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Old 12-26-2012, 11:42 AM   #1
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Default The Dark Ages - an age of light

Quote:
The Clash of the Gods

Episode 1 of 4
DURATION: 1 HOUR
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.

Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.

In the first episode he looks at how Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire as an artistic force in the third and fourth centuries. But with no description of Jesus in the Bible, how were Christians to represent their God? Waldemar explores how Christian artists drew on images of ancient gods for inspiration and developed new forms of architecture to contain their art.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00zbtmr

Apollo?
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Old 12-26-2012, 12:06 PM   #2
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It is not for nothing that the period after the fall of Rome until the Renaissance has ever since been called dark. Presumably, these jumped up, politically inspired 'scholars' who disagree are going to rename the Renaissance, too? Or have they not had the bare wit to think things through?

Or have they simply not finished their education, yet?
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Old 12-26-2012, 07:39 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle View Post
Quote:
The Clash of the Gods

Episode 1 of 4
DURATION: 1 HOUR
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.

Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.

In the first episode he looks at how Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire as an artistic force in the third and fourth centuries. But with no description of Jesus in the Bible, how were Christians to represent their God? Waldemar explores how Christian artists drew on images of ancient gods for inspiration and developed new forms of architecture to contain their art.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00zbtmr

Apollo?

Well there is certainly the image under the Vatican that is described as Apollo by some and Jesus by others.


The depictions of Christ in the 4th century were emperor centric with the exception of those who revered the "Good (CHRESTOS) Shepherd".




This is the mosaic from the British Museum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_St_Mary_Mosaic

Quote:
The Hinton St Mary Mosaic is a large, almost complete Roman mosaic discovered at Hinton St Mary in the English county of Dorset. It appears to feature a portrait bust of Jesus Christ as its central motif.
It is touted as being a mosaic of Jesus but it looks like a dead ringer for the Emperor Constantine with his distinctive "Bullneck".




And the way I see these "Dark Ages" is in the suppression of the Greek intellectual tradition. The light of knowledge - mathematics, geometry, astronomy, science, medicine, literature, philosophy .... - this light was switched off by the Christian regime. The rise of faith and the fall of reason according to Charles Freeman. The light commenced to return with the rediscovery of all these elements of the Greek intellectual tradition, by means of the preservation of this knowledge by the Islamic culture.
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Old 12-26-2012, 07:58 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clivedurdle View Post
Quote:
The Clash of the Gods

Episode 1 of 4
DURATION: 1 HOUR
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.

Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.

In the first episode he looks at how Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire as an artistic force in the third and fourth centuries. But with no description of Jesus in the Bible, how were Christians to represent their God? Waldemar explores how Christian artists drew on images of ancient gods for inspiration and developed new forms of architecture to contain their art.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00zbtmr

Apollo?

Well there is certainly the image under the Vatican that is described as Apollo by some and Jesus by others.


The depictions of Christ in the 4th century were emperor centric with the exception of those who revered the "Good (CHRESTOS) Shepherd".




This is the mosaic from the British Museum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_St_Mary_Mosaic

Quote:
The Hinton St Mary Mosaic is a large, almost complete Roman mosaic discovered at Hinton St Mary in the English county of Dorset. It appears to feature a portrait bust of Jesus Christ as its central motif.
It is touted as being a mosaic of Jesus but it looks like a dead ringer for the Emperor Constantine with his distinctive "Bullneck".




And the way I see these "Dark Ages" is in the suppression of the Greek intellectual tradition. The light of knowledge - mathematics, geometry, astronomy, science, medicine, literature, philosophy .... - this light was switched off by the Christian regime.
:devil1:
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Old 12-26-2012, 08:36 PM   #5
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The Closing Of The Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (or via: amazon.co.uk)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Freeman

CLOSING PARAGRAPH



"I would reiterate the central theme of this book:
that the Greek intellectual tradition was suppressed
and did not simply fade away.



My own feeling is that this is an important moment in European cultural history
which has for all too long been neglected. Whether the explanations put forward
in this book for the suppression are accepted or not, the reasons for the
extinction of serious mathematical and scientific thinking in Europe for a
thousand years surely deserve more attention than they have received."
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Old 12-26-2012, 10:08 PM   #6
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It is touted as being a mosaic of Jesus but it looks like a dead ringer for the Emperor Constantine with his distinctive "Bullneck".

And the way I see these "Dark Ages" is in the suppression of the Greek intellectual tradition. The light of knowledge - mathematics, geometry, astronomy, science, medicine, literature, philosophy .... - this light was switched off by the Christian regime. The rise of faith and the fall of reason according to Charles Freeman. The light commenced to return with the rediscovery of all these elements of the Greek intellectual tradition, by means of the preservation of this knowledge by the Islamic culture.
Well I am not sure about that Pete, but the Greeks were also looking for a son in their parousia event, as the final ousia in its own being of 'the man as the man,' yes indeed, much like the 'cowness of Plato's cow' in his "Sophists" here.

So it was just a matter for time as Plato was looking for this man, but all he found was sophists:
Quote:

218c - STRANGER: At present ... all that you and I possess in common is the name.
And in 267D concludes:
Quote:
267d - Where, then, must we look for a suitable name for each? No doubt it is hard to find one, because the ancients, it would seem, suffered from a certain laziness and lack of discrimination with regard to the division of kinds by forms, and not one of them even tried to make such divisions, with the result that there is a serious shortage of names.

The Sophist, then, tries to mimic the Philosopher without knowing what a Philosopher is (but having only some untested notion of that).

Is there really a serious "shortage of names"? For Plato a name signifies a form, for us a concept. For us, the limit of thought is concept-formation; for Plato, form recognition. Are these merely different points of view (two possible ways of looking at things)? That is the question.
Bolding is mine.

So Plato was not looking for shining sophistry but for a sophist with a shine on him that would match the halo we put on Christ when he moved to Rome, and his mind has been ours ever since, i.e. the philosophic mind of Christ (and we call her Mary, just in case you wonder).

It is a matter of 'seeing' Pete, and not empty sophistry.

The problem really is, or was, that made the age so dark is that "the thousand year reign" had just begun, and so really the era of 'heaven on earth' itself was in its infancy, . . . ands now the real question is: seeing what? with no relevant history in its own past.

So now you can say that the dark age is called dark only because it held a promise to unfold that makes heaven worth its while (instead of just Essenes gallivanting about in their own Elysian field), since knowledge is and will accumilate to built higher highs in all directions, i.e. "you will do greater things."* Remember also Nathanael just came tumbling down a fig tree with no specific lineage classified to say that he really did not belong as Joseph's brother James was claimed in Matthew, and in Luke, the real Jesus pegged his own lineage right back to God.

The upshot here is that Rome has a copyright on heaven and that was something Emperor Constantine wanted to make known . . . and paved all roads in truth to Rome, that will actually make people walk away from their gold like the magi did already then (even if dragging, kicking, screaming or otherwise, so I suppose).

* A re-enter is required here wherein logos renews itself and thus will do greater things. So the actualization is neologically and must increase, simply because that is what par-ousia entails wherein the ousia's are current, as the shepherds were to Joseph, and they looked in and understood.

Let me add that to say that "logos renews itself" may be a difficult concept to grasp. But if you go to Gen.1 you will read that truth (light) is prior to man.

Then consider that we as humans are temporal and borrow our life from the mythology that itself is eternal and so is wherein we can have eternal life, it must also be true that we will be the continuity of infinity now with a son made manifest to identify man as both Lord God and God (and no longer 'the God of Abraham etc.), which then in turn is also why Plato was looking for a son to deserve that name (to be his equal, I suppose).


http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/sophist.html
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Old 12-27-2012, 06:41 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
It is not for nothing that the period after the fall of Rome until the Renaissance has ever since been called dark. Presumably, these jumped up, politically inspired 'scholars' who disagree are going to rename the Renaissance, too? Or have they not had the bare wit to think things through?

Or have they simply not finished their education, yet?
We can't deny that there were glimmers of rational expressions occurring during those murky times, like a Xtian kid at night with a flashlight under the blankets reading Ingersol. But that age was definitely dark.
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Old 12-27-2012, 07:08 AM   #8
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It is not for nothing that the period after the fall of Rome until the Renaissance has ever since been called dark. Presumably, these jumped up, politically inspired 'scholars' who disagree are going to rename the Renaissance, too? Or have they not had the bare wit to think things through?

Or have they simply not finished their education, yet?
We can't deny that there were glimmers of rational expressions occurring during those murky times
Glimmers, yes, quickly extinguished by the antichrist 'church'. The fact is that in a thousand years Europe produced hardly anything constructive, philosophically or materially, that went to make modern civilisation. The British Isles in 900 CE and later was in worse condition than when the Romans left, and that was bad enough. The whole continent actually went into a chronically regressed condition, bearing levels of ignorance and superstition, a common mindset, that modern minds of non-historians find hard to grasp. This is unique in the history of the world, unprecedented, unrepeated. Societies that hung garlic on doors to keep out demons could do nothing constructive.
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Old 12-27-2012, 07:23 AM   #9
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Did anyone see the documentary I referenced?
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Old 12-27-2012, 07:32 AM   #10
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Did anyone see the documentary I referenced?
"Does anyone watch the BBC?"
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