comparing Greek/Roman culture with the European middle ages... how much more

S

Spike

New member
advanced might we be now if ...? ....Constantine wouldnt have converted to Christianity?

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all the burned libraries, all the modern greek/roman architecture wrecked and toppled, all the roman medical knowledge tossed away and forgotten, all the art tossed into a bonfire, all the religious wars....

,...the "holy roman empire" and their disdain of anything not directed related to Christianity

(even Islam probably wouldnt have been invented had it not been for Constantine's conversion to christianity)
800 years of DIGRESS instead of progress
the romans could perform caterac surgery
...the church prescribed excorsim
oops *exorcism
 
We'd be 800 years in the future. Global Warming would've kicked off 750 years ago and today we would be living a hand-to-mouth existence on the edges of the planet (Tasmania, Tierra del fuago, Northern Canada...)
 
Just to clarify, Constantine's conversion to Christianity didn't influence Islam. Also it has to be said during The West's Dark Age The East including Muslims were in their Enlightenment Period. When the West entered the Enlightenment Period the East fell into the Dark Ages.

And maybe the path the world took was the right path to getting were we are today. After all even with technological advancement first needs to be social advancement. We'd still be owning slaves, and thinking it's OK to leave young girls to die in the cold.

The rise of Christianity (the first Christianity before it became a money making corporation) at least got people to start thinking about social issues, which never would have happened under the logistical Romans. Though then again maybe if Christianity had never entered Rome it wouldn't have become a corporation and remained pure, however considering the history of the Quakers and where they ended up, probably not.
 
There are two big variables here. Arguably we have just caught up with ancient Rome 100-150 years ago. When it comes to building techniques we still have not been able to catch up to Rome. Rome was conquered by barbarian or less advanced peoples then themselves. That is what put humanity back. However Christianity did make sure there was very little advancement once civilization had been technologically put behind. I think you could make a good argument that had it not been for Christianity it probably would not have taken long to get the years back, and it is reasonable to assume that we could be a lot more advanced then we are now. There was either a Roman or Greek inventor that was one step away from the steam engine. Once that happened the technology boom was sure to follow behind it just as it did when it was invented.
 
I think you are probably right. The dark ages were dark and unrecorded precisely because of the cloak and conflict thrown over humanity by $hrist-inanity.
 
We would be followers of Mithras, a warrior religion. So I think things might have been worse.
 
While generally I agree that the onset of christianity heralded the dark ages and set civilisation back a fair bit, I must mention that medical knowledge was still effectively that espoused by the Romans up to the enlightenment - and after. It didn't go backwards, it just didn't go forwards at all.


Edit - yes, but the knowledge wasn't lost, it just wasn't used. It was left on the shelf, to be picked up again and finally brought to fruition by the likes of John Hunter only a few hundred years ago. I'm not a big fan of christianity's influence on the world, but there are some things you can't pin on it.
 
We'd either be in the death grip of Roman polytheism still or some other repressive religion.

Thankfully as humans, technology and science progress, religion is becoming less influential in life than it has in the past.
 
I'd like to think we will live a religion-free world, but I'm afraid that is not only impossible, but not as much fun, also.
Probably the Muslims or rather the Buddhists would have taken over.
 
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