Author
|
Topic: Hmmm. (Read 831 times) |
|
Kharin
Adept
Posts: 407
Reputation: 7.75
Rate Kharin
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
  
|
 |
Hmmm.
« on: 2003-06-26 07:38:48 » |
 |
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3013146.stm
Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and Christian history?
About the size of a football field: The impact crater left behind
A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to Christianity.
It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed his subsequent victory to divine help from a Christian God.
Constantine went on to consolidate his grip on power and ordered that persecution of Christians cease and their religion receive official status.
Civil war
In the fourth century AD, the fragmented Roman Empire was being further torn apart by civil war. Constantine and Maxentius were bitterly fighting to be the sole emperor.
Constantine was the son of the western emperor Constantius Chlorus. When he died in 306, his father's troops proclaimed Constantine emperor.
...a most marvellous sign appeared to him from heaven...
Eusebius
But in Rome, the favourite was Maxentius, son of Constantius' predecessor, Maximian.
With both men claiming the title, a conference was called in AD 308 that resulted in Maxentius being named as senior emperor along with Galerius, his father-in-law. Constantine was to be a Caesar, or junior emperor.
The situation was not a stable one, however, and by 312 the two men were at war.
Constantine overran Italy and faced Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber a few kilometres from Rome. Both knew it would be a decisive battle with Constantine's forces outnumbered.
'Conquer by this'
It was then that something strange happened. Eusebius - one of the Christian Church's early historians - relates the event in his Conversion of Constantine.
"...while he was thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvellous sign appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might have been hard to believe had it been related by any other person.
"...about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the Sun, and bearing the inscription 'conquer by this'.
"At this sight he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle."
Spurred on by divine intervention, Constantine's army won the day and he gave homage to the God of the Christians whom he believed had helped him.
This was a time when Christianity was struggling. Support from the most powerful man in the empire allowed the emerging religious movement to flourish.
Like a nuclear blast
But what was the celestial event that converted Constantine and altered the course of history?
Jens Ormo, a Swedish geologist, and colleagues working in Italy believe Constantine witnessed a meteoroid impact.
Drill rig: Sampling the crater
The research team believes it has identified what remains of the impactor's crater.
It is the small, circular Cratere del Sirente in central Italy. It is clearly an impact crater, Ormo says, because its shape fits and it is also surrounded by numerous smaller, secondary craters, gouged out by ejected debris, as expected from impact models.
Radiocarbon dating puts the crater's formation at about the right time to have been witnessed by Constantine and there are magnetic anomalies detected around the secondary craters - possibly due to magnetic fragments from the meteorite.
According to Ormo, it would have struck the Earth with the force of a small nuclear bomb, perhaps a kiloton in yield. It would have looked like a nuclear blast, with a mushroom cloud and shockwaves.
It would have been quite an impressive sight and, if it really was what Constantine saw, could have turned the tide of the conflict.
But what would have happened if this chance event - perhaps as rare as once every few thousand years - had not occurred in Italy at that time?
Maxentius might have won the battle. Roman history would have been different and the struggling Christians might not have received state patronage.
The history of Christianity and the establishment of the popes in Rome might have been very different.
|
|
|
|
|
rhinoceros
Archon
Gender: 
Posts: 1318
Reputation: 8.02
Rate rhinoceros
My point is ...
|
|
Re:Hmmm.
« Reply #1 on: 2003-06-26 11:05:12 » |
|
[Kharin]
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3013146.stm
Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and Christian history?
About the size of a football field: The impact crater left behind
A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to Christianity.
It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed his subsequent victory to divine help from a Christian God.
Constantine went on to consolidate his grip on power and ordered that persecution of Christians cease and their religion receive official status.
<snip>
[rhinoceros]
The power of signs... The meteor trick could probably work even today. Don't people look into things like Tarrot cards for affirmation of what they are unwilling to see by themselves or of what they wish to be so? One can read a lot of significance in a low probability event with a large impact, such as a meteor impact. Remember the etymology of "significance" and "signify"...
That reminded me of a goofy comedy movie called Orgazmo (1997)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0124819
where a Mormon doorknocker guy stumbled on a porn movie studio and had an offer to play a lead actor role in a porn movie. He would be a superhero wearing a fancy costume and holding a ray gun causing nonstop orgasms. The money was good, but he had religious issues. So, he sat at a table in front of a Jesus statuette, pretty much perplexed, and asked for guidance from Jesus:
"Give me a sign..."
This was followed by an eartquake where the statuette fell off and broke in pieces. After things calmed down a bit, the guy looked at the pieces of the broken statuette and asked again:
"Any sign at all..."
While googling for that movie, I found out that the "give me a sign" joke was actually stolen from an older movie, "The Man with Two Brains" (1983), with Steve Martin.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0085894
In that movie, Steve Martin was asking a wall portrait of his mom about a relation of his.
"Mom, give me a sign."
A dark storm comes up and the portrait starts spinning on the wall. After things calm down a bit, he looks again at the portrait and says
"Just a sign, mom, any kind of sign."
Of course, the opposite is also true: One can see a sign in a less improbable event if that is what he/she wants to see.
[Kharin]
<quote from the BBC article>
But what would have happened if this chance event - perhaps as rare as once every few thousand years - had not occurred in Italy at that time?
Maxentius might have won the battle. Roman history would have been different and the struggling Christians might not have received state patronage.
The history of Christianity and the establishment of the popes in Rome might have been very different.
<end quote>
[rhinoceros]
Getting back to the BBC article about Constantine, Maxentius, the first Christian state, and the meteor, I find it doubtful that the meteor had any major impact on how things turned out.
First, such a "sign" could be interpretted either way (good omen - bad omen) by both camps. What could make the diference? Probably the way they already saw things -- a "faith" in their cause and/or capability. That said, we shouldn't forget that many of the known facts are actually history written by the winner.
Second, I'll happily drop in this arogant statement for discussion: Major battles which caused crucial turns in history were never won by mere chance or clever strategems, and major battles which were won by mere chance or clever strategems did not really account for crucial turns in history.
Of course, a lot of the details of the history of Christianity could have turned out differently in many ways for other reasons.
|
|
|
|
|
Kharin
Adept
Posts: 407
Reputation: 7.75
Rate Kharin
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
|
|
Re:Hmmm.
« Reply #2 on: 2003-06-26 14:12:41 » |
|
Quote:| "Getting back to the BBC article about Constantine, Maxentius, the first Christian state, and the meteor, I find it doubtful that the meteor had any major impact on how things turned out." |
And if it had landed on top of Constantine? 
|
|
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4289
Reputation: 8.49
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:Hmmm.
« Reply #3 on: 2003-06-26 15:41:29 » |
|
Pitiful myth raised to the stature of history by the BBC - who should know better.
Constantine was not only the bastard progeny of a Bithynian barwench and a roman soldier who took power in a coup, he was also a rather nasty, wife murdering, treachorous piece of work, and a follower of Mithras to boot. While he appears to have undergone a "deathbed baptism" most of what is believed (in the absense and the face of all the available evidence) of him comes to us via Eusebius - a self professed "luminious liar".
As for Christian "martyrdom" that too is largely a myth. Christianity did not exist as a religion until the second century making most of the supposed martyrdoms impossible. For that matter, the Romans were rather tolerant of religions, with various Emperors advocating their own prefered brands, and it was only Christian habits of engaging in terrorism, and their nastiness to those who believed differently to themselves (including other Christians) that landed them in trouble. Nevertheless, there were a few cases of "persecution" (or plausibly, retaliation for Christian excesses) which have been cited by Christians as if it was a deliberate policy even though this means that they have to ignore Origen, who in the mid-third century AD, said "that the Christian martyrs were few and easily numbered".
My suggestion is to take a look at http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/ if this topic interests you. The information there appears to be well researched and well in accordance with the current consensus position with the exception that. IMO, it does not place sufficient weight on the almost entirely mythical nature of "Jesus".
Hermit
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
|
Logged
