Metacrock

wow! first, please read Joseph Cambell The Hero with A Thousand Faces to gain an appreciation of how myth works in conjugunction with theological truth.

Then you have to understand the nature of the text with which we are dealing; this is a mythological story which conveys certain timeless and psychological truths about the nature of the human psyche (ie 'fallen nature wise').

To make a long stroy short, there was no garen and no A&E, that is not the point! The real question you should ask is, "why does God want me to have to seek him, rather than making everything easy for me?"

Metacrock

Clairificatin on death of Hypatia:

If memeory serves (and it may not, been a long time since I read that--about 20 years) I think the pagans were attacking Chrsitians in groups on the street. It wasn't necessarily an organized governmental effort. But that was the motivation for their attack on her. It's absurd and silly to think that a bunch of christians just said "O she wont sign up so let's kill her!"


How many christians do that today? If you think they do you have serious problems. That never happens and you know it. and in fact christians have been masacared twice by moslims in Pachestan while they were praying in chruch.

Also, you still haven't linked that to the middle ages. The middle ages is real complex. And you analysis is simplistic, and that's the best I can say about it.

Now answer my argument stop bring up straw men; lots of science in middle ages, done by chruch people, very little in the way of persecution.

Defiant Heretic

To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single functioning democracy in existence today. A democracy is the system of government in which all political citizens vote on every major issue. The U.S. is a republic. It is led by a group of people who claim to represent the citizens.
The Athenians had a functioning democracy years before Christianity even came into existence. Granted it wasn’t perfect, but what government is?
Yes, the Athenians did keep slaves, and refused women the right to vote, but so did America for the first few centuries after colonization. We corrected these problems, and it’s possible the Athenians would have too, had they not fallen victim to the bubonic plague and the Spartans.
(By the way, if I remember correctly, most slaves in ancient Greece were prisoners of war. The slaves held by the Christian settlers included women and children who were taken by force from their homes. Now, I’m not condoning what the Greeks did, but what the settlers did was far worse.)

As for the issue of poor people not being allowed to vote: Up until this time, only the aristocracy had any say in the government. Solon changed this system from ‘birth right’ to ‘wealth right’. Any citizen would be given a chance to become successful in their trade, and if they did, they were given the right to vote.

Just because these people happened to be Christian doesn’t mean that there is a correlation between their religion and their activism. For example, in the case of women’s sufferage:

NOGO

Constantine was not Christian and he was not in power. You can read, Meta ... what about his edict? Christians were certainly in Power by 415.

NOGO

These so called flip comments were in fact just rumours while you state them as fact. If you stop reading Christian hostorians perhaps the truth will blind you.

NOGO

Note that I did not say the start nor IN the Dark ages.
Since the Dark ages were a period of repression and unenlightenment I can certainly say that the killing of Hypatia symbolized the entry into the Dark ages even if it actually occurred several years later.

Metacrock

Meta => Very little is known about the death of Hypatia. I want you to document your sources. And while you're at it, try linking that to the over all issue about the middle ages. Becasue all you have is on isolated incident and you're trying to milk huge milage out of it.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Metacrock ]</p>

Metacrock

</strong>

Meta =&gt;what most historians refur to as "Western Democracy" is a concept. The press, the historians, politicians all refur to "Western Democracy" a lot. When one reads these kind of things a lot, one sees this prhase a lot. It refurs to the concepts behind the practice of the actual running of the country. Those concepts, that ideology, that comes from the reformation and from the Christian continuation of what the Greeks started in terms of political ideology

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Greeks did nothing with it, they evne had slaves and women couldn't vote and poor people vote. It was christians who took it made it into the modern version of democratic rights we know today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, the Athenians did keep slaves, and refused women the right to vote,


the right to vote? Women in ancient Greace were basically slaves. They were't even the objects of their husbands desires.


MEta =&gt;all totally irrelivant, becasue my point was that Christian thinkers revived the concept and transformed it into a modern nation state.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the first women's sufferage group in America, first abolition of slavery group in America, all ran by christians. The civil rights movement, totally christian (ever hear of Reverand Martion Luther King? ever wonder why they call him "rev?")
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Meta =&gt; It sure as hell does! Try reading their writtings! Every single one of them link their political interests and their big social causes to their religious faith!


Meta =&gt; absurd! that's not the same thing at all. That in no way says that their causes weren't linked to their beliefs. All that means is that they were fair minded in running their organization--that is not the same thing as saying that they were not motivated by their faith!!!

Metacrock

Meta =&gt;show me an accont from an ancient writter who was not a christian? There is so little known about her and about her death, that's about the only documentation of any of it.

Show me the documentation from that century or a century near to it, from a pagan writter that disproves what I'm saying!!!!

try backing up your cliams for a change!!!

Metacrock

O it symbolizes it hu? It's an argument form symbolism. Do you think you could try making a factually bsaed argument for a change?