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+bluesman1929 It seems then their advancement is due to the promotion of free thinking and a culture that allowed exploration and application of new ideas without being vilified and strung up from the first tree. If the Egyptians had developed these ideals early in their history I think the world would be at least 1000 years ahead today.

+chinacane I agree - for an historian, it does look very bad. I find such howlers embarrassing, and I'm a big Carrier fan (except for atheism+ which is shameful).You raise a very interesting question. Archaic Greek monumental sculpture, say from about 600 B.C., does begin in a highly formulaic and abstract style strongly influenced by Egyptian sculpture. But the remarkable thing is that, unlike the Egyptians who endlessly repeated their formulae for millennia with hardly any development, Greek sculpture progressed from fairly primitive beginnings at a truly astonishing speed, evolving a naturalistic style and combining it with a concept of ideal beauty in little more than a hundred years. It does seem as if the Greek mind consciously strove for progress towards naturalism, rapidly ditching formulae in a way that more rigid, hidebound societies were incapable of, or rather had no inclination to do. And of course they made the same astounding progress in other fields. A truly remarkable race.

+bluesman1929 I see. But still, as a historian he is making himself look as though his is lacking in the historical knowledge he is trying to impart.If I can digress. Did the Greeks spontaneously become such fabulous sculptors? I mean did they just have the knack for it because we don't really see anything less than amazing from them. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians/Persians were nowhere near the greek refinement so they could have learnt this style from them.

+chinacane Good point. Historians have a relatively poor grasp of art history - something I notice often as an art historian. In that particular speech you can see he's searching for the comparison he wants, with the superior quality of earlier Imperial sculpture (largely produced by Greeks, of course - the Romans were not naturally artistic but hugely admired the Greek achievement). But he is forced to come up with 'Da Vinci' of all people - he's not really mixing up his eras, just floundering for the right comparison - he should have just left it at 'classical', Graeco-Roman, Hadrianic, neo-Attic, or mentioned the Ara Pacis Augustae - even referred to Phidias if he wanted a big classical name - but not 'Da Vinci' for heaven's sake. It's kind of typical of those with a strong science bent. Dawkins make a similar bad comparison in the God Delusion.

+poodtang1 Opium has beneficial uses. It can relieve pain and suffering. If religion is the opium of the masses (and false religion is), what difference does it make whether one is religious or not? Everyone has a religion. We all worship something. And it is quite something to say that "the masses" were simple, uneducated for the last 2000 years, when percentage wise, the same discrepancy exists today. Religion is considered dangerous in many parts of the world. It leads to ideas, values that can change whole societies and political processes. So if only "simple people" believe in anything, why are they not allowed? Why are people killed for believing? Why do people kill because of what they believe? No, every man has his own form of religion, and to make the statement "religion is the opium of the masses" is to make a value statement which denigrates religion, and thus the freedom of religion. Is man truly free when he has no higher law unto himself whereby to judge his actions?

You are correct sir. Carrier is a turd. See my above comments. : )

same lol he has a smug face but he has an interesting case.

+Skindoggiedog and still proves my point exactly 

+John Doe <Stereotypical, thoroughly-overused, completely pointless reply>See? We can all add nothing to the conversation and might as well be a bot.

+Skindoggiedog opinions are like assholes...everybody has one, and 99.9% of them stink...

+Felix Bürgermeister Well Constantine I as per the legend converted to Christianity after having a dream and seeing the sign of the cross leading him to victory in battle. That’s what the legend says but reality seems to be much more practical. In the 4th century there was a wide variety of different cults operating in the Empire of course each of the Roman Gods had their followers but you also had apart from Christians; believes of Attis, Zoroaster and several others not to mention that at that time Mithraism was the ‘’official’’ state religion. There was a lot of confrontation among the citizens based on religion (there was also clashes within Christianity as well the different sect like the Gnostics who were latereliminated argued a lot on dogma).Christianity would have been very appealing to Constantine as a means to consolidate his political power (Constantine had his co-emperor murdered). Of course there had been periods of Christian persecution in the empire and their Roman executioners were always surprised by the submissiveness of their Christian victims. So for Constantine, have a state religion that promotes submission to authorities, piousness, righteousness found in living a poor life, discouraging both education and political involvement would have been the perfect cult to market as theofficial state religion. Regardless of his claim of conversion it’s important to note that Constantine later killed his own son and boiled his wife alive… great guy really. And he continued to have the image of Mithras minted on his coins long after his alleged conversion. The citizens of Rome being used to having many different deities to worship were fed the new Catholic dogmas and cults of Jesus were accompanied with worship of the virgin Mary and the rest of the saints from the NT. Christianity spread quite rapidly when Constantine’s successor Emperor Theodosius shortly afterwards declared those who did not convert to Christianity could be legally killed by anyone and have their property stolen. The Vatican was established and by the end of the 1st millennia, the Pope and religious authorities of the Holy Roman Catholic church was the most powerful political entity in the civilised world. Kings and rulers of all European countries were subservient to religious authority. The rise of Islam and the threat of being attacked by the Islamic forces of evil united the various European kingdoms under the guise of Christianity (of course all the crusades to retake the holy land from the infidels show this). So even after the fall of the Roman Empire, the power and structure of the church was so powerful it had already long been independent from roman political rule in fact it was the other way around. Hope my analysis helps you out.

+Felix Bürgermeister Don't know. Don't care

can you update the newest one thanks a lot

Refresh the special english quickly please

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