44,000 year old house built by Neanderthals discovered

[Walsingham]

Um... seeing patterns is what the human brain is good at. Case in point: seeing the face of Jesus in toast, etc. Looking at history and saying it is implausible without God is an argument I find ...less than compelling.

 

Continuing another thread, I don't see what's so mental about making crap up. I mean falling in love is 99% of the time an exercise in raw fantasy over facts. But being in love can stil make you do and achieve all sort sof things.

[Moose]

Like go bankrupt

[Orogun01]

Um... seeing patterns is what the human brain is good at. Case in point: seeing the face of Jesus in toast, etc. Looking at history and saying it is implausible without God is an argument I find ...less than compelling.

 

Continuing another thread, I don't see what's so mental about making crap up. I mean falling in love is 99% of the time an exercise in raw fantasy over facts. But being in love can stil make you do and achieve all sort sof things.

Well we can't prove the string theory with today's technology but there are many who seem to favor it. Plus there was a time when scientist were racing to try and prove/disprove the general theory of relativity. My point its that though we may not be able to conclusively prove the existence of God at the moment maybe at some point in technology; when we are traveling in between dimensions and have mastered FTL, we maybe able to.

 

PS: I'm 100% behind you on the seeing pattern thing, people assume too much.

[Hurlshort]

A society without some degree of faith over reason would be super lame.

[Gorgon]

Maybe, and maybe for not having dallied around with religion they would be sporting tricorders and spandex suits and have eliminated hunger and disease.

[Orogun01]

Maybe, and maybe for not having dallied around with religion they would be sporting tricorders and spandex suits and have eliminated hunger and disease.

Here we go again with the Dark Ages! You think that people would bother to check the veracity of this argument, the Dark Ages were caused by the fall of the Roman Empire and the raids of the Visigoths + the rest of the vikings. Who burned the cities where casually, were the compendiums of knowledge. It was in fact due to the efforts of the Church that a lot of knowledge was saved and reproduced by the hands of monks, which is why they were able to monopolize academia for so long and because of it all knowledge had shades of theology.

 

SO every metalhead, satanist, quasi-atheist who worships the vikings because they love Norwegian death metal, can go stuff themselves.

[Gorth]

Maybe, and maybe for not having dallied around with religion they would be sporting tricorders and spandex suits and have eliminated hunger and disease.

Here we go again with the Dark Ages! You think that people would bother to check the veracity of this argument, the Dark Ages were caused by the fall of the Roman Empire and the raids of the Visigoths + the rest of the vikings.

You seem to have a 600 year gap in your history, not to mention a strange relationship between Goths and Vikings

 

Who burned the cities where casually, were the compendiums of knowledge. It was in fact due to the efforts of the Church that a lot of knowledge was saved and reproduced by the hands of monks, which is why they were able to monopolize academia for so long and because of it all knowledge had shades of theology.

Preserving without understanding does nothing to create new knowledge. On the contrary, having new ideas could often prove fatal if you weren't among the filthy rich and powerful. In which case you could have a new thought or two, as long as you kept it to yourself.

[pmp10]

Preserving without understanding does nothing to create new knowledge.

Are really suggesting that works have been transcribed for almost a thousand years in the Christian world without understanding their content?

I know Christian institutions are not highly regarded in popular understanding but this is going a bit too far.

[HoonDing]

A society without some degree of faith over reason would be super lame.

[Walsingham]

Nothing cuter than a political child.

 

Actually, that's kinda the point. Those are political placards, not theological ones.

[Pidesco]

Nothing cuter than a political child.

 

Actually, that's kinda the point. Those are political placards, not theological ones.

 

Same difference.

[Orogun01]

You seem to have a 600 year gap in your history, not to mention a strange relationship between Goths and Vikings

They both raped, pillaged and plundered, both were a plague on western society. So let's not get too bogged down on what kind of virus each were, they were both harmful.

 

Preserving without understanding does nothing to create new knowledge. On the contrary, having new ideas could often prove fatal if you weren't among the filthy rich and powerful. In which case you could have a new thought or two, as long as you kept it to yourself.

I didn't say that they created new knowledge, or that they formed a progressive form of academia. But everyone seems to ignore the socioeconomic factors and place the blame solely on the Church all whilst the poor standards of living were the most mitigating factor on the lack of an opposing view.

[Pidesco]

I thought everyone had already realised there were no Dark Ages.

[pmp10]

I thought everyone had already realised there were no Dark Ages.

Yes there were.

The name is just mistakenly attributed to the supposed lack of intellectual achievements while the real reasons should be the scale of population collapse and political breakdown.

Edited January 10, 2012 by pmp10

[Pidesco]

No, the term Dark Ages was invented precisely to highlight supposed lesser intellectual development, specifically in comparison to the Renaissance.

[Hurlshort]

No, the term Dark Ages was invented precisely to highlight supposed lesser intellectual development, specifically in comparison to the Renaissance.

 

We call it the Dark Ages simply because of the lack of information about that time period.

 

There is just very little writing going on during the early middle ages, the records are few and far between, and historians have to make a lot of assumptions in order to fill in the gaps. Compare that to the rather meticulous record keeping of the Romans or Greeks, and you have a fairly mysterious period of history.

[pmp10]

No, the term Dark Ages was invented precisely to highlight supposed lesser intellectual development, specifically in comparison to the Renaissance.

What the term was originally meant for is irrelevant.

For most modern historians it has no such connotation and is used to underline the scarcity of written sources.

[Gorth]

No, the term Dark Ages was invented precisely to highlight supposed lesser intellectual development, specifically in comparison to the Renaissance.

 

We call it the Dark Ages simply because of the lack of information about that time period.

 

There is just very little writing going on during the early middle ages, the records are few and far between, and historians have to make a lot of assumptions in order to fill in the gaps. Compare that to the rather meticulous record keeping of the Romans or Greeks, and you have a fairly mysterious period of history.

The term "Dark Ages" (European "Dark Ages") has a history all of it's own. Different meanings for different people at different times. Whatever people think it means was probably correct at least for some people for some time.

 

It has been used in turn to describe the turmoil after the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the lack of cultural and technological achievements from the fifth to the fifteenth century.

 

Whether the latter was caused by people seeking refuge in religious doctrine or the other way around was more the question really. It's entirely possible that stagnation and fear of an uncertain future led to people getting all zealous.

[Tale]

I'm not sure that eradicating hunger and disease would be worth having to wear spandex.

[Walsingham]

I'm not sure that eradicating hunger and disease would be worth having to wear spandex.

 

The mere sight of me in spandex would eradicte much world hunger at a stroke.

[Gorth]

I'm not sure that eradicating hunger and disease would be worth having to wear spandex.

 

The mere sight of me in spandex would eradicte much world hunger at a stroke.

As Marie Antoinette said, let them eat sausage.

[Gorgon]

She never actually said that. It was a misquote, probably nurtured by the revoultionists.

[Malcador]

Well I'm sure she didn't say sausage because he made it up then and there.

[Gorth]

She never actually said that. It was a misquote, probably nurtured by the revoultionists.

I know it predates her, but no idea who actually coined the term. Never underestimate the power of urban legends and the strange phenomena of repeating a lie enough times. It ends up becoming the new truth.

[Moose]

A bit like religion, eh