Quote:
Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler
You are very wrong. I say this as a fairly committed athiest, but also as a historian-turned-lawyer.  Whatever advances the Greeks and the Romans made were preserved by Church scholars. The problem wasn't that the Romans turned to Christianity. The problem was that the (Western) Roman civilization/empire was overrun by savages, such as the Goths, Franks, Alars, Huns, Saxons, Suevi, etc, etc. Whatever works of Greek and Roman philosophers, authors, and scientists survived were preserved by Christian monks because until well into the Middle Ages they were literally the only literate people. Now, did the Church also give us the Inquisition, persecute Galileo, Copernicus et al? Certainly, but the fact that any sort of "base" was preserved to build on was thanks to the Church. |
Fair points but were not many of these savages Christian lead or not?
There is also evidence of research being destroyed by the church too. There is debatable evidence that the Great Library of Alexandria was burned by Christians as it was a Pagan symbol. A monk had destroyed the scrolls that had the works of Archimedes (The palimpset).
I guess it is a matter of pros vs cons and did the good outweigh the bad.
I appreciate your opinion and enjoy this type of discussion.