What if the Dark Ages had Never Happened?
Written by Paunce on November 3rd, 2007 in Comedy, Graphics, Religion.
Thanks Christianity for a wonderful few centuries!
Paunce [N: Pansy]
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November 8th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Christianity was not the cause of the Dark Ages. Rather, the spread of Christianity was a symptom of the oncoming D.A.
Culture and learning had already declined, for reasons other than religion.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Sure, it’s easy to blame Christianity for all of our ills. If today’s Christianity is any indication, it deserves it! (the religion itself, some Christians are actually pretty cool.) What with the denunciation of science and education, the screeching of “Harry Potter is SATAN!” and the blaming of gays for all the ruined straight marriages (it couldn’t possibly be that the marriages happened too early because these kids had a desperate need to attach to someone. *Somebody* guilt-tripped them and told them all good people get married and pop out more babies.), it would make sense to blame the Church. Fortunately for us, the church has stepped in and told us that they’re not to blame. Unfortunately, we’re not psychologists, so we’re unable to be introspective and determine why we made our own bad choices. Therefore, we need a good scapegoat to replace the church.
Alien Dinosaur Time-Traveling Secret Agent Pirates from Outer Space are the cause of our problems. They are terrorism, pollution, global warming, peak oil and the reason why we’re not having dinner with the Vulcans yet. Until we take care of this grave threat, we’ll all be living in the dark ages.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
The result of the Dark Ages was the loss of drive: the Romans got lazy. Religion had nothing to do with it, and, in fact, is what preserved a lot of the knowledge. Quite the opposite of what you say.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Well, that’s a really pretty graph, but how and what are the parameters for scientific advancement? And why call the interregnum between the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance the Christian dark ages, didn’t they belong to everybody?
November 12th, 2007 at 11:14 am
The cause of the dark ages was the collapse of a dying culture that had one too many changes imposed on it. The Roman empire was falling apart before the time of Christ. The wild cultural shift just pushed the civilization of Europe into the abyss, it did not cause it. Look to science to save the world, not to explain political crises. The concepts of religion and science are mutually exclusive. Let’s keep them that way shall we?
November 13th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
“denunciation of science and education, the screeching of “Harry Potter is SATAN!”
I’d appreciate it if you didn’t group all of us Christians into one group. I appologize for the extremists but there are extremists in every course of life. I for one am not denoncing science & education. It’s funny you’d say that, since chruches sponsor schools & build them in third world contries. It’s fine for you to have your own beliefs, but don’t bastardize mine if you have no idea what you’re talking about, asshole.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:26 am
The Dark Ages belonged to Europe where the Christians were destroying Rome and burning books. Religion did not preserve knowledge, Muslims did. The Rennaissance began in Baghdad after the Crusades.
But it doesn’t really matter because in this day and age, religion is only hindering us. Not just extremists, but EVERYONE who decides that anything that doesn’t have an explanation YET (because science has a pretty damn good track record of figuring shit out), well, some imaginary dude in the sky did it.
November 26th, 2007 at 3:54 am
nice theory., but the idea of the *Dark Ages* is a discredited myth created by those of the Rennaisance trying, successfully in the main, to make their ideas look greater.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
While I disagree as well that Christianity “caused” the Dark Ages, it certainly exacerbated it to a significant degree. One only has to read how many of the greatest medieval minds were corralled by house arrest, imprisonment or even death for non-Christian ideals such as the earth orbiting the sun and not vice-versa. The Christian churches also worked hard to keep the masses ignorant by not allowing them to learn how to read and write. The Christians did build schools — how nice of them to do that after virtually enslaving aboriginal peoples everywhere and “saving them” from their “god-less ways”. After completely destroying their way of life and belief systems, they were kind enough to build schools to extend their dogma. Meanwhile the church also gained incredible wealth based on the backs of ordinary people through tithe and collection of penance. Toss some coins into the box and Father Domingo will hear your confession and tell you what you must do to gain god’s forgiveness. How did Father Domingo know what god wanted anyway?
The Christian church became a corrupt entity that spread like a plague across Europe, Asia, Africa and the New World. Entire races were wiped out in the name of god, king and country. Let’s not forget how the church tortured and maimed countless people in order to “save them.” People say “don’t blame the religion, blame the bad people that used the religion as an instrument of evil.” I agree that it is hypocritical to assert that Christians (i.e., all people who believe in Christ) are bad. Simply not true. That said, being a Christian or Muslim or Jew does not mean that you are a moral person. Morality is not based in religion, as many erroneously believe. Human kind had a sense of morality long before the concept of supernatural beings were formed. How else would have the human animal survived if not for a sense of working and living in harmony?
Christians who turn a blind eye to the crimes against humanity performed by the church over the centuries are as guilty as those who perpetuated the crimes in the name of the church. There is a modern parallel to this — WWII where Nazis and non-Nazis alike were well aware that Jews and “other undesirables” were being slaughtered but they did nothing.
The Dark Ages would not have been so had the Christian church worked to better humankind rather than place itself as the head of all men. You can have your beliefs, and you can certainly be a good person as a Christian, Muslim, Jew or atheist. Your beliefs are not bastardized when people point out the ugly truth. Your beliefs are bastardized when you have your head in the sand and pretend that only religious beliefs hold the answers to everything.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
You can draw a lot of conclusions from a graph like that. If you want to, you could make a point that Muslims are the cause for violence today, or another famous one, that the number of pirates going down causes global warming. A graph can prove and disprove anything you want. As Daniel Herkes and John Raguso said, it was brought on by the collapse of the Roman Empire. Religion is usually spread by bad times, it doesn’t cause it. In a time where you live such short, brutal lives, you have to find a way to deal with it, and what is better than knowing that you will go to Heaven after you die for being a good person?
November 27th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Well, I seem to recall that during this time advancements in mathematics and astronomy were occurring in the Middle East. There was the entire rest of the planet (you know, the not-Europe part) that was not being introduced to Christianity during this era, and it seems to me that is why the creator dubbed it the Christian Dark Ages. Yes, Christian monestaries preserved much of the Roman knowledge, but they actively kept it inaccessible to the general public, breeding mass ignorance.
Rome fell due to its own gluttony and a few barbarian tribes who wanted Roman stuff (or were tired of being subjugated by the Romans, however you want to look at it).
November 27th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Yeah extremist Christians are a little to much for me to handle too. But that does not mean that Christianity halted scientific advancements. Saying that is just as bad as blaming gay people for failed marriages.
That slump in scientific advancements has nothing too do with peoples common beliefs. In fact with you haven’t backed anything up on it with any evidence(very unscientific). From the looks of it that spike is around the time when people were discovering the power of steam. Which gave us soo much like railways to make our world a little bit more accesible. Then starting off the industrial revolution, which generated mass amounts of everything. And although there were lots of little kids working for nothing and dying, it still gave a bunch of other kids the chance to go to school and become somewhat educated them selves. The rest is just a big snowball effect into the communication age.
The Egyptians, Romans and Greeks all worshiped gods. Much of their culture and scientific developments were in name and accredited to their gods, so how does the Christian god make a difference?
Like with any thing in this world, scientific advancements have their ups and downs. Its all waves baby=P Eventually we might see some kind of slump. We could also make a spiritual advancement chart and blame the big decline on science.
Saying that, something needs to be done with extremist Christians. So many of them get caught up with being so self righteous that they forget the message of their own religion, peace n love. If any of those extremist nazi’s actually read their bible, and listened to Jesus’ teachings we wouldn’t have all these hateful beings roaming around using God as a way to spread all their ugly hate and pain.
Don’t retaliate to these groups with hate, it just pushes every one further apart. Instead, treat them with love. It hurts a tainted heart much more anyway.
We all have our own beliefs, and we all have the rite too believe in them. In the end you cant really prove shit anyway, everything is just a matter of perception.
Love, yeah
December 4th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
I love all these Christians getting offended at the graph! Rofl
December 5th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Harry Potter is SATAN!! Isn’t it obvious? The time-travelling dinosaurs are called Reptilians. Just ask anyone who knows.
Also, it’s the rise of Harry Potter that caused the dark ages–retroactively. It’s the literary genius of the devil’s word incarnate that brought about the laziness and fall of the Roman empire and the end of the technological advancement. Harry Potter is SATAN!!
December 20th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
There’s a whole civilization that hugely influenced western european countries missing: Muslims. It started in the 8th century and started dwindling in the 11th century, all the way to the 15th century.
Despite what people may think, those were times of huge intellectual expansion. Cordoba was one of Europe’s largest cities if not the largest. Mathematics (Algebra) and Astronomy were greatly developed by their civilization.
December 27th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Hey, don’t blame the Alien Dinosaur Time-Traveling Secret Agent Pirates from Outer Space. Don’t judge a people that you don’t know or understand. I am greatly offended at how you treat these great Alien Dinosaur Time-Traveling Secret Agent Pirates from Outer Space who protect our people. I am a Alien Dinosaur Time-Traveling Secret Agent Pirate from Outer Space, for your information, and I am greatly offended.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Man. Never, ever have I seen so much ignorance of history all paraded in one short space before. No, Christianity, per se, did not cause the Christian Dark Ages, however, Roman Catholic Church, in fact, did, in its exercise of the social/political control over the monarchs and peoples of Europe. In many, many ways–read some history, don’t just swallow what your priest/pastor/favorite pedophile tells you.
Some Junior Einstein above trumpeted his ignorance by saying “…that does not mean that Christianity halted scientific advancements…” Hello? Galileo? Shut down and under house arrest for life? HE wasn’t the only one, you know–hundreds of philosophers and (what passed for) scientists were tortured or burned at the stake for heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchery, you name it–just for saying n the basis of sound astronomic principle, that the sun revolved around the earth (something the Greeks knew a thousand years before), the earth was round (understood by contemporaneous Norsemen, Persians and proven by Aristotle a thousand years previous), germ theory…you name it–only in Europe, in thrall and under the control of the Roman Catholic Church was science and learning not only discouraged, but punished with death.
Whereas math and science flourished in the Islamic world as well as South America. No person who is not entirely ignorant of the history of Western Civilization would, in fact, put the decline and fall of civilization–the Christian Dark Ages–down to any other agency than the Christian Church in Europe–at that time the Roman church.
Today the Ignoroids For Christ continue this war on science by trying, however ineptly and stupidly, to turn back the march of Biology, Genetics and Geology by gainsaying the science of evolution. Religious fascists.
Jeepers–read something besides bible tracts and romance novels, OK?
December 27th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Guys … ITS A JOKE GEEZE
December 28th, 2007 at 3:59 am
This graph is not saying that Christianity caused the dark ages; rather that Christianity inhibited scientific advancement then, as it still does today.
If you believe in creation you are a dumb fuck.