MrNemo posted:Really heresies like that are less surprising when you consider that these are pretty common issues people have with the religion today (why would God allow Satan to tempt Adam and Eve in the garden?) A lot of heresies also tend to pose a local person who is held in high moral esteem in his community against outsider members of the institutional church, who are often very wealthy. That's a common pattern in medieval heresies.
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Jun 1, 2015 11:25
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Disinterested posted:A lot of heresies also tend to pose a local person who is held in high moral esteem in his community against outsider members of the institutional church, who are often very wealthy. That's a common pattern in medieval heresies. Yeah, I think that this: Grand Fromage posted:Maybe complex is a bad word, but the other religions I know about (I don't know that much to be fair) will have something contradictory and don't even address it. They seem very willing to accept all sorts of things and multiple truths, whereas Christianity has a long tradition of trying to nail everything down in a consistent manner. Isn't true, because there's tons and tons of contradictory things in Christianity that are unaddressed, and the choice of the trinity as a complete impossibility rather than an explanation makes sense shows this pretty clearly. The logically impossible nature of the trinity means that a lot of people these days are actually 'heretics', mostly Arians or Pelagians or some variation there of. The catholic church doesn't really care about this, as long as nobody is leading that point of view as a political movement. Christianity especially disregards the massive contradiction of the difference between the old testament god and the new testament god. Sure, you have a lot of religious types opining on this, but there is no actual consistent view. There are instead myriad contradictory positions on why this is so, and this is fine, inside Christianity. In fact, it's better to have the variety of explanations, in case someone finds one unconvincing. But we're wandering afield from ancient stuff. I'm pretty ignorant about Christianity's beginnings. I'm sorry of the thread has covered this before, but I don't get how Christianity was ever anything other than a ruthlessly oppressed minority in Rome. Had the culture of Rome changed so much by that point, or would (gay black Hitler) the Christianizing of Rome been possible at an earlier period?
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Jun 1, 2015 11:47
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I think it helped that Chrisianity could have been a good way of networking for provincial aristocrats. Like Mithraism, etc, you had a semi-secret group of local civil service/officer types meeting regularly outside the state-controlled fora of Imperial politics or religion. Plenty of time for bonding over philosophy and probably shared political goals too. That kind of influence is one of the main reasons the persecutor emperors considered Christianity a threat, and if history teaches us anything, it's that if you don't control the local nobility, you don't control anything.
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Jun 1, 2015 12:05
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An element of followers trained in Greek logic wanting to apply it to their religion and instead of simply accepting it spending centuries arguing about whether such and such a doctrine can be explained. I believe there's a strong element of Arabic Islamic philosphy and Theology that would fit in here as well, they also had great debates about whether God was constantly willing things to happen and maintained existence or had been the First Cause. Hell that argument is one of the reason so many Sunnis today use the phrase 'Insh'Allah' since on the Sunni side of things 'God wills all events and actions' was the winning belief. Of course they're also trying to square that one with Free Will... There are also Christian mystics who very much don't adopt a logical approach and are willing to accept contradiction and don't believe we can intellectually understand God. Generally with so much shared heritage and cultural interchange, if you think there are stark contrasts between the Abrahamic faiths (in terms of approaches and understanding, not so much content) then it's because you're looking at the dominant approaches today or aren't aware of some of the others. I'll admit that religion in the West/Middle East developed very, very differently from the East and we have some real dichotomies there.
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Jun 1, 2015 13:32
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Islam is a bit more streamlined in its core beliefs - it really puts the 'mono' in monotheism in center also you have the whole ghazali line of anti-philosophical argument which is, paradoxally, an enormously powerful series of anti-metaphysical arguments which ended up pretty much eliminating logical metaphysics in favour of mysticism in mainstream sunni theology Ghazali is a hugely interesting figure - a lot of his reasoning is almost directly analogous to Hume, but instead of collapsing into skepticism he uses Allah as a way out of this predicament in a rather audacious manner. He was, at his time, possibly the most innovative philosopher since Epicurus, and he is criminally underappreciated in the west, imo
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Jun 1, 2015 14:25
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V. Illych L. posted:Islam is a bit more streamlined in its core beliefs - it really puts the 'mono' in monotheism in center He also does Descartes before Descartes (My senses can be fooled, ergo I can only trust the mind/logic) but rather than going all 'I think therefore I am' and building a rational world around that* he hews over to Zhuangz and declares that rational thought is as unsound as sensory observations, because of dreams you see. *I mean, Descartes also does the 'and then a miracle occurs' to get around the evil djinn dilemma. But yeah, deep Islamic stuff is full of crazyness. And they have no better answers for the big problems in Christianity, e.g. 'if God is perfect and everything, what is the point of creating Earth/humanity/sin etc. etc.'
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Jun 1, 2015 14:47
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Ghazali was such a bling thinker that a partial rebuttal to his arguments necessitated the greatest interpretation of Aristotle since the man himself to be even controversially tenable in the Islamic world i really like ghazali you guys
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Jun 1, 2015 15:06
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V. Illych L. posted:Ghazali was such a bling thinker that a partial rebuttal to his arguments necessitated the greatest interpretation of Aristotle since the man himself to be even controversially tenable in the Islamic world Did you just say a kind word about a neoplatonist? Because I might have to beat you up if you did.
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Jun 1, 2015 15:12
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Disinterested posted:Did you just say a kind word about a neoplatonist? hey. HEY! 
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Jun 1, 2015 15:20
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Neoplatonism is bad. Aristotelian scholastics for life.
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Jun 1, 2015 15:24
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Disinterested posted:Did you just say a kind word about a neoplatonist? What no Ghazali utterly murdered Ibn Sina's whole neoplatonic schema Like, he crippled it for centuries e. you want occasionalism? Ghazali has occasionalism in spades
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Jun 1, 2015 15:24
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V. Illych L. posted:What no Ghazali utterly murdered Ibn Sina's whole neoplatonic schema No but you're bigging up Averroes I take it when you say dealing with Ghazali took a big interpretation of Aristotle.
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Jun 1, 2015 15:25
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well sure, i thought Averroes being the Great Commentator of Aristotle was pretty much uncontroversial I admit to being insufficiently familiar with the specifics of his works, but the man pretty much wrote the foundation of western medieval philosophy i was also unaware of him being a neoplatonist, i'll admit
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Jun 1, 2015 15:31
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V. Illych L. posted:well sure, i thought Averroes being the Great Commentator of Aristotle was pretty much uncontroversial Aquinas is to some degree basically trying to read the neoplatonist reading out of Averroes' on Aristotle in the Summa because in the Roman Catholic Christian context neoplatonism's political philosophic endpoint is total church supremacy.
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Jun 1, 2015 15:42
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V. Illych L. posted:well sure, i thought Averroes being the Great Commentator of Aristotle was pretty much uncontroversial What's weird is the Islamist theologians who got a hold of neoplatonist stuff also got their hands on Aristotle and worked him into the mix, so Averroes' defence of Aristotle/the Greek curricula is a neoplatonists defence. And thus, as you mentioned, the main vehicle for neoplatonism becoming big in Italy etc.
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Jun 1, 2015 15:54
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V. Illych L. posted:Ghazali was such a bling thinker that a partial rebuttal to his arguments necessitated the greatest interpretation of Aristotle since the man himself to be even controversially tenable in the Islamic world If you can spare the time from pushing toy soldiers around the trenches, an effort post on Islamic philosophy never goes awry.
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Jun 1, 2015 16:54
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sullat posted:If you can spare the time from pushing toy soldiers around the trenches, an effort post on Islamic philosophy never goes awry. Not an empty quote.
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Jun 1, 2015 16:58
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I'm happy to write the effortpost section on Aristotleanism filtering its way back in to Europe as an addendum 
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Jun 1, 2015 17:07
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sullat posted:If you can spare the time from pushing toy soldiers around the trenches, an effort post on Islamic philosophy never goes awry. I'll see if I can suss it out To be clear, my perspective, though enthusiastic, is sort of limited - I don't speak Arabic (so I rely on translations), I'm not a muslim (nor raised in any real proximity to Islam and Islamic thought) and I'm only really familiar with Ibn Sinna and Al-Ghazali in Islamic philosophy and theology. I am, effectively, a huge dilettante - also, direct quotations will rely on me finding something online, because I don't have my books with me where I am now. With those caveats, though, I can start working on it, and if I feel like it's fit for others' eyes I'll post it up here. If I feel like I have to make too many reservations due to personal ignorance, I'll leave it to someone more intimate with the surrounding framework.
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Jun 1, 2015 17:17
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Eh, it's not like Something Awful is in short supply of Muslims, (though I've noticed most try to avoid mentioning their religion) so someone will certainly chime in with their perspective.
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Jun 1, 2015 17:20
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I can toss on some poo poo about, e.g. Al Farabi, Wasiti, a little Rumi, et. al. I've got some similar dabbling.
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Jun 1, 2015 17:40
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the JJ posted:I can toss on some poo poo about, e.g. Al Farabi, Wasiti, a little Rumi, et. al. I've got some similar dabbling. Don't blow up the thread.
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Jun 1, 2015 20:28
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JaucheCharly posted:Don't blow up the thread. Maybe we need a history of religion thread, if there isn't one. I had in mind to do a history of medieval papacy effortpost series some day.
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Jun 1, 2015 21:04
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It'd be a neat idea but we already have a Judaism thread, Liturgical Christianity thread and a Catholic thread (somewhere). There'd be some overlap but a couple of real knowledgeable posters could probably sustain it.
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Jun 1, 2015 21:13
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Thwomp posted:It'd be a neat idea but we already have a Judaism thread, Liturgical Christianity thread and a Catholic thread (somewhere). I doubt liturgical christianity would appreciate me making GBS threads up their thread with papal decretals from the 14th century but you never know.
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Jun 1, 2015 21:14
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Disinterested posted:I doubt liturgical christianity would appreciate me making GBS threads up their thread with papal decretals from the 14th century but you never know. uh, that is extremely our poo poo
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Jun 1, 2015 21:15
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HEY GAL posted:uh, that is extremely our poo poo Noted.
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Jun 1, 2015 21:29
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I know Rome had guys walking around to keep the peace and catch thieves etc but did they ever have guys investigate crimes like murder or was that just settled by the courts/this guy totally did it let's grab him and nick his stuff?
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Jun 2, 2015 04:45
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Nope! There was no concept of a government prosecution. It was up to you to get the criminal, then to argue in court that he was guilty. You could pay somebody to do it for you, or maybe your Patron would.
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Jun 2, 2015 05:02
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They didn't have any kind of disinterested forensic investigation on behalf of the state, no. "Investigation" was along the lines of hearing the word on the street, that Septimus and Quintus had an argument and Quintus said he'd kill the son of a bitch and then a week later Septimus ended up stabbed to death, so clearly... Also, being a prosecutor was often a risk (consider that Famous Lawyer Cicero pretty much only ever prosecuted one guy), so unless the victim was someone really important and someone cared enough to drag it through the courts, it wasn't very likely that there would be formal justice for a killing by stealth.
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Jun 2, 2015 05:02
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Pwnstar posted:I know Rome had guys walking around to keep the peace and catch thieves etc but did they ever have guys investigate crimes like murder or was that just settled by the courts/this guy totally did it let's grab him and nick his stuff? If you had the money you hired a guy or your lawyers hired a guy to dig dirt up or try to find out poo poo. But otherwise, if you were poor? Tough luck. Nobody cares that your brother died right after he ate his unsatisfied wife's mushroom soup. The government only came to action when crimes involved breaking the peace (for example what Jesus did), tax evasion (during the times they didn't use private tax collectors), treason, trying to escape slavery and similar stuff. And then you were guilty until proven innocent (= until you bribed enough). Decius fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Jun 2, 2015 |
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Jun 2, 2015 09:47
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Tao Jones posted:(consider that Famous Lawyer Cicero pretty much only ever prosecuted one guy) He prosecuted the hell out of that guy though.
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Jun 3, 2015 17:44
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Decius posted:If you had the money you hired a guy or your lawyers hired a guy to dig dirt up or try to find out poo poo. But otherwise, if you were poor? Tough luck. Nobody cares that your brother died right after he ate his unsatisfied wife's mushroom soup. This was true during the Republic and early Augustinian period but the Empire itself and more courts and secret police running around that they did most of the leg work. Still guilty until innocent but the government was the one figuring out guilt.
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Jun 4, 2015 16:18
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I've been reading through some Byzantine history books I picked up and I was amused by this supposed message that Khosrau II sent to Heraclius... Khosrau II posted:Khosrau, greatest of Gods, and master of the earth, to Heraclius, his vile and insensate slave. Why do you still refuse to submit to our rule, and call yourself a king? Have I not destroyed the Greeks? You say that you trust in your God. Why has he not delivered out of my hand Caesarea, Jerusalem, and Alexandria? And shall I not also destroy Constantinople? But I will pardon your faults if you submit to me, and come hither with your wife and children; and I will give you lands, vineyards, and olive groves, and look upon you with a kindly aspect. Do not deceive yourself with vain hope in that Christ, who was not able to save himself from the Jews, who killed him by nailing him to a cross. Even if you take refuge in the depths of the sea, I will stretch out my hand and take you, whether you will or no. This is seriously the ancient version of saying gg before you actually won a game, then the other team making a comeback and making you look like an idiot. I was curious about Khosrau so I looked at Wikipedia and realized he made a couple mistakes on the diplomacy side. "Wikipedia" posted:Khosrau II (Arabic: كسرى) is also remembered in Islamic tradition to be the Persian king to whom Muhammad had sent a messenger, Abdullah ibn Hudhafah as-Sahmi, along with a letter in which Khosrau was asked to preach the religion of Islam.[33][34] The account as transmitted by Muslim historians reads: Apparently Khosrau II was pretty good at pissing people off he shouldn't have. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 5, 2015 09:12
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To be fair, we'd probably all react the same if we were in Khosrau's position and received a letter from some random dude in Mecca telling us to ditch our kingdom's state religion or else. Who does that?
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Jun 5, 2015 10:01
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Jack2142 posted:I've been reading through some Byzantine history books I picked up and I was amused by this supposed message that Khosrau II sent to Heraclius... Muhammad also sent a letter to Heraclius as he honestly had some balls on him
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Jun 5, 2015 16:38
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Kassad posted:To be fair, we'd probably all react the same if we were in Khosrau's position and received a letter from some random dude in Mecca telling us to ditch our kingdom's state religion or else. Who does that? I think the Arab conquests surprised everybody, including (especially) the Arabs.
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Jun 5, 2015 16:47
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Arglebargle III posted:I think the Arab conquests surprised everybody, including (especially) the Arabs. They weren't even supposed to be in the match, yet still walked out with the belt at the end of the night. Islam is Seth Rollins, is what I'm saying.
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Jun 5, 2015 18:59
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Mohammed was behind the Plague of Justinian. 
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Jun 5, 2015 19:02
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sbaldrick posted:Muhammad also sent a letter to Heraclius as he honestly had some balls on him The traditional view of this among Muslims is apparently the opposite of Khosrau, that Heraclius praised Muhammad as a wise man and saint and was generally a just and righteous ruler icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jun 6, 2015 |
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Jun 6, 2015 00:39
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