The REAL state of the USA : Fact vs Fiction

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

It would explain why you seem more concerned with verbiage than the actual history.

 

I don't think trying to nail down exactly what criteria are responsible for a bunch of people with a common cultural frame of reference to graduate to being "a civilization" (do tribes count? city-states? historical empires only? are we admitting cultures based on technological advancement? geographical area? organizational complexity in their system of governance? cultural achievements? some? all?) is pointless sophistry.

 

 

I disagree.

 

How can you have a discussion about something without knowing what that thing is?

[Meshugger]

 

 

What was the religion the Byzantine culture was based on? The polytheism-ancestor worship of the Roman kingdom? Christianity? Whatever the ancient Romans may have inherited from the Etruscans? Heh.

Well...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Juris_Civilis

 

 

So... whatever is made by law to be the official state religion at a random point in its history, is now "the founding religion a civilization is based on"?

 

That's exactly the kind of goalpost shifting I was alluding to -- if anyone thought I was being a tad too cynical, your post has invalidated any such objections.

 

Even better, your own reasoning provides a counterexample to your theory in the shape of:

 

 

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

 

 

Okay, let's try to approach the problem from a different angle.

 

You do agree with the idea that the three core cultural pillars of western civilization are to be found in the antiquity (Greco-Roman culture, for lack of a better word), Christianity, and the Enlightenment, right?

[213374U]

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

 

No, Emperor Stalin didn't choose Atheism "for the lulz", either. He did it because it gave him two extra hammers per tile, which he was going to need later on to build tons of Nuclears. Or rather, it happened as the result of a myriad factors, not the least among them the fact that ecclesiastical authorities in Russia had property to confiscate, and wielded influence that might threaten the Bolsheviks' already tenuous grip on power. So again, using your own reasoning, the Soviet "civilization" is an example of a civilization with no founding religion. Never mind that considering Soviet Russia as an entity separate from the rest of the history of Russia is meaningless outside of textbook compartmentalization... much like your artificial separation of Byzantium from preceding Roman (etc) culture and customs.

 

Besides, you do realize that the Byzantine empire predates Justinian's laws regarding Christianity right? How can something come before that which it's supposedly based on?

 

edit: dammit, production in Civ was shields, not hammers. My argument is invalid.

Edited May 23, 2016 by 213374U

[Amentep]

 

 

 

I did not realize that all civilizations are based on a founding religion.

 

 

I'm fairly sure they're not. Mesh is full of **** more often than he isn't.

 

 

Can you name a civilization that was built without a religious base?  

 

 

Absence of evidence can't be seen as evidence of absence, particular given that there are many parts of the world with no written records covering them for millennia.

 

More than likely the godless blighters were long since smote by some righteous civilization who were offended that they weren't doing things right by the time recorded history came along.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Amentep

[Meshugger]

 

 

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

 

 

Okay, let's try to approach the problem from a different angle.

 

You do agree with the idea that the three core cultural pillars of western civilization are to be found in the antiquity (Greco-Roman culture, for lack of a better word), Christianity, and the Enlightenment, right?

 

 

Sure, but i see the enlightment as a natural consequence of the degenerate process of hierarchy in society. It couldn't have happened of not christianity preceeded it. What i am pontificating is that if the western civilization would to collapse and we would have to start the whole thing again, then it would be with a new religion. Religion and spirituality is too inherited into the human condition for it not to exist as part of civilization.

 

 

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

 

No, Emperor Stalin didn't choose Atheism "for the lulz", either. He did it because it gave him two extra hammers per tile, which he was going to need later on to build tons of Nuclears. Or rather, it happened as the result of a myriad factors, not the least among them the fact that ecclesiastical authorities in Russia had property to confiscate, and wielded influence that might threaten the Bolsheviks' already tenuous grip on power. So again, using your own reasoning, the Soviet "civilization" is an example of a civilization with no founding religion. Never mind that considering Soviet Russia as an entity separate from the rest of the history of Russia is meaningless outside of textbook compartmentalization... much like your artificial separation of Byzantium from preceding Roman (etc) culture and customs.

 

Besides, you do realize that the Byzantine empire predates Justinian's laws regarding Christianity right? How can something come before that which it's supposedly based on?

 

edit: dammit, production in Civ was shields, not hammers. My argument is invalid.

 

 

What's your point? That religion bears little meaning in a civilization and that it is only a tool of the ruling class? If that's so, then that's quite a cynical outlook i can tell you.

 

My point was that Byzantium wouldn't be Byzantium without the orthodox church, which was the result of the split of Rome and the customs that preceded it. The Justinian code was to emphasize of the natural consequence of such.

 

The Soviet Union was the natural result of when experimenting with materialistic philosophy, brought to us by the enlightment. which is much like the capitalistic one we have in the west, but just the other side of the coin. 

[Hurlshort]

 

 

 

 

I did not realize that all civilizations are based on a founding religion.

 

 

I'm fairly sure they're not. Mesh is full of **** more often than he isn't.

 

 

Can you name a civilization that was built without a religious base?  

 

 

Absence of evidence can't be seen as evidence of absence, particular given that there are many parts of the world with no written records covering them for millennia.

 

More than likely the godless blighters were long since smote by some righteous civilization who were offended that they weren't doing things right by the time recorded history came along.

 

 

Speaking of records, I'd consider the ability to keep records a pretty basic building block of a civilization.  Although it doesn't have to be written form, for example the quipu's of the Incas or the Griot's role in West Africa.  

 

 

 

The Soviet Union (and really any modern communist government) is partly defined by the absence of religion.  But this is a modern idea, one that attempts to break away from the nature of early societies.    

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

 

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

 

 

Okay, let's try to approach the problem from a different angle.

 

You do agree with the idea that the three core cultural pillars of western civilization are to be found in the antiquity (Greco-Roman culture, for lack of a better word), Christianity, and the Enlightenment, right?

 

 

Sure, but i see the enlightment as a natural consequence of the degenerate process of hierarchy in society. It couldn't have happened of not christianity preceeded it.

(...)

Religion and spirituality is too inherited into the human condition for it not to exist as part of civilization.

 

 

Hierarchy is... a process? Which is also degenerate? Care to unpack that a bit more?

 

As for your other observation... it's true in a sense, but it also seems to be missing the point? I don't think religion's a part of civilization because it's "inherent to the human condition". It's a medium through which cultural mores can be efficiently communicated, and it provides a coherent way to interpret the world around you, and both of those are extremely useful functions if you want to build a civilization, but I don't think there's something unique to religion that makes it better at those things than the alternatives.

[Malcador]

Wonder why they chose shields for production. That is a more interesting question

[Hurlshort]

 

As for your other observation... it's true in a sense, but it also seems to be missing the point? I don't think religion's a part of civilization because it's "inherent to the human condition". It's a medium through which cultural mores can be efficiently communicated, and it provides a coherent way to interpret the world around you, and both of those are extremely useful functions if you want to build a civilization, but I don't think there's something unique to religion that makes it better at those things than the alternatives.

 

 

So what are the alternatives?

 

I do like the idea that religion is more of a cultural glue than a foundation.  That might be a more fitting analogy.  But I have a hard time separating religion from the human condition before a certain time period.  Actually I have a hard time saying "the human condition".

[213374U]

Religion and spirituality is too inherited into the human condition for it not to exist as part of civilization.

This is fallacious, sorry. Again, "with this, therefore because of this". What you have in reality is the observation that most, if not all, societies that have survived long enough to leave records seem to present religious or spiritual practices of some sort. That's it, end of story. You cannot claim that it's a part of "human nature" simply because of that.

 

I'm going to counter with an alternative explanation, which I'm sure you've heard before. If we accept that natural selection is not a mechanism restricted to living beings, it stands to reason that there exists a natural selection of societies, effected by cultural genes (memes, as per Dawkins). Hence, it's possible that religious practices confer some sort of competitive advantage to societies that adopt them, over those that do not. As a result, over time you would have more cultures with different religions but essentially similar practices, than cultures without. No appeals to romantic and vague notions of "human nature" needed when the much better understood natural selection will suffice.

 

edit2: oh, you didn't say "human nature", you said "human condition". My bad, feel free to explain the difference.

 

 

My point was that Byzantium wouldn't be Byzantium without the orthodox church, which was the result of the split of Rome and the customs that preceded it. The Justinian code was to emphasize of the natural consequence of such.

 

The Soviet Union was the natural result of when experimenting with materialistic philosophy, brought to us by the enlightment. which is much like the capitalistic one we have in the west, but just the other side of the coin.

No, Byzantium wouldn't be Byzantium without the Orthodox Church, but it also wouldn't be Byzantium without the Paganism prevalent even after Constantine converted to Christianity, and it wouldn't be Byzantium without the incorporation of territories that had been previously part of the Macedonian empire, some of which were in turn part of the Persian empire before and therefore under its influence, and so on and so forth. Interestingly, there is the theory that the reason for initial persecution of Christianity in the Roman empire was due to concerns of infiltration by Zealots. That is, it's possible that what came to be the official religion of the state was in its inception influenced by the political aim of rebelling against that very state (lol). And, of course, let's not forget what Christianity draws from Judaism.

 

The point I'm making is that claiming that there is a founding religion (or any other thing) you can clearly point at in a culture* is a simplification.

 

About the Soviet Union comment... I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

*also the point about the divides between one "culture" and its predecessors and successors existing clearly only in textbooks

 

edit: they really need to fix the forum. I'm using Notepad++ to write posts up...

Edited May 23, 2016 by 213374U

[Hurlshort]

So if there is no evidence to support a lack of religion or spirituality in early societies, are we just supposed to take it on faith that they existed?

[Meshugger]

 

 

 

 

I do not think we are talking about the same thing here. My point wasn't that Justinian just picked a random religion amon many just for the lulz, but rather that Byzantium was based on the orthodox church and how the laws established continued to influence the region and the eastern civilization even after it fell.

 

 

Okay, let's try to approach the problem from a different angle.

 

You do agree with the idea that the three core cultural pillars of western civilization are to be found in the antiquity (Greco-Roman culture, for lack of a better word), Christianity, and the Enlightenment, right?

 

 

Sure, but i see the enlightment as a natural consequence of the degenerate process of hierarchy in society. It couldn't have happened of not christianity preceeded it.

(...)

Religion and spirituality is too inherited into the human condition for it not to exist as part of civilization.

 

 

Hierarchy is... a process? Which is also degenerate? Care to unpack that a bit more?

 

As for your other observation... it's true in a sense, but it also seems to be missing the point? I don't think religion's a part of civilization because it's "inherent to the human condition". It's a medium through which cultural mores can be efficiently communicated, and it provides a coherent way to interpret the world around you, and both of those are extremely useful functions if you want to build a civilization, but I don't think there's something unique to religion that makes it better at those things than the alternatives.

 

 

I see civilizations as a cyclic process. In the beginning, or lets say it primordial state, there's a strong societal hierarchy with the sacred on top (church, priests) who interpret the supernatural, then the sovereign of state (emperor, king) who has completed the rites and rituals to legitimize its authority of the natural world (heroism, virtue), then the warrior class, then merchants and the peasants. These erode through time, as civilizations grow and fall, and we now live in the age of merchants, where materialism is the reigning value. In that way, hierarchy has denegerated from the sacred of the unknown to the material man.

 

I do think we can reach an understanding with your second paragraph, because religion per se is not what necessary makes society better, one only has to look at the blood rituals of the Mayas to acknowledge that. It gives us meaning though, for the good and the bad, which is very important for a sustainable civilization, and i think it that will be among us until the sun explodes.

[Amentep]

Speaking of records, I'd consider the ability to keep records a pretty basic building block of a civilization.  Although it doesn't have to be written form, for example the quipu's of the Incas or the Griot's role in West Africa.

I'm not 100% sold on this; I could see an argument that record keeping is a matter of scale rather than civilization (unless you're going to argue that civilization itself only happens at a certain size).

 

But the sheepherder doesn't need a record of how many sheep he has until he has too many sheep to keep track of in some other way - record keeping is by its nature an necessary, to use a broad example.

 

So if there is no evidence to support a lack of religion or spirituality in early societies, are we just supposed to take it on faith that they existed?

 

You accept that you can't make conclusions about things with which you have no data?

Edited May 23, 2016 by Amentep

[Hurlshort]

We have loads of data that support religion and spirituality in early societies.

 

Earlier I wrote that a civilization:

 

 

 

I typically use the word 'civilization' when referring to any group that has established an agricultural system that allows them to settle in one place.  While nomadic or tribal groups can possess many characteristics of a civilization, the lack of a permanent settlement tends to stifle progress.  It's not just the ability to grow crops, either, it is the ability to manipulate the natural environment.

 

So I suppose size does matter, although I think progress is the more important measure.

[Amentep]

We have loads of data that support religion and spirituality in early societies.

Sure, but you don't have data on all of the societies that are known or suspected to exist.  And in some well documented places, we can't be sure if anything existed prior to it either since what came later obliterated most of the data.

 

Earlier I wrote that a civilization:

 

I typically use the word 'civilization' when referring to any group that has established an agricultural system that allows them to settle in one place.  While nomadic or tribal groups can possess many characteristics of a civilization, the lack of a permanent settlement tends to stifle progress.  It's not just the ability to grow crops, either, it is the ability to manipulate the natural environment.

 

So I suppose size does matter, although I think progress is the more important measure.

 

I'm not sure I'd agree with the idea that you need a permanent settlement or size being important, seems to me both could arguably be culturalistic views - would a large transient population not have a civilization if they had no permanent homes and an oral tradition for stories and law?

[Hurlshort]

I'd probably classify that as a more tribal society than a civilization.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

So what are the alternatives?

 

 

Philosophies that don't involve gods or spirits, I guess? Some schools of buddhist thought definitely apply. 

 

 

I see civilizations as a cyclic process. In the beginning, or lets say it primordial state, there's a strong societal hierarchy with the sacred on top (church, priests) who interpret the supernatural, then the sovereign of state (emperor, king) who has completed the rites and rituals to legitimize its authority of the natural world (heroism, virtue), then the warrior class, then merchants and the peasants. These erode through time, as civilizations grow and fall, and we now live in the age of merchants, where materialism is the reigning value. In that way, hierarchy has denegerated from the sacred of the unknown to the material man.

 

 

You know, to me, that sounds like a way nastier and more unpleasant view than "religion is merely a tool of the ruling class" you assumed 1337 is holding. Making your accusations of cynicism kind of ironic, I guess.

 

 

If we accept that natural selection is not a mechanism restricted to living beings, it stands to reason that there exists a natural selection of societies, effected by cultural genes (memes, as per Dawkins). Hence, it's possible that religious practices confer some sort of competitive advantage to societies that adopt them, over those that do not.

 

I think it's not exactly hard to imagine what, to be honest. Memes that lend themselves well to self-propagation ("converting people to our religion is a moral duty, because otherwise they'd be consigned to hell!") or large-scale murder and taking other people's stuff on the basis of them being filthy heretics or prime candidates for sacrifice are going to be more competitive on the memetic landscape than their more introspective siblings. I'm not sure they even need to grant a competitive advantage to the societies adopting them - it's enough if they themselves can out-compete the opposition (ie. other memes).

[Amentep]

I'd probably classify that as a more tribal society than a civilization.

So a civilization has to leave tangible evidence of its existence?

[Malcador]

Kind of hard for us to know of them otherwise, then, no?

[BruceVC]

 

I'd probably classify that as a more tribal society than a civilization.

So a civilization has to leave tangible evidence of its existence?

 

Oh Amentep I love the way you think, you have this insight or perspective that is difficult to dispute 

 

No a civilization doesn't need to leave  evidence to be relevant so thats not a requirement 

 

Whats your view on religion and  its relevance to the foundation of civilizations ?

[BruceVC]

Kind of hard for us to know of them otherwise, then, no?

Well there could stories passed down  about previous empires or races ....wouldnt that make them real on some levels ?

[Hurlshort]

Oh, like the Atlanteans?

 

This is in line with how I teach about civilizations in the classroom.  It references my state standards as well.

 

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/6.3/brown.html

[BruceVC]

Oh, like the Atlanteans?

 

This is in line with how I teach about civilizations in the classroom.  It references my state standards as well.

 

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/6.3/brown.html

No

 

More like ancient Babylon...how much of that exists? The Hanging Gardens for example are long gone 

[Oerwinde]

In my high school civilization class they classified a civilization as an agricultural society with enough development to allow a semi-specialized economy, and that has a system of written language.

 

I think thats a reasonable definition