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Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

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Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#141

Post by ghostDancer »

wqaatwt wrote: post #123
defrost wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, Christians have been just as appalling as any other religion. They've killed, enslaved, done their best to eliminate cultures, railed against miscegenation, etc. Not sure why you're working so hard to pretend o/wise.

To be fair in addition to the uncountable horrible things it did or took part in the Catholic church did build the foundations that allowed the concepts of modern scientific thought to develop. No other religion did that.

And they burned quite people for defending the science that went against their beliefs. They only stopped when they thought it would be good for their economic profits. Exactly the same when they stopped protecting slavery, when they thought it would be good as they would get a lot of new followers and all the money and influence that would come with them.And all the fights that gave birth to the other Christian churches always for the same reasons power and money.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#142

Post by wqaatwt »

ghostDancer wrote: post #125
wqaatwt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is somewhat different. Romans or Greeks didn’t really violently impose their culture, religion and language to a comparable degree. Without the Islamic invasions Egyptian would likely still be speaking Coptic these days.

That's not exactly true. Spain, Portugal and France, at least, speak languages derived from Latin, while the original languages went extincted. And Christian religion taken by the Romans annihilated all the rest of religions in Europe.

Well yes it highly varied. However Romans were generally more motivated by plunder and subsequent economic exploitation. To an extent they didn’t really suppress local cultural practices or imposed forced assimilation in cases where it didn’t conflict with that and even often allowed alternative power structures to exist. Assimilation largely happened over time and was mostly voluntary. To be fair gradual voluntary conversion to Islam to enhance your social/economic status was the main mechanism in the Muslim empires as well. However in Rome the transition wasn’t as binary and “multiculturalism” was much more tolerated. Also Romans were way more open to integrating and assimilating foreign cultures and practices (which is why the Roman Empire eventually turned into a “Greek Empire”) what being a “Roman” meant was way more malleable and flexible than being a Muslim.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#143

Post by jsemrau »

defrost wrote: post #110
jsemrau wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more people enslaved now than at any point in time in history. Guess the countries.

There are more people now than at any point in time in history. Meanwhile, in history, religions enslaved people. Returning to the point you keep dodging, that includes Christians.

I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries. Slavery has been existed for centuries before and, despite being abolished by Western countries (hint: there were several wars were people lost lives), still exists in China, India, Indonesia, and a large group of Arab countries.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#144

Post by jsemrau »

Hikikomori wrote: post #136
graemep wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its been the most anti-slavery religion and was the main motivation for the abolition of slavery. There is no Christian objection to 'miscegenation' and its a weird concept only taken up in America and a few other places like South Africa during apartheid, and it owes more to race science than Christianity.

Yet Christians had no problems taking, owning an selling slaves on an industrial scale for 100s of years. Their book even includes an ownership guide. And then you want a gold star for stopping what you created? The theocratic mind is laughable.

Like the rest of the world. Since there are many non-Western countries that still have slaves there is no original sin.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#145

Post by tclancy »

cineticdaffodil wrote: post #138
hechang1997 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD. It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along wi…

[flagged]

> pool finances and invest its way out of crisis. The other invests it all into exponential humans and conflict

As an American, I am left wondering which side is us.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#146

Post by tclancy »

gaiagraphia wrote: post #89
declan_roberts wrote: post #56

> During this period, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded across the country and Egypt served as one of the empire's richest provinces. It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.

Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world. It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map. The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media. Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.

Hang on a tick, who made the oil valuable and happily pays for it while turning a blind eye?

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#147

Post by KaiserPro »

cineticdaffodil wrote: post #138
hechang1997 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD. It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along wi…

[flagged]

You're gonna have to be more specific. which religion, and what time are you insinuating for spreading in "spreading in squalid, burned down conditions"

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#148

Post by wqaatwt »

ghostDancer wrote: post #141
wqaatwt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair in addition to the uncountable horrible things it did or took part in the Catholic church did build the foundations that allowed the concepts of modern scientific thought to develop. No other religion did that.

And they burned quite people for defending the science that went against their beliefs. They only stopped when they thought it would be good for their economic profits. Exactly the same when they stopped protecting slavery, when they thought it would be good as they would get a lot of new followers and all the money and influence that would come with them.And all the fights that gave birth to the other Christian chur…

Well yes it’s relative. However the Church in the 1400s to 1600s or so was generally very permissive of scientific debate and not strictly dogmatic. See Galileo’s story, the issue is that when they rejected something (based on a reasonably valid scientific process albeit based on flawed evidence available at the time) that was kind of it and continued to challenging the consensus got you into some deep trouble (with a few exceptions).

One interesting thing is that in the 1400s open debate and heterodoxy was generally tolerated or even accepted IF you did it in Latin and only inside the “international scholar network” that existed at the time and didn’t go around preaching your ideas to peasants and such.

I’m certainly not implying that it was in any way good or let alone perfect in absolute terms, just that it.

> same reasons power and money.

That’s highly reductive

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#149

Post by KaiserPro »

wqaatwt wrote: post #120
openuntil3am wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christianity is no different.

To be fair for the most part Christianity didn’t spread top down through violent conquest (obviously with some huge exceptions) at least in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Also it’s historically better at integrating local cultural practices and languages. Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later…

I'm Just looking at the rich indigenous culture and languages of the US and how widespread and celebrated it is.

thats why all the signs in downtown Manhattan are in Munsee....

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#150

Post by defrost »

jsemrau wrote: post #143
defrost wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more people now than at any point in time in history. Meanwhile, in history, religions enslaved people. Returning to the point you keep dodging, that includes Christians.

I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries. Slavery has been existed for centuries before and, despite being abolished by Western countries (hint: there were several wars were people lost lives), still exists in China, India, Indonesia, and a large group of Arab countries.

> I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries.

I have no idea what that sentence is specifically meant to mean, that aside, western countries have had actual slavery and effective slavery both in the past and the present.

eg: Past & actual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale

'Present' (Post WWII) & effective: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-27/child-abuse-royal-com...

I don't mean to exclusively beat on Christians or just Catholics here; but I do intend to counter your apparent narrative of good Christians and evil Muslims.

Christians certainly diminished a lot of cultures, just as other religions also did - the initial point that started this above.

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