GakuseiDon

I don't care, I'm afraid. I'm not interested in defending Flynn, nor even attacking Carrier for that matter. I have very little sympathy for the "science could only have arisen under Christianity" and "Christianity set out to preserve Greek knowledge" concepts. There may be a grain of truth in both statements, but they are too often exaggerated in discussions. Carrier goes too far in the other direction IMO ("the Greeks had scientists, therefore they had 'science'"), and we can see that by how he is using Flynn.

SLD

Mountainman, do you have a citation or source for the destruction of Asclepian Temples under the auspices of Constantine?

Thanks!

SLD

mountainman

Have a look through the citations in this Index of Knowledge Burning by the 4th Century Christians

Eusebius VC 56: Destruction of the Temple of Aesculapius at Aegae.

FOR since a wide-spread error of these pretenders to wisdom concerned the demon worshiped in Cilicia, whom thousands regarded with reverence as the possessor of saving and healing power, who sometimes appeared to those who passed the night in his temple, sometimes restored the diseased to health, though on the contrary he was a destroyer of souls, who drew his easily deluded worshipers from the true Saviour to involve them in impious error, the emperor, consistently with his practice, and desire to advance the worship of him who is at once a jealous God and the true Saviour, gave directions that this temple also should be razed to the ground.

In prompt obedience to this command, a band of soldiers laid this building, the admiration of noble philosophers, prostrate in the dust, together with its unseen inmate, neither demon nor god, but rather a deceiver of souls, who had seduced mankind for so long a time through various ages.

And thus he who had promised to others deliverance from misfortune and distress, could find no means for his own security, any more than when, as is told in myth, he was scorched by the lightning's stroke. (2)

Our emperor's pious deeds, however, had in them nothing fabulous or feigned; but by virtue of the manifested power of his Saviour, this temple as well as others was so utterly overthrown, that not a vestige of the former follies was left behind.

jgoodguy

Bottom line seems to be that the various invasions and wars destroyed Latin Roman society and government and what was let was unable to continue on. Christianity as a religion, concentrated on its religious priorities and not scientific ones.

I'd like to add that the level of science is not real reverent in any case. If the literacy rate was 5-10% of the population, there was little hope in any case. Eliminate the elites and science is eliminated. All that is left is ignorant masses.

mountainman

I have no sympathy for those notions.

There is no grain of truth in either statement and they are about as false as you'll find anywhere.

The Greeks had science and mathematics and geometry and medical knowledge and astronomical knowledge etc etc etc. The Christians were only interested in preserving knowledge about Constantine's Jesus, and Greek knowledge was thus preserved by the Arabs for a milenium before it was rediscovered again in the west. To all intents and purposes the Greeks had proto-science and technology. I dont see a problem with this. Have you ever taken a close look at the Antikythera mechanism?

Toto

and on this point, Carrier would mostly agree with Flynn.

There's some confusion here, perhaps in the definition of "Latin West." Carrier explains that the Greek works were part of the Latin West's heritage in the Roman Empire, which were lost when the elite of the Roman Empire stopped speaking Greek, and lost interest in copying them.

Please note that Toledo was under Islamic rule, and would not be considered part of the Latin Christian West.

This is only true if you think that Latin West refers only to the remnants of the Roman Empire in the middle ages, and does not go back to the 4th century. I did not get the impression that was how Flynn used the term.

I think the rest of your objection would disappear if all of the terms were well defined.

GakuseiDon

It hardly matters for the point I'm making.

This is how it plays out:

Flynn writes:

The Latin West never lost its Greek heritage because it never had it to begin with. Most of it was never translated until the Christians, hearing that it was available in Toledo, swarmed there from every nation once the jihad had ebbed...

Richard just looks at the first part ("The Latin West never lost its Greek heritage because it never had it to begin with") and states that "This is false: the Latin West had entire wings of their libraries... stocked with Greek treatises". IOW, Richard believes that Flynn is saying "they didn't keep Greek texts", whereas Flynn is clearly NOT saying that. This is obvious from Flynn's very next sentence, where he writes: "Most of it was never translated".

Toledo doesn't matter to my point. My point is that Richard is suggesting that Flynn is wrong because "the Latin West had entire wings of their libraries stocked with Greek treatises". Whereas Flynn just says that they had Greek texts but never used them. (Richard perhaps might have argued against that particular point, btw, but he didn't.)

No, my objection in this post is independent of terms used. But I do think that some of Carrier's objections to Flynn's article might disappear if the terms they were using (like "Latin West" as you note above, and "heritage") were defined.

GakuseiDon

That's right, and that's why I think that "Christianity allowed science to rise" is too simplistic. I think you need a stable economy and a well educated elite class. But both those things were found in the Christian Byzantine Empire, and we don't see science taking off there. Obviously Christianity itself wasn't a factor.

I think the other factor that needs to be taken into consideration is Greek philosophy, and this is where I think Flynn is right. Platonism was essentially 'anti-science'. The Greek philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras dominated Roman and Western thinking for hundreds of years and, while Roman (and then later Christian) society was under the influence of the old Greek philosophy, they couldn't develop modern science. In a way, Christianity's rediscovery of Platonism hindered the development of science.

It wasn't until Western Europe shrugged off Platonism they were able to develop the methodological naturalism that led to the scientific method. Carl Sagan talks about this in "Cosmos".

Toto

If Flynn says that the Latin West never had a Greek heritage because the Greek texts were never translated, he is wrong. The texts were not translated because there was no need -all of the educated class were bilingual in Latin and Greek. This is exactly the point that Carrier does make.

GakuseiDon

Yes, indeed that is part of Carrier's point. But it is Flynn's point we are looking at. If we had a set of Greek texts sitting in a Chinese library, for example, we wouldn't say that that alone made it part of their heritage. If it was part of the Latin West's heritage, why wasn't it translated into Latin when Greek ability dropped away?