The "Best" Possible History

[Nicolas I]

Sorry Veldmaarschalk,

I read most of the posts but didn't see yours. I took notice and will be more carefull in the future to read everything before posting and to look more actively for coloured posts i.e. moderators interventions.

 

[Beelz]

Whichever way you look at it murder is murder. Every society that has ever existed has been built by murderers and thieves, so it is inevitable for societies to become brutal and corrupt. All we can really do is try to be good people and help those around us.

 

[Spartanlemur]

Without a doubt, if Abrahamic religion had been nipped in the bud before it spread, we'd be living in a far more open minded world today. I'd say that if Abrahamic religions never got off the ground, we'd be living 500 years in the future.

Romano-Greek philosophies might have moved forward and Nietzsche (or another person to do what he and other recent philosophers did) may have arisen a lot earlier than within the last few hundred years.

Religion really has been the major driving force in the western world, and if somehow we could have become more tolerant of one and other, Europe and the Middle East might be far more friendly today, accepting each others' pagan gods. Of course, without a pope to maintain stability in Europe or a Caliph to do the same for each sect of Islam, it would seem that we might just have chaos. It is far more likely, however, that the Eastern Roman Empire would have retained dominance in the Med without such pressure from newly zealous Arab warlords.
Without Christian Rome, the West would either have been easy pickings for the East to start reclaiming or would have formed a Roman-German culture free from Christianity which would have by itself spread North.

Either way, we would be left with a world where philosophers and innovative scientists would have been accepted (or had at least had a place to flee to) and not executed or shunned.

Without Abrahamic religions we'd *probably* be in a much friendlier world today. After all, while the world today is accepting of other cultures, religion remains the primary cause for our separation and the dominant reason for diplomatic friction (up with blind economic greed) in the world today.

 

[unmerged(522481)]

What I can say is:

When modern Democracy was made in Europe, Fathers of Constitutions over Europe stated rules about:

"The State can't set new taxes or issue currency to fix costs emerging in this year."

If this rule was respected all over Europe, probably today the European GDP would have not increased so much, but the ratio about debt and GDP would have been more balanced and reasonableb. So now we have to pay to our father errors.

The fact is that socialism in West Europe created huge financial costs to compete with Communism, and I fear West Europe has stolen from Africa the resources to fund her welfare, where she could.

I'm not saying Welfare State is wrong; but it's wrong to abuse of it.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Without a doubt, if Abrahamic religion had been nipped in the bud before it spread, we'd be living in a far more open minded world today. I'd say that if Abrahamic religions never got off the ground, we'd be living 500 years in the future.

Romano-Greek philosophies might have moved forward and Nietzsche (or another person to do what he and other recent philosophers did) may have arisen a lot earlier than within the last few hundred years.

Religion really has been the major driving force in the western world, and if somehow we could have become more tolerant of one and other, Europe and the Middle East might be far more friendly today, accepting each others' pagan gods. Of course, without a pope to maintain stability in Europe or a Caliph to do the same for each sect of Islam, it would seem that we might just have chaos. It is far more likely, however, that the Eastern Roman Empire would have retained dominance in the Med without such pressure from newly zealous Arab warlords.
Without Christian Rome, the West would either have been easy pickings for the East to start reclaiming or would have formed a Roman-German culture free from Christianity which would have by itself spread North.

Either way, we would be left with a world where philosophers and innovative scientists would have been accepted (or had at least had a place to flee to) and not executed or shunned.

Without Abrahamic religions we'd *probably* be in a much friendlier world today. After all, while the world today is accepting of other cultures, religion remains the primary cause for our separation and the dominant reason for diplomatic friction (up with blind economic greed) in the world today.

I disagree... we'd be living in a vain, death-worshipping and glory-worshipping world with Chinese attitudes to human rights and the value of a human life. Our kings and emperors would value life by what economic value they can extract from it. A few old weirdos with beards would talk about how people have souls, but no one would take them seriously. People in need of spirituality would pray to the next tree and if they wanted the gods to be particularly nice to them they would sacrifice a goat. If minorities within your state caused trouble, your kings and emperors would order their extermination by genocide. Because, hey, why not? It's not like there's an afterlife or those people have souls. I wouldn't want to live in that world.

 

[DoomBunny]

Because there was never a concept of the afterlife in a non Abrahamic religion.

 

[Fishman786]

What if Buddhism had caught on in a big way in the Hellenic world? With no nasty Chinese autocracy to work around and no caste system, I could imagine the Greeks doing Buddhism 'properly'.

 

[Nicolas I]

What if Buddhism had caught on in a big way in the Hellenic world? With no nasty Chinese autocracy to work around and no caste system, I could imagine the Greeks doing Buddhism 'properly'.

I always thought Buddhism was a peacefull religion. But in Sri Lanka they were proponents in ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the tamil minority. That conflict is very complex (there was also tamil terrorism) so I will not take side. But it showed that, as many religions, Buddhists can also make war and nasty things.

 

[unmerged(522481)]

Either way, we would be left with a world where philosophers and innovative scientists would have been accepted (or had at least had a place to flee to) and not executed or shunned.

I don't think so. Development and research are strictly inferentially connected with monotheism or religions "like-Abrahimic-religions"; this is a fact, and if you think Pagan Religions are related to a better development, you are just ignoring history and statistics.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

I always thought Buddhism was a peacefull religion. But in Sri Lanka they were proponents in ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the tamil minority. That conflict is very complex (there was also tamil terrorism) so I will not take side. But it showed that, as many religions, Buddhists can also make war and nasty things.

Buddhism is a peaceful religion, in theory, but so is Christianity. Rulers will try to abuse religion regardless of what the spirit of a religion is supposed to be... that's the same all over the world.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Because there was never a concept of the afterlife in a non Abrahamic religion.

The Greek and Romans had ideas of an afterlife but to them it was "that dull, grey vault where souls are locked and where there is no joy". Check Orpheus and Eurydike.

The idea that there would be a place for souls to go was no consolation to people. So they min-maxed the enjoyment they could have in life, at the detriment of others. Not wanting to be forgotten was one of the main motivating factors for Alexander the Great if you believe what contemporaries wrote about him. Massive vanity. Death means end of all things, end of enjoyment, so they indulged while they could. Or became Stoics.

The Graeco-Roman antiquity was a pretty harsh and brutal world actually, if you were not a rich person. And even then sometimes. Yes their material standard of living was higher than some later ages, and they built some seriously awesome temples, but the way people treated each other was just horrible most of the time. Slavery without any kindness, massive exploitation of the weak, unchecked brutality by the government against anyone opposing them, genocidal warfare, no concept of human dignity. Even the oh so glorious Romans had their priests sacrifice human victims to sate the gods, when Hannibal threatened their city. Thanks but I'll pass! For all the obscurantism and superstition it brought, Christianity did make Europe a better place to live in.

 

[unmerged(522481)]

Yes their material standard of living was higher than some later ages

And, we have to consider that their standard of living was lowered by Pagan invasions and lootings.
Not by Byzantine Greeks (Strong Christianity), who were the first economic, scientific, cultural power until the Crusades in Europe.

 

[Garfield]

Religion really has been the major driving force in the western world, and if somehow we could have become more tolerant of one and other, Europe and the Middle East might be far more friendly today, accepting each others' pagan gods.

I think you'll find that there was no shortage of war and violence in Europe and the Middle East while they were pagan (see f.e the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Greco-Persian wars etc.)

Either way, we would be left with a world where philosophers and innovative scientists would have been accepted (or had at least had a place to flee to) and not executed or shunned.

You mean like 16th century Salamanca ?

Without Abrahamic religions we'd *probably* be in a much friendlier world today. After all, while the world today is accepting of other cultures, religion remains the primary cause for our separation and the dominant reason for diplomatic friction (up with blind economic greed) in the world today.

Well, forty years ago no one considered religious differences to be a cause of political separation. On the other hand, plenty of people considered race to be the major issue that would forever be a source of friction (Jim Crow laws had just been repealed after all). Funny how that turned out

 

[youkali]

I remember an old History Prof who maintained the 3 most important figures in History were Christ, Mohammed and Gavrilo Princip. Ruling out the first by date, that leaves the choice between no rise of Islam or no WW I. Given the body count from the latter (Communism, Stalin, Hitler, WWII, Mao, the ongoing "unrest" in the old Ottoman Empire, etc.) I'd go for no Russian mobilization in 1914--the primary cause of all of that. But you have to remember the hazardous nature of such speculation. I forget who, but somebody wrote a science fiction tale in which Princip was really Werner Heisenberg, who had invented a time machine and gone back to Sarajevo to start the Great War, because in his universe, it was started by Hitler after Germany had the atomic bomb.

 

[trybald]

And, we have to consider that their standard of living was lowered by Pagan invasions and lootings.
Not by Byzantine Greeks (Strong Christianity), who were the first economic, scientific, cultural power until the Crusades in Europe.

The collapse of the post-classical society in Italy was caused mainly by the destruction wrought by the Gothic War in which the Byzantine Empire was rather heavily involved. Elsewhere in the West the collapse either did not happened (like in Spain) or was at much lesser scale (as in Gaul/France).

Besides, the influx of Germans and Slavs into lands formerly controlled could actually had made life easier for an ordinary man. The barbarians brought heavy plough and crop rotation. Soon afterwards horse collar and stirrups also appeared. Those innovations allowed for much more efficient food production, facilitating huge population growth after the decline in the later part of the Roman Empire.

 

[unmerged(522481)]

When I said "not by Byzs" etc etc I meant the standards in the Empire were higher.

Spain not collapsed? Ask about Visigoths and Vandals. I mean: c'mon they are "vandals", we can't ignore facts.

I'm clearly speaking about High Middle Age, or Early Middle Age, years before 1000 a. C.
During this period, Europe has a bad democraphic grow rate, low demographic population, low stock of human and mechanical capital.
This contributed to a good increase of stock of technological capital during centuries, but in that period life was bad for everyone.

Mechanicals innovations in agricolture was done by Germans and Slavs, but, after the 1000 a. C, and, under large political scenario of Christianity, not Paganism.

Now, these are historical facts, well documented by Books and Authors about Political and Economical History in Europe and Social Demography. It can be possibile to believe in the magical world of Vikings Gods and Greek Myths where everyone is an high graduate and there are no social conflicts. But it is also possibile to believe in Santa Claus. Just, where are facts in all this?

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Aren't you both (tybald, JayKenton) argueing for the same thing? That life in Christian Europe was not any worse than in pre-Christian times?

 

[Tirunus]

Well, that's because the natives all died before we could civilise them. Unfortunate, but if they're gonna resist, then it's needed.

I am always astounded by followers of the "White man's burden". We did introduce European technology such as gunpowder, Metal and horses. We also killed about 3/4 of their population through war and disease. Destroying their culture and forcing them onto tracts of inhospitable land. But answer this,

Did we improve their lot in life? Did we make them happier?

 

[the_hdk]

I am always astounded by followers of the "White man's burden". We did introduce European technology such as gunpowder, Metal and horses. We also killed about 3/4 of their population through war and disease. Destroying their culture and forcing them onto tracts of inhospitable land. But answer this,

Did we improve their lot in life? Did we make them happier?

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd ...

 

[Tirunus]

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd ...

Okay, and?