Posted by Otremer on August 22, 1998 at 22:26:43:
In Reply to: some more thoughts posted by mike on August 22, 1998 at 18:02:02:
Perhaps one can argue that the defeat of the technolgically superior Nazis set back the advance of civilization. Perhaps we'd be on Jupiter, or at least Mars, if the Nazi rocket program had continued unhindered. Think of the advances that human experimentation and eugenics may have yielded to those with the will to triumph. I saw the book "The Dark Side of Christian History" mentioned in this thread. One of the points it makes, that might reflect favorably on the Christian church depending upon one's point of view, is the effect of the Christian doctrine that encouraged the domination of nature by mankind. Christians were told by God to dominate nature, and Jesus told them to evangalize the world. Viewed in this way, Christianity can be seen as the impetus for world exploration and exploitation, just as Nazism encouraged all those advances in physics in the persuit of Lebensraum. It is interesting, but rather moot to speculate what would/could/should have happened had the Sung fleet sailed into Lisbon before Columbus "discovered" the New World. What if Rome had not fallen, or Carthage had triumphed in the Punic Wars? It's all interesting, but it really can be argued either way.
Blessings,
Otremer
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