The Sacking of Classical Greece and Rome

The subject is a result of my reading: Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World . Pan Macmillan. Kindle-Version.

Nice piece of ass, I’d definitely take her from the back and slip the condom off at some point.
Lets take a look at Wikipedia:

My advice???Don’t read anything written by journalists and humanists who are not historians; they, unlike historians, stand to gain from lying and politicizing. You can read genuine sociological or economic work that attempts to explain the dynamics behind things but the kind of quasi-sociological commentary that is written as if it is simply telling the actual history(like Zizek, Bouldillard, Focault and the rest of the degenerates) is just plain dishonest manipulation and deserves a slap in the face. You want to tell a story then find out what happened(and if there are multiple scenarios then show them all and weigh the likelihood of each), you want to provide a theory of why it happened???well…provide a theory???

I think that Professor Tim Whitmarsh of Cambridge University description of the book is fitting: “a finely crafted, invigorating polemic against the resilient popular myth that presents the Christianisation of Rome as the triumph of a kinder, gentler politics.”
Christianity had its ISIS and Taliban phase in the fourth and fifth century, which is also upheld by other books on the subject. There is a tendency in the book to tell the story in personalised narratives, revealing her intentions to show up the fact that the Greeks and Romans were not just ruthless vandals, but were working at developing a society in which debate is open and ideas were being exchanged. The idolatry that Christians took offence to was tradition in their minds, that had withstood the test of centuries and the general feeling was that many gods meant that everyone could find their own devotion.
Of course, if one comes and demands that there is only one jealous God, who demands that people believe the doctrine of the church to be saved, then the idols were a problem. What seems to be apparent is that there was also a great deal of hysteria. The zealousness of the martyrs is well documented and would be considered very strange by today’s standards.

David Bentley Hart is an American Orthodox theologian and philosopher. His areas of specialisation are philosophical theology, religious studies, Christian metaphysics, Asian religions, patristics and aesthetics. He writes further in the essay: “The New Testament emerges from a cosmos ruled by malign celestial principalities (conquered by Christ but powerful to the end) and torn between spirit and flesh (the one, according to Paul, longing for God, the other opposing him utterly). There are no comfortable medians in these latitudes, no areas of shade. Everything is cast in the harsh light of final judgment, and that judgment is absolute. In regard to all these texts, the qualified, moderate, common-sense interpretation is always false.”

I think it is quite in harmony with these words that Nixey portrays the Christians of the day. It also explains why the scenes she so aptly describes go against what we would like to believe. I would agree that the book does tend to only mention the cruelty of the Romans as an aside, but she takes it as already well proven.

The end of Classical civilisation and the beginning of the Christian middle ages is perhaps best symbolised by Hypatia. For many years she was a leading figure in philosophical and scientific circles in Alexandria, and was widely admired for her learning and tolerance, until she was ambushed and hacked to death by a Christian mob in 415 AD.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

And? What does Hypatia have to do with Middle Ages you spook? Who hacked down Pythagoras? Who killed Socrates and why??? You kooks are an example of why not everybody should receive an education beyond the basics. How were females viewed and treated in Ancient Greece??? What about slavery???Was there slavery in Middle Ages or was it the first historical period without it? What about the caste system? Were the Christian monasteries not the first institutions which offered education to people of low origin and to females??? If you lived in Ancient Greece, you would be a property of a man who would be completely illiterate by the law and would be treated like a property…or not???

youtube.com/watch?v=MQ2S4o5-lBE

"… monasteries and convents became centers for learning, and it was mostly the privileged—young men from nobility and the upper middle class—who were able to receive a thorough education. During this time, women’s education was not a priority, as women were believed to be intellectually inferior.

Affluent women were required to have some literacy during the Middle Ages, but their learning was intended only to prepare them for being respectable wives and mothers. Higher learning for nuns, on the other hand, was encouraged because they were required to comprehend biblical teachings. So it was no coincidence that many of the earliest female intellectuals were nuns.

Some convent offerings included reading and writing in Latin, arithmetic, grammar, music, morals, rhetoric, geometry and astronomy, according to a 1980 article by Shirley Kersey in (Vol. 58, No. 4). Spinning, weaving and embroidery were also a large part of a nun’s education and labor, writes Kersey, particularly among nuns who came from affluent families. Nuns who came from lesser means were expected to do more arduous labor as part of their religious life."
history.com/news/women-educ … uns-church

She does not mention the cruelty of the Romans and their ruthless culture with its caste system, slavery, extremely violent military conquest and cultural subjugation, and frequent usage of mass rapes, mass genocides and mass torture not because it is taken as well proven but because she is writing a hit-piece against Christianity and these facts would ruin her argument and make her bias obvious you lying dullard. Tell me she is not portraying the Classical period as much more civilized and humane??? Answer me, is she saying that the Ancient Greeks and Romans were more tolerant and civilized than Medival European Christians? Yes or no???

This disqualifies you from the discussion … sorry!

What disqualifies you from any discussion is your brain.

It seems that unless we take up the issue directly by exhaustive first person research, we are at the mercy of dueling historians whose propositions we evaluate through the lens of the presuppositions we come to the subject with due to our childhood indoctrination.

As early as I can remember I was taught about the evils of state religion and the virtues of the separation of church and state over the state religion that led to the dark ages. So what’s new here?

The consensus among most academic historians seems to be that the so-called dark ages is a actually unsupported myth.

I found this article helpful:
bu.edu/religion/files/pdf/La … -lions.pdf

It may not be new (the article is from 2001) but it is an interesting look at the age in the form of a book review.

“MORE CHRISTIANS WERE persecuted by the Roman Empire after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity- in 312 than before. Within a century of that momentous event, bishops had become the impresarios of urban violence, directing
the Christian mob’s destruction of synagogues and great pagan temples from Minorca to the edges of Persia, while the imperial government shut down traditional public cults in North Africa and in Rome itself.”

History is a violent process??? :astonished: :astonished: :astonished:

Just this morning I serendipitously was listening to three medieval scholars debunking the dark ages as a myth on the NPR show 1A. So I ask what in this moment of the culture wars would motivate a journalist to resurrect the theory that Christianity caused a dark age in the medieval period? And with that question I raise the suspicion that motivated reasoning may be involved.

The state moloch wants to monopolize morality and religion for itself; it wants to replace Christian churches and Christian morality and culture with its own, self-serving morality and culture. Its priests are the psychologists like Peterson, its revelatory moment was the Holocaust, its preachers are the teachers, humanists and police, its greatest sin is racism and antisemitism, its heaven is a multicultural society guarded by human-rights, its inquisition are the journalistic dogs and their newspapers and the justice warriors, its confession is in bowing your head for the things you have not committed in front of people who never experienced them(American whites and American negros)…and so forth. What makes the injustice towards the American negro any different that the injustice towards the Poles, Hungarians, the Dutch and so forth committed by the Germans and so forth???The only difference is the racism and racism is this religions greatest sin and you must seek retribution for your sins, so that even the most intelligent of Yanks are mindlessly following this insanity and confessing their guilt and bowing their heads.

this idea of a “Dark Ages” being the middle ages also allows a narrative…

if Greece and Rome were days/ages of “enlightenment” where the age might
be called an “age of light” then it follows that we can also think of modern times,
our modern era as being one that an “age of light”… we can hold to the belief
that we moderns live in an age that is “progressive” “enlightened”
not held down by “ancient” prejudices and superstitions that the Medieval man
was forced to suffer through…

in other words, we were somehow superior to the medieval man because
we don’t exists in the “dark ages”…it helps our ego to think that we have somehow
have progressed beyond those “dark ages”…that we have overcome those “dark ages”…

and in a few hundred years, assuming we don’t destroy ourselves, people will
likely be laughing at us for living in the “dark ages”…
and just as likely cursing us for our blindness on climate change
and the damage that such ism’s and ideologies did to the planet Earth…
ism’s like capitalism… which one day will be cursed as we curse those who
tried to wipe out “Pagan” Greece and Rome…with the destruction of
the ancient writings like Plato and Aristotle and the Greek plays that
once numbered in the thousands, now only a handful exists… having survived
the long years of attempted destruction… as we try to edit and destroy texts and writings
that are “subversive” to the current order of things…
we are just as ignorant about existence as the “dark ages” were, we just
don’t have the courage to admit it…

Kropotkin

Looking back from the Enlightenment, as the name suggests, the centuries before were oppressive and dictated by the interpretation of the Bible. The Church was the most powerful force in Europe and determined where the pursuance of knowledge was allowed to go. There was no doubt a blossoming of church building and arts, but it was confined in many ways to the devotional. There was progress made in various areas of knowledge and the church began to copy many of the lost Greek classics, preserving them by that. I think that in many ways it was a time of restriction and many wars:

Karl, a son of Pepin the Short, inherited the Frankish kingdom with his brother Carloman when Pepin died in 768. Carloman died several years later, and 29-year-old Karl assumed complete control, beginning his historic reign as Charlemagne (or Charles the Great). Over some 50 military campaigns, his forces fought Muslims in Spain, Bavarians and Saxons in northern Germany and Lombards in Italy, expanding the Frankish empire exponentially. As representative of the first Germanic tribe to practice Catholicism, Charlemagne took seriously his duty to spread the faith. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne “emperor of the Romans,” which eventually evolved into the title of Holy Roman Emperor.

The Battle of Tours was one of the most important battles of middle ages war. The watershed of the battle was marked by Charles Martel’s decision to inhibit the Muslims from invading the Frankish Empire. The battle began October 10 732 AD and it is possible that it lasted more than one week. The Spanish army led by Abd-er Rahman sought to make headway to the city of Tours to besiege the Frankish Empire. In the end, the Muslim retreated from the city of Tours and Martel was able to capture Abd-er Rahman.

The Battle of Hastings was one of the most significant middle ages war due to the subsequent changes that it brought across the English throne. The battle had an impact on English language, culture and law and marked the early beginnings of the English feudalism. The battle of Hastings began 14 October 1066 AD when King Edward of England died without children to succeed him. After his death, his close friend Harold Godwinson took over the throne but this was met with opposition from Edward’s cousin, William the Duke of Normandy.

The Battle of Bannockburn was Scotland’s war of independence against the Kings of England Edward I and Edward II. The war took place in Central Scotland on June 23rd and 24th 1314 between the Scottish army and the English, Welsh and a segment of the Scottish army. The battle began when Edward II, brother to the Scottish King took over Stirling Castle despite the fact that it had a formidable defense. The castles’ governor Sir Philip de Mowbray offered to surrender the castle to Edward II if no relief was forthcoming. Edward congregated an army totaling over 40,000 soldiers; these included knights, bowmen and both strong and lightweight infantry. The Scot army under King Robert of Scotland, was made up of 13,000 soldiers, thereby convincing Edward II that he would conquer Scotland. The battle began June 23. Notably the English knight suffered more casualties than the Scottish soldiers.

Christians had always undertaken pilgrimage to the Holy Land despite the prevailing Muslim rule. However, in 11 century the Seljuk Turks gained authority over Jerusalem and prevented Christians from undertaking the pilgrimages. This marked the beginning of the seven crusades that saw Christians wage a series of wars against the Muslims in an effort to get back Jerusalem. Crusaders numbering in their thousands sailed to the Holy Land in a historical journey that would cost many lives.

The Battle of Crecy was a decisive defeat of the French in the Hundred Years War, triggered by King Edward III, King of England who was claiming the French throne. The Hundred Years War lasted until the beginning of the 15 century. Edward III King of England engaged his 12000 professional soldiers in a battle with 40,000 French soldiers under the command of Philip VI. King Edward III positioned his troops on a hill where they could fire their arrows easily; they threw an approximated 12 arrows per minute, causing massive destruction to the French army.

Kings, queens and other rulers during the early medieval period drew much of their authority and power from their relationship with the Church. The rise of a strong papacy, beginning with Gregory the Great (pope from 590 to 604), meant that European monarchs could not monopolize power, unlike in the days of the Roman Empire.

I think that these conflicts show that the Church didn’t have the peaceful influence upon Europe, quite the contrary, and although there was progress made in various fields, the peasants of the land will have suffered the wars most of all, culminating of course in the thirty years war, that decimated the population. One area where progress was made, in Spain prior to the inquisition, was when Muslims, Jews and Christians co-existed. But as we know, the inquisition ended that. First of all the Muslims were driven out, then Jews were forced to convert (although nobody believed them). Not a nice time, even though it was when Christopher Columbus set out, beginning the colonization of the Americas. We all know what happened then …

Muslims, Jews and Christians co-existed peacefully??? In Spain??? :confused: :confused: :confused: You are either insane, lying or an utter dullard. If anything, by the historical standards, the Church and its inquisition was surprisingly tolerant and patient(at least to me). If I had Islam sitting on the border with France, waiting to steam-roll and subjugate Central Europe, I’d cut hands off anybody who stood up to Papal and Charles attempts to unify the Europe and push back the djihad. The nazis lamented the massacre of heathens by Charles Martel but the nazis and neo-nazis were a bunch of unfortunate and dangerous goons with shit for brain so who cares.

What would Islamists do to the squabbling and tribalistic Slavic and Germanic heathens if not the unifying and universalist Christianity???Well…were there a documented case of any Heathenistic tribe merging into a single and cohesive unit to fend off the danger??? What was the main reason for the downfall of Ancient Greece??? Why is India such a shithole???Why did tribalism go extinct??? Why is Asia so susceptible to stagnation culturally??? Why did Islam dominate the middle, which had such a rich and diverse eco-system of faiths, cults, sects and religions??? Why did the proto-Iranians flee to India in mass numbers???Why the revolution in China happened based off of an ideology based on the thinking of Europeans???Would Carol Marx and his books be tolerated in 19th century Imperial China if they directly undermined the moral and literal authority of the Emperor???
Anybody is welcome to suggest an answer.

Bob has done excellent research. If you think 911 is big compared to what the Christians did you are thinking very small - I think even if there are alien lifeforms, in the entire span of the cosmos there can be no greater and more saddening, more vulgarly nihilistic destruction of culture than what happened from the appearance of Paul to the full dominion of Christianity over Europe. What does it tell you about a culture when it cuts off all the phalluses of the Greek statues? I mean this is what we can see they destroyed - all the books they burned we will never know. A christian ought to not least show some repentance for all this.

Muslims and Jews lived peacefully and prosperously, producing deeply beautiful culture, in Spain until the crusaders arrived there. Christians acted as the most savage barbarians there ever were dude. Its very remarkable how this religion can keep prostrating as some kind of form of peace. It’s easily the most violent and destructive ideology that ever was. It’s just historical fact.