Concerning email posted in #218:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Slowmo Raju Thomas: Everything that you see in the world today (economy, technology, society, education) is because of the Christian West.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Poor slowmo, he's rather slow in the uptake.
<b>Economy?</b> Christian economy is built by bringing the countries it colonised to utter poverty and famine. Where would Europe or America be without having drunk the oil, land, diamonds, gold, along with the blood of all the Africans, native Americans, Hindus and others? See http://freetruth.50webs.org/A4e.htm#MissionsColonialism which suggests the book Christliche Mission und Kolonialismus
Back then the colonial side of the west was still Christian - it was a christian west that the colonised countries all experienced.
<b>Technology came after Enlightenment and Secularism.</b>
<b>Western society</b> changed from a feudal society (where most Europeans were serfs until Africans were enslaved to take their place) to what it is, again thanks to Enlightenment and Secularism, which were both anti-christian movements. Europe freed from christo grip lead to Africans being freed from christo slavery's grip.
<b>Christianity and Education?</b> What a joke. Christianity destroyed all the schools in the Roman empire including Greece to make the people as illiterate as the apostles were. Illiteracy and ignorance are christian virtues - in centuries past, this was an ideal for christians and the church, that they followed with great pride. Today illiteracy and ignorance are unfashionable and so the church pretends it was always for education.
Stuff below from http://freetruth.50webs.org/A2b.htm
<b>PAGAN ROME UPTO EARLY YEARS OF CHRISTIANITY:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Roman municipalities supplied free elementary instruction for the children of all workers. Anywhere you went, in a suburb of Rome or a small Italian town, you would see the teacher, in the porch of a house perhaps, teaching the children how to write on wax-faced tablets. Practically every Roman worker could read and write by the year 380 A.D., when Christianity began to have real power. By 480 nearly every school in the Empire was destroyed. By 580, and until 1780 at least, from ninety to ninety-five percent of the people of Europe were illiterate and densely ignorant. That is the undisputed historical record of Christianity as regards education.
<i>-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe</i>
The Church, however, got an early and fair start on its wonderful career as the organizer and creator of civilization. In 529 [by priest-prompted edict of Justinian] "the schools of philosophy were closed. From that date Christianity had no rival." (CE. ii, 43.) We have read the Imperial Law of Justinian with the fatal title: "Pagans Forbidden to give Instruction"; consequently "the State schools of the Empire had fallen into decay." (CE. xiii, 555.) Thenceforth the Church, inspired by its Holy Ghost, was the sole Mentor and Instructor of Christendom.
<i>-- Forgery in Christianity, by Joseph Wheless, where CE refers to the Catholic Encyclopaedia</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>EARLY TO LATE PERIOD (19th century) EUROPE:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It is a well known historical fact that the last schools of Greek philosophy were suppressed and finally closed by the Christian emperor Justinian (483-563). The reason, of course, was that the Greek schools taught pagan, and secular ideas. [1]
...The ascent of Christianity into temporal power was accompanied in parallel by the decline in secular education.
...by the year 1100, 99 percent of Christian Europe was illiterate. [4]
<b>It was secular developments, such as the Renaissance in the fourteenth to sixteenth century, and the Enlightenment in the eighteenth, that rejuvenated the education system in Europe.</b> The Renaissance, in part, was an attempt to revive the great pagan works which Christianity had successfully suppressed until then. [5]
But where possible the churches still continued to suppress education. By any count they were pretty successful; for up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, fully 90 percent of Christian Europe was illiterate. [6] As recently as 1846, we find the English statesman, Richard Cobden (1804-1865) complaining, in a letter to a friend, that he faced extreme resistance from clergymen of all denominations in his quest for mass education. [7]
Indeed the attitude of the Catholic Church was no different from the English Protestant ones. The historian Thomas MacCaulay (1800-1859), in his book History of England (1845) has this to say about the Catholic Church's attitude towards education and intellectualism:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->...during the last three centuries to stunt the growth of the human mind was her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance had been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, had been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportions to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude and in intellectual torpor. [8]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Link - http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/education.html
Slowmo ain't no historian. He should stop parroting the christian pseudo-history his christo 'school' fed him with and read what knowledgeable people like the historian (and former Catholic priest) Joseph McCabe (quoted somewhere above) have said.
<b>TRUE CHRISTIANS TODAY</b>
Slowmo should decide whether he wants his children to be good christians or get an education. If he wants to be good christian he should follow his brothers-in-faith:
The following is from a very christian site of today - these losers seem to know their bible just like those early christians did, unlike Slowjo:
http://www.jesusfamilies.org/Articles/Ed...olotry.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Many adults labeling themselves as "Christians" partake in the world's <b>idolatry of education.</b> The vast majority of parents in the EPBF organizations are only too eager to see their children "graduate" from an obviously secular college or university. And this in spite of the fact that those institutions are radically against the teachings of the Lord. Having a degree from the world is viewed as much more important for their children than their children having child-like faith in Jesus, and staying pure in spirit. The simplicity of the gospel and of childlike faith in Messiah Jesus and His Words have always been mocked, but never so much as in these last days and ironically, by that which claims to follow Him i.e. His "church".
As the people go, so the "leadership" goes. Since the people think that a degree is necessary to be a 'somebody', especially a leader, then their "leaders" must also earn some piece of paper and approval of men. But is this the Lord's way? Is someone being deceived?
In light of this darkness, a few extremely important questions need to be asked and answered. Does Jesus teach that his Family will have leaders who are educated and trained, academically or otherwise? Does Jesus teach that his Family will have leaders that are "intelligent" as judged by some standard? If so, should men, using religious institutions fashioned after the world's academic institutions, be the judges? Does Jesus even mention intellectual gifting as part of qualifications for following him? Does Jesus say that one must "earn a degree" in order to be a part of his Family...his flock? The answers to these questions brings up some other important related issues, such as should Jesus' disciples send their children to colleges and universities?
<b>The answers to these questions is a resounding and clear NO, as this article will Scripturally and logically demonstrate.</b> In fact, those who claim to be "Christian" leaders, and who also believe that a person must attain a degree from some academic institution in order to be a leader in Jesus' "church", are badly deceived and are hindering the true work of the Spirit. Grievously, those "Christian" parents who desire to see their children attend a college or university, secular or "Christian", are virtually ensuring their children turn out to be massively confused with weak faith at best, and more likely unbelievers, at worst.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Doesn't slowbo, living in the US, know this? That several good-christian communities and denominations in America prohibit school? Some want homeschooling, others want no teaching for their children at all! Why? Because it ain't christian, like it says above. 'Education is heresy' in christianity. It was always considered pagan by the Church, precisely because it was pagan. And after the destruction of Europe, only the pagan populations in Persia, India, China were educated when Christian Europe was wallowing in miserable ignorance and making its poor deluded population superstitious and stupid.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A2b.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Learning was still regarded as paganism:</b>
The church encouraged ignorance: "<i>Saint Bernard of Clairvaux </i>(1090-1153), the most influential Christian of his time, bore a deep distrust of the intellect and declared that the pursuit of knowledge, unless sanctified by a holy mission, was a pagan act and therefore vile."
<i>-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester</i>
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.
<i>-- Saint Augustine of Hippo, 5th century</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Slowmo Raju Thomas: Everything that you see in the world today (economy, technology, society, education) is because of the Christian West.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Poor slowmo, he's rather slow in the uptake.
<b>Economy?</b> Christian economy is built by bringing the countries it colonised to utter poverty and famine. Where would Europe or America be without having drunk the oil, land, diamonds, gold, along with the blood of all the Africans, native Americans, Hindus and others? See http://freetruth.50webs.org/A4e.htm#MissionsColonialism which suggests the book Christliche Mission und Kolonialismus
Back then the colonial side of the west was still Christian - it was a christian west that the colonised countries all experienced.
<b>Technology came after Enlightenment and Secularism.</b>
<b>Western society</b> changed from a feudal society (where most Europeans were serfs until Africans were enslaved to take their place) to what it is, again thanks to Enlightenment and Secularism, which were both anti-christian movements. Europe freed from christo grip lead to Africans being freed from christo slavery's grip.
<b>Christianity and Education?</b> What a joke. Christianity destroyed all the schools in the Roman empire including Greece to make the people as illiterate as the apostles were. Illiteracy and ignorance are christian virtues - in centuries past, this was an ideal for christians and the church, that they followed with great pride. Today illiteracy and ignorance are unfashionable and so the church pretends it was always for education.
Stuff below from http://freetruth.50webs.org/A2b.htm
<b>PAGAN ROME UPTO EARLY YEARS OF CHRISTIANITY:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Roman municipalities supplied free elementary instruction for the children of all workers. Anywhere you went, in a suburb of Rome or a small Italian town, you would see the teacher, in the porch of a house perhaps, teaching the children how to write on wax-faced tablets. Practically every Roman worker could read and write by the year 380 A.D., when Christianity began to have real power. By 480 nearly every school in the Empire was destroyed. By 580, and until 1780 at least, from ninety to ninety-five percent of the people of Europe were illiterate and densely ignorant. That is the undisputed historical record of Christianity as regards education.
<i>-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe</i>
The Church, however, got an early and fair start on its wonderful career as the organizer and creator of civilization. In 529 [by priest-prompted edict of Justinian] "the schools of philosophy were closed. From that date Christianity had no rival." (CE. ii, 43.) We have read the Imperial Law of Justinian with the fatal title: "Pagans Forbidden to give Instruction"; consequently "the State schools of the Empire had fallen into decay." (CE. xiii, 555.) Thenceforth the Church, inspired by its Holy Ghost, was the sole Mentor and Instructor of Christendom.
<i>-- Forgery in Christianity, by Joseph Wheless, where CE refers to the Catholic Encyclopaedia</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>EARLY TO LATE PERIOD (19th century) EUROPE:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It is a well known historical fact that the last schools of Greek philosophy were suppressed and finally closed by the Christian emperor Justinian (483-563). The reason, of course, was that the Greek schools taught pagan, and secular ideas. [1]
...The ascent of Christianity into temporal power was accompanied in parallel by the decline in secular education.
...by the year 1100, 99 percent of Christian Europe was illiterate. [4]
<b>It was secular developments, such as the Renaissance in the fourteenth to sixteenth century, and the Enlightenment in the eighteenth, that rejuvenated the education system in Europe.</b> The Renaissance, in part, was an attempt to revive the great pagan works which Christianity had successfully suppressed until then. [5]
But where possible the churches still continued to suppress education. By any count they were pretty successful; for up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, fully 90 percent of Christian Europe was illiterate. [6] As recently as 1846, we find the English statesman, Richard Cobden (1804-1865) complaining, in a letter to a friend, that he faced extreme resistance from clergymen of all denominations in his quest for mass education. [7]
Indeed the attitude of the Catholic Church was no different from the English Protestant ones. The historian Thomas MacCaulay (1800-1859), in his book History of England (1845) has this to say about the Catholic Church's attitude towards education and intellectualism:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->...during the last three centuries to stunt the growth of the human mind was her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance had been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, had been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportions to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude and in intellectual torpor. [8]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Link - http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/education.html
Slowmo ain't no historian. He should stop parroting the christian pseudo-history his christo 'school' fed him with and read what knowledgeable people like the historian (and former Catholic priest) Joseph McCabe (quoted somewhere above) have said.
<b>TRUE CHRISTIANS TODAY</b>
Slowmo should decide whether he wants his children to be good christians or get an education. If he wants to be good christian he should follow his brothers-in-faith:
The following is from a very christian site of today - these losers seem to know their bible just like those early christians did, unlike Slowjo:
http://www.jesusfamilies.org/Articles/Ed...olotry.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Many adults labeling themselves as "Christians" partake in the world's <b>idolatry of education.</b> The vast majority of parents in the EPBF organizations are only too eager to see their children "graduate" from an obviously secular college or university. And this in spite of the fact that those institutions are radically against the teachings of the Lord. Having a degree from the world is viewed as much more important for their children than their children having child-like faith in Jesus, and staying pure in spirit. The simplicity of the gospel and of childlike faith in Messiah Jesus and His Words have always been mocked, but never so much as in these last days and ironically, by that which claims to follow Him i.e. His "church".
As the people go, so the "leadership" goes. Since the people think that a degree is necessary to be a 'somebody', especially a leader, then their "leaders" must also earn some piece of paper and approval of men. But is this the Lord's way? Is someone being deceived?
In light of this darkness, a few extremely important questions need to be asked and answered. Does Jesus teach that his Family will have leaders who are educated and trained, academically or otherwise? Does Jesus teach that his Family will have leaders that are "intelligent" as judged by some standard? If so, should men, using religious institutions fashioned after the world's academic institutions, be the judges? Does Jesus even mention intellectual gifting as part of qualifications for following him? Does Jesus say that one must "earn a degree" in order to be a part of his Family...his flock? The answers to these questions brings up some other important related issues, such as should Jesus' disciples send their children to colleges and universities?
<b>The answers to these questions is a resounding and clear NO, as this article will Scripturally and logically demonstrate.</b> In fact, those who claim to be "Christian" leaders, and who also believe that a person must attain a degree from some academic institution in order to be a leader in Jesus' "church", are badly deceived and are hindering the true work of the Spirit. Grievously, those "Christian" parents who desire to see their children attend a college or university, secular or "Christian", are virtually ensuring their children turn out to be massively confused with weak faith at best, and more likely unbelievers, at worst.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Doesn't slowbo, living in the US, know this? That several good-christian communities and denominations in America prohibit school? Some want homeschooling, others want no teaching for their children at all! Why? Because it ain't christian, like it says above. 'Education is heresy' in christianity. It was always considered pagan by the Church, precisely because it was pagan. And after the destruction of Europe, only the pagan populations in Persia, India, China were educated when Christian Europe was wallowing in miserable ignorance and making its poor deluded population superstitious and stupid.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A2b.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Learning was still regarded as paganism:</b>
The church encouraged ignorance: "<i>Saint Bernard of Clairvaux </i>(1090-1153), the most influential Christian of his time, bore a deep distrust of the intellect and declared that the pursuit of knowledge, unless sanctified by a holy mission, was a pagan act and therefore vile."
<i>-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester</i>
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.
<i>-- Saint Augustine of Hippo, 5th century</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->