The Triumph of Christianity

[CharlesBHoff]

Than Jesit priest of the Eastern Rite told the NY Time the reason the four Iraq Church was bomb was that Prot Evang missorary cause touble like they alway do when they try to convert muslim than told then it they donot convert he will call in the America Military to convert then by force of gun barrel. The america military was ready to shoot those Prot evang for stiring up touble.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Heresson

That's not true.
Byzantines were not much less developed than Muslims, even though they lost their best provinces on their behalf.
Muslims owned their knowledge to what they learned from Christians and pagans, as well as their developement - they conquered the richest Christian lands, and built a civ basing on it, while the Christians
were under barbaric rule, or, as Byzantium and Aethipia, under constant Muslim siege.
None other Christian country was so filled with religion as late Roman empire - and later Byzantium. yet, it was the most developed one.

The start of scientific Europe's growth comes from the times of Renaissance, which was not less Christian than Middle Ages, I dare to say it was more fundamentalistic when it comes to religion even.
Only "Enlightement" brought the birth of atheism.
On the other hand, Muslim caliphate was a theocracy, while the Muslim world started losing its dominance when the caliphate got extinct...
Ottomans were not at all more religious than any other dinasty before them.
Yes, tight religious rule can be a trouble for science, but not because of the religion itself, but due to that the people responsible for mantaining religion tend to become part of the establishment of their times, and bear the convictions of their times, and often treat them as if they were the part of the religion - as in their vision they are, when they try to prove them by religion and vice versa.

With Byzantine you may be right. Its technology was comparable to the muslims, which was mostly due to its hellenistic heritage.
Italy on the other hand, which was seat of the roman catholic church was IMHO much less developed than the muslim countries.

As for muslim Science, it isn´t true that all the technologies they had was only through foreign advisors.
They had great scientists for themselves which improved the ancient and foreign knowledge and wrote numerous scientific volumes for themselves.
Like Ibn Sina and El Zharawi who were great Doctors and wrote many Books about advanced medical topics (whereby Ibn Sina seems to be some kind of Leonardo da Vinci of the muslim world, as medicine wasn´t the only field where he excelled ).
Ibn al Haitham (Alhazen), who was a great optician and mathematician who correctly described the anatomy of the human eye and the process of vision, linked algebra and geometry and discovered the first law of motion and whose works even influenced Kepler and Bacon.
And of course Al Biruni, who made great archivements in the field of mathematics, geography and scientific methods.

For more reading (also about other scholars I didn´t mention):

http://www.ummah.net/history/scholars/

[Last Conformist]

Well, without Christianity, the West simply wouldn't exist. Fairly pointless to ask whether it's been good for it.

The whole "Islam pwned us in the middle ages" debate is pretty pointless. Neither side was a monolithic block, and saying that one civilization was more advanced than another is not a well-defined statement.

Wrt to technology, the measure of an advanced society, BTW, is not the ability to make inventions but to put them to use. I believe we all know the impact of printing in Europe and the lack thereof in the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim states of Western Eurasia.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Ethiopia went from Christian minority in 1900 to majority in 2000? Shouldn't that be the other way round?

Yeah, especially since they've been Orthodoxed Christians since the 7th century.

[Barinthus]

If it wasn't Christianity (or to be more specific, the Catholic Church), Europe wouldn't be what it is today. Once the Roman Empire fell, European civilization basically crumbled under the barbarism. It was Catholic monks who preserved the knowledge of the anicents - without them, Homer, Plato, and Socrates among others would have been lost.

Muslims became more advanced than Europeans and they had an influence over Europe especially during the Crusades but if it wasn't for the Church, Europeans would have been much more barbaric and had even more to catch up.

Who knows, the Islamic expansion could have reached all the way to North Sea and we would have mosques in Paris or even Scotland. There's a big difference between a spearman and a pikeman, you know

[Barinthus]

As for the new Christianity, those are very different from more traditional Christianity as the West knows it. The new version tend to be more missionary in nature and extreme in their views. I would not be surprised if someday when Islam finally mature into a more peaceful and 'rational' version similar to traditional Western Christianity, the world would still have to face fundamentalists and fanatics from the Third World Christianity.

This is why we need to seriously develop a cohesive plan to help Third World countries develop and become more stable or someday we will find Western troops in Nigeria or Malaysia 'liberating' them from a dictator or whoever and end up with a bloody insurgency on our hands.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger So, a lot of them flock to the churches. Coz if they join, they could get food for themselves and baby milk powder for the kids. Yes, a lot of people joined the churches, but how many of them really did believe?

Looks to me there's a strong parallel between what happened here, and what's happening in Africa.

It's not like "You'll get help, if You convert" thing.
A missionary activity though charity is something Christianity excelled in and it's something good rather than bad.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Christianity as a whole, with the RCC in particular, has always been an obstacle to progress in the West ever since the Renaissance.

1) You mean institutions, not the religion as itself
2) It's not quite true. Yeah, popes were conservative,
but did they have any choice?
Look at what was happening in French Revolution.
Terror, and persecution of Christianity, with emphasis
on persecution of catholic church.
Anyway, remember that many priests and even bishops were not at all conservative, and supported French Revolution at its start.
In Poland, many of the most enlightened people in Englightement times were priests, and even bishops (Kollataj, Piramowicz, Staszic - not sure-, bp Naruszewicz, bp Krasicki).
The same in renaissance. Priests, bishops, religious activists were always, at least in Poland, in avangarde of progressive though even if their views varied a bit from the official statesment.
Jesuite schools, and later pijar ones, stood on high level, and only when contrreformation finally won and they had no reason to compete, it's fallen.
Christian school, both French and American, gave A LOT to Arab culture, too. Entire Arab revival in XIX century is due to them.

I wouldn't say getting converted to Christianity is helpful.

if God exists, it is very helpful

They now found evindence in Spain that Muslim Spain have the moveable type printing press way before Johannes in Germany

Which, even if it's true, is irrelevant; a discovery is truely a discovery when it becomes common and is inherited by next generations.
In another words: even if this moveable type printing press existed (it dates from...?) European mtpp didn't have to originate from it.
Al-Qur'an You say...
Funny, because later on there were great problems if printing it isn't a sacriledge...

As for the preservation of knowledge, I give the Moslems credit for preserving most of the Greeks.

To Syrian Christians (and not only), actually, who were translating the stuff into Arabic.

It was the Christian that destory the Great Library in Alex

No, deary, it were (still pagan) Romans when conquering Alexandria who did that.
Muslims could just finish the job, true.

The Muslim where more advange than Europe in medine than European untiil the very late 19th century

Exagerration

Heresson's map based on Africa "now" might look a bit impressive to an evangelical Christian, but might well be deceptive. After all, it shows geographical area, not populations- and I note that some of the most populous nations on the continent have Christianity in the minority.

The most populous country is Nigeria I think, and it's 45% Christian now (the rest being Muslims).
Of the Muslim countries, only Egypt is really densely populated I guess.
Anyway, 45% or so of Africa is now Christian, something like a third of it is Muslim.

Than Jesit priest of the Eastern Rite told the NY Time the reason the four Iraq Church was bomb was that Prot Evang missorary cause touble like they alway do when they try to convert muslim than told then it they donot convert he will call in the America Military to convert then by force of gun barre

If they did that, they did wrong and un-Christian.
but it looks like a made-up anti-Christian story for me.

Yeah, especially since they've been Orthodoxed Christians since the 7th century.

Please refer to my earlier post.
Also, I think it was since VI century, or even V
I remember the story of how it got converted, and it was written in a source of VI century, so surely it was vefore VII century.


Oh, and one good point about converting Africa is that now Europe can take plenty of immigrants of theorethically the same relion, which will not cause problems.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Heresson


The most populous country is Nigeria I think, and it's 45% Christian now (the rest being Muslims).
Of the Muslim countries, only Egypt is really densely populated I guess.
Anyway, 45% or so of Africa is now Christian, something like a third of it is Muslim.

African poulation stats by region.

Northern Africa 195,000,000
Central Africa 104,000,000
Eastern 264,000,000
Southern 50,000,000
Western 260,000,000

873,000,000 in total

Northern Africa is overwhelmingly Islamic. Western Africa is mixed but given Nigeria's influence I'll estimate about 120,000,000 Muslims there. Eastern Africa has some Islamic pockets such as Madagascar and Mozambique- I'll estimate about 50 million from there. Central Africa contains some Islamic majorities, but not significant ones so I'll go for 5 million from there. Southern Africa I'll call exclusively non-Islamic.

375,000,000 out of 873,000,000, by Gimp estimation, gives just under 43% Islamic.

[Heresson]

Muslims do not constitute 100% of the regions You counted, so the % will be smaller.
However, I don't know, it's possible that Muslims are a 40% or slightly less.
But they are less numerable than Christians, that's the point.

[:) Smiley]

There's a big difference between a spearman and a pikeman, you know

The former can kill tanks, the latter cannot.

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Heresson
Muslims do not constitute 100% of the regions You counted, so the % will be smaller.
However, I don't know, it's possible that Muslims are a 40% or slightly less.
But they are less numerable than Christians, that's the point.

The Muslim are starting to converrt all of Africa to they faith. Orgination in some part of Africa there where no Muslim and now they make up than min there.

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Heresson


It's not like "You'll get help, if You convert" thing.
A missionary activity though charity is something Christianity excelled in and it's something good rather than bad.



1) You mean institutions, not the religion as itself
2) It's not quite true. Yeah, popes were conservative,
but did they have any choice?
Look at what was happening in French Revolution.
Terror, and persecution of Christianity, with emphasis
on persecution of catholic church.
Anyway, remember that many priests and even bishops were not at all conservative, and supported French Revolution at its start.
In Poland, many of the most enlightened people in Englightement times were priests, and even bishops (Kollataj, Piramowicz, Staszic - not sure-, bp Naruszewicz, bp Krasicki).
The same in renaissance. Priests, bishops, religious activists were always, at least in Poland, in avangarde of progressive though even if their views varied a bit from the official statesment.
Jesuite schools, and later pijar ones, stood on high level, and only when contrreformation finally won and they had no reason to compete, it's fallen.
Christian school, both French and American, gave A LOT to Arab culture, too. Entire Arab revival in XIX century is due to them.



if God exists, it is very helpful



Which, even if it's true, is irrelevant; a discovery is truely a discovery when it becomes common and is inherited by next generations.
In another words: even if this moveable type printing press existed (it dates from...?) European mtpp didn't have to originate from it.
Al-Qur'an You say...
Funny, because later on there were great problems if printing it isn't a sacriledge...



To Syrian Christians (and not only), actually, who were translating the stuff into Arabic.



No, deary, it were (still pagan) Romans when conquering Alexandria who did that.
Muslims could just finish the job, true.



Exagerration



The most populous country is Nigeria I think, and it's 45% Christian now (the rest being Muslims).
Of the Muslim countries, only Egypt is really densely populated I guess.
Anyway, 45% or so of Africa is now Christian, something like a third of it is Muslim.



If they did that, they did wrong and un-Christian.
but it looks like a made-up anti-Christian story for me.



Please refer to my earlier post.
Also, I think it was since VI century, or even V
I remember the story of how it got converted, and it was written in a source of VI century, so surely it was vefore VII century.


Oh, and one good point about converting Africa is that now Europe can take plenty of immigrants of theorethically the same relion, which will not cause problems.

The Christian Church intend to destory the Geat Library while the Pagon Roman didnot start the fire but actural fought the fire to save the library as did the Muslim who rush into the building to put out the fire and save scrolls and book. It seem you Christian today cannot take the truth that Christian have than history of burning books.

Only the false copy of the Koran where burn by the 3rd or 4th Caph. There where about 1000 people who total memonise the Koran as given to the Founder from Allah, it was also writen drown by the Founder Scribes at the same time. The copy where chech by both scribe and memonise as than group it they both agree it was put into the officate Koran, what of people who knew the founder personal would have notice any change and none of the thousand's of his follower raise any protest about the wording.

Christian was spead by the sword and gun read your history when the first Frank king convert to Roman Cath he convert his people to Roman Cath at sword point either you convert or die.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff


The Christian Church intend to destory the Geat Library while the Pagon Roman didnot start the fire but actural fought the fire to save the library as did the Muslim who rush into the building to put out the fire and save scrolls and book. It seem you Christian today cannot take the truth that Christian have than history of burning books.

LOL
Where do You take this stuff from?
Romans captured the city in 30BC, before the Christ was borned!
How could the Christians intend to destroy the library then? Or Muslims try to save it?
Or are You referring to the conquest of Alexandria by Muslims? If so, what are the pagans doing in your story - there were no pagans left there then?
And I sincerily doubt the barbaric warriors that took the city really were so keen to save some scrolls...
And when it comes to Christians, why would they wait with destroying the books up to Muslim conquest, huh?
In another words,
one big: HUH?

Christian was spead by the sword and gun read your history when the first Frank king convert to Roman Cath he convert his people to Roman Cath at sword point either you convert or die.

Unlike Islam, Christianity was not politically engaged from its start and unlike it, it started converting people by sword only several centuries after its start by people who have no authority in Christian religion not in their times, and not now.
Let me be that obscure in this subject, I don't want any Christianity - Islam conflict here. If You want to start holy war in this thread, so be it. But be sure You'll lose it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Your views certainly do not seem to be common or ordinary. That must make you somthing other than white, even if your skin is white, yes?

I was talking just about place of origin, not about values.

I guess I find it hard to consider someone who has come from abroad, with very different life than my own, to be the same as someone who has grown up here.

[Ben Kenobi]

As for the new Christianity, those are very different from more traditional Christianity as the West knows it. The new version tend to be more missionary in nature and extreme in their views. I would not be surprised if someday when Islam finally mature into a more peaceful and 'rational' version similar to traditional Western Christianity, the world would still have to face fundamentalists and fanatics from the Third World Christianity.

That's a very interesting perspective.

First of all, why is the Christianity that the West knows not a missionary religion? Traditionally, the only reason Christianity spread throughout Europe is through these missionaries.

It wasn't until later that Christianity in Europe took a more insular approach during the middle ages.

Now, we are seeing, at least since 1500, a revival in the missionary aspect of Christianity, after a hiatus of maybe 400 years.

So given the history of the church, it seems the insularity is more of an endpoint than the missionary work.

My question to you, is why do these Africans do not have proper Christianity, while the Europeans do? This 'rational' religion as you put it is dying. The missionary Africans are growing.

Perhaps this is a sign that it is they who are right, and we who are wrong? That the dilution of Christianity by modern western culture does not work?