Posted: May 21, 2019 6:56 am
Leucius Charinus wrote:Defending Freeman's thesis: suppression of the Greek intellectual tradition
See BACKGROUND: Charles Freeman's Books below.
That link indentifies an apologist attitude not for theism but for the Christian church of the middle ages.Where has his identity been determined?
Defending Freeman's thesis: suppression of the Greek intellectual tradition
https://historum.com/threads/defending- ... ion.53557/
Readers might recognise the usual attack dog MO used. Charles Freeman himself responded to this thread. The thread was closed as a result of the vitriolic exchanged. Freeman gave the thumbs down to the author James Hannam for his new book "God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science" Paperback – May 7, 2010, and making comments like this:Hannam is a Catholic convert (I have passed the other way) and he presents himself as an apologist (in the old sense of the word as "defender") for the positive role of Christianity in Western society.
SOURCE: https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/241 ... iety-prize
Oneill hangs out on Hanamm's forum, denigrates Edward Gibbon and defends the glory of the church just like Hannam.
Birds of a feather?I only hope that he gets wind of this discussion and returns to defend his position.
Yes that would be lovely.
He might like to start by responding to Charles Freeman's thesis about the decline in 4th century
To this Oneill responds as follows:Greek thought in the west was stalling by the Second Century and dying out thanks to the disruptions of the chaotic Third Century. It barely held on at all in the collapse of the Fifth Century, but was preserved (BY the Church!) though the centuries of invasion and disintergration that followed until it could be revived and expanded on (BY the Church!) from the Twelfth Century onwards.
The decline began before Freeman's Christian emperor villains came on the scene and the revival happened when Christianity was at the height of its influence. Freeman's ponderous, meandering, bloated book is a load of tendentious crap that skims over these key points.
SOURCE: https://historum.com/threads/defending- ... st-1377076
(1) Where does this mention the 4th century? (Answer: It doesn't).
(2) But isn't it wonderful how the academics in the Church Industry preserved the ancient knowledge and saved the day?
BACKGROUND: Freeman's Books
(1) The Closing Of The Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason – 1 May 2003
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Closing-Wester ... skept01-21
The argument of this book is that the Greek intellectual tradition did not simply lose vigor and disappear. (Its survival and continued progress in the Arab world is testimony to that). Rather in the fourth and fifth centuries AD, it was destroyed by the political and religious forces which made up the highly authoritarian government of the late Roman empire.
(2) AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State Hardcover – 7 Feb 2008
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AD-381-Heretic ... skept01-21
I see that Tim O'Neill has indeed popped in to defend himself... Please let us see you address him directly.
ETA: Please take your accusations to him there, then you can refer him to your thread here. Otherwise he is likely to miss this. Your wish that it would be lovely for him to come and defend himself appears to have been granted.