dk

From an historical perspective over the last 2000 years Christianity brought Western Europe out of the Dark Ages into the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages flowered into the Age of Discovery and the Renaissance. The Renaissance gave way to the modern world known for the Industrial Revolution, modern warfare, Republics, Democracy, Socialism and command style Communism, and has dominated the 20th centuries. The post Modern World began with the fall of the Soviet Union after a Century dominated by world wars and MAD. Now the post modern world seems determined to stamp out the last ruminants of classical and modern morality with post modernist positivism, and legalism. This is a little nuts in my opinion given the dismal record of the social, political and economic philosophies that inspired the Opium Wars, Imperial Empires, French Revolution, Enlightened Despots, NAZI Germany, Command Style Communism and modern terrorism. Many applaud the rise of legal positivism, scientific social engineering, and secularism as the heir apparent to classical morality (10 Commandments) and modern morality (rights of life, liberty and property) , but the propaganda, litigation and politically correct dogma of the last 50 years leaves most people depressed, neurotic, cynical, apathetic and disenfranchised. Go figure, but most people don’t even bother to vote. I think we are looking at the revival of classical and modern morality and religious institutions because people have simply lost confidence in the wide eyed utopian promises of post modernist hedonism.

The Other Michael

I thought Christianity had a big hand in bringing Western Europe INTO the Dark Ages (and keeping it there).

cheers,
Michael

dk

The problem with the hypothesis, “Christianity caused the fall of the Roman Empire”, is of course the Byzantine Empire that traces its sovereignty (origin) from about 200BC to the 15th Century. The Byzantine Empire was a Christian theocracy. The Justinian Code of the Byzantines became the focus of jurisprudence in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Simplistically, Rome (Western Europe) lost the capacity to field an army to protect its Northern borders from the onslaught of barbarians (Huns, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals and Saxons). How Rome lost the capacity to field an army remains an open and complex question. Why many Roman Emperors blamed Christians for the fall of Rome dates back to Nero who found Christians a handy scapegoat.