Fall of the American Empire

[YankeyMCC]

Interesting piece from the Guardian, back in 2001. I posted here becaus e the last few paragraphs talk about the role of religion in the Fall of Rome, and the author's belief there's a similarity with events in America.


" Religion played a critical role in these developments. By the third century, if not before, there was an attitude among many Christians that education was not relevant to salvation, and that ignorance had a positive spiritual value (an early version of Forrest Gump, one might say)."

[Tafiti]

1. Do you have a link to the whole thing? n/t

[YankeyMCC]

2. sorry...

forgot to add the link:

here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,564084,00.html

[trotsky]

3. There was also that phase where cleanliness was looked down upon.

After all, it meant you were being too consumed with personal appearance and not being pious enough.

So you can imagine the disease that quickly spread through Christian communities.

The Jews, on the other hand, being "neat freaks" of a sort with their kosher preparation laws, etc., maintained their health. And so naturally, the only LOGICAL conclusion to draw from this was that the Jews were in league with Satan to poison all the Christians.

What those Christians did to remedy the situation, you can probably guess, given their religion's bloody history.