Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 8:33 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Religion in the Middle Ages
#11
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
"I often cite the fact of the spread of Islam for being the driving force behind the resurgence of Christianity in Europe; it was a strong unifier."

I agree with this. I can see it being that many Christians saw Islam as a threat. The Muslim world was actually (relatively) ahead of Europe on scientific thinking and technological advancement too. It wasn't really until Western Europe became stupidly rich and powerful off the back of colonising the Americas, that Christendom overtook the Islamic caliphate as the major power.

I do think there's an element of an elitist class of clergymen who just loved the power religion gave them too. The Middle Ages were supersticious times, but I still think they knew exactly what they were doing and how to control the masses. I'd accept that Christianity had benevolent beginnings in Europe, but it quickly became about power once people realised how useful it was.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane"  - sarcasm_only

"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable."
- Maryam Namazie

Reply
#12
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
You all make very strong points. Perhaps the world would not be that different than the one we currently live in. However, I do still like to entertain the idea that the world may have been better due to the lack of the Crusades and all that other nonsense that caused a lot of unrest in those days (mentioned earlier by Iroscato).

Whether or not that would have directly affected the present is something that can really only be guessed at.
Reply
#13
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
(April 27, 2015 at 8:49 pm)Yeauxleaux Wrote: "I often cite the fact of the spread of Islam for being the driving force behind the resurgence of Christianity in Europe; it was a strong unifier."

I agree with this. I can see it being that many Christians saw Islam as a threat. The Muslim world was actually (relatively) ahead of Europe on scientific thinking and technological advancement too. It wasn't really until Western Europe became stupidly rich and powerful off the back of colonising the Americas, that Christendom overtook the Islamic caliphate as the major power.

I do think there's an element of an elitist class of clergymen who just loved the power religion gave them too. The Middle Ages were supersticious times, but I still think they knew exactly what they were doing and how to control the masses. I'd accept that Christianity had benevolent beginnings in Europe, but it quickly became about power once people realised how useful it was.

It was good until it became the state religion of the Roman Empire.



Weren't the Crusades more retribution for the loss of territory than anything else?
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.
Reply
#14
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
Alternate history is a fun game to play.  "What would have happened, if....."

Saw a great article on "What would have happened if Pickett's Charge succeeded?"  The author thought everything would have worked out just fine and there would have been no animosity between North and South and slavery would have vanished by itself with no Jim Crowism in the south and everything would be hunky-dory.

Reality is that if the North had to sue for peace in 1863 there would have been another war within 10-20 years as they battled over western expansion.
Reply
#15
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
Very true, Min. I enjoy thinking of the different routes that history could have taken, but there is no way of finding out what would have actually happened.

I simply thought this would be a fun question to ask.
Reply
#16
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
Netflix had a mockumetary of what if the South had won the Civil War and how America would have been shaped. There was a lot of bigoted advertisements in the program to show how the South would have acted had it won, though it turned out those racists advertisements actually existed in the United States and the whole program was a parody of American racism. People will be people.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.
Reply
#17
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
Sadly true, Polecat.

Had Napoleon won at Waterloo in 1815 all it would have assured was that there would have been a campaign in 1816.  The Allies would not stop and Napoleon had no choice but to resist.
Reply
#18
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
What if is always a two edged sword.

The Middle Ages suffered from the power vacuum left by the Roman Empire resulting in a decline education and technological advancement.   The question is how much of that decline was due to the fall of Rome and the resulting chaos and how much of it was due to Catholicism and Islam.   Both religions preserved the skill of writing as did Judaism.  But all three religions discouraged inquiry, not to mention creating a non-economic reason to fight one another.

Frankly, I think that in the absence of Christianity, all Europe would have become Islamic, which might have kept us in the Middle  Ages much longer.  So perhaps better with Christianity and worse with monotheism generally.

If there was just paganism following Rome's fall, we might have gotten the Renaissance hundreds of years earlier, or the lack of common ground might have delayed a couple hundred years.  You got me.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god.  If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
Reply
#19
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
Quote:Frankly, I think that in the absence of Christianity, all Europe would have become Islamic, which might have kept us in the Middle  Ages much longer.

Charles Martel and the Franks resisted the Moors without any particular input from the church.  Even after Tours, Martel continued fighting against Moorish expansion from the Pyrenees.
It was more or less left to his grandson, Charlemagne, to kiss the pope's ass.
Reply
#20
RE: Religion in the Middle Ages
If it wasn't Christianity, it would have been something else... if it's not God that people fight over, it's Mammon.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Just watching a PBS show on Middle ages Brian37 9 1081 April 26, 2018 at 4:46 pm
Last Post: Minimalist
  Comment on "The Dark Ages" Minimalist 0 393 October 16, 2017 at 8:24 pm
Last Post: Minimalist
  What technology/knowledge could you bring to the Middle Ages? Iroscato 55 6504 November 22, 2015 at 11:28 pm
Last Post: paulpablo
  How the middle east became muslim Aractus 19 3949 September 23, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Last Post: ShaMan



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)