[Rigelian]

Re quoting sources: sorry Fyron, agree with most of your points but you can't operate double standards on that one. Trouble is, a trawl of sci-fi fans and wargamers rarely results in a crop of historians. So most of us are arguing from a pretty incomplete recollection of what is (at best) a very patchy body of evidence to begin with...

To throw a few points in that have been neglected I think.

This may be more difficult than you think. For one, the monasteries were repositories for many of the great classical texts of mathematics (Euclid, Pythagorus), medicine (Aristotle, Galen), philosophy (Plato, Aristotle again), and astronomy (Hipparchus, Ptolemy). And the thinkers of the Middle Ages were church trained, because that was the only real source of education.

With the exception of an early post mentioning Arabic (actually Indian, folks) numerals, the role of the Islamic world has been overlooked here. Many of the works of classical civilisation were preserved by Islamic scholars, along with many of the humanistic values of that civilisation. There is an argument that the beginnings of (relatively) peaceful contact with the Ottoman Empire in the post-crusading period were the main trigger for the Renaissance. Those classical texts were 'rediscovered' by Western scholars through those contacts. Remember that Europe was a complete backwater for almost a thousand years.

There has been an explosion of interest in the Classical period in recent years; making a massive generalisation, I would say that (rose-tinted of course) admiration for the Hellenistic civilisation often takes the form of considering 'us' to be closer to 'them' than to the people of the intervening couple of millenia. And I would argue that modern Christianity is an expression of this trend also.

The Christianity as practiced, and certainly as expressed by the church, in that intervening period has borne little relation to the tolerance and forgiveness espoused in the New Testament. On the contrary, it has far more often taken the form of the vicious, desert-tribe, patriachal nastiness of the Old. So has the church changed and 'evolved' (irony intentional) towards a truer reflection of New-Testament values of its own accord? Or is it an organisation forced, kicking and screaming to adapt to the civilisation it forms an increasingly smaller part of? I refer you to the example of the recent scandals in the Catholic church; voluntary or kicking-and-screaming reform? Ironically this of course arises from the one Classical practice indisputably preserved in the monasteries - pederasty.

So how did this religion occur, that can preach 'an eye for an eye' as well as 'turn the other cheek'? I would argue that New-Testament Christianity is a product of its time and place - the Hellenistic world. The values that many think of as uniquely Christian are nothing of the sort, they are Greek, to the extent that any single source for them can be postulated. The relationship between the modern Western state and the church is now quintessentially Roman of course - "any religion you like, just pay your taxes..".

But, back on the main line of the thread (or one of them). Did religion hold back advancement in Europe in the period between the Ancient and Modern periods? (not getting into the EDA timeframe scrap). I would say absolutely yes, because the fundamental mental landscape was that of 'argument from authority', rather than 'argument from evidence'. [much much more detail in the 'Galilieo' debate at the tail end of the parent thread]. This is an Achilles heel of all religions - it is the Secularism, not the Christianity, of the Western world that has allowed us to outstrip the rest so spectacularly.

One Last direct response:

BTW, there is at least some evidence that the pre-EDA was still a sort of "Dim Ages"--that is, that earlier civilizations had much better technology and scientific understanding that they are generally credited with (probably because of a prevalent man"-is-constantly-getting-better" bias, which the EDA would seem to belie).

Please, please not a Hancock or (much worse) Von Daniken plug here I hope? But if you are just saying that earlier ages were composed of people just as intelligent as we are, then I heartily agree. But I would say that the 'prevalent' view, even now, is still the romantic motion of 'wise ancient civilisations'. This has not been true for centuries of course, but the majority of the populace today STILL mistrusts science, underestimates massively and tragically the extent to which technology has transformed their lives relative to their ancestors, and hankers for some mythical pastoral dream as the 'perfect' life. Try David Brin's website for more elequent arguments along this line than mine.

tesco, count me in as a heretic, once my copy of Gold arrives