Paul: The true founder of Christianity, and arrogant to boot.

**Silver Guard** · November 29, 2007, 01:06 PM

"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an alter with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

Paul, the man who set about making Christianity the dominant and ruinous power it became with the fall of Rome. He was Jewish once, a Pharisee in the greatest irony, and yet he went on to join a sect of a man he never knew, a man who, possibly, hated him and what he represented.

Yet despite him, he had the sheer arrogance to go to Athens (of all places!) and patronise the leaders of the seat of western Philosophy. The impunity to go to them and insult their God and intelligence, despite being vastly inferior to them in almost every way. They were men who had studied with the greatest thinkers of the age, who held the legacy of Socrates and Aristotle. Men who were called by the Roman nobility and paid incredible sums to educate them and their children.

Why? Because they were the thinkers of the time, those who's intellect was incomprehensible to the average roman citizen. And yet this ignorant zealot came to them and proclaimed them to be the exact example of what he embodied.

It worked, some of the thinkers were driven to think on his words, and a few even changed to follow him. His words were to lead to the destruction of Greek Philosophy under the heel of intolerance the church bore, and the superstitious drivel they brainwashed the people of Dark Age Europe into believing. Paul killed off philosophy, it is only a shame that the same thing which killed philosophy then is still haunting us now, Creationalists, Fundementalists, Evangelicals all.

**Chaigidel** · November 29, 2007, 01:11 PM

if paul killed philosophy then it was a ****** philosophy.

isnt it funny no matter how much you think you are better than someone, they can still shake your ****ing world down around you?--zealots will always own your life, no matter how hard you try to free think them away;because they act, whilst the great thinkers talk.

I laugh, twice.

blah blah blah blah

**Silver Guard** · November 29, 2007, 01:20 PM

****** philosophy? Oh so philosophies like Democritus, who had the first idea of the atom, over two millenia in advance. Aristotle, who founded biology? The Cynics, Stoics, Mystics? You need to understand a subject before you comment on it.

What zealots? I don't head zealots, people like those who blew up the world trade center, people who preached the murder of Jews in Spain, people who ordered the crusades in the name of God.

**Oldgamer** · December 01, 2007, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by Eclipse SG

****** philosophy? Oh so philosophies like Democritus, who had the first idea of the atom, over two millenia in advance. Aristotle, who founded biology? The Cynics, Stoics, Mystics? You need to understand a subject before you comment on it.

What zealots? I don't head zealots, people like those who blew up the world trade center, people who preached the murder of Jews in Spain, people who ordered the crusades in the name of God.

The same Church that represents things you detest also preserved the writings of the Greek philosophers. In fact, much of the doctrine of the Church is based upon a variation of the works of Plato and Aristotle. Without the Church, we wouldn't know that Democritus even existed.

**Chaigidel** · November 29, 2007, 01:50 PM

and because of those actions you feel the hands of those zealots even today.

and paul was not responsible for those philosophy disappearing--- in fact oddly enough you STILL KNOW ABOUT THEM!!!!!

so how did he destroy them?

since this is a speculative subject of which neither of us has a good idea about since we were not there--- I dont need to understand anything; because there is nothing to understand.

you are just flinging more bile at christianity, this isnt even a legitimate point.
just your blind hatred showing through.

**iudas** · November 29, 2007, 01:52 PM

Eclipse, curiously, you still believe that Christianity was responsible for the Dark Ages...
Some people never learn.

**Dayman** · November 29, 2007, 01:53 PM

Calm down a little Eclipse. Of course he was arrogant, he knew, like so many claim "the true and only way".

**Silver Guard** · November 29, 2007, 01:53 PM

He founded the church, the church quashed western philosophy, thus he destroyed it. Western Philosophy was only reformed in the renaissance post-descartes.

Nothing to understand? Are you really so ignorant as to say there is nothing to understand about the philosophy of antiquity and the Church's effect upon it?

SirPaladin: The Church was not responsible for the Dark Ages, the Huns were. The Church was what made them dark.

**iudas** · November 29, 2007, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by Eclipse SG

SirPaladin: The Church was not responsible for the Dark Ages, the Huns were. The Church was what made them dark.

No. The Church was not the cause of the aggravation. Merely an element aggravated by the causes, becoming, later, a factor. Had the Church appeared in an environment of scientific and philosophic progress, it would have been much more open-minded and modern. Today it's decent because of that.
And, after all, the Church wouldn't have overtaken more complex and modern philosophies but for the overall regress of the Dark Ages. I actually consider it beneficial to a point, because it was a factor of unification of the peoples of Europe. Imagine the early Middle Ages without a common religion! It would have been worse, definitely.
But I guess this is off-topic.

**Chaigidel** · November 29, 2007, 01:56 PM

im saying that we didnt lose anything from the philosophy of antiquity; because we still have texts and copies-- mostly kept BY THE GODDAMN CHURCH.

In fact you should be praising the catholic irish monks for you knowing a goddamn thing about any ancient history.

**Silver Guard** · November 29, 2007, 01:59 PM

If It weren't for the Church they wouldn't have needed to keep the precious few texts so safe, because philosophy would have continued developing and evolving. Instead they were quashed, leaving the philosophers of the enlightenment to re-reason everything already found by those of antiquity.

**Dayman** · November 29, 2007, 01:59 PM

They preserved them but did not advance them, you know, heresy and the like.

That's why only now people can safely declare atheism, something not allowed for a long time.

**sephodwyrm** · November 29, 2007, 02:00 PM

If I were you, Eclipse, I would have named the philosophers that were demolished by Paul. And shame them.

**Dayman** · November 29, 2007, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by sephodwyrm

If I were you, Eclipse, I would have named the philosophers that were demolished by Paul. And shame them.

Good ****ing point there. It is hard to believe how those great thinkers could be swayed. I guess the man was really, really charismatic.

I wish Socrates was around then, we would not be having this discussion.

**Chaigidel** · November 29, 2007, 02:02 PM

to blame christianity for the halting of those philosophy is just hatred talking.

they were carried on by countless people (especially learned nobles and clergy)--plus islam!) --- but either way, the philosophy was not stopped by ANY faith. it was stopped by the greeks not being ****ing smart enough to carry it further--- same with everyone else.

you may as well blame goddamn rabbits; it makes the same amount of sense.

blaming faith for every ill in the world is the same as blaming satan.

**Dayman** · November 29, 2007, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by Chaigidel

to blame christianity for the halting of those philosophy is just hatred talking.

they were carried on by countless people (especially learned nobles and clergy)--plus islam!) --- but either way, the philosophy was not stopped by ANY faith. it was stopped by the greeks not being ****ing smart enough to carry it further--- same with everyone else.

you may as well blame goddamn rabbits; it makes the same amount of sense.

You cannot deny that because of the church, especially during the inquisition that free flow of ideas not pertaining to God was pretty much stopped.