Influence of Xtianity

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Talking with mom the other day she asserted that Xtianity had been a positive force for the world. I don't think anyone can't deny it's influence on the western world but was it positive? Most of the morality influence of Xtianity seems to come from the Socratic (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and Neo-Platonic (Plotinus) schools of thought. Perhaps the critical element is the "theology of disenfranchisement" (the beatitudes) that places religion at the reach of the poor, the sick, the slaves/servants, etc, which helped it gain critical mass an a relatively short period of time. But while the sermon is democratic I contend that the powerful transform it into a tool to keep the status quo ("hey, don't worry about the injustices of this world, be a good boy/girl and you'll get better conditions on the next").

Is there are rational way to say categorically that the influence of Xtianity had a positive effect on the world? How exactly?

[Griffin NoName]

Is there are rational way to say categorically that the influence of Xtianity had a positive effect on the world? How exactly?

Perhaps it depends on definitions of good and evil? The missionaries giving the savages a better code to live by - if one thinks the savages needed redeeming. For the sake of argument.............

[Sibling DavidH]

The collapse of the western Roman Empire into barbarism set Europe back a thousand years.  Many serious students will tell you that the rise of and takeover of administration by Christianity was the - or at least a major cause.
That's the thesis of Gibbon's Decline And Fall, and I agree.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

But there are historians that say not without fair arguments that said decline was strongly influenced by Xtianity. A good portion of the remaining knowledge in Alexandria was deemed the work of satan by the xtians there (leading to the final burn of the library), so while certainly while the remaining knowledge was in the abbeys and monasteries perhaps that knowledge may have been more widely copied (who knows?). Note that the Germanic tribes didn't fall for Xtianity until Charlemagne forced them to convert, so it wasn't a factor on that area (a good word about Norse mythology perhaps?).

Speculative history is a different game in itself, but while we can't say what would've happened can we say with certainty what happened?

[Griffin NoName]

Confused. Aren't you and David saying the same thing?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

As I understand it, a number of tribes had converted prior to Charlemagne - simply to Arian Christianity rather than the orthodox Latin variety.



Personally, I think that Christianity has the potential to be a very positive faith. Except that it, like all religions I think, got hijacked by both the elite who used it as an excuse to maintain an oppressive status quo, and simple monkey behavior, becoming a tool to Otherize people and suppress contrary ideas/behaviors. And the hijacked version (didn't require actually interpreting scripture in context and with regard to the larger whole, or really, actual thought) is what spread and has been and still is a force of terror instead of the good that I think Jesus, assuming he existed, might have intended it to be.

[The Meromorph]

I've known many wonderful people who were/are devout christians. I've known many wonderful people who were not.
I never felt that their religion was what made them wonderful people, in fact I still see it as their major flaw. It's possible to extract a recipe for good morality out of christianity, and equally possible to extract the foulest evil. I think good people indoctrinated into christianity choose the good bits. I don't think any of the hierarchy do.
I'm open to learning differently, but I, myself, can't think of any positive influence from christianity, let alone enough to balance its copious documented evil.

[Aggie]

Personally, I think that Christianity has the potential to be a very positive faith. Except that it, like all religions I think, got hijacked by both the elite who used it as an excuse to maintain an oppressive status quo, and simple monkey behavior, becoming a tool to Otherize people and suppress contrary ideas/behaviors. And the hijacked version (didn't require actually interpreting scripture in context and with regard to the larger whole, or really, actual thought) is what spread and has been and still is a force of terror instead of the good that I think Jesus, assuming he existed, might have intended it to be.

I think one can argue that the early version of Christianity (i.e. in Jesus's time and for a few decades / centuries after) was potentially very destructive to the established society.  Leave your family, give all your possessions to the poor, stop your business activities and give yourself over to God, all that jazz.  This would seem to be a good motivator for the institutionalization of Christianity under Constantine I.  Institutionalizing anything almost necessarily makes it nothing more than a tool of those with a vested interest in maintaining the institution, and in most cases, those at the top of an institution tend to be there for love of power.  The fact that an institution is promoting 'good' doesn't matter much and IMHO makes it easier to have all involved buy in to tolerating atrocities in the name of 'good'.   

_{McLuhan's assertion that "the medium is the message" applies here (and damned near everywhere else I've looked).}

Whether that early version was a good thing on an individual basis is another matter. I would tend to agree with it in the broad strokes, personally speaking, but that sort of approach is as destructive to today's society as it was back then.  

_{I take a rather dim view of today's society, though...}  

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There is one argument that may or not have something to do with the subject, considering that the root knowledge of the industrial revolution was already present in the old world, some historians argue that technological advancement can't occur without social advancement, that is, that a potential industrial revolution didn't take place in Greece and Rome, because cheap slave labor was too readily available and the dominant classes feared what those idle hands could do. The critical social changes happened during the renaissance and -more importantly- during the illustration. Here comes the kicker, some historians claim that Xtianity is the base for the human rights defended during the illustration, and following the previous train of thought, the industrial revolution.

Now, I do recall that many voices during the illustration were decidedly anti-church (considering 'divine rule' as an endorsement of monarchic systems), yet xtian apologists say the contrary.  Is there any reasonable argument that can place Xtianity at the forefront against slavery and/or serfdom?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Personally, I think that Christianity has the potential to be a very positive faith. Except that it, like all religions I think, got hijacked by both the elite who used it as an excuse to maintain an oppressive status quo, and simple monkey behavior, becoming a tool to Otherize people and suppress contrary ideas/behaviors. And the hijacked version (didn't require actually interpreting scripture in context and with regard to the larger whole, or really, actual thought) is what spread and has been and still is a force of terror instead of the good that I think Jesus, assuming he existed, might have intended it to be.

I think one can argue that the early version of Christianity (i.e. in Jesus's time and for a few decades / centuries after) was potentially very destructive to the established society.  Leave your family, give all your possessions to the poor, stop your business activities and give yourself over to God, all that jazz.  This would seem to be a good motivator for the institutionalization of Christianity under Constantine I.  Institutionalizing anything almost necessarily makes it nothing more than a tool of those with a vested interest in maintaining the institution, and in most cases, those at the top of an institution tend to be there for love of power.  The fact that an institution is promoting 'good' doesn't matter much and IMHO makes it easier to have all involved buy in to tolerating atrocities in the name of 'good'.   

_{McLuhan's assertion that "the medium is the message" applies here (and damned near everywhere else I've looked).}

Whether that early version was a good thing on an individual basis is another matter. I would tend to agree with it in the broad strokes, personally speaking, but that sort of approach is as destructive to today's society as it was back then.  

_{I take a rather dim view of today's society, though...}  

I suppose you have me there. I need to look into that a little more thoroughly, though.

There is one argument that may or not have something to do with the subject, considering that the root knowledge of the industrial revolution was already present in the old world, some historians argue that technological advancement can't occur without social advancement, that is, that a potential industrial revolution didn't take place in Greece and Rome, because cheap slave labor was too readily available and the dominant classes feared what those idle hands could do. The critical social changes happened during the renaissance and -more importantly- during the illustration.

There's some merit to the concerns of what newly idle hands would be doing, though I kind of think there are some ridiculously large leaps and bounds technologically that they would have had to make.

Here comes the kicker, some historians claim that Xtianity is the base for the human rights defended during the illustration, and following the previous train of thought, the industrial revolution.

Now, I do recall that many voices during the illustration were decidedly anti-church (considering 'divine rule' as an endorsement of monarchic systems), yet xtian apologists say the contrary.  Is there any reasonable argument that can place Xtianity at the forefront against slavery and/or serfdom?

lolNO. That's totally ignoring Buddhism and previous philosophies that contained elements of what I would argue are basics for human rights, not to mention the huge influence OF those philosophies on Christianity.

[Swatopluk]

I think the decline of the Roman empire by itself has nothing to do with religion at all but with gradual changes in society that were independent of it. The empire had reached an unstable equilibrium before any Christians got their hands on the levers of power. Further expansion was not feasible any more but necessary to keep the old model working. The emperors never mananged to keep all of it under control at once (limits of communication and mobility). When command therefore got split (first two then four co-equal emperors) civil war was in the end inevitable. Increased outer pressure and the politically disastrous (in the long term) decision to coopt barbarians to fight other barbarians in exchange for settling rights (because the traditional elites refused to be taxed properly or to serve to keep the system up) led to the downfall.
When Christians took the reigns of power they more or less followed the same policies as their pagan predecessors.
---
Mankind has always shown the ability to commit atrocities on any possible scale more or less independent of the formal ideology behind it. Even Buddhist regimes had their share of genocides. I think the ideologies/religions primarily influenced the shape of the atrocities. Most if not all civilizations of antiquity used genocide as a tool. Caesar caused the death of 1/3 of all Gauls (of an original population of 3-4 million) in less than 8 years, the city states of classical Greece on occasion wiped each other out (before Platon came up with an ideological framework for these things). The Assyrians were seen by contemporaries as genocidal maniacs and in the end suffered the consequences for it etc. The conquest of the Americas was imo driven by greed not by creed and the latter only served as the means to sleep well at night. The Romans had their 'manifest destiny' even before the first Roman set foot in Palestine.
Some historians I know think that some other religion would have taken over Rome in absence of Christianity with the Mithras Cult and a reformed Judaism as the prime candidates (followed by Manicheism and Gnosis). Constantine first opted for Sol Invictus (giving us Sunday as the holy day of the week) then switched to Christianity (himself only receiving baptism on the deathbed. Iirc it was even Arian not proto-catholic). Had some other cult won the race, we might know Christianity only as an obscure Jewish sect that for a time was popular but got out of fashion when the great prophet Zarquon took to long to return.
Would history have been the same? Of course not. But I think it would not have been any less bloody.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There is one argument that may or not have something to do with the subject, considering that the root knowledge of the industrial revolution was already present in the old world, some historians argue that technological advancement can't occur without social advancement, that is, that a potential industrial revolution didn't take place in Greece and Rome, because cheap slave labor was too readily available and the dominant classes feared what those idle hands could do. The critical social changes happened during the renaissance and -more importantly- during the illustration.

There's some merit to the concerns of what newly idle hands would be doing, though I kind of think there are some ridiculously large leaps and bounds technologically that they would have had to make.

Leaps and bounds that would've taken one or two centuries, well within the life span of the Roman empire. Technological advances depend on very expensive R&D and something has to justify the expense. Weapons development had some justification but still you need a mindset that fosters R&D and some basic flow of information. Both things were missing (secrecy was a constant in the trade).

Here comes the kicker, some historians claim that Xtianity is the base for the human rights defended during the illustration, and following the previous train of thought, the industrial revolution.

Now, I do recall that many voices during the illustration were decidedly anti-church (considering 'divine rule' as an endorsement of monarchic systems), yet xtian apologists say the contrary.  Is there any reasonable argument that can place Xtianity at the forefront against slavery and/or serfdom?

lolNO. That's totally ignoring Buddhism and previous philosophies that contained elements of what I would argue are basics for human rights, not to mention the huge influence OF those philosophies on Christianity.

The trick question isn't if Xtianity invented anything (you can find basis in Greek and eastern tradiions) but if it's rise helped effectively to popularize those points of view. IOW, would Zoroastrianism (to name one) had been the same influence on the western world? 

[Sibling DavidH]

I've known many wonderful people who were/are devout christians. I've known many wonderful people who were not.
I never felt that their religion was what made them wonderful people, in fact I still see it as their major flaw. It's possible to extract a recipe for good morality out of christianity, and equally possible to extract the foulest evil. I think good people indoctrinated into christianity choose the good bits. I don't think any of the hierarchy do.
I'm open to learning differently, but I, myself, can't think of any positive influence from christianity, let alone enough to balance its copious documented evil.

That puts my view of it very neatly.  Except that to the Good and the Evil I would add the well-meaning meddlers, the ones who sent me off on a rant last year.  Those that oppose abortion, contraception, assisted dying, stem-cell research and much else from entirely benevolent though irrational motives.  They are doing a huge amount of harm.

Swato gives a very neat and accurate account of the crumbling of the Western Empire but leaves out the corrosive, weakening effect of the Church.  I know that's hard to pin down and quantify, but I'm sure it played its part.

Would history have been the same? Of course not. But I think it would not have been any less bloody.

Probably, but would we have sunk back into barbarism for a thousand years?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

There is one argument that may or not have something to do with the subject, considering that the root knowledge of the industrial revolution was already present in the old world, some historians argue that technological advancement can't occur without social advancement, that is, that a potential industrial revolution didn't take place in Greece and Rome, because cheap slave labor was too readily available and the dominant classes feared what those idle hands could do. The critical social changes happened during the renaissance and -more importantly- during the illustration. Here comes the kicker, some historians claim that Xtianity is the base for the human rights defended during the illustration, and following the previous train of thought, the industrial revolution.

Now, I do recall that many voices during the illustration were decidedly anti-church (considering 'divine rule' as an endorsement of monarchic systems), yet xtian apologists say the contrary.  Is there any reasonable argument that can place Xtianity at the forefront against slavery and/or serfdom?

I'll weigh in here with a bit o'fly in that argumentative ointment:  many historians have observed a couple of facts with regards to slave labor. 

1) a horse eats roughly 5 times as much a day, as a slave-man
2) a horse, without a horse-collar, can do roughly 5 times the work of a slave-man, but requires an operator as well, to make him do the work you want

Once the horse-collar was invented?   #2 becomes #3:

3) a horse with a horse collar, can do roughly 10 times the work of a slave-man.

So simple economics dictates, that horses are cheaper to use as labor than slaves, even if you factor in the horse-operator costs.  Sure, the slave can be told what to do, and does it (usually).  But a 10 to 1 work factor, versus 5 to 1 food-factor, economics will win out eventually.

----------------------

To me, the bottom line is rarely a single cause, or even remotely simple--- clearly there are multiple root-causes for various culture's behaviors (such as slavery).  Sometimes, cultures return to human slavery, when labor-animals are simply not available.

If you look at the sources for labor animals in cultures over the course of history, you'll see the Europeans had a distinct advantage of having a ready supply of easily domesticated quadrupeds, whereas other areas of the world did not.

Having domestic animals on-tap (even without a horse-collar), leads to other things too, such as roads-- it is much more economical to move a team of animals pulling a heavy load down a paved road, than not.  The animals do not need to rest as often, nor eat as much, to go the distance over a paved road than a dirt track or unpaved fields.

Okay, my $0.02 and I'll go back to reading/lurking...

[Sibling DavidH]

So simple economics dictates, that horses are cheaper to use as labor than slaves, even if you factor in the horse-operator costs.

Trouble is, they're a bit cack-handed when told to assemble cheap cameras in Chinese factories.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

So simple economics dictates, that horses are cheaper to use as labor than slaves, even if you factor in the horse-operator costs.

Trouble is, they're a bit cack-handed when told to assemble cheap cameras in Chinese factories.

Your observation that the word "labor" as I used it, was rather limited within today's world, all things considered.   And you are spot-on correct.

Somewhere or other I remember reading (in a novel? I forget) that a company was proposing increasing the level of automation within a Chinese/Mexican/Twianese/Etc factory.  The reason for so doing, was to increase quality-control of the finished product-- machines do not get tired, and when they make mistakes, the mistakes are often predictable, and easily checked-for.  

But the factory foreman (the local liaison) had extremely strong objections to the automation process-- "what will I do with the excess workers?  You want me to put them out on the street?  They have families----they need the work!"

When the human population is overwhelmingly abundant?  Human labor becomes inescapably cheap-- disposable even.

Obviously, my comments pertained to animal-powered transportation and animal-powered agriculture.   The invention of the stationary steam engine (and it's modern descendants) has rendered animal-powered manufacture all but extinct....

.... oddly enough, animal-powered transportation and animal-powered agriculture still dominates all other forms in many places even now.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I also want to note that I think it's very easy to assign inappropriate blame at religion's door when simple monkey nature (often disguised as religion) is really the answer..

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I also want to note that I think it's very easy to assign inappropriate blame at religion's door when simple monkey nature (often disguised as religion) is really the answer..

Quite likely so but that doesn't answer the main question, what was the real influence, good, bad or otherwise?
--
To make it easy to pick, can we list which are individually the items that are critical in Xtian religion and which of those permeate society?

For instance, while the original xtianity promoted the abandonment of property, the structures that followed were anything but poor.
There is a mandate of charity too, the question is, did charity existed before/besides xtianity? What would be the influence of xtian charity?

That's just to mention one.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Then, there is the immediately obvious:

The first "lesson" of any religion of the bible is a sad one, really:  knowledge is forbidden.

And throughout the middle ages?  That lesson was applied over and over, usually with brutality and to wanton excess.

Had that "lesson" not been at the heart of this religion?

How far would human-kind have made it, based on what the Greeks and other ancients had already discovered?   

Who can say?  Religion's influence was one of suppression-of-thought, over most of its' history.

[Aggie]

1) a horse eats roughly 5 times as much a day, as a slave-man
2) a horse, without a horse-collar, can do roughly 5 times the work of a slave-man, but requires an operator as well, to make him do the work you want

Once the horse-collar was invented?   #2 becomes #3:

3) a horse with a horse collar, can do roughly 10 times the work of a slave-man.

Side note:  I would love to have some confirmation of this 'fact', but I was told once by a well-educated rancher that prior to the availability of farm machinery, one unit of human and animal labour-energy (calories burned) yielded 2 units of human food energy (calories produced).  Our current modern efficient system of farming uses 8 units of petroleum-based energy to produce one unit of food energy.

The first "lesson" of any religion of the bible is a sad one, really:  knowledge is forbidden.

And throughout the middle ages?  That lesson was applied over and over, usually with brutality and to wanton excess.

I have an entirely different interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth that perhaps I'll treat y'all to sometime. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

1) a horse eats roughly 5 times as much a day, as a slave-man
2) a horse, without a horse-collar, can do roughly 5 times the work of a slave-man, but requires an operator as well, to make him do the work you want

Once the horse-collar was invented?   #2 becomes #3:

3) a horse with a horse collar, can do roughly 10 times the work of a slave-man.

Side note:  I would love to have some confirmation of this 'fact', but I was told once by a well-educated rancher that prior to the availability of farm machinery, one unit of human and animal labour-energy (calories burned) yielded 2 units of human food energy (calories produced).  Our current modern efficient system of farming uses 8 units of petroleum-based energy to produce one unit of food energy.

As would I.  I've seen the figures in several different places, most of which I no longer recall.  But two I'm pretty sure of are the TV show/coffee table book Connections, and a novel King David's Spaceship. While I realize a novel is not usually a good source of such things, one of the authors is pretty anal about fact-checking, so...

... I also seem to recall it being mentioned in College/History more than once as well. `

[Swatopluk]

So why are the Jews so notoriously eager to study and learn, although they use an earlier edition of the same holy book?
What I see in the Bible is more of a negative view on the human ability to grasp reality/knowledge than a condemnation of seeking it. Even the story of the tree in paradise looks more like a moral question to me not being about knowledge per se but about a certain aspect. I do not deny that the 'holy scriptures' were used for suppression of thought but I think Galilei was right with his bonmot that the Bible is about how to move towards heaven not about how heaven moves. Or to put it the other way around, the writer of Exodus would have been flabbergasted to learn that his book would be quoted as an authority on celestial mechanics (if he would have understood the discussion in the first place). Also cf. pi=3 .
---
On the horse vs. human topic.
Humans are a bit more flexible and can go places and do things that horses cannot. Reducing costs to raw food consumption looks also a bit oversimplified to me*. I think there is an ideal mix of raw animal power and refined human abilities from a pure efficiency point of view. As far as horses go one should also take into consideration the available bandwidth from swift racehorse to heavy workhorse. Special case: warhorses. There was a notorious shortage of the special breed of chargers throughout all the era of  knights on horseback making them hideously expensive ("They sell the pasture now to buy the horse", Shakespeare, Henry V) while horses otherwise were common and numerous (and knights usually had one charger plus a number of other horses to serve all purposes except use in battle).

*a horse needs far better treatment than a human being and will/cannot cope with what was usually meted out to the latter.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Religion's influence was one of suppression-of-thought, over most of its' history.

I think there is a kernel of truth on the statement albeit a qualified one. Regardless of what the interpretation of the myth is (to me it exemplifies how the good vs evil problem is perceived) it was frequently interpreted in a way the helped suppress what was perceived as undesirable thought. IOW, regardless of the intention of the writers, there is an influence and for a good part that influence is (still) negative.

Personally I do strongly believe that the main problem of most religions stems from the definition of the absolute and the presumption that a particular source (ie, the bible) by being written under the supposed influence of that absolute, is by definition inerrant, and anything that contradicts it is by definition evil. But that is a consequence that shows up in almost all religions (albeit the bigger emphasis happens on monotheistic ones). Specifically in xtianity, that influence is devastating, particularly against science up to this day, but that is related to the institutional nature of xtianity, in contrast, while judaism can be as fundamentalist (see the orthodox) it's influence has been limited because it isn't an institutional religion up up until the re-foundation of Israel (and you can see a level of influence there now).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

In another venue, we were talking this subject a bit, and I pointed out the obvious:

How do you compromise with the claim, "God Said X"?  About the only argument you can bring to the table is "No He Din't", and how can a compromise/consensus be reached in such an event.

One of my fellow posters there, who happens to be a pagan/polytheist, correctly pointed out another tactic:  "You say your god said X?  Fine.  My god said Y.  You may keep your X for yourself."

In a polytheistic world-view, things are much more plastic and flexible as compared to a monotheistic one where it is presumed all gods are the same god, and that people are just "mistaken" in their interpretation of It.

I find that if I must embrace some form of theistic policy, I much prefer the polytheistic version to the presumption of just one.   

To me, but a single-god in all the vastness of the greater Universe makes little since.  If there be one, there is more likely many, and none are as all-powerful as all that.

A multitude of gods certainly makes more since if you consider the evidence¹ -- they would have a sort of neutralizing effect on one anther's activities, I would think.  Which could explain why there is no evidence for any.


__________

_{¹ or rather, the sheer lack of the same}

[Griffin NoName]

So why are the Jews so notoriously eager to study and learn, although they use an earlier edition of the same holy book?

They are only eager to study and learn THAT book. They regard universities as dangerous places.

[Swatopluk]

So why are the Jews so notoriously eager to study and learn, although they use an earlier edition of the same holy book?

They are only eager to study and learn THAT book. They regard universities as dangerous places.

That would be the ultraorthodox specimens. But historically Jews were disproportionally well-educated compared to their surroundings. A reason might of course be that access to 'honest' jobs (i.e. those that could be done by idiots) was blocked for them. I wonder where Jewish physicians (and I don't mean travelling quacks) studied while they were still excluded from universities?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

It would seem that historically the jews had a significantly higher level of alphabetization than the gentiles, likely because you need to read to learn from the Torah (as opposed to the ban on reading the bible by the catholic church for all the middle ages and further), and that trend remained until universal education started to show its face.

As for physicians, smart people figures out means to solve problems, I'm sure once the press was invented access to the books would have been a great asset, plus the time honored tradition of apprenticeship.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Rereading Asimov's The Dark Ages, I can see how Xtianity became an incredible vehicle of instability, yet there was a detail to consider: when Mohamed invented Islam he used both elements from the xtian and jewish lore while adjusting them to the traditions of the inhabitants of the Arabic peninsula. If my understanding is accurate, the motivations of Mohamed would have been exactly the same with or without xtianity, and given that the jewish tradition was around anyway, chances are that he would've created Islam regardless of xtianity.

Now, that is a serious consequence of xtianity, considering the explosive expansion of islam during the middle ages, it isn't absurd to consider that the romans and later germanic tribes might have converted to islam eventually. And while it is true that the arabs were significantly more civilized than the europeans of the time I suspect that we fared better with a xtian rather than muslim europe.

Any flaws on that view?

[Swatopluk]

Islam radicalized when confronted by (Latin) Christianity. In many cases the hardliners (fundies) took over where the confrontation turned hot (Spain, Palestine) and the Kristian(TM) fanatics won militarily against the moderate Muslims. The Spanish Muslim rulers called in Berber auxiliary troops to counter the Kristian(TM) onslaught. Those turned out to be the Al Qaeda of their day. Successful against the Kristian(TM) aggressors they seized power from the 'decadent' Muslim elites and erected a Taliban-like rule.
Saladdin was an exception and had no successor. He also was confronted with a mix of fanatics, moderates and just greedy bastards on the Crusader side, not just the first kind like in Spain.
A point of comparision may be the Muslim expansion to the East where the oponents were not monotheists. I know very little about that. Were the Mughals in India moderate or fanatic on average (before the arrival of the Euopeans, that is)?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I would agree with Swato's analysis... prior to strong fanatical Xianist opposition, much of Europe was controlled by moderate muslim leadership.  And contrasting that to what came later, it's clear Europe was better off under the moderates than under the later-to-come extreme Xianists' rule.

For example, the moderate Islamists copied and sent back home, many many aspects of the ancient cultures, including much of the Greek writings.  And later, when the Xianists destroyed it all, we only learned about it, by way of re-introduction of what was preserved by the Islamist regimes back in their homestates.

Had Europe not been occupied by moderate Muslims for as long as it was?  We'd never know about these ancient civilizations at all; so xenophobic were the Xianist regimes that came later.

And what came later was more than a 1000 years of stagnation and ignorance.  Ignorance which in turn enabled the spread of the Black Plague.  For as it turns out?  There is nothing spectacular about the Black Plague's genome... it was spread because of human ignorance and stupidity.  ERV's take on the spread of the Black Plague.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I confess that I'm not that versed on the subject (of middle east & north Africa after Mohamed) but the little I know suggests that it wasn't all that different from what was happening at the other side of the Mediterranean. Besides, if Europe had fundamentalist Xtians at the time what would prevent them from becoming fundamentalist muslims in the absence of Xtianity?

Would Islam become a more moderate force had it being the predominant religion in Europe after a thousand+ years? That one I can't answer, but my hunch is that not all the reasons that place the muslims in the 3rd world* are all climatic**.

*Malasia being one of the apparent exceptions and the drivers of the economy are ethnic Chinese. As for Turkey the social and economic distances with Europe have prevented integration, not exactly 1st world either.
** there is a theory that contends that there is an imbalance between the population in the Arab countries and the amount of food that those arid areas can support, with that being the source of much of the social unrest in the area.

[Roland Deschain]

I shall add my voice to the throng here. I remember watching a wonderful 3-ish part series on Biblical archaeology on BBC2 last year, which was hosted by a female archaeologist and historian (her name has escaped me, but I think it was something Greek). She posited that the story of Genesis was actually meant to be an allegory on the fall of Palestine/Israel at the time of the Babylonian exile. It's about the king who ruled over what had become, essentially, a vassal state, and who became proud. He rebelled by refusing tribute, and was thrown down before the might of the Babylonian army (pride goeth before a fall).

The Cherubim who were at the entrance to the garden of Eden represented the statues at the entrance to the temple in Jerusalem, with many other parts of the allegorical story alluding to parts of the temple itself. There was a load of other stuff, too, which I can't for the life of me remember.

Considering this, if it's true, then that really throws a spanner in the works for the Creationists, and would pretty much end their influence on the teaching of evolution.
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In relation to the radicalisation of religious groups, that will always happen when they feel that they are backed into a corner, and happens even for political affiliations. A defeat in war, an atrocity committed, or a perceived threat (violent, economic, moral, etc), gives louder voice to those calling for stronger commitment, and also gives them greater sway in their community. The threat or defeat or atrocity doesn't even need to be real, just perceived to be so. Look at the state of affairs in evangelical Christianity in the US, and in fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East. They feel that they are under attack from an enemy, which in some cases is very true to a degree, and some fight back. It is a part of our animal nature that we have had to deal with since we evolved, and probably greatly added to the odds for our ultimate survival. The issue now is that this great survival trait is working against us, as we have unprecedented control over our world, and connections to one another.
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Let's not solely blame the Abrahamic religions for the suppression of knowledge, because it was occurring long before Christianity of Islam got their mitts on it. The heliocentric model of the solar system was not suggested first of all by Copernicus, but in the 3rd century BCE by Aristarchus of Samos. His ideas were discussed, and he had followers, but they were rejected by most as heretical (Aristotle and Ptolemy won that one). Others came up with the idea as well, such as Aryabhata and Martianus in the 5th century CE.

What happens is when someone gets the power, they do not want to lose it, and religion is such a useful tool to keep it. The Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Babylonians, the Aztecs, the Mayans, all used its power to subdue. People long ago learnt that knowledge is power, and to suppress certain knowledge is to keep the power for yourself. It has been done to certain degrees for our entire written history, and continues to this day. Even Pythagoras did this.

Knowledge and ideas can also die of their own accord, such as partially shown above, when people don't appear to take them further. Calculus was discovered/invented a number of times before Sir Isaac Newton took it in hand. The Egyptians in the 19th century BCE were moving towards it, as were the Greeks in the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE, and the Chinese in the 3rd and 5th centuries CE, yet none of them ever appeared to take it further. The ideas just appeared to not be popular. It could also be that ideas come before their time, or their application is not realised, such as the rudimentary steam engine that was invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century CE. Some ideas are just never thought of, such as the wheel being pretty much unknown in the Americas until Europeans arrived.

What makes the present day unique is that the level of advancement throughout the world is, if not level, at least slowly getting there. Whereas before you'd have a whole culture destroyed to accommodate the new one, which includes the destruction of that civilisation's knowledge, ideas are being shared instead. Again, this isn't new, but most civilisations who did this in the past have failed, such as the Greeks at their height. This brings me again to the point about radicalisation above, in that these ideas threaten the very survival of the cherished ideals of some religious groups, who in turn rebel against them.

/random rambling

[Aggie]

What happens is when someone gets the power, they do not want to lose it, and religion is such a useful tool to keep it. The Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Babylonians, the Aztecs, the Mayans, all used its power to subdue. People long ago learnt that knowledge is power, and to suppress certain knowledge is to keep the power for yourself. It has been done to certain degrees for our entire written history, and continues to this day. Even Pythagoras did this.

This is why I don't blame the religious system itself (for the most part). It's humans being pig-headed bloody human that creates the religiously fueled atrocities in the world.  They'd still find a way to cock it up without religion, it just might not be as efficient.

For the record, processed food and smartphones seem to be the current version of bread and circuses.  

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Knowledge and ideas can also die of their own accord,

It has been discussed among some scholars, that the technical advances of the industrial revolution would not have been possible without the end of serfdom. Technical knowledge has appeared from time to time (the hellenic world, china) but the cost/benefit analysis was rigged against it because (slave) human labor was incredibly cheap. IOW it would seem that technical advancement is indeed dependent on social advancement.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Knowledge and ideas can also die of their own accord,

It has been discussed among some scholars, that the technical advances of the industrial revolution would not have been possible without the end of serfdom. Technical knowledge has appeared from time to time (the hellenic world, china) but the cost/benefit analysis was rigged against it because (slave) human labor was incredibly cheap. IOW it would seem that technical advancement is indeed dependent on social advancement.

There is also this to consider:  cost.

How much food do you need to produce to feed your slaves, in order to keep him fit enough for hard labor?   

Now compare that to the amount a 4 legged work animal needs to eat, using just a neck-strap? 

And it is cheaper or about the same (depending on the animal) to use slaves-- besides, you can tell them what to do easier than you can train an animal.

But.

Introduce the shoulder-collar?  The idea of a wooden yoke or horse collar?  This lets the animal press his shoulders against the collar, doing much more effective labor, for about the same food bill.

Now, economics plays a role:  it becomes cheaper to use animals than humans, if you examine the cost of food.   Even with the extra training an animal requires.

If you study the introduction of the horse(animal)-collar, with the decline of slavery, a pattern begins to emerge.

Of course, slavery sometimes returns whenever there is excessive surplus of population in an area that has little or no technology base.   There are other factors, too-- if the social situation permits not-feeding the slaves?  And there is a surplus of supply?  Then, obviously, it is cheaper to use slaves than animals.   You see this under extreme cultural situations, often where there is zealot-ideology at work. 

And finally, there has always been slaves for other than labor-- sex workers (for example).  You cannot effectively use animals for that, if there is an available supply of humans to prey on.

This is still going on, even today.

[Swatopluk]

Caesar caused a slave inflation flooding the market with an additional 1 million slaves in less than 8 years. This likely played a significant role in the transition from the republican economy (based on smaller independent farms) to the imperial (based on latifundia worked by slaves).
Tech historians consider metallurgy a deciding factor too. It took significant improvements in that area to make the coal/steam era possible. I think a lot of this improvement came from the field of artillery. Centuries of looking for better ways to build cannons yielded the knowledge about handling large amounts of liquid metal with the desired material properties. Body armor also saw a very slow process of improvement from multi-piece low quality iron to single piece selectively hardened steel (possible to produce as early as the 100 years war but far too expensive for widespread use).

[Griffin NoName]

Trouble with that sort of body armour was it was so heavy.

[Swatopluk]

But the protective value rose faster than the weight.
Later cuirasses had to be tested before sale. Customers would not buy one without the dent of the pistol shot.
Falsified certificates for cuirasses were known in the Middle Ages already though.
Some of the rather strange shapes of late medieval knight armor have been found to be highly effectice against projectiles. The latter also showed high sophistication. Arrow points were anything but mere pointy pieces of metal.

[Griffin NoName]

Falsified certificates for cuirasses were known in the Middle Ages already though.

And fake designer labels?

[Swatopluk]

In essence, yes. Armorers stamped the products of their workshops with what can be considered precursors of logos, literal trademarks. Some had such a high reputation that others copied those marks so they could sell their own inferior products at a much higher price. It has to be assumed that many a French knight at Agincourt lost his life because he unknowingly wore such an imitation. Tests have shown that the real thing was nearly 100% arrow-proof while the copies could be penetrated by longbow arrows even at long range.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Greed, corruption and graft? 

That sounds so.... human.

[Griffin NoName]

How the world doesn't change.