Christianity, Divisions, Fear Manipulation, and Post Modernist Theories

[Michael Schubert]

The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was a cultural movement of intellectuals in the 17th and 18th centuries, which began first in Europe and later in the American colonies. Its purpose was to reform society using reason, challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and advance knowledge through the scientific method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

And the Scientific Method is the single most reliable method we have for discerning truth.

[fr0d0]

Yes it was a schism from the then purely religious and metaphysically rooted academia.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Yes it was a schism from the then purely religious and metaphysically rooted academia.

This is also correct.

I'm no expert on the schisms of the time in pan-European politics through the early reformation but I do know a lot about the secularist movement through and after the treaties of Augsburg and Westphalia and the 30 years war.

If it weren't for dissenting Protestants in Europe rebelling against the dogmatic and oppressive influences of the RCC in commanding on their religious ideals (and beliefs) contemporary western secularism would never have existed (or at least not in its current form).

It is again a mistake to discount the liberalising actions of early reformists in the new Protestant movements in Europe. A lot of people died to get a secular and hence more academically liberal orientated (sovereign) Europe.

[Minimalist]

Christianity spawned the enlightenment.

That's like saying that slavery spawned the abolitionist movement. The Enlightenment was a gut churning reaction against the horrors of the 30 Years War where good "xtians" (on both sides) slaughtered bodies in heaps in the name of their version of fucking god.

The Enlightenment may be the best thing that xtianity ever caused....however unintentional it was.

[fr0d0]

No I think it was quite intentional. There's no denying those horrors. There was a lot of progress in the middle aged despite it being referred to as the dark ages. The Enlightenment being one example. You could say that the horror bore that but I think you'd be doing the people a disservice.

[genkaus]

You wish to engage in pointless repetition. Like I said, your points are already satisfactorily dismissed. You may not think so, and that's your problem. Go read back and see if you can understand why. I'm not going to do the work for you.

Funny don't you think that I did all of the legwork when you refuse to. Then you take issue with me not spoon feeding you even more.

Wrong - your points are satisfactorily dismissed - atleast to everyone else's satisfaction. My points, on the other hand, haven't even been addressed. Like I said before, you can pretend all you want, but you are not fooling anyone.

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The Enlightenment was the basis for the progress of the West.

Christianity spawned the enlightenment.

Only if by spawned you mean be the oppressive presence that it rose as a reaction to. You know, the same way tyranny spawns a revolution.

[Minimalist]

No I think it was quite intentional. There's no denying those horrors. There was a lot of progress in the middle aged despite it being referred to as the dark ages. The Enlightenment being one example. You could say that the horror bore that but I think you'd be doing the people a disservice.

The church was perfectly willing to burn heretics until it couldn't get away with it anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt

The classical period of witchhunts in Europe and North America falls into the Early Modern period or about 1480 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 executions.[3]

The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In the Kingdom of Great Britain, witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735. In Germany, sorcery remained punishable by law into the late 18th century.

Renaissance scholars had to look over their shoulders at the robed morons who clung to dogma.

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."

~ Cardinal Bellarmine