Who is Top Contributor to Civilization?

[Eriech]

I’m guessing the primary effect was to die of smallpox.

If they had only worn masks /s

 

[Cardinal]

If they had only worn masks /s

Workshop it.

 

[Grand Mal]

If they had only worn masks /s

Good thing vaccinations gave us herd immunity and made smallpox history, huh.

 

[phoenix2020]

Fascinating that Indo-European was left out of this poll altogether. You'd think people would at least know where their own language originated from. Oh well.

 

[Loulit01]

Thank you from British Columbia.

BTW, you do know that "the Christian Calendar" is wrong since it has both the year and date of Yeshua bar Yosef bin Nazaret incorrect - don't you?

PS - When are we going to get rid of those "unChristian" and heretical names for the days of the week, I mean we have a day named after the SUN (not SON), the MOON, the number TWO, the pagan "god" WODEN, the pagan "god" THOR", the pagan goddess "FRIGGA", and the pagan god "SATURN".

And those heathen months that are named after pagan gods and murderous pagan emperors - those have to go too, don't they?

Is it any coincidence that there are twelve months and that there were twelve disciples?

Doesn't that prove that God wants the months to be named after the disciples (and, naturally, anyone who objects "put to the sword" for heresy)?

But at Christmas we take a conifer home and decorate it and make it all pretty. Then we get on our knees and place gifts under it and little statues of humans and animals. How this is Christianity and not Celtic tree worship baffles me.

 

[reflechissez]

Yeah, but they did invent language. You can't really top the invention of language.

What do you mean by that?

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

again, can you explain this leftist obsession with rape? Also they didn’t pillage or sack. They built new societies and married local women creating a new ethnicity that was Hispanic in character. the inquisition is one of the most lied about occurrences in history. Torture was not common, most people were acquitted, in fact many of the forms of due process used in the present west were introduced in the inquisition. Also it was good that the authorities wanted to protect the souls of their subjects. were very worse, not merely different

Possibly you could explain what appears to be your morbid and almost monomaniacal preoccupation with sex (which I deduce from the fact that you know only one definition of the word "rape").

Possibly you could also explain what appears to be your massive lack of historical knowledge (which I deduce from the fact that you believe that the Spaniards didn't pillage or sack the habitations of the indigenous peoples they encountered in the American continents).

If, by "acquitted" you mean "not condemned to death", you are probably correct. If, by "acquitted", you mean "had the charges dismissed as baseless and no penalty whatsoever imposed" then you only reinforce what appears to be a massive lack of historical knowledge.

As far as for "many of the forms of due process used in the present west were introduced in the inquisition" I don't see much evidence that

​

• anonymity of the informers (i.e. prohibition on confronting your accuser);
• confidentiality of the written testimony (i.e. not being able to know what the evidence against you is);
• targeted interrogation forms (i.e. leading and loaded questioning)
• detention (i.e. incarceration without appeal or limitation on duration); and
• torture

are in use today in many western countries so would you please let me know WHICH of those has been incorporated into the "due process" currently practiced in civilized countries?

So, as long as "the authorities" believe (or at least say that they believe) that they are "acting for the good of your _[fill in the blank]_" you totally absolve them of anything that a rational person would consider to be "wrong" - right? Sister John must be very proud of her prize catechism student.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

But at Christmas we take a conifer home and decorate it and make it all pretty. Then we get on our knees and place gifts under it and little statues of humans and animals. How this is Christianity and not Celtic tree worship baffles me.

Worse than that, but those heathen Celts stole the "Yule (from the old Norse jól and Old English géohol which was a season of hunting after the harvest was done) Tree (as early as the fourth century C.E. European pagans were dressing their homes with the branches of evergreen fir trees in order to bring color and light into their dull winters)" concept from the vastly more civilized Norsemen and Huns.

**T*R*U*E** Christians eschew the pagan fir and cedar trees and decorate their homes with the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook as instructed in "The Bible" (Leviticus 23:40). So, if you see one of those so-called "Christians" and/or so-called "Christian Churches" decked out with evergreens you know that they are not **T*R*U*E** Christians and should admonish them severely for their pagan and heretical ways.

We'll go into those "graven images" that those so-called "Christians" persist in bedecking their homes and places of so-called "worship" with contrary to God's Word as faithfully recorded in "The Bible" (Exodus 20: 4) at some other time.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Very few people were burned at the stake, it was a punishment meted out after conviction at trial. Unlike the Aztecs which mass sacrificed people at whim

They were only following the dictates of their religion as interpreted by their priest class. This, of course, is completely different from that the Europeans did because they were doing what their priest class interpreted the dictates of their religion to be.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Rarely, and the inquisition did not carry out any executions. Those were done by secular courts

Furthermore. Executing heretics to the Christian faith in a Christian country if they are obstinant and will not repent is not wrong, whereas mass sacrifice of humans to demons is always wrong. So false equivalence.

People who talk about the inquistion today were not alive back in the Middle Ages and cannot comprehend how people viewed the damage heretics could do to the body politic. It would be like taking up arms against the king in a society where unity was necessary to survive

Indeed, the executions were carried out by the secular courts which were paid by the Roman Catholic Church to carry out the sentence that the Roman Catholic Church's courts had imposed.

If it is perfectly proper to execute "heretics to the Christian faith in a Christian country if they are obstinate and will not repent" does that mean that your position that it is just peachy keen for the US government to execute all of those Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Shintoists, Animists, Wiccans, Protestants and other non-Christians if they will not convert to "The One True Religion"? Or is it your position that the United States of America is NOT a "Christian country" so doing so would be wrong?

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

I'm mighty proud of my heritage, and of the massive success of myself and my people.

We are a proud people and I like to celebrate our success. We're natural leaders, we assume the role of "leader" more often than not.
I see no reason why I shouldn't be proud of my heritage as others are encouraged to be proud of theirs.

Whats your beef fella?

Does that include being proud of the genocidal conquests, cultural obliterations, and environmental despoliation that "your people" committed?

Or is that something that isn't mentioned in polite company?

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

What do you mean by that?

Language is the one indispensable trait of civilization. You could have a civilization without agriculture, without the wheel, without AM talk radio, etc. But you cannot have a civilization without language.

 

[Loulit01]

Language is the one indispensable trait of civilization. You could have a civilization without agriculture, without the wheel, without AM talk radio, etc. But you cannot have a civilization without language.

Civilizations have cities. No agriculture no cities.

 

[Jredbaron96]

"When the last century ended, humans could not even fly. In the 20th century, the human race went to the moon and began to explore the stars."
The San Francisco Chronicle

Which "Subspecies" of the Human Race is the top contributor to "Civilization" in areas such as discoveries, exploration, the arts, inventions, technology, transportation, architecture, farming, healthcare and overall quality of life?

I'm sure we all know of great accomplishments by all six but only one can be the absolute most accomplished?

For those of you not afraid of "Race" classification...

Race Definition
(1) Any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.
(2) A group of people sharing a common cultural, geographical, linguistic, or religious origin or background.
(3) The descendants of a common ancestor : a group sharing a common lineage.
(4) A group within a species that is distinguishable (as morphologically, genetically, or behaviorally) from others of the same species.

The Indus River Valley, the Sumerians, and ancient Egypt. You can throw in the Greeks and the Chinese in there too. No one else really compares.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

Civilizations have cities. No agriculture no cities.

Not true. An extraterrestrial civilization might be composed of obligate carnivores. Or they might gain nutrients through photosynthesis. They would still be a civilization without agriculture.

They might be uniformly distributed across the surface of their planet, rather than clustering their population into cities. They could still be a civilization, even without cities.

They cannot be a civilization without language though.

 

[Jredbaron96]

snip

For a more in depth answer.

Which "Subspecies" of the Human Race

Unless you mean Neanderthals and co, there are no subspecies of humans.

is the top contributor to "Civilization" in areas such as discoveries,[/B]

What are we defining as discoveries? Scientific discoveries? Physical discoveries? Metaphysical? Theoretical?

exploration,

Seafaring people of all stripes tend to lay claim to this. So Norsemen, Punics, Portugese, Spanish., Polynesians.

the arts,

On what level? Painting, sculpting, mosaics? This is also something that's going to come down to personal preference a lot.

inventions,

This is a broad field you're going to have to narrow it down. However, Irish and Scots can lay claim to a disproportionate level of invention.

technology,

Technology is a very broad field to which various tribes succeeded in various forms. You'd have to narrow it down.

transportation,

This kinda unfairly leaves out anyone who didn't have access to a horse. It's not the Native American's fault a plague wiped out all the horses in North America.

architecture,

That's going to come down to a personal opinion, unless you are talking in terms of structural reliability, in that case that's largely a modern element so unfair to our ancestors.

farming,

Agriculture was the collective work of a number of tribes, but the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Indus River Valley civilization can lay claim to that with the strongest authority.

healthcare

According to public polling, Singapore has the highest level of satisfaction with their country's healthcare.

and overall quality of life?

According to quality of life index, the Swiss.[/b]

 

[reflechissez]

Language is the one indispensable trait of civilization. You could have a civilization without agriculture, without the wheel, without AM talk radio, etc. But you cannot have a civilization without language.

Language is the one indispensable trait of homo sapiens. It wasn't invented.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

Language is the one indispensable trait of homo sapiens. It wasn't invented.

It was invented as much as anything can ever be invented. You could say that homo sapiens evolved to use language, but by the same reasoning, you could say that homo sapiens evolved to use RTX 3090 graphics cards. Some humans in Africa at least 150,000 years ago agreed on a set of sounds to represent concepts symbolically. That was the invention of language.

 

[reflechissez]

It was invented as much as anything can ever be invented. You could say that homo sapiens evolved to use language, but by the same reasoning, you could say that homo sapiens evolved to use RTX 3090 graphics cards. Some humans in Africa at least 150,000 years ago agreed on a set of sounds to represent concepts symbolically. That was the invention of language.

Language doesn't require sounds. It is an understanding of meaning. You are referring to spoken language.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

Language doesn't require sounds. It is an understanding of meaning. You are referring to spoken language.

Let me rephrase for pedantic clarity. Language, of any medium, requires symbolic representation of concepts. A symbolic representation of a concept requires that someone ideate a symbol to represent the concept they want to communicate. Some humans in Africa at least 150,000 years ago agreed on a set of symbols to represent concepts. That was the invention of language. Better?

 

[JANFU]

Sid Meier.

Stayed up all night to beat that game

 

[Loulit01]

Not true. An extraterrestrial civilization might be composed of obligate carnivores. Or they might gain nutrients through photosynthesis. They would still be a civilization without agriculture.

ROFL

They might be uniformly distributed across the surface of their planet, rather than clustering their population into cities. They could still be a civilization, even without cities.

They cannot be a civilization without language though.

 

[reflechissez]

Let me rephrase for pedantic clarity. Language, of any medium, requires symbolic representation of concepts. A symbolic representation of a concept requires that someone ideate a symbol to represent the concept they want to communicate. Some humans in Africa at least 150,000 years ago agreed on a set of symbols to represent concepts. That was the invention of language. Better?

The existence of "language" was required in order to "agree" on those symbols.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

The existence of "language" was required in order to "agree" on those symbols.

This is true in a sense. Presumably, the original inventor decided on some symbol that they would use to represent some concept. Someone else figured out that the inventor was using that gesture or sound in relation to whatever concept was being expressed and they went on to develop it further from there.

Regardless of the specifics of how it originated, it wasn't discovered under a rock. It was formed from ideas within human minds.

 

[Empirica]

Wow! Is this a racist ****ing thread or what?.

What on earth do you find "racist" about this thread?

Or are you simply consumed by Political Correctness?