# What Would The World With a Marginalized Christianity Look Like **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126 "2011-05-16T19:31:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/141 "2011-05-19T12:00:08Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Give me a break here. There were plenty of libraries throughout the Roman empire, and the loss of the library at the Serapeum temple was hardly the main cause of all those ancient books being lost. For the most part, after the fall of the Roman empire books were lost mainly due to neglect and apathy. Books were expensive and libraries cost a lot to build and maintain. These things became luxuries which only a few could afford. The Christians weren’t primarily responsible for the loss of the ancient world’s literature. I"ll give you a correction instead. There absolutely were small private and public libraries, and the _vast_ majority of them were filled with nothing but political and business records, letters, and official communications with perhaps the odd copy of some odd paper on an unrelated subject. The Library at Alexandria, and the Serapeum were the primary and secondary source for scientific and general knowledge storage. The former of course suffered it’s loss as an accident, the latter was deliberately burned. After the loss of those two major centers the world later turned to what copies could be located made by Arabic scholars. Your political feeling, or opinion on the role of religion doesn’t allow you to write revisionist history. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/142 "2011-05-19T12:25:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > How so? The Catholic Church was the main preserver of books and education in Europe throughout the Dark Ages. They preserved the Books that agreed with their Philosophy,and discarded or banned others, for many years there were Books banned by the RCC. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/143 "2011-05-19T12:29:24Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > After the accidental destruction of the library at Alexandria, it’s “back up” The Serapeum in Alexandria was destroyed by a christian mob tearing down pagan worships sites. (the Serapeum was attached to a pagan temple). Though accounts differ, and some place the blame on roman soldiers, it certainly was destroyed in a religious conflict between the two factions, started by the Christians. After that, we only had the copies of the Muslim scholars and whatever the early church collected. it’s worth noting that concentrating knowledge is not the same as utilizing or sharing it. The church kept a great political stranglehold on much of the world by limiting scholars to the priestly ranks. An uneducated, religious, and credulous public and monarchy was extremely lucrative for the church. To Add..The Sapnish also destroyed a lot of writings of the Inca and Mayans.They thought it was the works of Satan! ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/144 "2011-05-19T14:56:31Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Oh, please. Christianity never had any problem with supporting slavery. And an utter contempt for human life is a basic part of its worldview; after all, it’s the soul and afterlife that matters. A concern for human life and a desire to ameliorate human suffering requires that one first reject or ignore the basic tenets of Christianity about how the world works. There are many Christians who do just that of course; but however much they dislike admitting it, they are perverting their fundamentally evil religion by trying to do good in its name. Your ignorance of basic Christian tenets is quite telling in this statement. Christianity is indeed concerned with the soul and the afterlife; but what you do in THIS life has an impact on your afterlife. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/145 "2011-05-19T15:01:52Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > I"ll give you a correction instead. There absolutely were small private and public libraries, and the _vast_ majority of them were filled with nothing but political and business records, letters, and official communications with perhaps the odd copy of some odd paper on an unrelated subject. The Library at Alexandria, and the Serapeum were the primary and secondary source for scientific and general knowledge storage. The former of course suffered it’s loss as an accident, the latter was deliberately burned. After the loss of those two major centers the world later turned to what copies could be located made by Arabic scholars. So there were no copies of any of those books anywhere else in the ancient Mediterranean world, and the libraries at Alexandria and Serapeum held most of the Mediterranean world’s supply of books? Somehow I’m skeptical of that, and I stand by what I said. Most of the books of the ancient world were not lost because fanatical Christians burned libraries or because the all-powerful Church suppressed forbidden books. Most of them were lost because [nobody considered them worth preserving](http://www.livius.org/gi-gr/gospels/disappearance.html). Deliberate destruction of books for religious reasons was rare. > [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Your political feeling, or opinion on the role of religion doesn’t allow you to write revisionist history. (shrug) Neither does yours. The notion that the Christians were exclusively or primarily responsible for the loss of most of the classical world’s literature is not a historical fact, but an anti-Christian smear. I don’t recall that you have specifically made this claim, but certainly others on this thread are saying or implying it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/146 "2011-05-19T15:07:23Z")
Christians were actually responsible for _preserving_ most of the classical literature we still have available to us. We still have stuff like Aristotle and Plato because it was preserved and copied in Christian monastaries during the Dark Ages. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/147 "2011-05-19T15:15:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Yeah, right. :rolleyes: Of course in reality the reason for that hatred is the things Christianity has done and continues to do. It deserves to be despised for the same reasons ideologies like sexism, racism, Communism and Nazism deserve to be despised; irrationality, tyranny, injustice, exploitation and slaughter. Being a religion doesn’t put it above condemnation. :rolleyes: yourself. Most of the things you list here are boogeymen. In any case, the only one you condemn frequently and regularly with such ferocity is Christianity. It’s awfully hard to believe your accusations are founded on facts rather than mere hatred. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it doesn’t matter in the slightest, since I was refuting the claim that the Hindus and the Hindus alone were guilty of that particular evil. Nobody said that the Hindus and the Hindus alone had done such a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/148 "2011-05-19T18:33:10Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Christians were actually responsible for _preserving_ most of the classical literature we still have available to us. We still have stuff like Aristotle and Plato because it was preserved and copied in Christian monastaries during the Dark Ages. I’d agree with you about some of the classical literature we have, but not in the specific cases of Aristotle and Plato. Western Europe didn’t rediscover Aristotle until the 12th century, after Reconquista armies retook Toledo, and the Toledo School of Translation (people like Gerard of Cremona, John of Seville, Herman the German) translated the works on Aristotle and their Arabic commentaries into Latin. Plato was lost to the west until the 15th century, when Byzantine scholars, most notably Georgius Gemistus, but there were others too, fled Constantinople ahead of the Turks and came to Italy. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/149 "2011-05-19T19:25:06Z")
Byzantium was Christian of course, so just because those works were lost to western Christendom doesn’t mean they were lost to Christendom. Remember guys, the Christian Roman Empire lasted until 1452. The topic of this thread is, “What Would The World With a Marginalized Christianity Look Like?”. If the answer to is, “It would be fricken awesome, because places without Christianity holding them back outperform places with Christianity”, well, we have to look at actual places in the actual world. China and Japan and India and Mongolia and the Americas weren’t hotbeds of science, reason, innovation, peace, human rights, and gender equality. Neither was classical Europe or medieval pagan Europe. It’s a simple fact. Here I’m excluding consideration of the Islamic world on the grounds that Islam was heavily influenced by Christianity and also grew from the same roots. The reason I’m not a Christian isn’t because I believe Christianity is horrible and Christians are horrible people who do horrible things, the reason I’m not a Christian is because I believe Christianity is false. I also don’t believe in Zeus or Shiva, for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126/150 "2011-05-19T19:42:46Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Byzantium was Christian of course, so just because those works were lost to western Christendom doesn’t mean they were lost to Christendom. Right. I was specifically disputing the monastery suggestion. Byzantium was certainly Christian, and the Byzantines had the classical philosophers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-world-with-a-marginalized-christianity-look-like/582126.md?page=7)