> From: Damon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >The rise of the dark ages along with the rise the popes and 'universal' > >(catholic) belief, are hardly coincident. It was only when the absolute > >authority of the popes began to disintegrate into hundreds of competeing > >factions that europe began it's upward path again. > > If you are after "facts" then why don't you go and study both the origin > and the idea of the "Dark Ages" as well as Early Medieval ecclesiastical > history. Your above statement shows just how incorrect and biased you > really are.
That's the thing about empires. They squeeze out competitive forces and it's those competitive forces that keep innovation and progress alive. For example there was one point when china was all set to conquer Europe, they had a massive fleet the likes never seen up to that time, and their ships were decidedly better than the ones of European nations at the time. The fleet was on it's way, rounding the horn of Africa, ready to descend upon Europe like locusts. But then the emperor died. The new emperor thought that having a big fleet was not such a good idea. The fleet was eventually scuttled and china is a third world country today. Likewise once upon a time the Japanese made the best guns, but by the mid eighteen hundreds there were no guns in Japan. Japan lost it's guns because the rulers ever so slowly restricted the making of / repair of guns. First they restricted how many guns could be made per year. Slowly they reduced this number eventually to zero. Then they restricted the repair of guns per year. So by the mid 1800's Japan no longer had any guns. The Idea is very simple and very sound. When you have large empires, popes, etc. they are able to restrict 'taboo' ideas / technology, etc. The other part is that usually no two emperors or popes have the same definition of what is 'taboo', so you get a whittling effect, one whittling this away, another whittling that away. It's not a quick process. But this effect ends when you add in the right amount of competitive forces. When you have an array of competing ideas / technologies, from different communities, selection sets in and those who tend to limit and restrict thoughts / technologies are selected against, while those who don't restrict things are selected for. The same process happened in Europe with the rising up of the emperors of Rome and even worse the popes. Rome burned libraries under the emperors, but it was worse when the popes also gained power. At the council of nice the emperor Constantine was able to make taboo a great many things, and to set a great many thing orthodox. Out went a lot of competing ideas about the divinity of christ, in it's place they set christ as divine as an orthodox tenet and restricted the idea that christ wasn't divine. They also set in stone the 3 = 1 doctrine, and restricted the 3 = 3 doctrines. Arianism became anathema and heresy. And I think you know what I think of republicans who want to restrict thoughts, ideas, science, evolution, and return us to the authoritarian power of the religious leaders. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
