Christianity's contribution to western civilization?

[spin]

I've looked around for a balanced evaluation of christianity's contribution to western civilization and found myself like Jason trying to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of the yada-yada of christian mouthpieces and the nada-nada of embittered atheists. Last night I found myself being slowly lobotomized trying to get Zizek's take on the christian legacy.

Can anyone recommend a text, article, or website that addresses the topic in a relatively scholarly, balanced way, perhaps dealing with such things as law and charity, but any other ideas that indicate a significant contribution to today's society?... I have the literary-creative side of it, as well as moral issues, down sufficiently for my interest.

If you have ideas on the topic—that are not sermons to christianity or atheism—by all means let forth! How has christianity contributed positively, negatively or indifferently to western civilization?

[hjalti]

Last night I found myself being slowly lobotomized trying to get Zizek's take on the christian legacy.

Are you telling me that you don't understand Zizek?

[spin]

Last night I found myself being slowly lobotomized trying to get Zizek's take on the christian legacy.

Are you telling me that you don't understand Zizek?

What can I say? The title of the work: "The Fragile Absolute Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For" (Verso; London & New York: 2000).

But hey, I'm still looking for anything useful as christianity's contribution to western civilization.

[ghost]

Christianity does not civilize.

[spin]

Christianity does not civilize.

"nada-nada of embittered atheist"

Ya just kneejerked off the sad plaintive cry of someone whose wounds won't heal or let them be rational.

[Blood]

I doubt that any westerner could write with the objectivity needed to critically evaluate the subject without obvious bias and axegrinding on either side of the issue. On the one side you have the Heirs of Gibbon who perpetuate the image of a thousand years of darkness, and on the other hand you have the Rodney Starks talking about how great the same period was, how Christianity made the West into the glorious (?) state it's in today.

[spin]

I doubt that any westerner could write with the objectivity needed to critically evaluate the subject without obvious bias and axegrinding on either side of the issue. On the one side you have the Heirs of Gibbon who perpetuate the image of a thousand years of darkness, and on the other hand you have the Rodney Starks talking about how great the same period was, how Christianity made the West into the glorious (?) state it's in today.

Last year I gave a guest lecture on christianity in western culture which looked at how the religion survived and prospered through the middle ages, showing how it took control of social aspects of the community, how it gained political significance and how it culturally shaped the tropes and memes that influence our cultural production today. The attempt was to be neutral on christianity, to see it as "just" another institution that struggled to survive the fall of the Roman west. I think it can be done, ie to be neither yada-yada nor nada-nada. I'm just looking now to reshape the lecture with less weight on history and more on institution.

One thing I can point to is that with the loss of a Roman fostered society education died except in closed religious contexts which slowly opened up to the elites and cathedral schools eventually gave birth to universities. Education has generally come out from under the shadow of the religion, but who knows what state western education would be today if it had been left to the Germanic hordes that swept away the Roman west? Christianity slowly educated the Goths and the Franks, laying down a shared heritage that provided the ability to withstand the Muslim intrusion through Spain into France. Church-schooled scholars were the backbone of legal and diplomatic institutions during the dark ages. It's the development of this last fact that I really need to explore for its impact on our institutions. I don't want to run with the education aspect. I've sufficiently covered it and think there is more to be told elsewhere.

[ghost]

Christianity slowly educated the Goths and the Franks, laying down a shared heritage that provided the ability to withstand the Muslim intrusion through Spain into France.

The Muslims were Christians:

http://en.qantara.de/content/interview- ... ific-title

Church-schooled scholars were the backbone of legal and diplomatic institutions during the dark ages. It's the development of this last fact that I really need to explore for its impact on our institutions.

Beware the forgeries:

http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro/holls ... /index.htm
http://www.fantomzeit.de/?p=70

[spin]

Christianity slowly educated the Goths and the Franks, laying down a shared heritage that provided the ability to withstand the Muslim intrusion through Spain into France.

The Muslims were Christians:

http://en.qantara.de/content/interview- ... ific-title

Church-schooled scholars were the backbone of legal and diplomatic institutions during the dark ages. It's the development of this last fact that I really need to explore for its impact on our institutions.

Beware the forgeries:

http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro/holls ... /index.htm
http://www.fantomzeit.de/?p=70

FFS, don't be silly. Nutters have been proposing chronological nonsense for a long time.

The Phantom Time Hypothesis assumes that some three centuries were inserted deliberately into the records of written history – about a thousand years ago. As a consequence, all events (and their protagonists) between the approximate years 614 AD and 911 AD should be fictitious or dated incorrectly.

This sort of stuff is fundamentally a conspiracy theory on a ridiculous scale. Everybody's made colossal chronological errors! Really? I mean, really!? Why don't these no-hopers try to publish this rot in a scholarly journal? Let it go toe-to-toe with the status quo histories. If you have committed yourself to such stupidity, you won't get any joy here.

[hjalti]

The Phantom Time Hypothesis assumes that some three centuries were inserted deliberately into the records of written history – about a thousand years ago. As a consequence, all events (and their protagonists) between the approximate years 614 AD and 911 AD should be fictitious or dated incorrectly.

And these have also been added to e.g. Chinese and Indian records?