: it is still destructive.
To be fair, the collapse of the Roman Empire was more likely caused by hundreds of years of "easy living" for the Romans - who effectively outsourced the defence of the Empire, with inevitable results (see parallels in the world today). Not to mention massive levels of lead poisoning. Xtianity did, most likely, cause the Dark Ages to be longer and darker than they should have been...
The lead poisoning thing is overemphasised. The city of Rome was building aqueducts from before the Empire even began, and the Caesars ruled for three or four more centuries yet. Edit: oh yes, many if not most of these aqueducts are still in use today. if they did use lead in their aqueducts, they knew how to do it safely. /Edit "Outsourcing" had also been done from nearly the beginning: one of the earliest expansions of Rome was to give citizenship to neighboring Latin tribes. Paths to citizenship were created for any individual (limited ones, but still more liberal than some that are in effect in Europe today) and as Rome expanded into the territories, much of its military and much of its culture was created by the formerly Celtic tribes who were now adopting (and elaborating upon) Roman culture and language and joining the Roman military. As an example, Virgil was a romanized Celt from cisalpine Gaul. His ancestors sacked the city of Rome; his literature added to the glory of the city.
Another problem was the Villae. As rich Romans bought bigger and bigger estates and bigger and bigger farms, they were populated with more and more slaves, and small landowners were shunted into the cities forming a growing destitute underclass. At these low levels is where Christianity spread the fastest. Turning these low statuses in roman society into holy vocations put an end to the increasing tide of slave revolts that accompanied the increase in slaves. With the new God opposing the old gods rather than the human misery generated by the terrible economy, the increasing chaos was resolved in feudalism.
Chris Christie is so fat, I was giving a presentation and he ate my pie charts.
Homepage
Avatars
AutTV
Forums
Games
Chatroom
Search
Calendar
Help
