The Idea That Changed Europe

Scholasticism was the syncretism of ancient thought with Christian theology, it bloomed when the Latin west recovered ancient texts that were well-known in the Greek east but not in the west, adding later the Judeo-Islamic knowledge that comes when the Christians take Iberia back.
This was all centuries after West Rome came apart, and what does Genesis have to do with it?
The thread doesn't have a clear topic.

Quoting Athena

When Rome fell the Biblical story of creation remained. Some call this period the Dark Ages. What changed the direction Europe was going?

The story of creation was not actually a christian idea, it came from African tribes and was already ancient when the christians adopted it.

The western part of the Roman empire was broken down into many little kingdoms that over centuries became larger with only one king and developed the feudal system of government.
Christianity expanded and became the major religion in western Europe and separated for the Orthodox church in the east.

Over the centuries both the church and the lords eventually became so corrupt that the peasants revolted against both.

During the Early and High Middle ages, most advancements came about through the inventiveness of the peasants, better farming methods and tool technology, the use of wind and water power.

The Late Middle Ages was when the started to re-discover the ideas of the ancient Greeks and that started the renaissance.

Quoting Sir2u

The story of creation was not actually a christian idea

He says "Biblical story of creation", not that the story of creation was invented by Christians. Obviously not, since Genesis is in the Torah.

Quoting Sir2u

it came from African tribes and was already ancient when the christians adopted it

Source? Businessinsider articles don't count.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Lionino

He says "Biblical story of creation", not that the story of creation was invented by Christians. Obviously not, since Genesis is in the Torah.

My mistake, we were talking about the middle ages which were christian and most bibles contain the old testament.

Quoting Lionino

Source? Businessinsider articles don't count.

This is an Asian myth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative

There are many creation stories from Africa that have parts similar to the bible. This one contains an all knowing, all seeing god and a snake giving sex ed classes.

https://www.gateway-africa.com/stories/Ashanti_on_procreation.html

This one has gods making people out of clay and a flood

https://www.gateway-africa.com/stories/Yoruba_Creation_Myth.html

Quoting Athena

Some call this period the Dark Ages. What changed the direction Europe was going?

When Rome fell, Europe was first sacked and then taken over by barbarians tribes that eventually settled and became the inheritors of the civilization.

Near the tail end of this process, the Viking age started, which roughly coincided with the creation of Islam which posed yet another round of grave threats to Europe from nearly every direction.

It is only around the 11th and12th century that the aforementioned inheritors manage to stabilize the situation and European society could start to flourish again.

But before it truly could, the bubonic plague and the Mongol invasions started.

All in all, it's not so strange Europe entered a Dark Age.

Reply to Athena

Not much, I think. Quoting Athena

I am hoping we might discuss what Scholasticism had to do with the change.

It isn't clear to me it had anything to do with it, if I understand your question correctly. Are you asking whether the rediscovery of the works of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers by monks influenced the change?

Reply to Sir2u None of that proves that the Hebrew creation myth comes from Africa.

Reply to Sir2u

Well first, the Hebrews as an Asian people, so obviously it is defacto an Asian creation narrative. There are certainly similarities between Genesis and Sumerian and Babylonian creation narratives, but as minds like Jung and Joseph Campbell, or the perrenialists have shown, you can make a case for "great similarity" between essentially all such narratives.

The ideas in Genesis are indeed very old and predate the Hebrew language. Verses from Numbers have been found in a sort of proto-Hebraic, while a version of the Ark story is among the oldest pieces of writing that have ever been recovered.

However, it is impossible to say that African versions of this story are the originals. There is no written material coming out of SSA that is as old as the Mesopotamian sources. The Yeruba people didn't emerge until millennia later and the Asante are a good deal later than them. It is certainly [I]possible[/I] that these stories preexist the split off of these (relatively) new ethnic groups, but wouldn't it be more plausible that they made it down from Egypt, which has had extensive trade networks moving down into SSA and a large Jewish population since antiquity? We know Christianity had taken root in Ethiopia centuries before the earliest of those two groups emerged.

Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus

However, it is impossible to say that African versions of this story are the originals. There is no written material coming out of SSA that is as old as the Mesopotamian sources. The Yeruba people didn't emerge until millennia later and the Asante are a good deal later than them.

Or that.

A direct refutation of the idea is that such a hypothesis can only be supported by finding two groups in Africa whose religious myths are related and there are common elements between them and Hebrew mythology, and these two groups being isolated from each other by several tens of thousands of year. The way that these similarities between religions cannot be chalked up to coincidence or recently areal contact instead of actually coming from a common source is by establishing a proto-language between the two groups. Unfortunately, the oldest proto-language is Proto-Afro-Asiatic, which is not even 20k years old, and it is not quite sub-Saharan.
Even if such a fact could be established in comparative religion, they are still a distinct group from Eurasians, and the fact that the myths around the world have little in common with each other would not allow us to say with confidence that the connection between Hebrew and those African tribes is in fact from a common source instead of something that died out in the Eurasian branch and then developed independently again among the Canaanites.

Quoting Lionino

the oldest discovered, and possibly due to the destructive sands of time, discoverable proto-language is Proto-Afro-Asiatic

:up:

We learn new things about those before us near every day. Sadly, or perhaps not, some things will remain lost to the ages.

Reply to Outlander Proto-languages are human inventions, so the oldest one is the oldest one.

Quoting Athena

What changed the direction Europe was going?

IIRC, there was no "Europe" until Charlemagne's reign. Several centuries later, in the wake of "the Black Death", my guess is Magna Carta (proto-republicanism) + plundering the Americas, etc + "The Renaissance" gave Europe its modern direction.

Quoting Lionino

None of that proves that the Hebrew creation myth comes from Africa.

Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus

However, it is impossible to say that African versions of this story are the originals. There is no written material coming out of SSA that is as old as the Mesopotamian sources. The Yeruba people didn't emerge until millennia later and the Asante are a good deal later than them.

Nothing proves that the Hebrew creation myth is anything more than a story made up by a bunch of old men with nothing better to do while waiting for an animal to fall into a trap.
But there are a few old African stories, possibly including that of the Yoruba, that were passed by word of mouth from generation to generation well before the Jews existed and contain elements of the creation story related in the bible. We only know about them from when they were made contact with so we have no idea how old their stories are.

Maybe they did copy some ideas from the Egyptians, but I cannot imagine that the old wise men would take kindly to changes being made in the centuries or millennium years old chants that had had to be recited for years to be remembered. Adding a new beginning to oral history I think would tend to screw things up a bit.

Quoting 180 Proof

there was no "Europe" until Charlemagne's reign

The landmass was already called Europe since ancient times.

Quoting Sir2u

Nothing proves that the Hebrew creation myth is anything more than a story made up by a bunch of old men with nothing better to do while waiting for an animal to fall into a trap.

Well we didn't say anything about that did we.

Quoting Sir2u

But there are a few old African stories, possibly including that of the Yoruba, that were passed by word of mouth from generation to generation well before the Jews existed and contain elements of the creation story related in the bible.

Like?

Quoting Sir2u

We only know about them from when they were made contact with so we have no idea how old their stories are.

So how do you know they are older than the Jews?

Quoting Sir2u

Maybe they did copy some ideas from the Egyptians

Pretty sure the Yoruba had no contact with the Egyptians.

Europe and Asia in Ptolemy's Geographia:



The border he drew seemed to be around the western Russian border.

Nahum Sarna in "Understanding Genesis" traces the Mesopotamian origins of the Hebrew Bible, but where Mesopotamian polytheism is reworked under a monotheistic, non-political, de-mythologized framework. Abraham is from Ur in Mesopotamia ("Ur of the Chaldeans" but the Chaldeans come centuries after Abraham), after all. Mesopotamian civilization is the oldest in the world. But the way the Mesopotamians conceptualized their Gods was also terrifying in comparison to Israelite monotheism.

Many of these early Genesis stories including the flood can be traced back to Mesopotamia and have parallels in Mesopotamian texts such as Enuma Elish; the land of Palestine doesn't really flood but the region between the Tigris and Euphrates does. Babel describes the Mesopotamian ziggurat. There is similarly a "tree of life" in the Mesopotamian edenic account where the hero searches desperately for eternal life where in the Israelite account the tree receives near zero attention.

Quoting Lionino

The landmass was already called Europe since ancient times.

And so what's your point?

Reply to 180 Proof My point is that this is wrong:
Quoting 180 Proof

there was no "Europe" until Charlemagne's reign

And the Magna Carta wasn't that relevant for Europe or the world. England at the time was an offshot of French civilisation and wouldn't have significant impact on the world until centuries later.

Reply to Lionino Okay, on both counts we disagree.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe:The modern native populations of Europe largely descend from three distinct lineages: Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, descended from populations associated with the Paleolithic Epigravettian culture; Neolithic Early European Farmers who migrated from Anatolia during the Neolithic Revolution 9,000 years ago; and Yamnaya Steppe herders who expanded into Europe from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia in the context of Indo-European migrations 5,000 years ago.

The first creation story was probably expressed when languages emerged, say, 350 000 years ago, when it became practically possible to talk about causes and effects.

Quoting 180 Proof

IIRC, there was no "Europe" until Charlemagne's reign. Several centuries later, in the wake of "the Black Death", my guess is Magna Carta (proto-republicanism) + plundering the Americas, etc + "The Renaissance" gave Europe its modern direction.

The funny thing with history is that it creates while it describes. It reconstructs a story that presumably explains why things happened in such and such way, but in fact becomes an integral part of that history and constitutes the its very own object. The landmass may have been called Europe by some guy called Ptolemy, but so what? It is only relevant because we now through our construction of history hold Ptolemy in high regard. When we recount the story of 'Europe' we recount events that presumably sets it apart from other places. Magna Carta might be one, but I reckon other peoples experienced their 'magna carta' moment. It is through featuring in the historical tales of Europe that it had a place.

I doubt the history of Europe is dissimilar from the history of other places. It is through conquest that 'Europe' became a thing. Not by being a 'thing in itself' but an entity developed, adorned and embellished by Europeans and therefore important since Europeans held sway in huge parts of the world. If anything was important it is the emergence of the scientific method which allowed Western Europeans to develop better weaponry than its enemies, most notably the Ottoman empire. Before that it generally followed developments in the more advanced civilizations of the East. Scholasticism to me is not a candidate for any special status. Islamic and Judaic philosophers were more adapt at it, or at least equal.

Quoting Lionino

So how do you know they are older than the Jews?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/old-testament-seminary-teacher-manual/introduction-to-the-book-of-genesis?lang=eng

Who wrote this book?

Moses is the author of Genesis. Moses was a prophet who was called by God to lead the children of Israel out of bondage from Egypt, through the wilderness, to the promised land of Canaan. Because the events in Genesis occurred before Moses’s time, he did not learn about them firsthand. They were made known to him through revelation (see Moses 1:40; 2:1), and he may also have relied on historical sources available to him (see Abraham 1:31).

Depending on your beliefs, you might think that an all powerful and knowing god wold actually tell his most important person something like this.
The only historical sources available to him that were from before his times were oral histories

I found again the story I was looking for earlier from the Efé Pygmies, it is called the Forbidden Fruit.
The Efé Pygmies have been shown to be one of the oldest intact cultures on Earth by dNA studies.

Quoting Lionino

Pretty sure the Yoruba had no contact with the Egyptians.

That was in answer to a comment from someone else that suggested that the stories moved out of Egypt along the trade routes.

Quoting Tobias

The landmass may have been called Europe by some guy called Ptolemy, but so what? It is only relevant because we now through our construction of history hold Ptolemy in high regard.

:up: :up:

@Lionino

It is through conquest that 'Europe' became a thing. Not by being a 'thing in itself' but an entity developed, adorned and embellished by ...

:fire:

Scholasticism to me is not a candidate for any special status. Islamic and Judaic philosophers were more adapt at it, or at least equal.

:100:

@Athena (re: pre-Hebrew Bible antiquity of "Genesis" stories ... Reply to BitconnectCarlos :up: )

Reply to Athena
It is always difficult to sort out ancestors but if the matter is to be seen through the establishment and reactions to religious thought, the results of the "Reformation" (not as tidy an idea as often described) is the immediate progenitor of "europe" through the terrible process of the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia that paused some conflicts for a bit.

The messy vastness of all that makes me reluctant to pin the tail upon a particular donkey.

Quoting tim wood

The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Gillespie

I second that, extremely important book, one I read when I first joined forums and which underlies a lot of what I've been exploring since. There's a good review and synopsis here.

Quoting Sir2u

I found again the story I was looking for earlier from the Efé Pygmies, it is called the Forbidden Fruit.
The Efé Pygmies have been shown to be one of the oldest intact cultures on Earth by dNA studies.

Very cool. I found this website, that says:
Quoting https://lughayangu.com/post/the-forbidden-tahu-fruit

Their mythical story of death begins with the existence of a supreme being who made a man known as Baatsi out of clay, covered him with skin and filled his veins with blood.He later made the woman a man's companion and instructed them to bear children.He forbade them from eating the fruit of the Tahu tree.Baatsi fathered many children, who consequently fathered more children, continuing his lineage.Everyone obeyed the rule, and they lived with so much joy.When they got old and tired, they went happily to heaven.Everything was smooth until a pregnant woman craving the Tahu fruit convinced her husband to give her one.The moon saw the man picking the fruit in the dark and told the creator. He got angered by their actions and punished them with death.

Honestly, I am quite skeptical of how much of this is true, given by how many parallels there are. And if it is true, I would imagine that the story comes from contact with Christian missionaries. I think that because that is exactly the Genesis story. Pygmies and Jews are separated by almost 200 thousand years, and the stories mirror each other so neatly while groups much closer to each other (and to Jews) don't have such similatiries.
It may seem like I am playing hard to catch but I studied a bit of anthropology and some red flags are being raised for me.

This website tries to defend that the pygmy story is original https://stellarhousepublishing.com/garden-of-eden-originally-a-pygmy-myth/ but there you see implied that the majority opinion is otherwise. Besides, I can't find any reliable sources beyond blogspot posts online about this topic, the Tahu fruit of the Efé.

But for one thing, the creation of life from clay is something that appears all over world religions.

Quoting Tobias

Before that it generally followed developments in the more advanced civilizations of the East.

Europe overtook the East starting in Antiquity, it is not a recent thing.

Quoting Tobias

It is through conquest that 'Europe' became a thing.

Thanks for the compliment :strong: :fire:

Quoting Lionino

Europe overtook the East starting in Antiquity, it is not a recent thing.

And you are basing that claim on what? Between 500 and say 1500 Europe was neither technologically, nor militarily or scientifically more advanced then China, Islamic Egypt, the Ottoman empire, the Mongolian khanate etc. The biggest cities and centers of learning were in the East, i.e. Constantinople, Baghdad, Cairo. In Europe only Italy had something of an urban culture. As far as I know my history, philosophy and sociology of course.

Quoting Lionino

Thanks for the compliment :strong: :fire:

Why is that a compliment? Only if you have some sort of normative commitment to violence being a good thing might this be construed as a compliment.

Quoting Tobias

Between 500 and say 1500 Europe was neither technologically, nor militarily or scientifically more advanced then China, Islamic Egypt, the Ottoman empire, the Mongolian khanate etc.

The Mongolian Empire was more advanced than Eastern Rome and France in the 1300s? I don't think you have any clue what you are saying.

Quoting Tobias

Why is that a compliment? Only if you have some sort of normative commitment to violence being a good thing might this be construed as a compliment.

It is a compliment, unless you want to admit to being a hypocrite, lightly bringing up the Mongol Empire "as more advanced" without any condemnation of Gengis Khan being a mass rapist and his reign killing off almost 20% of the whole population of Eurasia, estimated around 37.75–60 million.

It is another episode on TPF of Europe-bashing. Sorry that Europeans led the world in science and technology, led the world in conquest, led the world in philosophy, led in globalisation, led in humanitarianism (for a much longer share of time than you would expect from such a tiny peninsula). The strategy of the weak, because it is weak, is to demonise the consequences of the strongest, even though the weak, if it were in the position of the strong, would have acted much much worse.

Reply to Lionino

Oh, Europe's just fine. You needn't worry about it. We continue to look back on the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome as Poe would say.

Quoting Lionino

led the world in conquest

Sigh. I'll bite.

So that's a good thing now? What if someone "conquests" you of your wallet and blood pressure levels by way of a stabbing on your next morning walk? Don't call 911 or bother other people now. Make sure you lay there and die with honor following your principles to your last breath lest you survive and live a life of shameful hypocrisy upon discovering the shocking revelation seldom reserved to only the most profound of intellects (and most ten-year-olds) that doing bad things might actually be bad after all. :smirk:

Quoting Lionino

The strategy of the weak, because it is weak, is to demonise the consequences of the strongest, even though the weak, if it were in the position of the strong, would have acted much much worse.

All true. Though, one might ought to think twice before assuming which side of the divide one truly belongs to. Those who can remain consistent in their virtues and values despite hardship, remaining a product of themselves despite difficulty, who avoided being molded into monsters by the world around them, instead mastering their own life and level of contentedness without succumbing to the worst of human nature and all that is universally detestable: greed, theft, deception, violence, indifference, dishonor, and savagery are the strong, not the other way around. But as you say, it is the strategy of the weak to convince themselves and others otherwise. A winning one at that, it would seem. :smile:

Besides. There was probably much lying, deception, and other means of dishonor, not to mention sheer luck. Furthermore, being stronger than a person, which again has yet to be established, does not make others weak other than by means of a one-off snapshot comparison. This is a common phenomenon often observed in those with deep-seated inferiority complexes and related neurosis, doomed to a life of psychological projection, constantly seeing their own inferior qualities they desperately wish to conceal from the world and themselves in others, manifested as inability to avoid condescending feelings upon observation of others. And anyway, me thinks you confuse quantity with quality. A common mistake. As well as that last assertion of being "much much worse" being little more than an out-of-left-field claim of baseless conjecture.

Come on Lio, I read your posts. You're a smart cookie. Surely you can do much better than that. Surely the good readers of TPF deserve better than this pseudo-intellectual juvenile hoodlum talk you're peddling and granting us the displeasure of having to ingest this Thursday morning. :smirk:

And I'm all for Europe. But what I won't stand for is having Her represented by such a poor, shortsighted, poison-welled, empty-headed excuse of a defense of integrity and value. Again. Do better.

Quoting Sir2u

The story of creation was not actually a christian idea, it came from African tribes and was already ancient when the christians adopted it.

The western part of the Roman empire was broken down into many little kingdoms that over centuries became larger with only one king and developed the feudal system of government.
Christianity expanded and became the major religion in western Europe and separated for the Orthodox church in the east.

Over the centuries both the church and the lords eventually became so corrupt that the peasants revolted against both.

During the Early and High Middle ages, most advancements came about through the inventiveness of the peasants, better farming methods and tool technology, the use of wind and water power.

The Late Middle Ages was when the started to re-discover the ideas of the ancient Greeks and that started the renaissance.

That looks like a good account of what happened. I am learning from The Great Courses and I am having a devil of time comprehending the break up of Rome and eventual development of nations. I need to see a map. It would be really cool to see a map that changed colors as people moved from one area to the next. It is easier for me to grasp a thought if I can see it.

Quoting Lionino

This was all centuries after West Rome came apart, and what does Genesis have to do with it?
The thread doesn't have a clear topic.

:lol: I accept that I do not meet a higher standard of writing. I will always be more personal than technologically correct and I will always wonder and enjoy what others think.

The importance of Genesis is the mythology that has molded the whole of Western civilization. I don't think anything is more important to societies than their shared mythology. Even for those of us who do not believe the Bible is the word of God, it is still a strong part of our lives because it is the foundation of our culture, along with the Greek and Roman classics. We can not escape it. The word "human" means moist soil. Our failure to be aware of how Christianity affects our lives does not mean we are free from that mythology.

Quoting tim wood

You will find comprehensive answers here:
The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Gillespie

And you don't even have to read the whole thing.

https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Origins-Modernity-Michael-Gillespie/dp/0226293467/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W2DQ8DXXV8C0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.G5iRyE9Wgb6mk6RP_S0uCt9RcZdxPmXw1qJw3WOuHEAmq5QU0qX7u7_8N_FKT6JtULdBVuCTIymlheuzkZoql3SiQBnUpQ8cm1r1kenATO19A2D4BcwW1b_ZxEF1ZbFXclZqM-QpJ84Kbacm9_kxlYPuEB9UMmV-vUOhR-ufB09Thv66GfImc8CLLRpzOjl9AoNEjdTs7gTyjHYbzRVaCzdD_P_oqyhizYONfEfUS8k.1hAKMATODsRXIHEP06_vuvR9b87bDJMLtoJJGRAtY4o&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Theological+Origins+of+Modernity&qid=1715787555&sprefix=the+theological+origins+of+modernity%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1

Or if you're lucky, your local library.

Pefect!! "Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests."

I am so happy you posted what I attempted to say in my post just before this one. I am afraid I need that book. :grimace: I already have too many books, but this particular subject is what is most interesting to me at the moment. :up:

Quoting Tzeentch

But before it truly could, the bubonic plague and the Mongol invasions started.

I could understand that part of the lectures I am learning from. Just before everything went so wrong, they had overpopulation and could not produce enough food. The plague depleted the size of the population so much that they turned to serfdom and tied the peasants to the land, stripping them of all freedom! That situation was intolerable! They justified it with Roman law, as Rome also tied people to the land to force their labor in growing food.

We appear to be food safe, but I wonder what would we do if our systems broke down and we needed more labor in our fields?

Quoting Ciceronianus

Oh, Europe's just fine. You needn't worry about it.

That's something that someone who has never been to Europe would say. Of it, Rome and Greece are places that exist outside of history books, they can be seen physically today, the glory is still there — someone who ignores it today would ignore it back then too.

Quoting Outlander

So that's a good thing now?

There is no good and evil. Read the last sentence of my post.

Quoting Outlander

What if someone "conquests" you of your wallet and blood pressure levels by way of a stabbing on your next morning walk? Don't call 911 or bother other people now.

Invaders in Europe (not immigrants) already do that. The difference is that those so called "refugees" (who are mostly able-bodied fighting-age males) are not leaving advanced technology, medicine, science, philosophy, and infrastructure wherever they pass by, they are really just killing and raping. But the hypocrites will defend it and say those fiends are victims of society — as if such a phrase wasn't evidently meaningless.

Quoting Athena

along with the Greek and Roman classics

Greek and Roman classics are not part of anybody's culture except the people who speak their languages — that doesn't apply to most here —, and the reason for that is exactly Scholastics. When it comes to the Bible, it is true, our morality is heavily Christianised whether we want it or not, whether we are atheist or evangelical.

Quoting Lionino

Greek and Roman classics are not part of anybody's culture except the people who speak their languages — that doesn't apply to most here —, and the reason for that is exactly Scholastics

So, the 'scholastics', who were avid readers and propogators of 'the Classics', were responsible for the snuffing out of classical education?

Reply to Wayfarer No. "Reason" there is used as "supporting evidence", not as "cause". Reading something doesn't make it part of your culture, you are not Japanese because you read Mishima.
English speakers have nothing to do (negative to do, even) with Cicerone, nothing to do with Caesar, nothing to do Thales or Evripides. It is not your culture, not your history, it has nothing to do with you. The Eneide or Iliada didn't shape your culture. I single out "English speakers" because I don't see Poles or Hungarians (who also have nothing to do) here saying nonsense about a people that explicitly considered their ancestors subhuman; otherwise, I will edit my post to address them as well. Sorry, history isn't nice, and culture is a downstream of it.

Reply to Lionino in the second half of my life, I've come to regret not having been educated in 'the Classics', although I console myself with the thought that had I been part of an earlier generation, I probably would have had them beaten into me with a cane, and would have hated them for it. Nevertheless, I think the want of knowledge of The Classics is a real want, it's a real cultural heritage, and we're the worse nowadays for not knowing about them.

Quoting Wayfarer

it's a real cultural heritage

As I explained, to you it is not. Do you speak Greek? Do you speak Spanish? You will never feel the same thing a born-and-raised Greek person feels when you look up to the Acropolis, you will most likely never read the Iliad — a translation of the Iliad is not the Iliad, it is a different book with the same story and structure. It is beyond you just like it is beyond all of us to really understand the Great Wall of China — it is not our story. The prime difference in the latter case is that there aren't hordes trying to steal that heritage because they have no ancient history. I think the term is "cultural appropriation", but I don't really keep up.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Lionino

That's something that someone who has never been to Europe would say. Of it, Rome and Greece are places that exist outside of history books, they can be seen physically today, the glory is still there — someone who ignores it today would ignore it back then too.

I've been there five times, and hope to return. Only once to Rome and once to Greece--Athens and the day trip to Delphi, and Santorini. I had hoped to get to Eleusis to see the remains of the Telesterion and other sites related to the Mysteries, but couldn't.

They're wonderful, of course, but in many ways we can only make educated guesses regarding what they were, and I think it's what they were that laid the foundation for Western civilization. We should be thankful that so much survived the ravages of Christianity.

This thread really serves to spotlight your pedantry, I must say. Sorry, I will say. No, I have said.

Quoting tim wood

Reading something exactly does make it part of my culture

Not it doesn't. I am not confused. You just don't know how these things work, clearly as you are under the impression that every neat little piece of history that you find out suddenly becomes "part of your culture". But a culture, alas, is not a product that you patch over ad libitum — hence the difference between the traditional and the traditionless.

Quoting tim wood

Greeks cannot read the Iliad in original Greek, any more than English speakers Beowulf

Not comparable. Beowulf is in a different language than modern English. You don't understand Ancient or Modern Greek, you don't understand Anglo-Saxon either. The fact that Homeric Greek is different than Modern Greek, and that Greeks need training to understand it, does not change the fact that they have been raised in that language that is one despite one being more archaic than the other; Ancient Greek carries a way of thinking and a grammar that is realised in modern times in Modern Greek, not in English, a grammatically simplified language by all accounts — a Greek needs training to understand Homer, but he isn't learning a different language. This is a factor that is easy to understand for those whose languages have a history that extends far into the past, but for those who don't, it is not hard to get, you are forcing yourself not to.

Quoting tim wood

it does not make any sense

It doesn't make sense to those who have not had a strong aesthetic feeling elicited by a piece of their own history. The meaning is clear except for those that are stuck in the analytical mindset of separating texts proposition by proposition without ever taking the text in as a whole and transposing feelings that are being expressed.

Quoting tim wood

In sum, your claims, perhaps having a grain of truth, are disqualified by the extravagance of them

Again, Romans and Greeks abhorred most peoples around them and would have abhorred you too. They are not part of your culture. Your culture stands for everything opposite to their values — sexual deviancy, worship of minorities, effeminacy, worship of weakness and criminality, artistic decadence, and countless others. To prove my point even further, some of those things are exactly brought up by Cassius Dio about ancient Bretons (not related to the modern English but to the Welsh):

nay, those over whom I rule are Britons, men that do not know how to till the soil or ply a trade, but are thoroughly versed in the art of war and hold all things in common, even children and wives, so that the latter possess the same dignity as the men.

None of these values are wrong or right. But the claim that people whose values are diametrically opposed to one's own values are part of one's culture is self-evidently absurd. Cultural appropriation and dilapidation.

Cicero:I do not think you can expect any literary or musical talent from them (the captives from the wars in Britannia)

Quoting tim wood

Njal's Saga an excellent example of such a journey: a text that is at first alien and remote, that with reading becomes vividly alive.

That is either woo or you are role-playing. Njal's Saga doesn't become alive to you. You aren't a Viking, you aren't Scandinavian. It is not my or your culture. I may read the translation of it and the story may be conveyed to me. But I don't share those feelings, the original style isn't passed on to me, the words used in the text are not the same words that my mom and dad spoke to me since the days I learned how to speak. The metaphors fly over my head and alliterations and assonances are completely lost.

You are just arguing for the sake of arguing. Example:
Quoting tim wood

"Scholastics" with a capital "S"? What do you mean by that?

As if the capitalisation of a word that may be capitalised somehow undermines the understanding of something.

On that point specifically, Scholastics arises exactly when the west rediscovers the classics and then attemps to marry it to Christian thought. How could it be that someone who comes from a different culture has classics as part of their culture when those classics were only introduced well into the end of the Middle Ages? With classics or not, your culture keeps existing, without the Iliad, there is no Greek culture.

Quoting tim wood

And as to the Bible, clearly you're babbling. On your own account the Bible is not/cannot be read today, and thus any "Christianization" of ethics cannot be biblical.

The way in which the contents of the Bible may be transmitted are a completely different discussion and pertains to people who know Catholic/Orthodox history. You built a strawman then refuted it with a non-sequitur. Our ethics are based strongly on Christianity, that much is obvious, and the main book of Christianity is the Bible. Simple, nothing more to read into this.

Speaking of babbling:

Quoting tim wood

And anyway, I prefer the term "civilizing." As in the civilizing of ethics. Which, on consideration, less than half the world is concerned with.

Which, if I am to read this correctly, is implying that the half the world is not concerned with civilising of ethics, whatever that means. Again, another attitude that is antithetical to the Roman way, universalising and syncretic, instead of ignorant and xenophobic.

Reply to Ciceronianus Sorry, I will amend my statement:
...someone who has not been to Europe in the past 10 years would say.
Paris is a dump, London is beyond gone, Lisbon and Brussels are approaching a point of no return. Europe is busted. The belief that it is fine doesn't stand a one-week trip to The Hague.

Quoting Lionino

The Mongolian Empire was more advanced than Eastern Rome and France in the 1300s?

Advanced in what respect should be asked actually. I was unclear on that. I meant militarily more advanced, philosophically more advanced, economically, scientifically etc. Not in every respect medieval Europe lagged, but militarily and administratively it was behind the Ottoman Empire for centuries for instance. It held sway over the biggest city in Europe and had an advanced bureaucracy capable of fielding a standing professional army. The philosophical texts of the Greeks were studied mostly in the East, in North Africa and Spain.

I don't think you have any clue what you are saying.

That rarely happens.

Quoting Lionino

It is a compliment, unless you want to admit to being a hypocrite, lightly bringing up the Mongol Empire "as more advanced" without any condemnation of Gengis Khan being a mass rapist and his reign killing off almost 20% of the whole population of Eurasia, estimated around 37.75–60 million.

An empire can be militarily advanced, allowing it to kill of 20% of the population of Eurasia... That does not make the violence more or less abhorrent. Did you mean with advanced, morally advanced? Then Europe is in a bit of a pickle having colonized most of the earth. Unfortunately, technological advance is often coupled with conquest. That is why the Turkish and Mongols were capable of penetrating deep into geographical Europe and that is why Europeans managed to colonize other people. I am not talking morality here. I am not not in the business of giving compliments or condemnations, at least not here..

Quoting Lionino

Paris is a dump, London is beyond gone, Lisbon and Brussels are approaching a point of no return. Europe is busted. The belief that it is fine doesn't stand a one-week trip to De Hague.

Compared to what? I live in the Netherlands and Den Haag (It is either Den Haag, or The Hague or La Haye as it is sometimes referred to, but not De Hague) was fine last time I visited.

Quoting Lionino

Again, Romans and Greeks abhorred most peoples around them and would have abhorred you too. They are not part of your culture. Your culture stands for everything opposite to their values — sexual deviancy, worship of minorities, effeminacy, worship of weakness and criminality, artistic decadence, and countless others.

Really? Those Romans and Greeks weren't deviants? I suppose as long as you kept your forays, as an upper class member of Roman society, to the lower classes and the slave class you were alright (and maintained the dominant role, of course.) Weren't the Greeks big on relations between older male mentors and younger men? The Maccabees opposed such degeneracy intruding into their culture. And later you have stricter Christian sexual ethics which includes monogamy and the disavowal of sex before marriage.

I understand notions of purity existed in Roman culture but they seemed to be very selective and not at all universal & dependent on social class.

Quoting Lionino

Honestly, I am quite skeptical of how much of this is true, given by how many parallels there are. And if it is true, I would imagine that the story comes from contact with Christian missionaries.

It may seem like I am playing hard to catch but I studied a bit of anthropology and some red flags are being raised for me.

There are many reasons not to be certain about it. When did the Genesis version of creation get written down and when christian missionaries go there?

The fact that their DNA remains without external influence for so long seems to indicate lack of contact with the outside world. I think that the Egyptians had a better chance of influencing them long before the christians ever got there, but there is little sign of influence from them.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Lionino

Paris is a dump, London is beyond gone, Lisbon and Brussels are approaching a point of no return. Europe is busted. The belief that it is fine doesn't stand a one-week trip to De Hague.

All those Mongolian tourists. I understand.

Quoting tim wood

You will, then, be good enough to make clear exactly what does happen when I - or anyone - reads a book.

I see his point. Your saying by allowing the written words and stories of those much like yourself to enrich your life and instill the values they were meant to instill and have instilled unto those who were presently involved in the story, you yourself are now effectively part of that story, or at least able to gleam a sufficient amount of experience and culture from said tales to a comparable degree of those who lived in/during said times and to place yourself within the story as if you yourself were there. He is saying that's still more living vicariously, a lesser depth or dimension than that of those who the story was literally about or involved chiefly due to the fact such tales despite any level of detail and depth of perspective will always fall short to that of a person who was born and raised in such a time as that was literally their reality and all they've ever known from birth til death, a reality that cannot be "visited" and "unvisited" the way we can choose to read or not read a book and so remains more of a cultural enrichment or immersion activity similar to a trip to another country as opposed to full on cultural transcendence and ultimate understanding.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

understand notions of purity existed in Roman culture but they seemed to be very selective and not at all universal & dependent on social class.

I don't think the ancients were as consumed by the thought of sexual deviancy as we are, or have been, since the remarkable, sex-hating, Paul of Tarsus began to contribute to what Christianity became.

For example, both ancient Greece and ancient Rome were largely indifferent to same sex relations at least where men were concerned, though the Romans considered it unmanly and rather ridiculous for a man to assume the "passive" role in those relationships. Julius Caesar was mocked by his detractors for being "Every woman's man and every man's woman." The regard the Romans had for the family under the stern supervision of the pater familias made it difficult and dangerous for a woman to be sexually active with more than one partner at a time, but I think the men were mostly free to do what they liked.

The Sacred Band of Thebes, a select group of warriors, was made up of male couples in a same sex relationship, one older and one younger. Alcibiades supposedly was in love with Socrates, according to Plato. Hadrian had his Antinous. Same sex relations and bisexuality were rather common, it seems, and depicted in such works as Petronius' Satyricon.

Quoting Lionino

Sorry, I will amend my statement:
...someone who has not been to Europe in the past 10 years would say.
Paris is a dump, London is beyond gone, Lisbon and Brussels are approaching a point of no return. Europe is busted. The belief that it is fine doesn't stand a one-week trip to De Hague.

The elections to the European Parliament in just a few weeks will be fascinating.

We started with something outstanding: the attempted murder of Slovakia's President.
Not even in backward countries like Mexico or India is this done.

Quoting Lionino

It is another episode on TPF of Europe-bashing.

Yeah that's it! We simply hate it.

Quoting Lionino

Sorry that Europeans led the world in science and technology

They only did for some time. During Roman rule perhaps and after the scientific revolution. Afterwards advances in technology were mostly made in the US and Japan. The problem as I see it, is that it is somehow threatening to your self perception to acknowledge the contributions of other peoples than Europeans. Now you are probably lamenting the demise of Europe and blame it on the dillution of European culture somehow. Only a Greek might feel pride when he/she sees the acropolis. That Greeks intermingled with the Turkish and other Balkan cultures and so probably there is no Greek person that can trace his heritage back to the ancient Athenians and Spartans is apparently of no concern. In your mind there is something essentially Greek and if you have 'it' then you can admire the acropolis otherwise you cannot.

Such notions are rather dangerous as history has proven, but they are also rather silly because what is European and is not, are not fixed categories. North Africa belonged to the Roman world, the Ottoman Empire belonged to what became known as the concert of Europe since 1856. Israel plays in European football competitions and sings in the Eurovision song contest etc.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Ciceronianus

sex-hating

I'm rather certain his disapproval and concerns lie in the greater more generalized danger of over-indulgence and the effects it can have on not just people but entire societies when one allows his or her life to become warped and inevitably controlled by intrinsically purposeless (albeit enjoyable) pursuits, recreational sex naturally being the most dangerous, likely to sway individuals both rich and poor, be they strong or meek, morally-upright and pious or not. It rightfully holds such a reputation as it (sex for pleasure) is often confused, especially by the young or uneducated, with being among the Great qualities and pursuits in life man strives to achieve: love, health, honor, and family. In societies where these formerly great values have become corrupted, the victims of that society then begin to view mindless whoredom as the pinnacle and sought after sum or culmination of all life purpose and effort. It is in no short part because, we, especially when young or uneducated, tend to view sexual relations as the ultimate form of personal acceptance, and as a result the ultimate form of worth or value, and conversely, the ultimate form of rejection and worthlessness. This corruption, this animal-like social dynamic man has been given the tools and intellectual capacity to leave behind as the first upright mammal left behind his former place wallowing in the dust of the Earth is what he valiantly tried, and succeeded for a time, to prevent.

So like most things, it was not the thing itself, but the principle behind it, in this case the lack of one, the dangers of blind indulgence, corruption and destruction of intellectual and moral values, and the resulting tendency of these things, especially when conducted in unison, to destroy societies and as a result end entire civilizations writ-large.

Quoting Ciceronianus

I don't think the ancients were as consumed by the thought of sexual deviancy as we are, or have been, since the remarkable, sex-hating, Paul of Tarsus began to contribute to what Christianity became.

He is remarkable. I read Paul as a man deeply concerned about his own salvation. When I look at his biography, I find myself thinking that this man is going to need a lot of faith and a lot of grace. His deep concern for his own salvation is not unfounded. He is not a Jew who has played by the rules of his background/tradition.

But Jesus isn't here to call the righteous, but the sinner. And that Paul is a sinner. But he knows it. Prototypical Christ-follower imo. In life some of us will go very astray and the radicalness of Christianity lies in the fact that it is not necessarily those who behave the best who attain the best afterlife, but those who do the right internal work.

The polytheists surely had a more lax sexual ethic generally, though I do understand the Roman world has the vestal virgins and a woman's purity was highly valued. In the Jewish world prohibitions against homosexuality, incest, and bestiality were established early with the biblical penalty often being death. But I know of not a single case where this actually occurred at least regarding homosexuality. Fornication was frowned upon.

Quoting tim wood

ditto with the classics. But with this qualification: they are all long dead and long gone.

One of the reasons they're still read is obviously because they were judged to have enduring value, and the fact that they have been preserved for millenia attests to that. (Presumably there were many minor and lesser writings that were not so preserved.) But I do get that to really understand (for example) Plato's corpus, you would have to read them in the original, so as to grasp all of the allusions and subtleties of the language. But then, it's a difficult field of scholarship, due both to the difficulties of the source texts, and also that they have been subject to centuries of commentary.

I've been attracted to Lloyd Gerson's books, and also those of a classics scholar Katya Vogt, but their books are very hard to read. They contain very lengthy and detailed footnotes and devote a great deal of time to defending their interpretation against others, ancient and modern, which introduce many intricacies of interpretation and arcane arguments replete with passages in Greek which of course I don't understand.

But, I do agree with the points you've made above, about assimilating the ideas from these texts, indeed that's why I made the remark at the outset. Also I've noticed this series from Princeton Press which makes available many classic texts.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

A quick rule for most: if you think you understand Paul, then you don't. As to fornication, that word does not appear in the Bible.

Reply to tim wood

I certainly don't fully understand fully Paul. I wasn't raised Christian. Happy to be corrected.

In ancient Judaism fornication -- sex outside marriage -- was frowned upon. It just doesn't receive the same type of penalties as something like adultery or homosexuality. The attitude towards it is biblically-based.

edit: In deut 22 the topic is mentioned. Women should be virgins before marriage -- i.e. should not have sex outside of marriage.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

More likely, the person who has done at least some of the work to understand Paul will be modest in his claims

I hope I was. Feel free to point out what you think is out of line on my part.

Quoting tim wood

And yes, biblical, just not the modern word or sense of the modern word.

Deut 22 deals with a woman maintaining purity before marriage. Men are not to deflower women before marriage or another man's wife. Is that not the topic of fornication? I.e. sex outside of marriage.

Quoting tim wood

And translations that are off, or in some cases just plain wrong, part of the problem.

Agree. I recommend Alter's translation. Word for word. With commentary.

Reply to tim wood

Best advice I had about the Bible was to keep in mind that it was not written to me, for me, or about me, and that anyone who claims that it is telling me what to do is taking several leaps that are not in the Bible.

Hm. I sort of agree? It's the literature of a civilization. Was it written specifically for you, Tim Wood, a 21st century human being? No. It was certainly written for a certain civilization though and there is literature in there that is universal in scope. It's a collection of ~39 different works with different purposes. Some document history, others cultic practices, theological experiments/exercises.... it's a wide mix compiled over ~1000 years. It's not until the New Testament that Paul (and Jesus I guess) tries to graft on the rest of humanity. Regardless of whether Paul is successful in his project, universalistic elements remain.

TLDR: In the OT some is universal others is clearly geared towards a specific people - Israel. The NT takes Jesus and runs with it hard. New divine revelation. One can appreciate the old and not the new. I despise those who only appreciate the new but not the old.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

[quote="tim wood;904844"]You may like this series of lectures.

:up:

Quoting tim wood

Anyway. I invite you to weigh that word "purity,"

I can avoid the word and re-state my position. I was simply discussing ancient Jewish and biblical perspectives towards fornication -- sex before marriage. Whether or not we agree with these is another matter altogether. A woman's virginity was valued at marriage; that's all I should have said and I should not have used the word "purity" as it is not mentioned in deuteronomy.

Quoting tim wood

He may not be exactly right all the time

According to Alter translation is a trade off so he must choose one word where many may fit. I will sometimes cross-reference his translations with others but his is my gold standard, although admittedly not always as readable as something like the NIV. Still, better something than nothing imho. If you're very serious you can start learning the biblical hebrew (or greek with the NT). Reply to tim wood

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Tobias

Not in every respect medieval Europe lagged, but militarily and administratively it was behind the Ottoman Empire for centuries for instance

Was it? Ottomans were well accomplished, but they took 200 years to take over an empire that had been declining for centuries, and that had been betrayed by its supposed allies. Claiming Ottomans were militarily above Europe feels to me a bit like claiming Goths were militarily superior to Romans. War and history aren't made based on who's stronger like a game, it is full of opportunism.

Besides, the Ottoman kingdom was born in the former Byzantine territory that had been took by the Seljuk. The Ottomans are, indirectly, a product of Europe — more and more the further you go into the future —, as anyone with some knowledge of Turkish history would tell you.
If Ottomans were militarily superior to Europe, they would not have been beaten by Austria.

As to the claim of "administratively behind", I won't even bother with that, as it can't be measured in any significant way, and I don't think anyone here has read the slightest bit on Ottoman governance (and governance of every other European kingdom of the same time).

Quoting Tobias

That is why the Turkish and Mongols were capable of penetrating deep

Turks and Mongols were not technologically advanced... Mongols catapulted dead corpses infected with leptospirosis into walled cities in the middle of sieges. Give some proof that those people were more tech advanced than Europeans or drop it, basic historical knowledge is against your thesis.

Quoting Tobias

Did you mean with advanced, morally advanced?

I didn't mean much. You say the Mongolian Khanate is more advanded than Europe (nonsensical statement), your original post pejoratively says Europe came to be by conquest (nonsensical thesis, but whatever), Mongols were blood-thirsty conqueror who raped, killed, tortured, and terrorised. So I ask you instead, what did you mean by Mongols being more advanced?

Quoting Tobias

(It is either Den Haag, or The Hague or La Haye as it is sometimes referred to, but not De Hague

Thanks, I will try to remember it.

You went as a tourist. Everything seems better as a tourist, especially when we come from our small towns. But by chance you were lucky and did not see some resident foreigner fighting the police or harassing locals/tourists. In any case, whatever, replace Hague with Paris or Brussels or whatever undeniably dumpy European capital, the point stands.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Really? Those Romans and Greeks weren't deviants?

Ugh, here we go with the usual "Greeks were gay" nonsense peddled by 21-st century Protestants. Like that British lady who published a book about how Achilles and Patroklos were actually gay for each other. The clown "scholar" (we give away this title too lightly nowadays) never read the Iliad. Patroklos and Achilles only show up in the same setting in two scenes in a book with over 20 long chapters, one of these scenes ends with each of them going to their separate tents, to go sleep with their woman of choice. The plot of the Iliad starts because Achilles got a woman taken away from him. I read the Iliad very recently, my memory is fresh, there is no romantic scene between the two in the whole book, the book in fact implies the two were raised as brothers.
Then the scene where Achilles cries loudly during Patroklos' funeral. Many other women and men cried during it too, does it mean all those several people were romantically involved with Patroklos? Absurd nonsense.

Let us speak then of the laws that Ottaviano Augusto, the first true de facto emperor, set against sexual promiscuity. Let us speak about how Roman historians, forsaking accuracy, accused characters they disliked of sodomy — as Cassius Dio accuses Elagabalus of dressing as a woman, something that every honest historian of today acknowledges as possibly being another manifestation of damnatio memoriae.

Let us speak of these things. Or let us speak instead of the proof (proof, not scant and conditional and specific evidence) that Greeks and Romans were generally sexual degenerates. I don't see proof of that anywhere. Even then, anyone who makes such a claim is making the historical confusion of generalising a period of over 1000 years to appease their personal bias and politics. Guess what, "Ancient Egypt" doesn't exist either. To people from Demotic times, the Middle Kingdom is as "Ancient Egypt" as Cleopatra is to us.

This is the dual aspect of people with no ancient history: they are so so bitter, that when they are not trying to steal others' heritage and history for themselves, they are trying to smear and denigrate that culture.

Quoting Ciceronianus

both ancient Greece and ancient Rome were largely indifferent to same sex relations at least where men were concerned

You are generalising and they weren't indifferent. Do you want a collection of citations by Ancient Greeks condemning sodomy?

Quoting Ciceronianus

Julius Caesar was mocked by his detractors for being "Every woman's man and every man's woman."

You see how this very statement of yours is a refutation of the previous quote? It is more apparent than the Sun in a sky without clouds. How can a society possibly be indifferent to sodomy when accusations of sodomy were frequently used as attempts at difamation? Come on.

Quoting Sir2u

When did the Genesis version of creation get written down

I don't see how that is relevant, as the time frame is intermediary between the two events of interest.

Quoting Sir2u

and when christian missionaries go there

Long before we started making anthropological investigations of those people. Thus, the results of those investigations may have been caused by contact with outsiders. Not to speak of the Arab slave trade in Africa:

Arabs were Abrahamic at that time.

Quoting Sir2u

The fact that their DNA remains without external influence

I doubt it.

Moreover, most Pygmies now speak Niger-Kordofanian (e.g., Bantu) or Nilo-Saharan languages, possibly acquired from neighboring farmers, especially since the expansion of Bantu-speaking agriculturalists beginning ?5 kya (Blench 2006).

And ideas get spread by ways other than demic diffusion. An unmixed DNA doesn't say much about one's culture.

Quoting tim wood

be good enough to make clear exactly what does happen when I - or anyone - reads a book.

"I read a book therefore that book is part of my culture".
Just... what?
I don't see how you could be confused on the meaning of these words so far into the game, but "culture" here is not being used in the sense of "You are so cultured for reading Foucault, Jimmy", the "culture" here is of national character. Harry Potter — a book widely read in Hungary — is not part of Hungarian culture.

Quoting tim wood

And he graciously explained that he could not, because he couldn't read it, making clear that he could not read any of it.

People often can't understand texts in their own language, it is still the same language. I made the point already, in the post that you are replying to, that Modern Greeks need training to understand Homeric Greek. You, however, don't need just training, you are learning a whole new language from scratch.

Quoting tim wood

And the attempt to reconcile Pagan and Christian beliefs/dogma/thought was already underway with Constantine, c., 330 AD.

I am obviously referring to the setting after the fall of the WRE. Again, arguing for the sake of arguing.

Quoting tim wood

You referred to the Great Wall, and then, it seemed, suggested that either the Great Wall had nothing to do with thieving hordes

The Great Wall was a randomly picked example of "a piece of one's history". I said nothing else about it. Where did "thieving hordes" come from? It is impressive sometimes how people here complicate things that are so simple by quite literally seeing things that were literally not there.

Quoting tim wood

But maybe simpler if you just state your point(s) in simple language, then we might see if we agree or disagree on some matter of substance.

My message is stated the way it needs to be stated, you can either try to understand it or hear what you want to hear. You are looking for statements that you can pick apart analytically; the message comes in a whole, not in atomic pieces logically connected to each other subsequently.

Reply to Lionino
I usually delight in quibbling, but don't feel you must peruse your cache of quotes regarding the naughtiness of sodomy on my account. I don't doubt there were those who disapproved of it and pederasty in particular, but I think most were indifferent to it compared to the angry fascination with it we see later.

As to Caesar, as I noted, the Romans thought a man taking the passive role in gay sex was ridiculous. So, Caesar was mocked for taking the passive role, in other words becoming another man's woman.

Quoting Tobias

Afterwards advances in technology were mostly made in the US and Japan.

:cry:

"Afterwards" as in the last 60 years, where Europe is still competitive nevertheless. Let us not forget that the reason the US got Nobels at all is because of all those juicy German and (European) Jewish scientists who moved there after WW2. I recall some statistic that 30% of US Nobels were in fact not native (God knows how many are sons of immigrants). I visited their grad departments a few times, the staff there were mostly foreigners — those were public universities in fly-over states mind you.

Quoting Tobias

is that it is somehow threatening to your self perception to acknowledge the contributions of other peoples than Europeans

I don't know what threatening to oneself means. Someone said the East was more advanced than Europe until recently. That is nonsense. Let's read up some history.
What's next, someone is gonna bring the Islamic Golden Age? Totally don't look up where that Islamic golden knowledge came from, stop before that part so you can prove yourself right.

Quoting Tobias

there is no Greek person that can trace his heritage back to the ancient Athenians and Spartans is apparently of no concern

Jesus Christ, you have no clue what you are talking about. You don't even need genetic studies, which I have to refute your claim, to prove that wrong. Think: did the Spartans not leave any children behind?

Quoting tim wood

Does that mean the Japanese person will get Mishima in ways that others cannot?

For one, they speak the same language as Mishima so they can read what he said, not a translator's rendition of what he thinks Mishima said.

Quoting tim wood

from Ainu in the North to Okinawans in the South

Ainu are not Japanese, Okinawans are. And before you complicate what is so simple: Ainu are not Japanese just like Kurds are not Iraqi, Okinawans are Japanese just like Bavarians are German.

Quoting tim wood

To say they're all alike in ways different from other people, that allows them a special appreciation of their own literature withheld from others, while containing a grain of truth, is mainly nonsense

"It is true but it is nonsense".
Recognising the truth in what I say while at the same time stating your malformed beliefs are immune to their refutation found therein, aka weaseling out.

Quoting tim wood

books more than a hundred years old are about people who are dead, and about places and things that either no longer exist or no longer exist as they did

This doesn't help you the way it does. There are groups A, B, and C. A is dead for centuries now. B's language, blood, government, territory, archictecture, dances, food comes from A. C's does not. To whose culture does A belong to? Not to C, that's for sure, no matter how many books C reads.

Quoting tim wood

But at the same time the literature is a door I can go through, and experience and learn from.

This isn't just about literature.

Quoting tim wood

hay rabdos sou kai hay baktaria sou. autai me parakelesan

What is this transliteration? Why does ? become "hay" and then becomes "a"?

All right, you've convinced me that Achilles wasn't gay. Point taken. To my understanding, however, pedestry was an institution within ancient greece where younger men would be tutored/groomed by their older mentors. This persisted for centuries and was phased out with the rise of Christianity.

@Ciceronianus is your source on all things Roman. But again, a different sexual ethic than the Christians (and Jews). AFAIK upper class Roman men basically had free reign sexually when it came to the lower classes and especially slaves whose bodies could be used on demand. Extreme promiscuity within the slave ranks. But I would say compared to Jewish-Christian notions of sexuality the Romans (and paganism in general -- constantly associated with sexual libaciousness in the bible) definitely had greater degrees of sexual access and looser/different norms. The romans for instance distinguished between penetrator and penetrated -- in the Hebrew Bible both receive the same harsh treatment and the same carries over into Christianity.

I'm not calling all of them sexual degenerates. That's a value judgment that I'm not at liberty to make. But Roman men (and surely Greek ones too) were allowed to use their slaves and have their dalliances. The Maccabees fought a very bitter war against the Greeks due to Greek ways intruding and the sexual ethic surely played into it.

Judaism and Christianity with its emphasis on monogamy ushered in a stricter sexual ethic than the polytheistic world. I don't believe Jews used their slaves sexually like the Romans did although I'd like to find more info on this topic. Reply to Lionino

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Ciceronianus is your source on all things Roman

You people are trolling me :rofl:

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

pedestry was a[s]n institution[/s] custom within ancient greece where younger men would be tutored/groomed by their older mentors

That is a claim with some truth to it that English speakers like to blow out of proportions so they, who are actual lovers of sodomy and pederasty (Epstein island!), see themselves reflected in ancient history.

When Philoxenus, the leader of the seashore, wrote to Alexander that there was a youth in Ionia whose beauty has yet to be seen and asked him in a letter if he (Alexander) would like him (the boy) to be sent over, he (Alexander) responded in a strict and disgusted manner: "You are the most hideous and malign of all men, have you ever seen me involved in such dirty work that you found the urge to flatter me with such hedonistic business?"

Plutarch:Moreover, when Philoxenus, the commander of his forces on the sea-board, wrote that there was with him a certain Theodorus, of Tarentum, who had two boys of surpassing beauty to sell, and enquired whether Alexander would buy them, Alexander was incensed, and cried out many times to his friends, asking them what shameful thing Philoxenus had ever seen in him that he should spend his time in making such disgraceful proposals.

Plutarch:He severely rebuked Hagnon also for writing to him that he wanted to buy Crobylus, whose beauty was famous in Corinth, as a present for him. Furthermore, on learning that Damon and Timotheus, two Macedonian soldiers under Parmenio's command, had ruined the wives of certain mercenaries, he wrote to Parmenio ordering him, in case the men were convicted, to punish them and put them to death as wild beasts born for the destruction of mankind.

Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaimonians Chapter 2:The customs instituted by Lycurgus were opposed to all of these. If someone, being himself an honest man, admired a boy's soul and tried to make of him an ideal friend without reproach and to associate with him, he approved, and believed in the excellence of this kind of training. But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connexion as an abomination; and thus he caused lovers to abstain from boys no less than parents abstain from sexual intercourse with their children and brothers and sisters with each other.

Plato's Laws:contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female

I can keep going, but for what?

Regardless, let's have our way with our fantasies. Romans and Greeks were gay. Yeah. They are still not part of your culture. Are you Greek or Italian, or, at the very least, Mexican? No? So they have nothing to do with you. Make some history of your own so you don't have to take it from others.

Quoting Lionino

I don't see how that is relevant, as the time frame is intermediary between the two events of interest.

Well then I think you missed the point, try again.

Quoting Lionino

Long before we started making anthropological investigations of those people. Thus, the results of those investigations may have been caused by contact with outsiders. Not to speak of the Arab slave trade in Africa:

So the Pygmies reinvented there whole oral history from thousands of years ago just because they heard something knew, very doubtful.

And they had contact with the Egyptians long before that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_(Greek_mythology)

Wiki:One story in Ovid describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beauty, and was transformed into a crane.

In art the scene was popular with little Pygmies armed with spears and slings, riding on the backs of goats, battling the flying cranes. The 2nd-century BC tomb near Panticapaeum, Crimea "shows the battle of human pygmies with a flock of herons".

So if the Pygmies had contact with the Egyptians way back in

Again the question, "When did the Genesis version of creation get written down?"

Could it be that the story was already know in Egypt even before someone wrote it down?

Quoting Lionino

I doubt it.

Moreover, most Pygmies now speak Niger-Kordofanian (e.g., Bantu) or Nilo-Saharan languages, possibly acquired from neighboring farmers, especially since the expansion of Bantu-speaking agriculturalists beginning ?5 kya (Blench 2006).

And ideas get spread by ways other than demic diffusion. An unmixed DNA doesn't say much about one's culture.

Oh dear, so now we are discussing modern times, I am getting confused by your time jumping. Please keep the topic to the time period under discussion to keep it relevant.

Quoting Sir2u

Well then I think you missed the point, try again.

A: Inception of Efe culture, many thousands of years ago.
B: The inception of Hebrew myths.
C: The time the Hebrew myths were written down.
D: The time of contact between carriers of the Hebrew myth and Efe culture.

When B and C happened exactly is not relevant for as long as we know they are spread out between A and D.

Quoting Sir2u

So the Pygmies reinvented there whole oral history from thousands of years ago just because they heard something knew, very doubtful.

Romans reinvented lots of their oral history because of contact with Greeks. Many Greek gods were of foreign origins (eg Apollos). Hebrew itself likely borrows many elements from Akkadian and Sumerian culture.
It is not doubtful.
Now think about it, technologically advanded, tall, weird-skinned people who might as well be aliens tell you something about the creation of the world and they want you to adopt those beliefs.
The article I linked previously already says that many experts think the story was taken from Abrahamics. If experts think so, it can't be "very doubtful", in fact it is very likely given the great coincidences. Furthermore, even if you are right about Efe, your argument doesn't prove your case:

Quoting Lionino

Even if such a fact could be established in comparative religion, they are still a distinct group from Eurasians, and the fact that the myths around the world have little in common with each other would not allow us to say with confidence that the connection between Hebrew and those African tribes is in fact from a common source instead of something that died out in the Eurasian branch and then developed independently again among the Canaanites.

Quoting Sir2u

And they had contact with the Egyptians long before that.

This statement really doesn't go along with your claim that they have unmixed DNA (most likely not true)... Besides, where did you get this information that they had contact with Egyptians?

Quoting Sir2u

Again the question, "When did the Genesis version of creation get written down?"

Could it be that the story was already know in Egypt even before someone wrote it down?

Are you suggestion that Egyptians knew the Hebrew myths because they contacted pygmies? :rofl:

Quoting Sir2u

Oh dear, so now we are discussing modern times, I am getting confused by your time jumping

5 thousand years ago is modern times? I think you should give it a rest.

Quoting Lionino

Regardless, let's have our way with our fantasies. Romans and Greeks were gay. Yeah. They are still not part of your culture. Are you Greek or Italian, or, at the very least, Mexican? No? So they have nothing to do with you. Make some history of your own so you don't have to take it from others.

Reply to Lionino

They are not my culture because I am neither Greek nor Roman nor even Mexican. Yet my culture interacted with & still, to an extent, interacts with these cultures. Hellenism influenced my people.

Make some history of your own so you don't have to take it from others.

:snicker: Don't mind my people we just wrote the Bible.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

This idea that Genesis came from African tribes does not have any foundation on facts and the only source on Efe's genesis are blogspot websites, the similarities are most likely due to contact with Christians.

Quoting https://stellarhousepublishing.com/garden-of-eden-originally-a-pygmy-myth/

It is obvious that critics who continue to bring up this issue of possible influence

These claims obviously stem from the so common "noble savage" veneration that is typical of the Anglosphere. They may make up their mythology — in spite of archaiological and anthropological facts, — that they are African, alright, but Christianity is not because there is no reason to believe so.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Don't mind us my people we just wrote the Bible.

My quote is aimed at whoever is trying to claim things that don't belong to them, the "you" is general, not targeted at you.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Hellenism influenced my people.

Jews may claim Greeks were a factor in their culture, that privilege doesn't apply to folks from other nations. Yet, a factor in a culture isn't the same as part of one's culture. Greece was an inextricable part of Latin/Roman culture, from its inception to the fall of the West, yet Latins saying "Aristotle and Zeus and Perikles are my culture" would be awfully weird, Augustine, Jupiter, and Scipio are their culture instead — Aristotle and Zeus informed their culture eventually.

Quoting Lionino

Let us speak of these things. Or let us speak instead of the proof (proof, not scant and conditional and specific evidence) that Greeks and Romans were generally sexual degenerates. I don't see proof of that anywhere. Even then, anyone who makes such a claim is making the historical confusion of generalising a period of over 1000 years to appease their personal bias and politics.

I think that the problem here is that in modern times, under the christian umbrella, people tend to see so many parts of sexuality as degenerate. The ancient civilizations had a much broader, more relaxed view on such things as shown in much of the writing and art of those times. There are plenty of what would now be called deviations spoken of and show in their art.
Does that mean maybe that for them it was not deviant behavior?

Quoting tim wood

And here again the spoor of the troll: when asked a question, or to clarify a point, they evade, avoid, attack.

Yes, I am trolling, not the people who have no clue about history and anthropology who still feel comfortable to hurl nonsense at other people's cultures.

Quoting tim wood

I don't know how to make brownies. I read a cookbook and learn how to make brownies. Now I know how to make brownies. Get the drift?

I do. Culture isn't a recipe.

Quoting tim wood

It is now

So much sophistry. Go say that a Hungarian person, they will laugh at you. I don't even think you believe in what you are saying. "Harry Potter is part of Hungarian culture" is so absurd.

Quoting tim wood

You would seem to understand "culture" as a kind of fixed artifact

No, I don't, because that is a nonsensical view.

Quoting tim wood

What I mean, most briefly, is that which is not me, that informs and instructs me as to what I may do/think, can do/think, should do/think, while leaving me room to do/think none of it

That is wrong. The weather informs you as to what you may do (bring an umbrella), the weather is not part of one's culture (no it is not, drop the sophistry). The meaning of culture is clear, and it may be verified in a dictionary.

Quoting tim wood

What do you mean by "culture"?

Let's see if you can steelman me: what do you think I mean by "culture"?

Quoting tim wood

I made it up. As for the letter ?, if you have an English equivalent I should be glad to use it.

If you don't know that, you don't know the very basics of Greek. Once again: people who have no clue about history and anthropology who still feel comfortable to hurl nonsense at other people's cultures.
If I tell you how to handle the letter, you will not use this newfound knowledge to properly deal with the language, you will use it to improve your sophistry.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Sir2u

I think that the problem here is that in modern times, under the christian umbrella, people tend to see so many parts of sexuality as degenerate. The ancient civilizations had a much broader, more relaxed view on such things as shown in much of the writing and art of those times.

That is correct. A degenerate is one who does not live up to certain moral standards in their society. Romans and Greek generally had strong notions of honour, so it is not correct to say they did not care about abiding to their moral standards. A strong notion of honour is not something that I see in many countries that like to claim Rome and Greece — because they clearly don't care about their own moral standards.

Speaking of historical difamation, the "vomitorium". Ah, so wonderful, when people fabricated this fantasy that Romans had the custom of eating, then puking again to be able to eat more in feasts. This confusion stems from a kind of historical narcisism, where we take the word "vomitorium", which is indeed connected with "vomit", and transpose modern meanings to it. It turns out, the "vomitorium" that Roman writers spoke of had nothing to do with eating, it was just a kind of hallway in theaters:

Quoting https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-the-truth-about-the-vomitorium-71068

Romans would have understood the moral messages contained in these anecdotes. A proper Roman man was supposed to be devoted to the gods, his family, and to the state – not to his belly. Excessive consumption of food was a sign of inner moral laxity.

Quoting tim wood

It seems to me that culture is the actual out of the possible that settles on some group, but that in the settling at the same time manifests its capacity to have settled on anyone. Thus undercutting any claim to any exclusivity except for the accident of the historical.

This is 100% word salad, I think you are the one who is trolling here. Refer to the dictionary for the meaning of 'culture'.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Lionino

Jews may claim Greeks were a factor in their culture, that privilege doesn't apply to folks from other nations. Yet, a factor in a culture isn't the same as part of one's culture. Greece was an inextricable part of Latin/Roman culture, from its inception to the fall of the West, yet Latins saying "Aristotle and Zeus and Perikles are my culture" would be awfully weird, Augustine, Jupiter, and Scipio are their culture instead.

Sure. Yet according to the Bible Japeth (progenitor of the Greeks) and Shem (progenitor of the Hebrews) are both sons of Noah. "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." Greek methods of storytelling/literature work their way into the Bible. The Jews love Alexander the Great yet go to war with the Seleucids.

Reply to Lionino

Quoting Lionino

Was it? Ottomans were well accomplished, but they took 200 years to take over an empire that had been declining for centuries, and that had been betrayed by its supposed allies. Claiming Ottomans were militarily above Europe feels to me a bit like claiming Goths were militarily superior to Romans. War and history aren't made based on who's stronger like a game, it is full of opportunism.

They were militarily above Europeans because after the Roman empire the Ottoman empire were the first to have a standing professional army which requires a centralized bureaucracy. European troops were recruited from the local populace. They were also among the first to employ gun powder in an effective way, integrating it relatively early in their army.

Quoting Lionino

As to the claim of "administratively behind", I won't even bother with that, as it can't be measured in any significant way, and I don't think anyone here has read the slightest bit on Ottoman governance (and governance of every other European kingdom of the same time).

Of course it can be measured. For instance by looking at the scale of the economy and effectiveness of taxation, the strength of centralized administration and so on. As for Ottoman governance and no one reading anything of it, that is a bit of a tricky claim, I at least read 'Turkey a Modern History' by Erik Jan Zürcher which deals mostly with the latter Ottoman empire and the emergence of modern Turkey, but also treats the Ottoman Golden age. Moreover I read quite a bit on state institutions, not only of Turkey.

Quoting Lionino

If Ottomans were militarily superior to Europe, they would not have been beaten by Austria.

That is like saying if Europeans were superior why did they lose Jerusalem. There is more than technological superiority, for instance the length of supply lines. In the beginning of the modern period (16th century) the ottoman empire was huge, far bigger than the European states, but even they cannot reach everywhere. The same goes for the Mongolian khanate.

Quoting Lionino

You went as a tourist. Everything seems better as a tourist, especially when we come from our small towns. But by chance you were lucky and did not see some resident foreigner fighting the police or harassing locals/tourists. In any case, whatever, replace Hague with Paris or Brussels or whatever undeniably dumpy European capital, the point stands.

I did not come as a tourist. Why do you think did? I might live there no? Why do you think I live
in a small town? (The Hague might be considered a small town, but Istanbul is not)

Quoting Lionino

I don't know what threatening to oneself means. Someone said the East was more advanced than Europe until recently. That is nonsense. Let's read up some history.
What's next, someone is gonna bring the Islamic Golden Age? Totally don't look up where that Islamic golden knowledge came from, stop before that part so you can prove yourself right.

Of course you know what it means. In fact, you understood me well. What is wrong with the Islamic Golden Age? And what is wrong with the Islamic golden age being inspired by the works of ancient Greek philosophy? I do not hold onto the thesis that everything was either this or that. Philosophy, mathematics, strategy and what not are products of intermingling. You like to hold on to some sort of European exceptionalism claiming that somehow it has fixed borders and what not. In my view history itself is a social construction, as is Europe.

Quoting Lionino

Jesus Christ, you have no clue what you are talking about. You don't even need genetic studies, which I have to refute your claim, to prove that wrong. Think: did the Spartans not leave any children behind?

Ohh they certainly did, who intermingled with Turkish children, Albanians and what not. The point is that there is no trace of ancient greece in any of the Greek people currently alive. Just like there is no trace a Roman in any Italian. People mingle. The only thing that is real is the stories they tell, but they are precisely that, stories, usually used to aggrandize some sense of national pride. "I am Greek and not Turkish", even though their ancestry may well be similar. You do the same, trying to save some image of a pristine 'Europe', essentially the same through eternity and somehow essentially Greek and Roman.

Quoting Lionino

The article I linked previously already says that many experts think the story was taken from Abrahamics. If experts think so, it can't be "very doubtful", in fact it is very likely given the great coincidences. Furthermore, even if you are right about Efe, your argument doesn't prove your case:

Maybe it is not convenient to believe that an ancient group of pagans actually had something worth while before the "civilized" people arrived, That sounds familiar, Indians, Africans, American Indians, Aboriginals were all just savages remember that had little to offer the "civilized" people.

Quoting Lionino

This statement really doesn't go along with your claim that they have unmixed DNA (most likely not true)... Besides, where did you get this information that they had contact with Egyptians?

I know several Asians, Africans and even Americans, but we have not mixed our DNA. Maybe the little guys and gals thought the Egyptians were too ugly.

But here is a study for you to browse at your leisure and a quote from it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4163

Here we present a high-resolution study of the genomic diversity of and relationships between both Western and Eastern RHG and neighbouring AGR populations, with the aim of dissecting the intensity and tempo of the admixture processes and demographic events that have characterized the past history of these human groups. We find that extensive admixture between the RHG and AGR groups has occurred only recently, within the past ~1,000 years, indicating that the early expansions of Bantu-speaking people did not trigger immediate, extensive genetic exchange between two communities. Furthermore, our results support the hypothesis that the ancestors of these two populations already differed in their demographic success before the emergence of a farming-based lifestyle in Central Africa.

Quoting Lionino

Are you suggestion that Egyptians knew the Hebrew myths because they contacted pygmies? :rofl:

Are you suggesting the Pygmies knew about the Genesis story because of the christians arriving in their lands a thousand years after the birth of christ?

Quoting Lionino

5 thousand years ago is modern times? I think you should give it a rest.

Let me highlight what you said so that we do not get confused.

Quoting Lionino

Moreover, most Pygmies now speak

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Don't mind us my people we just wrote the Bible.

Yeah, slay him. :rofl:

Quoting Lionino

Greece was an inextricable part of Latin/Roman culture, from its inception to the fall of the West, yet Latins saying "Aristotle and Zeus and Perikles are my culture" would be awfully weird, Augustine, Jupiter, and Scipio are their culture instead.

What is your point?
Beer drinking is a major part of European culture, but originated in Mesopotamia about 3500 - 3100 BCE.
Just because something came from another place does not mean it cannot be part of ones culture.

Quoting Lionino

Yes, I am trolling, not the people who have no clue about history and anthropology who still feel comfortable to hurl nonsense at other people's cultures.

When did this happen and who did it, I must have missed that bit.

Quoting Lionino

I do. Culture isn't a recipe.

But recipes are a part of culture. :roll:

Quoting Lionino

So much sophistry. Go say that a Hungarian person, they will laugh at you. I don't even think you believe in what you are saying. "Harry Potter is part of Hungarian culture" is so absurd.

But it is for at least these people
https://www.facebook.com/groups/harrypotterhungary/
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g274887-d19126341-r934699361-The_MAGIC_Budapest-Budapest_Central_Hungary.html
https://grimmauld12.wixsite.com/alohomora/about

Maybe they disagree with your idea of culture as well.

Quoting Lionino

That is wrong. The weather informs you as to what you may do (bring an umbrella), the weather is not part of one's culture (no it is not, drop the sophistry). The meaning of culture is clear, and it may be verified in a dictionary.

You screwed up again, A lot of culture is based on things like the weather in the place you live, the terrain you live in, the vegetation in that area. People didn't eat what is not grown in the area they live in long ago, so their recipes are based on what was available. And as I have already pointed out to you recipes are part of culture.

Quoting Lionino

If you don't know that, you don't know the very basics of Greek. Once again: people who have no clue about history and anthropology who still feel comfortable to hurl nonsense at other people's cultures.

Once again "When did this happen and who did it, I must have missed that bit".

Quoting Lionino

If I tell you how to handle the letter, you will not use this newfound knowledge to properly deal with the language, you will use it to improve your sophistry.

Ahh, so now you are scared of sophistry. :rofl:

Quoting Lionino

That is correct. A degenerate is one who does not live up to certain moral standards in their society. Romans and Greek generally had strong notions of honour, so it is not correct to say that did not care about abiding to their moral standards. A strong notion of honour is not something that I see in many countries that like to claim Rome and Greece — because they clearly don't care about their own moral standards.

I think that you misunderstood, what I was trying to say is that they did not have the heads so far up their asses like lots of people today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art_in_Pompeii_and_Herculaneum

Romans might have been honorable in their today, but the question here is exactly what counted as honorable in their times?

Quoting Lionino

Speaking of historical difamation, the "vomitorium". Ah, so wonderful, when people fabricated this fantasy that Romans had the custom of eating, then puking again to be able to eat more in feasts. This confusion stems from a kind of historical narcisism, where we take the word "vomitorium", which is indeed connected with "vomit", and transpose modern meanings to it. It turns out, the "vomitorium" that Roman writers spoke of had nothing to do with eating, it was just a kind of hallway in theaters:

Seriously, did people actually believe that myth? Just goes to show how far spread ignorance is.

Quoting Lionino

This is 100% word salad, I think you are the one who is trolling here. Refer to the dictionary for the meaning of 'culture'.

Take your own advice.

Quoting Sir2u

But recipes are a part of culture. :roll:

Spare me your rhetorical diarrhoea.

Quoting Sir2u

But it is for at least these people
https://www.facebook.com/groups/harrypotterhungary/
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g274887-d19126341-r934699361-The_MAGIC_Budapest-Budapest_Central_Hungary.html
https://grimmauld12.wixsite.com/alohomora/about

Nowhere there does it say Harry Potter is part of Hungary's culture. Again, spare me.

Quoting Sir2u

A lot of culture is based on things like the weather in the place you live

Elements of one's culture are determined by the weather, the weather itself is not part of one's culture.

I won't even continue, what a load of crap. These barbarians who think Romans would feel anything but disdain for them go as far as saying all the absurd nonsense you see in this thread. That I have to argue with so much dishonesty and bullshit is well past limits now.

These people have no ancient history of their own, their history is a fentanyl addict who died of overdose during COVID curfews, cross-dressing parades, and insane orange politicians. In their insanity they will defend every sort of violation of common sense, "hur dur the weather is part of culture", "hur dur recipes are part of culture", "hur dur we wuz romans n shiet u knowamsayan?", "hur dur hay rabdos sou kai hay baktaria sou. autai me parakelesan". Just barbaric, barbaric all the way through. They don't even know how to use periods.

Those are the same people who defend that men can become women and that 2+2=5. So if such basic concepts bewilder them so much, to ask them a proper understanding of history is like charging a cat with doing the taxes of a company.

Sparing them with the slighest bit of culture and civilisation is throwing pearls at hogs. They were barbarians 2000 years ago and they are barbarians today and will be barbarians forever — uncapable of art and uncapable of philosophy (how can one do philosophy in a language that struggles with concepts as basic as "nation" and "woman"?).

Quoting Lionino

Spare me your rhetorical diarrhea.

This is a page meant for kiddies to learn from, maybe it will help clear your learning constipation.
https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/culture/399913

But I guess that Britannica could be wrong.

Quoting Lionino

Nowhere there does it say Harry Potter is part of Hungary's culture. Again, spare me.

Karate, Kung fu, tacos, apple pie, sushi, Soul food,the waltz, are some of many adopted parts of the American way of life. Does that make them any less part of American culture

Quoting Lionino

Elements of one's culture are determined by the weather, the weather itself is not part of one's culture.

I never said it was, maybe you should try reading carefully. What I said was that many customs are based on the weather, especially in farming. Is that not part of the culture then.
Or do you go skiing in the summer and swimming in the winter? The weather plays a big part in the culture of a people.

Quoting Lionino

I won't even continue, what a load of crap. These barbarians who think Romans would feel anything but disdain for them go as far as saying all the absurd nonsense you see in this thread. That I have to argue with so much dishonesty and bullshit is well past limits now.

So you do not believe what is before your eyes, instead preferring to maintain your ignorance to reality.
How many ancient Romans do or did you actually know? Because unless you can speak from first hand knowledge of the subject all I can say is that you are spouting undeniably ridiculous garbage. show us some proof that the Romans were as good and noble as you say they were or shut up.

Quoting Lionino

These people have no ancient history of their own, their history is a fentanyl addict who died of overdose during COVID curfews, cross-dressing parades, and insane orange politicians. In their insanity they will defend every sort of violation of common sense, "hur dur the weather is part of culture", "hur dur recipes are part of culture", "hur dur we wuz romans n shiet u knowamsayan?", "hur dur hay rabdos sou kai hay baktaria sou. autai me parakelesan". Just barbaric, barbaric all the way through. They don't even know how to use periods.

Tut TUT. did you never learn that personal attacks against members of a debating group are the ultimate sign of a badly defeated arrogant ignoramus. Especially when they take up jobs with the grammar police.

Quoting Lionino

Those are the same people who defend that men can become women and that 2+2=5. So if such basic concepts bewilder them so much, to ask them a proper understanding of history is like charging a cat with doing the taxes of a company.

Sparing them with the slighest bit of culture and civilisation is throwing pearls at hogs. They were barbarians 2000 years ago and they are barbarians today and will be barbarians forever — uncapable of art and uncapable of philosophy (how can one do philosophy in a language that struggles with concepts as basic as "nation" and "woman"?).

As I said earlier you really should do more careful reading, I think that if you look you will find my opinion on men being women is clearly stated on a thread somewhere around the forum.

Oh, one last thing before I tell you to fuck off. Your free grammar lesson:

uncapable of art and uncapable of philosophy

It is INCAPABLE, not uncapable (No, I am not going to put a period here just so that I can annoy you one last time)

Now fuck off.

Quoting Outlander

So like most things, it was not the thing itself, but the principle behind it, in this case the lack of one, the dangers of blind indulgence, corruption and destruction of intellectual and moral values, and the resulting tendency of these things, especially when conducted in unison, to destroy societies and as a result end entire civilizations writ-large.

I think you give sex far too much importance, as did Paul and others did after him.

I referred to indifference to sex in the Roman and Greek (perhaps I should use "Hellenic") world compared to what came later. It may be more accurate to say that sex didn't have the significance it came to have. Sexual relationships could be significant (like convenient marriages), but not so much the sexual act. I think that, then, people weren't as disturbed by it as they are now, particularly as to sex of certain kinds, it seems.

An example, ever been to the ruins of Pompey, or seen them on video? If so, you may have noticed the appalled reaction of some visitors, or the giggling of others, at the frequent depiction of the phallus and the occasional paintings or murals involving various sexual acts. Such things weren't thought forbidden or depraved at the time; a phallus could even be considered "lucky".

We come to attribute too much significance to what we think is forbidden, especially when we believe it's forbidden by God. This strikes me as particularly the case here in our Glorious Union. So we tend to see such as Anthony Comstock, Carrie Nation, Billy Sunday (who was it seems a good baseball player) and other preachers against purported vices of all kinds). We also see others who like to appear to glory in those vices thinking it makes them remarkable in some sense.

Quoting Ciceronianus

I think you give sex far too much importance, as did Paul and others did after him.

It could have been sorcery or addiction to shopping or marijuana or drunkenness, that was my point it wasn't what happened to be the most life-controlling it was the fact that it was. Whether the majority of society "viewed" it as good or bad or casual or not, I'm merely referencing the biological fact it's the easiest form of influence over a person's life, be they man or woman. I get your argument the person who engages in casual sex often and is in no short supply begins to view it as little more than reading a book or completing a puzzle, just another thing that happens, of no more significance that a cloudy afternoon or running into a neighbor at a local market, easily, as you're suggesting "the least important thing in the world and couldn't be further from the forefront of daily thought in one's mind", because it has already become a background controlling factor that has quietly influenced nearly all decision and indecision from as early as the person can remember despite, if asked, their honest belief of the opposite. That was my assertion, at least. The insidious nature of over-indulgence of the flesh and it's quiet, subtle as well as not so quiet and subtle controlling grip over man's destiny and most consequentially, society itself, whether it manifests as a conscious urge or theme one recognizes and responds to or has quietly become part of one's identity and character or community zeitgeist without it consciously being in people's minds as "important" or "occupying", ie. the measurable effect and influence remains pivotal whether or not it is viewed as such or even pondered at all, similar to unconscious bias.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Ciceronianus is your source on all things Roman.

I enjoy irony.

Quoting Outlander

The insidious nature of over-indulgence of the flesh and it's quiet, subtle as well as not so quiet and subtle controlling grip over man's destiny and most consequentially, society itself, whether it manifests as a conscious urge or theme one recognizes and responds to or has quietly become part of one's identity and character or community zeitgeist without it consciously being in people's minds as "important" or "occupying", ie. the measurable effect and influence remains pivotal whether or not it is viewed as such or even pondered at all, similar to unconscious bias.

Well, I disagree. I don't think there's anything establishing that indulging in sexual desires dominated political, social or economic decisions in antiquity, or influenced them in any significant sense.

Quoting Ciceronianus

I don't think there's anything establishing that indulging in sexual desires dominated political, social or economic decisions in antiquity, or influenced them in any significant sense.

Perhaps a better way to put it would be the following. The culmination of all human relationships (a man, no matter if it be a leader, a merchant, or an unskilled laborer, and his life companion) is influenced predominantly by... who you find attractive ie. who you want to have relations with. All decisions made are impacted and influenced by, if not in part, by what the person's significant other thinks. So sexuality is an omnipresent factor in every facet of activity or thought by default, if not in the background after being the sole or principle "cause" for setting up, basically every form of non-platonic relationship. So to expand on that, let's remove every person who already has a romantic partner, without forgetting sexual indulgence or attraction was at minimum a significant factor in establishing that relationship to begin with and as a result every act or failure to act that occurs after that point. So, no matter what position you are, a political leader, a relatively well-off merchant, or struggling laborer without such a partner, it is not unreasonable to suggest, you want to find either A.) a wife or B.) an attractive partner to have by your side to feel complete and not lonely. Fair? So, you will likely work to make that happen, be it as a leader either freeing up your time perhaps neglecting your job or perhaps bringing glory through conquest or some sort of socially-praised act that is likely to result in obtaining such a person. Or as a merchant, you might wish to open up another shop or start selling items that single women might buy so as to again, produce a result or environment where it is more likely for you to obtain such a person based on, sexual desire. Even the struggling laborer, why does he work? To eat and sustain himself yes, but also to be able to support and thus encourage the likelihood of finding, a romantic partner, to satisfy his sexual desire. Or perhaps it can be romanticized yes, absent of overwhelming physical desire, perhaps any one of these individuals just wants company from a fellow person, to raise a happy home and bring glory and honor to his family, those before him, and his empire. Guess what? 9 times out of 10 he's still going to prefer his partner to be sexually attractive to satisfy that primal urge every man and woman has, an urge that left unchecked will also 9 times out of 10 override logic or better judgement at least on occasion, often at the most unfortunate times. All is fair in love and war, after all. This is the "bulk" of my argument: Unchecked sexual desire makes logic and judgement go out the window like NO other thing can! No it is not "established" or "announced" when a man kills another man out of jealous rage, but also 9 times out of 10 there is a woman involved, which means the act was ultimately brought about by sexual desire.

So, not to get personal, it is none of my business, but I doubt you or anyone reading has not acted or chosen not to act based on the likelihood of said action or inaction resulting in gaining the attention, admiration, or affection of the desired sex for reasons beyond being a nice person. And we're intellectuals. So double or triple that for the average, especially relatively-uneducated citizenry in older times. Imagine if, instead, every action or inaction that affected other people was based on what is best for oneself and others intellectually and morally, instead of what appeases one's primal sensibilities, an appeasement that as I said earlier easily becomes confused with the Great virtues and values in life such as love, honor, etc.

I'm not even personally agreeing or disagreeing with anything, I'm sure you're right about what your asserting, I just find your reply as I happen to interpret it as glossing over a few very important underlying dynamics that seem to suggest, absent of education (theology or morality of any flavor), man is not first and foremost guided if not largely influenced by primal desire, the most prominent (or overlapping, universally connected? ie. likely to influence other emotions) of which being sexuality. I would find that a very difficult claim to defend to say the least.