>>18516320
also the whole “preserve classical work” case
one could argue it was le monks who saved le civilization during le dark ages, but would it be necessary in the first place had it not been for christian radicals banning pagan works?

>>18516320
>such as banning Aztec human sacrifices
Never happened
>Science is kind of a blurred line; on one hand some of the most brilliant scientists were Christian
Nothing to do with Christianity.

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>Was Christianity a net positive or negative?
Neither. This kind of binary ass thinking is just pinning two strawmen against eachother. Religion is the predecessor to modern science, it wasn't a net negative or positive, it was just how ancient peoples tried making sense of the world. Christianity for all its faults also made strides in advancing scientific understanding and the Church was instrumental in financing and supporting scientific achievement because ultimately their goal was to try and understand the world better just like modern sciences goal is.

>>18516320
Rome didn’t collapse due to Christianity. Rome was already in crisis decades before Christ. Hence the need for Caesar and Augustus. People that say Rome could have continued on indefinitely without Christianity don’t understand what the Roman Empire actually was or how it worked. It was going to fall apart and splinter at some point. Even if in some form the Western Roman state miraculously persisted to say the 8th or 9th century, it would look far different from what we imagine as “classical Rome”

Christianity likely stopped the Dark Ages (in Western Europe) from being darker. The church was the one continent wide system that survived the collapse of state infrastructure. It gave rulers legitimacy and monasteries and abbots were centers of literacy. Without Christianity it would have been a total reset of the culture in the West. And so much of what we think of as “Western” in culture is shaped by Christianity. In a hypothetical timeline where Europe remained pagan it would be a fundamentally alien culture to what you and I would recognise as Western European.

>>18516326
Exactly. Net positive or net negative to what? What baseline? What is the control group here.

>>18516337
>The church was the one continent wide system that survived the collapse of state infrastructure
Yes because it hollowed out and looted every other institution. Funds that should have gone to the army instead went to giving churches tax exemptions. The libraries of pagan temples that already persisted multiple disasters were shut down due to paganism being outlawed. People who should have become politicians or military generals instead became shitty monks or priests.

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>Was Christianity a net positive or negative?
You tell me.

>>18516320
The Romans invaded Germany, they got conquered by the Germans. FAFO.

>>18516320
Part to the whole christian thing were zombie like aspect to the continuation to institution and beliefs and this other texture and time that empties out institutions and beliefs to time and part of that were christians appearing as weird christ zombies with no mind speaking and muttering gibberish that does not make any sense self representally absurd theology and living practically at rome as if rome were already fallen to ruin and the apocalypse already happens but there’s this other philip k dick aspect where the time is always the time to the gospels and the gospel time is rome and all the characters and everyone in reality had figure with symbol to gospel symbol globe symbol except that this rome and that globe to the gospel seem almost about globe building and reality and realism to town then religion and orgimmar and those plane dimensions are part to some disc spin logos and this goes to the stoics and iamblichus about that sort to platonist thing pattern to those plane dimensions to data and pattern and campanella and augustine are also important cities to that town of god idea
The other matter were the movements that the goths made as this anon alluded >>18516866 where the goths pushed from the east as result from genghis khans steppe conquests those goths partly suspended institutions partly introducing and extending this feeling to suspended time that allowed to the vision between moments to the idea to town that was idea or something like that

>>18516320
if for nothing else, we have the medieval church to thank for establishing the 12-tone music system we are all familiar with and used globally

>>18516792
Conveniently left out that all those countries at the bottom are in rapid population decline and are experiencing historic levels of inequality.

>>18517427
Somalia on the other hand is doing fantastic

>>18516320
Christianity led to the rise of a civic society where nepotism and corruption were at a minimum compared to the extent it was prevalent in other cultures, mostly due to Catholicism which reuqired people to distribute land to the church upon death instead of their children, and thereby leading to the weakening of blood ties, a prerequisite for allowing voluntary associations like tradesmen guilds and academic groups to flourish.
Ironically it has also led to the weakening of the family in the long term, to the point where the state is seen as a substitute for role family typically plays in the course of human life.

Haven't thought about it but the Tom Holland Dominion argument gist seems sound. Went from a world where majority of people (living in civilizations) were slaves and might be tortured to death for some bullshit to one where the meek and poor will inherit the Earth, are chosen by the most powerful God who will make it so they'll not have suffered in vain, where love grace compassion and Christian virtues are nurtured. If all invented, would it have been even better if there were a reincarnation scheme and meditation and whatnot? Maybe but might point to caste systems and shame cultures and all of that. Big dick question, question's too big,

>>18516320
Abrahmism is a net negative and a cancer on the world. We're still living in a time where wars are fought over the schizophrenic writings of desert people 2000 years ago

There have been countless people who've fucked up or been fucked over and suffered immensely for it, having a narrative window into love that permeates entire world comes in handy for them. It's a religion for truly suffering people and probably eases suffering more than it adds to it. Until the psychos and the state get involved at least. Northern Europe probably wasn't going to reach Mediterranean civilization levels any time soon by the time Rome fell as is. Pure uninformed guess.

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>>18516320
>Was Christianity a net positive or negative?
Christianity was never the issue - Rome was.

The first Rome (latin Rome) was made up of people who were genetically hard capped in IQ and who actively lowered that cap through the consumption of led-laced booze. They simply could not follow mathematics more complex than additions and subtractions and used multiplication and other tables written by greeks whenever they had to use mid-tier maths. Their conquest also destroyed the Greek Hellenistic international science community and brought an end to the active research grants Hellenistic kings had maintained. The ethnic Greeks countinued to carry on the scientific endeavor in private, through temples and academies though.
The Second Rome (Byzantium) directly attacked and destroyed that Greek scientific community that had been keeping the sciences alive and kept pushing them forward in private and in spite of the Roman Empire's ignorance. It did so through an intensive campaign of Romanificiation, which eventually turned genetic Greeks into cultural Romans.

The Third Rome (the Latin church of Italy) temporarily broke the transmission of everything the Greeks had achieved before and during the Roman Empire. They were poor provincials wrecked by constant civil wars and invasions who stood in conflict with the fortune, power and stability of the Greek-speaking Eastern Church and Empire, and their solution to winning the theological war was to ban the transmission of all Greek texts in Europe. That ban naturally was no longer enforced after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, which oddly coincided with the beginning of the Renaissance.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

>>18517886
Unless, you can cite any trustworthy sources, you're basically talking out of your ass here. I can't find a single source that claims that the people of Rome had a biological ceiling on intelligence, and were any less intelligent than the Greeks. Need I remind you that Rome too produced its fair share of lawyers, architects, generals, administrators, etc.

>>18517922
romans and greeks had different standards of intellectualism

the greeks were brilliant philosophers, scientists, medical, artists
the romans were brilliant administrators, militants, architects, engineers

it’s like peanut butter and chocolate, they’re great when separate, but when they combine, they make the morning time epic

>>18517922
>I can't find a single source that claims that the people of Rome had a biological ceiling on intelligence
It's emergent from the fact that the sciences remained firmly in the hands of ethnic Greeks and ethnic Greek institutions through the period of Roman dominance.

>>18516320
Negative

>>18516320
Historians don't even use the term "Dark Ages" anymore because of pseudo-intellectuals using it wrong.