TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY | Roman Empire, Christianity and Dark Ages

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY
Roman Empire, Christianity and Dark Ages

Then the Greek civilization fell again due to warfare and the Roman empire came into existence.

Roman empire had the spirit of Greeks, and they were well known in part for their ability to govern.

But later the Romans became dictatorial and debauched.

Now was born, the seeds were laid , of a religion that would dominate the world for the next 2000 years.

Jesus was born, he talked enigmatically, about god explicitly, claimed to be the son of god, and told his followers to work for others. He denied the reality of this world, he spoke in metaphors, which his followers took literally and thus the church and ritualism was born. The Roman empire fell but Christianity was declared as the official religion before it fell.

Then followed the dark ages, nothing happened in those 1000 years, Christianity had taken over and held full political power. No real progress happened. It was like early man stage.

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY | The Greek Civilization

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY

The Greek Civilization

Three great thinkers came on the scene and philosophy was born naturally. Man finally questioned where he is , what he is, what is the right way to live alone and together, and what IS the world?

Thus was born Philosophy. This marked the birth of man, the ending, in principle, of dogmas, blindness and other forces ruling us.

Why? Because this was a real enquiry, and an actual desire to fully grasp the world, broadly.

Alas! The conclusions that were reached were still wrong because it was too early. The spirit of inquiry was right but the application of thinking was faulty.

Plato actually said that there was another reality as Philosophy and Mysticism was born in conscious terms.

Luckily his disciple Aristotle embraced this earth and man and posited a rational and natural philosophy and gave the fundamental rules of logic that are needed to think correctly and arrive at true knowledge. The concept of non contradiction that we take fro granted came into existence thanks to the then momentous contribution of Aristotle.

Thus inquiry began of what is this world in details. It goes on...even today...by a few.

Thus science was born but without full experimentation and rigorous observations. Thinking through logic was born but there was a confusion about how basically we must define truth.

Is it completely through what is or can we invent some truth of what might be just because we can imagine things?

The latter was part of the METHOD OF THINKING. In technical terms there was both induction and deduction and though science was born, it was not consciously , philosophically rooted in induction alone. But truth is derived from facts and then generalizations come. THIS insight would come later, as we will see.

Of course science did take a leap compared to before, at least man could know what he is and where he is!

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY | Birth and spread of Islam

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY
Birth and spread of Islam

But after 800 years again, another religion came onto the scene and that was due to the birth of Mohammad, and he too talked about another world, and he advocated conquering peoples and establishing his religion. His followers did exactly that, but they also discovered Aristotle’s works and translated them in Arabic. Thus Greek thought was again brought back in the world and paved the way for the Renaissance in the next millennium.

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY | 20th Century

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY

20th Century

Then the 2 bloodiest wars took place in the world, the world war 1 and the world war 2 . The second world war was rooted in absurd beliefs held by Hitler that no one opposed. As stated the age of reason and enlightenment had ended.

Since then we have witnessed the inevitable fall of Russia as communism is utterly and absurdly impractical. But the modern Philosophy is still entrenched and it is a nihilistic thought, that man cannot hold. So many experts say that slowly religion is going to come again, and there are clear signs and people will accept it because as we have seen for people as such, some philosophy, even religion, is better that NOTHING!

A NEW CYCLE WILL BEGIN, A NEW MORE TERRIBLE DARK AGES ARE FORETOLD, AND IT HAS TO HAPPEN, AS WE HAVE LEARNT OR RATHER NOT LEARNT FROM HISTORY!

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY | Anti Intellectual Ideas and Communism and imperialism

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY
Anti Intellectual Ideas and Communism and imperialism

But alas! Man did not fully understand the importance in Philosophical terms what he had achieved. Science had developed. Religion had lost its political power but mysticism, the unknown nature of life and existence, that which haunted man all along his history, still remained in man, and a series of modern philosophers came on the scene and said that if god is not, then nothing is certain.

The world is unknowable, as such, and a thinker, the most influential of the modern philosophers, KANT, said that we can never know reality because we were bound by our senses. The reality was seen with the lenses of our senses and THAT IS WHY we can never know reality. Such a grotesque attack was unchallenged and he did it in the name of enlightenment!

Notice that most of the later philosophers and writers couldn't leave the "otherworldly" beliefs.

It is still true, even today.

Slowly ....in a century or two, in Philosophy this came to be accepted and many other Philosophers too said equally absurd things denying that man had a mind at all and that we were living in a world!!

Philosophy reached a dead end, and during this time, a social, political and economical model came into popularity called communism and socialism.

This was done by Marx. Marx said that the state should rule men, that capitalism was evil, and in fact this was brought into reality in soviet Russia by the Russian revolution.

By this time many countries had formed and the industrial revolution had taken place and the British empire had conquered many lands. Man had not yet understood, that conquest is unnecessary and political power and economic power are different.

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY | Renaissance, Scientific revolution, Reformation and Enlightenment

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY

Renaissance, Scientific revolution, Reformation and Enlightenment

Christianity ironically produced during this time a thinker who championed ARISTOTLE! His name was Thomas Aquinas. Though he gave arguments for God, he accepted all of Arstotle’s tenets and laid the questioning seeds of his own Religion, Christianity.

The world was witnessing a resurgence, a renaissance.

It started with the great art movements with pioneers like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci and others.

People realised that they are supreme, that man and this world needs to be understood, and then came the scientific revolution and this time with full observations and experimentation. Thus Inductive method took central stage, thanks mainly to Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo but especially due to Newton who made breathtaking and astounding generalizations and proved them and showed what IS proof!

He discovered the laws of motion and gravitation not on earth alone but as applied to the whole world, he made heaven and earth one and obviously weakened the religious fairy tales, in the world at large.

Slowly, as centuries passed, science came up with more and more and more discoveries, in electricity, magnetism, fluids, atomic structure of matter, heat, in the causes of chemical reactions, the classification of all elements in a periodic table,processes in living thins --astounding discoveries were made and man came of age.

Then slowly the kingly rule too was challenged and Christianity too, via Reformation of Church. There were the American and French revolutions. These proclaimed that Man had rights as an individual and right means nobody could take away his right to life, freedom and to work.

This was enshrined in especially the American constitution and a great secular, man centric country came into being. Man had finally learnt how to organise himself, and capitalism was born, rooted in man’s rights and not the collective rights or God.

THE BEST PEARS | RETOLD BY LEO TOLSTOY | MASTER READING - LISTENING WITH GRAMMAR ANALYSIS | INDIAN STORIES | EFL RESOURCES

THE BEST PEARS

A master sent his Servant to buy the best-tasting pears. The Servant came to the shop and asked for pears. The dealer gave him some; but the Servant said:

"No, give me the best!"

The dealer said:

"Try one; you will see that they taste good."

"How shall I know," said the Servant, "that they all taste good, if I try one only?"

He bit off a piece from each pear, and brought them to his master. Then his master sent him away.