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Post by timothylane on Dec 11, 2019 20:08:45 GMT -8
Something I've noted before is that Judaism and Islam were developed to be theocracies, whereas Christianity accepted the reality of secular rule. My assumption is that the Talmud was the Jewish response to the Diaspora, which eliminated any hope of a nation of Israel anywhere. They thus needed some way to maintain ethical and moral standards as a subject people. As far as I know, Israel today pays more attention to the Talmud than to Leviticus, though there are Orthodox and Ultra-Orthdox Jewish groups that may well prefer Leviticus.
Islam needs its own version of the Talmud, but it's hard to see where this would come from and who would do it.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 11, 2019 20:15:52 GMT -8
"The Age of Faith"
When Durant talks about the effects of Christianity and Islam on each other, he says amongst other things,
Durant goes on, but I will leave it there.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 11, 2019 20:20:10 GMT -8
The one verse, "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" is seen as the main religious and practical basis for the separation of Church and State in the West.
I know of no such admonition in Judaism or Islam.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 11, 2019 20:33:40 GMT -8
"The Age of Faith"
I like this from Durant.
Funny how some sixty years ago, the definition of "white civilization" was much broader than it is today. Further proof that the racism is not on the side of the "whites" but on the side of scoundrels who split and divide people for political reasons.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 11, 2019 20:54:18 GMT -8
"The Age of Faith"
Today, when discussing the great and influential Jews of the Middle Ages, almost any educated Jew will start with Maimonides. It is interesting to note that he was not universally loved and admired by the Jews of his own time.
The fights between his detractors and supporters could be quite vicious. In one instance, a famous anti-Maimonides rabbi in Montpellier (Solomon ben Abraham) anathematized his philosophical works and excommunicated all Jews who studied profane science of literature or treat the Bible allegorically.
This was countered by followers of Maimonides who persuaded various congregations to excommunicate the rabbi in Montpellier and his followers.
Then the anti-Maimonides rabbi,
It is clear that religious intolerance was not restricted to Christians. It is pretty common in history for intolerance and fury to be rained upon those who are closest to us in belief and culture, but with whom we have slight differences of opinion.
And with that observation, I will take leave of Durant's "The Age of Faith".
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Post by timothylane on Dec 11, 2019 20:59:55 GMT -8
I wonder how much of what Europe got from Islam was actually from India or China and merely passed through the Muslim world on the way west. Certainly "Arabic" numerals and the concept of zero came from India, while China originated paper and gunpowder.
South India is dominated by Dravidians such as the Tamils. But most of it speaks various Indo-European languages. So does Persia, as well as the Kurds and Tadjiks. The Arabs are part of the Hamitic-Semitic language family, which includes Arabs and northeastern Africans (such as the Copts and Ethiopians). They're certainly much closer in color to the "typical" white than the "typical" black. Consider Omar Sharif, who wouldn't be called black by anyone not trying to make a dubious point.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 11, 2019 21:11:58 GMT -8
I believe a lot more than most know. I sometimes find Durant's coverage of Islam a bit fawning. Over the years, I have pointed out to a number of Jews, who romanticize the Medieval Muslims, that much of that which came out of the Middle East, North Africa and Spain was from Jews and Arab Christians. People still spoke Greek and ancient Athens was not forgotten in Byzantium. And for those who wax eloquent about the early Italian Humanists who helped bring about the rebirth "Renaissance" of ancient thought in the West, I remind them that there were always exchanges between Eastern and Western Christendom, and the migration of Eastern scholars to Italy and the West was not due to Islam's openness, rather it was due to Islam's constant assault on Byzantium and Constantinople falling to the Turk in 1453.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 11, 2019 21:28:14 GMT -8
That seems a fair point. And Artler makes that point (I think) that Jews sort of volunteered to be commanded by God. That nasty event at the reception of the Ten Commandments notwithstanding, Jews volunteer to serve their life according to God’s commandments. Have I got that right?
Not that there isn’t a lot of social pressure to remain a Jew (or, as Dennis Prager notes, perhaps the even heavier pressure to remain a Progressive Jew). But my understanding of Islam is that the theocrats put the yoke upon you. One can point so a sect or group somewhere that isn’t strapping on bomb vests. And that’s all well and good. But I see Islam as inherently oppressive.
Christians and Jews share the same self-applied yoke. “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Whatever else one thinks, this was said by a Jewish rabbi. Granted, theory and practice are two different things. And I hardly know Judaism to the same extent I know Christianity. But there are, I believe, in both practices continuing and different stages of assent.
Sure, by the time you’ve had years to scare the hell out of someone (or into someone) by threats of hell, the guilt and fear can be so intense that it is hard to make one’s own way in the world. That just means a lot of this is passed on neither with a light yoke nor an easy burden. And I couldn’t tell you for sure what that phrase means but I think it means two things: A) Don’t force people into your faith and, B) Whatever hardships and disciplines one must undertake in practicing the faith are nothing compared to the hardness of a sinful life.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 30, 2019 15:39:25 GMT -8
"Caesar and Christ" by Will Durant
I will now go back to the third volume in Durant's "Story of Civilization."
It is clear that Durant greatly admires Julius Caesar. He gives Caesar ample coverage in the book and it is mostly positive. To Durant, Caesar is something of a democrat in the making, who was resented by the aristocracy. He writes:
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Post by timothylane on Dec 30, 2019 16:06:13 GMT -8
Rome eventually made everyone citizens, though by then Roman citizenship no longer meant much. Julius Caesar may have had similar notions. I notice that no matter how much he may have intended in the way of making government work better, his main change was to switch from Senate control to his personal control.
Of course, he already had enough power to have a super-long year to catch the calendar up to reality. The Romans had a short year (probably based on lunar months), and periodically added an intercalary month to keep the calendar and the seasons in sync. But the priests (no doubt mainly the pontifex maximus) decided when to add one, and usually only did so if they liked who was in power (presumably whoever was elected consul in a given year). So when Julius took the title, he simply added all the overdue intercalary months, and got a year of close to 450 days. It set up his calendar reform.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 21, 2020 20:00:10 GMT -8
I have finished Durant's "The Reformation" and will quote a few sections which I believe pointed out the most important things which took place during this period.
Toward the end of the book, when going over the history of Copernicus and the effect of his theory on history Durant writes.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 21, 2020 20:13:03 GMT -8
Of course, Copernicus was a Catholic cleric, so he obviously didn't think his theory destroyed the religion. He also wasn't quite right. He replaced Ptolemy's circular orbits around the Earth (with complex epicycles to explain observations, such as retrograde motion) with circular orbits around the Sun. But eventually it turned out that he too needed epicycles to enable his theory to fit the observations.
Then Johannes Kepler came along and, using the detailed observations by Tycho Brahe, came up with a set of astronomical laws modifying Copernicus's theory. The key was that in his theory, the Earth and other planets orbited the Sun in (usually only slightly) elliptical orbits, with the center of the Sun at one focus. Later, Isaac Newton used one of these laws to derive his Theory of Gravitation.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 21, 2020 20:38:14 GMT -8
As regards the Popes, it would seem the most catastrophic papacy was that of Clement VII (1523-1534).
Durant writes,
That is a pretty damning judgment. This confirms some of my personal beliefs as regards leadership.
1. To an intelligent and educated person, life is complicated and situations present various shades of grey as regarding their moral correctness. Given this fact, one can contemplate what is right and what is wrong to the point of inaction. Navel gazing is all well and good for the hermit, but for people who decide to live in the world, particularly those in power, choices must be made. Delaying an action, avoiding the making of a judgment is only possible for so long. Eventually, a choice must be made or one will be made for you.
2. Positions of power do not generally find good men to occupy them. Therefore, to avoid catastrophe, it is generally better for a group to have a less-than-stellar character hold such a position on their behalf, as it is more than likely that other groups will be represented by an equally obnoxious and underhanded character. The great exception to this rule is if one can find a strong man of great rectitude to fill such a position. I only know of one such person, George Washington. Churchill probably comes close. Lincoln might be considered.
3. Good intentions are fine, but mean little if not supported by intelligence, determination and guts.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 21, 2020 20:47:18 GMT -8
But he did know it was controversial and did not publish it until shortly before his death.
Early on, it was the Protestants who were most vociferously opposed to Copernicus, but after the Counter-Reformation took hold and the Inquisition came to Italy, the Catholic Church was just as bad.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 21, 2020 20:58:24 GMT -8
That seems a reasonable analysis of leadership. Note that his dispute with Henry VIII was over the latter's desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn (who in the end would walk the Bloody Tower with her head tucked underneath her arm, as the song goes). Charles V was ruler of Spain as well as Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, and a descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella by way of Joanna of Castile (Mad Juana), older sister of Catherine. Naturally Charles didn't want his aunt tossed aside, if only because of the embarrassment.
As I recall, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus asked Mephistopheles about the Copernican theory, which the demon denied. He was supposed to be providing good information to Faustus, but who knows? Without knowing for sure, we can't be sure what Marlowe's own view was.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 22, 2020 8:54:54 GMT -8
I don’t see how that it so. One would expect such grandeur from God.
I didn’t live back then. But one wonders if these new ideas were all parsed in terms of how it affected the Catholic bureaucracy instead of the common man. It may have brought the officials down a peg. The fear was not that the universe was different than first perceived but that it was different from what the people who deign to talk for God had told everyone.
One wonders if average people (such as myself) were relatively unmoved by the idea of a much larger universe than first imagined. And whether the earth orbited the sun, or the other way around, might matter little to the common man. But it might have been everything to the bureaucracy because they were the ones pinned inside that earth-centric vision, not God and certainly not Christianity or anything that Christ ever taught.
So I do wonder, on the large scale, if this wasn’t simply more upsetting to Church officials than the laity.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 22, 2020 10:11:00 GMT -8
You may recall that in A Study in Scarlet, Holmes claimed to be unaware of the structure of the Solar System, and didn't care enough to bother remembering after Watson informed him. His basis was that one could only remember so much (I doubt he was right, but it's not an inherently unreasonable idea) and he chose to remember what was important for him and especially his profession.
On the other hand, in story after story he knows things (including interesting philosophical quotes) that he theoretically wouldn't bother to be aware of. Perhaps he was just putting Watson on, or perhaps he later came to the conclusion that any knowledge might be useful no matter how obscure or useless he might consider it. I recall a Batman comic in which a woman quoted some poem that played some role in the story (this was over 50 years ago, and my memory isn't infinite). It began "Field helped to lay down a chain. Another Cyrus gave us grain." Those, of course, referred to Cyrus Field (who laid the first Atlantic telegraph cable) and Cyrus McCormick (inventor of the reaper). I don't recall the rest, or how it linked into the story.
Another mention of astronomy in the Holmes canon is in The Valley of Fear, when Inspector MacPherson mentions a visit he made to check out Professor Moriarty that ended up with the latter using a lamp and a few globes to demonstrate eclipses. Despite his criminal record, he was probably a good teacher.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 22, 2020 12:23:39 GMT -8
If you intend to fly a spacecraft to the moon, the geography of space and physics of gravity are important. But when pondering the little problems that will inevitably pop up in such a densely populated city such as London, these things are irrelevant.
There’s a quote like that in one of his novels. I can’t find it. Extra credit if you can find it.
Dealing with intellectual curiosities for the sake of doing so is no less worthy than appreciating art for art’s sake. But neither may be technically useful in most fields.
One can have an airy sense of “broadening the mind.” But minds these days are shortened by the typical university education. Is one better off in this world, and/or a better person, if they are a champion on Jeopardy!? In the case of a rare few who have made of it a profession, the answer is “Yes.” For the rest of us it amounts to small talk and bar bets.
Still, ignorance is not a thing to be championed. And a broad knowledge of the world can’t help but be a general guide. Who knows when some esoteric fact might be useful? Unless the pursuit of such facts gets in the way of living a practical and productive life, I say pack them in.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 22, 2020 12:24:15 GMT -8
How to reply to your post? I had some similar thoughts to yours, but considered things further.
First, it must be remembered that we are talking about a time when I would guess something like maybe 5% of the population was literate. Literacy would increase due to the printing press but it would take time. The educated class generally communicated with each other in Latin and even among the educated class, it took some time for new information to spread across Europe. So of course, the vast majority of people did not hear of such things as Copernicus' theory.
That being said, the educated classes did eventually hear of it and over time the theory would find its way, shorn of all its math and data, down to the people who had no idea of what it all meant. They would mainly hear that there is no up or down. At any time, the majority of people are not terribly interested in higher learning and this was certainly the case 500 years ago so when old foundations are upset, confusion will abound.
For 1,000 years, the Catholic Church had determined what Christianity was, and had spread this dogma throughout Western Europe. Of course, the further down the social scale one got, the lest sophisticated this theology got and even local priests were often less than perfect at teaching the Bible. Don't forget that the Vulgate was in Latin, which only a few understood and they were mainly clerics. The Church forbade translation of the Bible into vernacular languages and people did not have family Bibles, in fact it was at times, forbidden to have one. As in the rest of life, basic themes stood out, "God is in heaven above us and Satin is in hell below us." So the idea that there is no up or down could be, and most probably was, very disturbing to your average peasant tilling his field.
Interestingly, Jerome (Hieronymus) Wolf was a protestant historian of the time, so I am inclined to take his word for it.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 22, 2020 12:36:07 GMT -8
We who live in modern times may find it hard to imagine how a paradigm shift (large, medium, or small) could even outlast a news cycle, let alone shock anyone. We not only don’t blanch at paradigm shifts, we’ve come to expect them.
If someone invented a Star Trek-like transporter, it would be as instantly integrated into common life as the internet is, which is the next best thing to a transporter.
And I understand to some extent the central element of cultish behavior in the Catholic Church. People are very really programmed into a way of thinking wherein changes like those asserted by Copernicus could be troubling.
So I intellectually understand it. But I’m not attuned to the times to have much more of a feel for it. What pisses me off are the scientific assholes who demoted Pluto just so they could re-write the stars in their own image. It doesn’t bother me that Pluto may not be like Jupiter (and the earth certainly is not like Jupiter either). I just hate the arrogant sort of pricks who can’t resist pissing on something in order to claim it as their own.
In the case of astronomy, if inflation theory, dark matter, dark energy, or even multi-verses turn out to be true, I’ll just yawn and be appreciative that we’ve learned something new.
But it is logically inconsistent to me to say that creation and a Creator are diminished because the universe has been found to be different and even more wondrous than we had imagined.
But for those indoctrinated into a cult, contrary information can be quite upsetting. Walk into any place these days and declare “There are only men or women — the rest are play-acting” and you’ll see the repercussions of disclaiming the queercentric view of the universe. But then you know all that and I hardly expect you to disagree.
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