This meme, or any variation of it, always brings out the history geeks scolding us for not keeping up with the latest academic trends. Maybe they should create a few "Historically Correct" social media memes and show us how it's done.
For folks not into history… to see the result of religion getting too mixed into politics, check out Iran & Afghanistan. Yeah, the Crusades & the Inquisition were just like that!
It wasn't the Dark Ages. It was an age of art and creation and fine illumination. The term was invented in the 19th century because a number of sources went missing. Now we know it's nonsense.
I don't see your point. I'm asking for a respected reference to substantiate a claim. That's neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the proposal. Haven't we all had quite enough "alternative facts" to simply accept what someone posts on social media without any references?
Interesting take thinking it's Christians running the globe. When you research which religious group is running the global banking institutions. And also religious sharia laws for other countries oppressing women.
Technically that was the Catholics, they were zealots, and I wouldn't say they follow Jesus very well considering their ranks are full of pedophiles. Rich people did help with it, though, to control the population - but lets not lump all of the Christian faiths into it!
Catholics are the most reasonable denomination of Christians in existence. Evangelical zealots give medieval catholics a run for their money. The only difference is a lack of power and organization.
Yes, the Roman church had the inquisition, so things weren’t perfect. However, during those “Dark Ages,” as you call them, Christians started the first universities in Europe, the first hospitals, and the first orphanages. Monks preserved the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Homer.
I was always under the impression that we call it the dark ages because of the burning of the library of Alexandria and the knowledge lost as a result; but I support the point you're trying to make.
Men were out of control back then as they are today. Has anyone heard of the Tiny Shrinking "y"? Whatever DNA is sloughing off the y chromosome needs to be replaced with DNA from an X chromosome. The difference in behavior and attitude would be amazing.
Funnily enough, it's called the dark age because the amount of writing done in that time dropped significantly, so it's dark as in we don't know as much about what happened. Who did all the writing before and after? Christian Monks.
Slight correction: Plenty of writing happened during that period, and we do have a pretty good idea of what happened.
Historians in the *Renaissance* didn't have access to that writing. Add to that some self-fellation and they jump to the conclusion "NOTHING of value happened between Rome and us!"
Did they? I guess it depends on where in europe you are, and when, but I thought, for the most part, it was monks leaving records? Which "pagans" do you mean left written records?
From AD 476 to AD 800, the only real theocracy was the Christian East - Byzantium - and they had no loss of learning. Because they still knew Greek. But Western Europe lost the Greek language after the Roman Empire fell.
The era of Western European “dark ages” were the time of the Islamic Golden Age from the 8th century. When intellectual thought exploded throughout the Islamic empire especially in STEM as well as medicine, architecture, art and literature.
Western Europe saw innovations like the heavy plough, three-field rotation, water mills, stirrups, and early mechanical clocks, boosting farming, trade, and tech.
Calling it "Dark Ages" is apt. Why? Because instead of valuing the truth, the ultra-wealthy *know* full well that they have far more than their fair share. The *must* lie to protect that unfairness. Once they live day in and day out with that lie, it becomes ever easier to rationalize bad ethics.
And don't forget: The Carolingian Renaissance started in the 8th century. The Alfredian Renaissance was in 9th Century England. Even if you subscribe to the concept of "the dark ages" it's a much more complex picture.
Periodization like this really falls apart when you start looking at the bigger picture. Chaucer is a medieval writer, but he's engaging with Renaissance writers. How? Is he a time traveler? No, some people just decided that "the Renaissance" started in different times in different countries. 🤷
3) The institution that is historically credible for the preservation of art, culture, and education through the Dark Ages (in Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire was doing fine) was, in fact, the Catholic Church.
And not just for "religious" culture. "Monk" and "scholar" were largely synonymous.
From a history nerd's technical point of view, you're not wrong. However, the core message of the meme is correct. Theocratic governments inevitably breed misery.
The main custodian and *sponsor* of art and culture in Western Europe for the better part of 1,000 years was the Catholic Church (who comm'd Michaelangelo?).
There's definitely something to be said for *theocracies* (see: Medieval Papacy), but that's not what the meme implies.
The meme is arbitrarily and inaccurately choosing an "other" characteristic that you can identify in the current bad guys and set yourself against, when that characteristic ("Christians") *is not the causative factor.*
I disagree. The sentiment perfectly reflects what's happening here and now. Fascist Christian Nationalists will use a rich narcissist to unravel our Constitution if they can. The imagery of the meme is based on pop culture, which was accepted history only a few decades ago.
See, that's the funny thing: the "Dark Ages" always happen to cover whatever time was between the Fall of Rome (obviously the peak of civilization) and the given historian (who obviously lived in the peak of civilization SINCE Rome).
The entire *concept* of the "Dark Ages" was coined in *1330* by Petrarch. Subsequent historians revised the period to match *their* definition of "Good Ol' Days / Current Renaissance."
Au contraire, the Dark Ages has been a slur applied to pre-Christian times in Europe. Paganism was widespread. Not necessarily better or worse than Christianity, but still......
That pic is from the 1500s Spanish Inquisition. The so-called Dark Ages were earlier, 500-1300 CE, right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Sorry, I'm a History teacher, it's my job.
More importantly: The Dark Ages *didn't exist.* At least, not in the sense of being a "Dark Age."
The term was coined by Renaissance historians fellating the good ol' days: "NOTHING OF VALUE happened between the fall of Rome and us, the peak of civilization!"
Right the visigoths storming Rome(Jan 6th) instigated the dark ages. It’s comical to me that the seed of the renaissance came from the moors when xenophobes are pro Muslim ban while using Arabic numerals everyday.
No, the Catholic Church was not responsible for the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were caused by a series of events related to the fall of the Roman Empire, including the division of the empire in 395 CE and the destruction of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 CE
The Roman Empire didn't fall in 476 CE, it was just the Western Roman Empire which felt. The Eastern Roman Empire (called Roman Empire as from then) survived till 1453.
By the way, 395 was the year the Roman Empire splitted in a western and eastern part.
Do you think their influence had anything to do with it? You had to join to hold any position in society. Priest knew Latin. The people were illiterate. When Martin Luther championed sola scriptura, fides, and gratia the common people could have come to the same conclusion if they could only read.
LOL! Exactly.
The Constitution states, and I quote-"no religious test shall ever be required to hold political office"-end quote-.
They even reiterated it in the first amendment.
No what made it the "Dark Ages" is the fact that the Anglo Saxons used wooden structures and iron implements, leaving behind very little archaeological evidence. It became known as Early Medieval after scientific methods advanced our understanding of that time period.
Why they called it the dark ages was that we knew so little about it, since they didn't have a tradition of writing. They were actually quite cultured.
Your wrong. There was a thriving tradition of writing with massive libraries that were all lost in the power vacuum of the early middle ages. It's "dark" because of the cultural and intellectual decline/loss that happened.
Not in the early Medieval days. All we know about them is what Bede wrote, something like a couple of hundred years later, and archaeological discoveries, such as those at Sutton Hoo.
The Dark Age is the part of the Medieval Era when good sanitation and baths were still normal, before clergy had to be celibate, and before Christians started doing holy wars. It is falsely maligned
Are you aware of the fact that the crusades started as a response to centuries of muslim aggression and imperialism? The first crusade was called in 1095, by that time the muslim conquests had already swept through Northern Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East.
This is not that good of an example. “Dark ages” was popularized to distance the Roman empire from the medieval period, falsely painting an image of an age of idiocy and backsliding when that simply-
Wasn’t the case. So much innovation happened at this time ironically also by the church even. Again, I get what you are saying but this is based on misinformation regarding the middle ages
Not even the dark ages. I keep trying to remind people the reason that we have "freedom of religion" is because when our Constitution was written, there was still stuff like Catholics in the UK forbidden vote or own land. It was still a problem until the 1800s. This ain't gonna be good.
True Christians don't carry knives, never mind guns. Our job is to share the love of Jesus with those who are looking for peace. Jesus, is love pure & simple but if that is to hard to comprehend I would suggest reading Jesus's word fist & foremost.
Clean Water,Good Housing, Clean and Good Food, Good Internet, Durable Clothing, The Right to Vote, privacy, healthcare and Freedom are Human Rights. Not Requests.
No, it wouldn't. Especially when there are multiple child diddlers in each fucking religion unsupervised doing whatever they desire. There's also more people wanting churches held accountable, taxed, or demolished. I know I'm done seeing faith used for their own gain.
Yep, just like the zionists rewrote the history of World War 2 Germany. The mentally defective and gender confused zionists just take literary distortion of the facts
Lmao no, the European Dark Ages was the period between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Rule of Charlemagne. It wasn't caused by Christianity or rich people, it was caused by one of the superpowers at the time collapsing.
And all of that contributed to the fall of Rome. You forgot about the Antonine plague that killed a shit ton of the population and started the fall of Rome.
Thats because you'd need a whole college course to go over everything that contributed to the fall of Rome. The Antonine Plague was the first because it killed off thousands of regular people, but also much of the Roman equivalent of doctors. This led to less administrators, which then led to...
... making administrative the further provinces like Brittania harder. So they hired 'barbarians' (mostly German) to help keep those provinces in check. It failed and the Germans settled those regions, some went further and invaded Italia.
When the Inca's, Mayan, Pharao's and Romans died, their gods went to a museum. It is about time excisting religeons die out as well. Never one piece of scientific proof was given.There is no god, there was no god and there never will be a god. Thinking about the poor women of Afghanistan.😥
No, Petrarch was 14th century and lived more than 200 years before the start of the Enlightenment. He wanted to make classical antiquity, Latin and Greek scholarship look better than the post-Roman society. It's based in reality when applied to the early Middle Ages when written records disappeared
That's one book in the 300+ years after the Fall of Rome. The British Isles, including Ireland, are the textbook example of how almost no documents or historical records for 300 or 400 years post-Rome. We don't even know for sure the names of their kings, major battles, etc.
If you think of the human race as the development of an individual, I expect we're about in our teenage years now. The past makes a lot more sense if you think of everyone as a toddler with no parents.
It was named the dark ages by the enlightenment renaissance. There is a lot of historical revisionism that went on during this period, it was due to the belief that things happening later are more advanced than thins happening earlier. A simple example is the horse shoe was invented in this period.
On All Sant's day people in Portugal where filling the churches to praise their God
Outside there were platforms for the witch burnings
Then the earth shook and the churches failed
Followed by a tidal wave that swept the burning platforms away
Then, somehow the candles in the churches ignited
Europe was definitely not fine. Lol for all it's bad deeds, Rome was a center of math, philosophy, engineering, wealth and culture. When it fell, everything went with it.
I'm not sure why a 'religious war' would make a dark age and other wars wouldn't. In any event, that is not why the 'dark ages' are called that in the UK.
Are welcome to just join the Enlightenment
since it’s clearly not over.
The future is already here (as is the past), it’s just in smaller and smaller Mandelbrot fractals.
I wonder if there’s any overlap in the mathematics of Slime molds.
Be spectral 🌈🍀✨
Technically we call it the "Dark Ages" because Victorian historians made Greek/Roman cultural fall until the Renaissance period to be a time when they believed nothing of importance happened.
Actually not all Christian’s are Catholics. The time period you’re referring to is the times of The Inquisitions. They were run by a council or tribunal set up by the Catholic King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabelle of I think Castile.
Quite wrong. The 'dark ages' is the period immediately after the fall of Rome in the west when there are few written records. That is the only reason they are 'dark'. And it is principally in Britain and western-most Europe.
I think the difference now is a larger population and technology means more people will suffer AND we can probably get a lot closer to the end of the world (for people; let's face, the Earth will survive our stupidity), if not the end.
Except this is a terrible example, because it's largely the church that drove innovation during this time. It created a class of literate people who could spend time in study. Much of early science was driven by an attempt to understand god's work.
The other driver of innovation was also funnily enough the merchant class. So this meme is doubly wrong. Wealth and religion were good for this society. The worst thing was landed aristocracy waging selfish war.
The sentiment behind the meme is fine, but the historical literacy isn't
While the Dark Ages can't be blamed on religion alone your example is hardly accurate. The Church wrote in the language of conquers, Latin, which nobody understood so it did more to promote illiteracy than the opposite. It discouraged higher education and monopolized it to a very small class.
Btw it's called Dark Ages because we don't know much about it due to high illiteracy, particularly in rural areas, where a vast portion of European population lived at the time following Roman collapse.
Burnings as we think were also largely after the medieval era. They happened during the reformation while the church was trying to maintain its control
That's a pop history understanding. Yes, the church burned people mostly for differences in religious interpretations. That's bad, but largely the church acted as the basis of a class of scholars. The enlightment came about from development in religious thought
Comments
Let our benefactors back on earth and we shall uplift earth into a golden age unseen before
In developed democracies you never see billionaires or religion in politics. NEVER. It's a sign of a failed state and corruption if it occurs.
You vote for someone like yourselves to represent you. Someone knowing your situation and your needs.
Electing Trump says a lot.
https://www.marianland.com/bromlibor/whereisyouramerica.html
And then there's this response here.
Historians in the *Renaissance* didn't have access to that writing. Add to that some self-fellation and they jump to the conclusion "NOTHING of value happened between Rome and us!"
The "Dark Ages" weren't dark: Ireland preserved classical texts, created stunning art like the Book of Kells, and spread learning across Europe.
The Islamic Golden Age revolutionised science, medicine, and maths, setting the foundation for many modern practices.
1/
It was far from stagnant.
2/2
1) This is of the Inquisition (1300s), when the "Dark Ages" were 400-900 AD.
2) The "Dark Ages" weren't a thing. They're a product of Renaissance self-fellating: "NOTHING of value happened between the fall of Rome and us!"
And not just for "religious" culture. "Monk" and "scholar" were largely synonymous.
The main custodian and *sponsor* of art and culture in Western Europe for the better part of 1,000 years was the Catholic Church (who comm'd Michaelangelo?).
There's definitely something to be said for *theocracies* (see: Medieval Papacy), but that's not what the meme implies.
It's divisive, it's lazy, and it's *false.*
Granted, some Enlightenment folks *also* got in on the "Everything between Rome and Us was barbarism" wankery.
Especially for those men who want sex with little girls (serious by the way, it's deep stuff that book)
The term was coined by Renaissance historians fellating the good ol' days: "NOTHING OF VALUE happened between the fall of Rome and us, the peak of civilization!"
By the way, 395 was the year the Roman Empire splitted in a western and eastern part.
Dark ages most of the time refers to 5-10th century, while Spanish Inquisition was established in 1 November 1478.
The Constitution states, and I quote-"no religious test shall ever be required to hold political office"-end quote-.
They even reiterated it in the first amendment.
im hilarious!!
Feudalism was a short-term expedient given weak nation states that couldn't provide security.
Worse than "Power" is a "Power vacuum" where every petty warlord is free to pursue his ambitions.
https://genius.com/Gwar-new-dark-age-lyrics
#FranceHadTheRightIdea
#LetThemEatCake?
#They'llEatTheirCakeInDeath
#BillionaresAndMillionaresShouldn'tExist
#MakeTheRichFearUsAgain
#LetTheirHeadsRoll
#ThereAreMoreOfUsThanThem
#ViveLaRésistance
#PriestsAreDiddlers
#NoReligionIsSafe
#ReligionIsAToolForTheCorruptToControl
Information from https://www.manlystewart.com/articles/how-common-is-clergy-sexual-abuse
Clean Water,Good Housing, Clean and Good Food, Good Internet, Durable Clothing, The Right to Vote, privacy, healthcare and Freedom are Human Rights. Not Requests.
#LetThoseCEOHeadsRoll
The corrupt greedy fucks need to be dealt with sooner, rather than later.
Maybe then humans can finally live in a decent society.
Ireland thrived as a centre of art and learning, with monasteries like Clonmacnoise producing treasures like the Book of Kells.
Monks preserved classical texts and spread learning across Europe.
Book of Kells
Book of Durrow
Cathach of St. Columba
Book of Armagh
Táin Bó Cúailnge
Senchas Már
Amra Choluim Chille
Lebor na hUidre
1/
Clonmacnoise
Iona
Glendalough
Kells
Bangor
Monasterboice
Durrow
Armagh
Tallaght
Lismore
2/
the zealots and church weren't helping make it better .w.
Outside there were platforms for the witch burnings
Then the earth shook and the churches failed
Followed by a tidal wave that swept the burning platforms away
Then, somehow the candles in the churches ignited
God was not pleased with what he saw that day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nglkbzjmSA0
Are welcome to just join the Enlightenment
since it’s clearly not over.
The future is already here (as is the past), it’s just in smaller and smaller Mandelbrot fractals.
I wonder if there’s any overlap in the mathematics of Slime molds.
Be spectral 🌈🍀✨
🙄
The sentiment behind the meme is fine, but the historical literacy isn't
The problem with “our” image is that we are not God – we are not unified enough to replicate our own image."
https://livingbylamplight.substack.com/p/how-trumps-second-term-can-succeed?r=4n7b8z