Did Christianity delay or accelerate European greatness?

>>2240913
well for a great deal of Europe's history, the only people transcribing, preserving and writing books were Christian theologians, so at the very least it probably didn't hurt

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>>2240913

>claim to have given unity to the Roman Empire, that kept most of the Old Word united, after causing massive social disruption in the first place
>destroy europe's pagan heritage to a degree that makes the Taliban look refined... cool down after a few centuries, keep what's left and insist you're a vital part, a continuation and preserver of a philosophical tradition
>open the floodgates to a bunch of heresies, most important of which being Islam, which fucked entire parts of the world and the eventual Earth

Seriously, the Levant was a mistake.

>>2240918

Came to say this. They kept a lot of literature safe for many years, and were hard workers themselves producing lots.

>>2240918
They also focused European intelligence into a litterally useless field, theology and closed academias from ancient greece.

On the bright side they've kept peasants from marrying their relatives.

>>2240982
>European intelligence into a litterally useless field, theology and closed academias from ancient greece.
Theology is as useful as philosophy. And it wasn't the only thing that was taught in universities.

By greatness, if you mean the current Europe, then yes.

>>2240961
>>2240918
>burn 90% of the books
>write over 5%
>copy 5%
hey guyis we saved and progressed knowledge, you owe us lel

>>2241842
You think nordcuck pagans had literature before being OLIVED?

>>2240913

Too many unknowns. But the Catholic church didn't just preserve knowledge, they provided a unifying force to Europe. Without that, I don't know if Europe could have withstood the military and cultural momentum of Islam. Whether Europe would have thrived more or less under Muslim virtues and ideas, I can't say for sure, but in the past few hundred years the Muslim world really fell behind, so...

>>2241060
>Theology is as useful as philosophy.
Nope, first philosophy is often applicable to society, second it can create effective methods to study nature like the scientific method, third philosophy contained even physical philosophy back then.

Theology is pure nonsense that only gets useful once it stops being theology and starts talking about earthly issues.

>And it wasn't the only thing that was taught in universities.
But it was the focus.

>>2240913
No. Monks were responsible for copying books, and for metallurgy, for example.
What truly stopped science were:
>Collapse of Roman Empire under Germanic invaders
>Renaissance people rejecting medieval achievements so hard some advancements had to be reinvented, despite already being available

>>2240913
It did, but through conflict. Guelphs and Ghibbellines, Catholics and Calvinists... all those conflicts made the government to become lay and don't care about the personal life of each individual. The State's function would be the creation of an ambience of tolerance and freedom instead of one that defended a determined gospel truth or salvation.

>>2241842
Surely you have trusted sources to back up that claim, don't you anon, no one would just pull stuff out of their ass, right anon?

>Modern scholarly estimates place the total number of executions for witchcraft in the 300-year period of European witch-hunts in the five digits, mostly at roughly between 40,000 and 50,000 (see table below for details),[3] but some estimate there were 200,000 to 500,000 executed for witchcraft, and others estimated 1,000,000 or more.[4][59][60][61] The majority of those accused were from the lower economic classes in European society, although in rarer cases high-ranking individuals were accused as well. On the basis of this evidence, Scarre and Callow asserted that the "typical witch was the wife or widow of an agricultural labourer or small tenant farmer, and she was well known for a quarrelsome and aggressive nature."

>While it appears to be the case that the clear majority of victims in Germany were women, in other parts of Europe the witch-hunts targeted primarily men, thus in Iceland 92-percent of the accused were men, in Estonia 60-percent, and in Moscow two-thirds of those accused were male.

>>2242059
So if christians burn down the library of Alexandria, theyre doing it to preserve knowledge?

>>2242076
>Protestants

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>>2241959

>>2240937

Rome destroyed European civilization systematically, then created a tyrannical macro culture that stagnated the evolution of technology throughout the European continent.

> Carthage
> Gaul
> Greece
> Anatolia

Rome did not innovate upon its conquests, but rather used man power to solve problems.

Christianity removed Slavery from many peoples which allowed for greater vertical growth amongst the populous, without slaves, people innovated their problems using technological reasoning, rather than manumission.

So go suck my big cock, you pagan larping faggot.

>>2240913
you act as if religions not developing was an option

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>>2241998
>Monks were responsible for copying books

Reminder that monks - for the most part - only bothered preserving books containing ideas that were compatible with Christianity. For example, much of Aristotle was copied, since his ideas were seen as precursor of Christian theological ideas, whereas others - notably Plato - were either purposefully destroyed or left to rot until they dissolved. As notable as Plato is, the Catholic West was unaware of him until a Byzantine scholar by the name Plethon reintroduced him to the Venetians.

>>2242620


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scotus_Eriugena

>>2240913
Literally the only thing that kept some semblance of order and continuity after Rome fell

>>2241842
>burn 90% of books
Anon, that's wrong and you are retarded.

>>2240982
Theology was basically applied philosophy in the medieval ages. The theologians of Medieval Europe were obsessed with formal logic and rational argument in favor of faith and they really advanced the rhetorical devices necessary for it. Just read fucking St. Thomas Aquinas for an example of how theology and philosophy were inextricable from each other in the medieval era.

>dark ages never happens in theocratic Byzantium
Reallymakesyouthink

>>2242076
>mobs do crazy ass things when there's no significant central power to keep them in check

Note how that shit didn't happen in centralized Spain and the Italian states, but did happen in decentralized Germany and the in the areas of France/England that were in conflict with the central power.

>>2243748
I know they developed usefull things in studying the useless, but the point is these people had potential to be even greater had they focused on the useful.

>of how theology and philosophy were inextricable from each other in the medieval era
When ideology and philosophy unite it is most often not a good thing

>>2243779
Pretty interesting how Byzantium is never studied in depth in most history curriculums. Makes me think.

>>2243146
Christians need to explain why during the dark ages all the largest libraries were in muslim areas