>This record is awesome, however, even you must admit that this hardly does
>justice to the events of a single day, much less a 1000 years. This does
covr
>many events that did happen, but does not deal with causes, or
>complications.
I attempted to highlight some basic causes often neglected in the standard
history text: Famine, population pressures, disease, and medical and
agricultural advancements.
>In
>fact if I didnt know better,I would say that you deleted all mention of the
>inquisitions, the causes of wars, the crusades - in fact, by the neglect of
>mentioning these vitally important issues, how many others are excluded?
You already know the history of wars, the inquistion, and the crusades. In
fact most of our traditional history is simply a chronicle of battles,
primarily because those were the only topics written about by the early
historians. If I had chosen it include that material, not only would it
prove redundant to your existing knowledge, but the list would be 200K long
rather than 20K, and I'm just not that good a typist.
My point was to refute your and Nate's erronious assertions that it was
religion (Christianity in particular) which slowed progress. An assertion
which neglects to recognize that changes in food production and distribution
made possible widespread and devistating bouts of famine and disease, two of
the largest impediments to the progress of civilization known to man. A
starving man does not devote time and resources to science, in any age.
BTW, boyz, if Christianity during the Dark Ages was the sole force which
held back progress and set back the West's quest for knowledge, why aren't
we simply writing this in Hindi or Chinese right now?
Your strawman is very old and worn, maybe you should try to find a new one.
-Prof. Tim