Islam is unable to relate to the diverse contemporary cultures

[Augustus]

You have failed to read the references, and are not aware of foot noted references. Despite your biased derision,and selective referencing the Wiki source is reasonably accurate and footnoted with references.

Biased derision? I never criticised the sources (why would I? They were accurate enough and clearly supported my argument), I was just pointing out your selective double standards.

Selective citation? You mean citing the exact point that refute your claim that "No there is no evidence that the Byzantine Empire had any or significant Greek philosophy texts before they received them through Islam in the Middle Ages"

Would you like to make a rational argument against my point, or are we back to you simply saying 'you're wrong, you're wrong' while ignoring any source that goes against your ideological beliefs (now apparently including the ones you picked yourself).

My point: "Well much of it was also preserved by the Byzantine Empire as it was their heritage, but philosophers in the Islamic Empire certainly made significant contributions and additions. I'm not the one denying multiple influences here."

Again: Significant numbers of texts arrived in the West from both Byzantine and Islamic sources. The Islamic sources also contributed beyond merely preserving the texts, they also made significant additions.

Your argument... ?

I acknowledged that some Greek texts were preserved in the Eastern Church, but you failed to acknowledge there limits and other problems noted in the references.

Verbatim: "there is no evidence that the Byzantine Empire had any or significant Greek philosophy texts before they received them through Islam in the Middle Ages"

Your sources said otherwise...

With increasing Western presence in the East due to the Crusades, and the gradual collapse of the Byzantine Empire during the later Middle Ages, many Byzantine Greek scholars fled to Western Europe bringing with them many original Greek manuscripts, and providing impetus for Greek-language education in the West and further translation efforts of Greek scholarship into Latin.[2]

If you would like to make an actual argument against this referencing what you think is wrong, please do. It would make a pleasant change

Actually,your original argument was the rise of intellectual movements and democracy in WESTERN EUROPE due to Christian influence, and I disagree. The source of the influence and development of intellectual movements is the influence of Greek Philosophy predominately from texts acquired from Islamic sources in the Middle Ages. There never was a significant democracy nor intellectual movements in the Eastern Empire nor in the Orthodox Churches that followed.

Yes that was my original argument. We then started talking about how Greek texts arrived in the West, which is why I am discussing how Greek texts arrived in the West.

This is incidental to my main argument regarding the influence of Christianity on Western liberalism (liberal democracy).

There is nothing in the Bible nor in the hierarchy of Roman Church inherited from Rome that would inspire democracy. In fact they would go against democracy.

How many times, liberal democracy, as in political liberalism. Also, Christianity is not limited to a rank Biblical literalism.

Actually there was resistance to Greek philosophy and ideas like St Jerome

And the major translator and preserver of Greek texts in the West was the Church which doesn't exactly suggest a general desire to prevent access to this material.

Christianity is a diverse tradition that has lasted 2000 years, of course there are different attitudes within it.

Actually, the Greek texts in the Empire were minimally translated and used,and not transmitted to the Western empire as cited.

That's not what your sources say.

No the the translation movement in the Middle Ages was not mostly translated by Christians.

Again not so much as an attempt to make a reasoned argument. Again, you are very much mistaken.

The translation movement in the Islamic Empire was mostly done by Christians who were working for, and being paid by, the Arabs.

Why were so many Greek-Arabic translators Christians ?

During the 8th to 10th centuries almost all Greek scientific and philosophical texts then available in manuscripts were translated into Arabic, and translation efforts continued into the following few centuries. The translators who carried out this work were not from a single community, and came from many ethnic and religious backgrounds. Important translators were Muslims like al-Ḥajjaj ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar (AD 786–830) and al-‘Abbās ibn Sa‘īd al-Jawharī (d. after 843), and even planet-worshipping Ṣābi’ans like Thābit ibn Qurrah al-Ḥarrānī (d. 901). But Christians made up a very large proportion of these translators.

Why Were So Many of the Greek-Arabic Translators Christians? | Qatar Digital Library

The translation movement in the West was also mostly done by Christians and mostly paid for with Church funds (I'll let you google that one yourself).

 

[shunyadragon]

With respect, that is not what I stated in my prior post and nor was it the argument of the collated scholars.

There was great enthusiasm among scholastic Catholic scholars in the West to study the works of Islamic commentators of Aristotle such as Avicenna, as well as the works of Byzantine translators and commentators who already possessed voluminous texts from classical antiquity.

But that wasn't what I discussed above. I was referring to the earlier Islamic Golden Age, in which the Abbasid rulers employed many Christian scholars of Syriac and Greek origin to translate classical works in the House of Wisdom. There expertise was essential to the flourishing of knowledge during the Golden Age, and a strong consensus of scholars - including Muslim scholars - recognises their contributions.

On the second point, I do not have much time today for a lengthy debate but while "democracy" in the sense of non-parliamentarian direct democracy and sortition for a privileged group of free male citizens in a small city-state can be traced to Athens, @Augustus is completely correct in arguing (and indeed I've done so before with ample references to the scholarly literature myself) in arguing that liberalism and secularism emerged in the Christian milieu.

Arise from Christian milieu,? There is no evidence of this until after Greek philosophy arrived in Western Europe after in the Middle to Late Middle Ages. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible or the Christian beliefs prior to this that support any form of Democracy,nor significant intellectual movements

It is complete hogwash to claim that the Graeco-Roman civilisation had conceptions of individual rights (there wasn't even private law in ancient Greece and individual natural rights have been traced by scholars, convincingly, to the canonists of the 12th century who innovated it from earlier writings of the church fathers and canons), equality under the law (it was in fact freedom for aristocratic males to exercise dominion over their household females, children and slaves, and then enter the agora to deliberate with other property-owning male slave-holders), secularism (the Roman Emperor was the Pontifex Maximus, or head of Roman religion, and a living deity with a divine cult of worship, while the Athenian democracy executed Socrates, the greatest philosopher of the ancient world, for questioning the ancestral customs of the Hellenic gods) or the eschatological view of history necessary for a belief in progressivism (the Greeks and Romans believed in a cyclical cosmology, in which everything was fated to keep returning).

It is also complete complete hogwash that the Bible and Roman Christian civilization had conceptions of individual rights nor equality under the law.

Never claimed this neither was there anything in the Bible nor Christianity prior to the introduction of Greek philosophy in the Middle to Late Middle Ages. It is the Greek philosophers that were the source of the inspiration and not the Greek nor Roman Church governance that inspired democracy, There was no sense of liberal thought nor progressivism in Christianity prior to the introduction of Greek philosophy. In fact, Roman governance ruled the Christian world and dominated it up until the Age of Reason'and Enlightenment inspired by the Greek philosophers and the related early intellectual movements,

Also note From: Transmission of the Greek Classics - Wikipedia

Early Middle Ages in the Western Provinces
In the Western Provinces (what today is considered the Western Europe's heartland), the collapsing Roman empire lost many Greek manuscripts which were not preserved by monasteries. However, due to the expense and dearth of writing materials, monastic scribes could recycle old parchments. The parchments could be reused after scraping off the ink of the old texts, and writing new books on the previously used parchment, creating what is called a palimpsest.[12] Fortunately for modern scholars, the old writing can still be retrieved, and many extremely valuable works, which would have otherwise been lost, have been recovered in this way. As the language of Roman aristocrats and scholars, Greek died off along with the Roman Empire in the West, and by 500 CE, almost no one in Western Europe was able to read (or translate) Greek texts, and with the rise of the Islamic Empire, the west was further cut off from the language. After a while, only a few monasteries in the west had Greek works, and even fewer of them copied these works (mainly the Irish).[13] Some Irish monks had been taught by Greek and Latin missionaries who probably had brought Greek texts with them.

 

[shunyadragon]

Biased derision? I never criticised the sources (why would I? They were accurate enough and clearly supported my argument), I was just pointing out your selective double standards.

Selective citation? You mean citing the exact point that refute your claim that "No there is no evidence that the Byzantine Empire had any or significant Greek philosophy texts before they received them through Islam in the Middle Ages"

Would you like to make a rational argument against my point, or are we back to you simply saying 'you're wrong, you're wrong' while ignoring any source that goes against your ideological beliefs (now apparently including the ones you picked yourself).

My point: "Well much of it was also preserved by the Byzantine Empire as it was their heritage, but philosophers in the Islamic Empire certainly made significant contributions and additions. I'm not the one denying multiple influences here."

Again: Significant numbers of texts arrived in the West from both Byzantine and Islamic sources. The Islamic sources also contributed beyond merely preserving the texts, they also made significant additions.

Your argument... ?

The sources cited.

Also note From: Transmission of the Greek Classics - Wikipedia

Early Middle Ages in the Western Provinces
In the Western Provinces (what today is considered the Western Europe's heartland), the collapsing Roman empire lost many Greek manuscripts which were not preserved by monasteries. However, due to the expense and dearth of writing materials, monastic scribes could recycle old parchments. The parchments could be reused after scraping off the ink of the old texts, and writing new books on the previously used parchment, creating what is called a palimpsest.[12] Fortunately for modern scholars, the old writing can still be retrieved, and many extremely valuable works, which would have otherwise been lost, have been recovered in this way. As the language of Roman aristocrats and scholars, Greek died off along with the Roman Empire in the West, and by 500 CE, almost no one in Western Europe was able to read (or translate) Greek texts, and with the rise of the Islamic Empire, the west was further cut off from the language. After a while, only a few monasteries in the west had Greek works, and even fewer of them copied these works (mainly the Irish).[13] Some Irish monks had been taught by Greek and Latin missionaries who probably had brought Greek texts with them.

Verbatim: "there is no evidence that the Byzantine Empire had any or significant Greek philosophy texts before they received them through Islam in the Middle Ages"

Your sources said otherwise...

With increasing Western presence in the East due to the Crusades, and the gradual collapse of the Byzantine Empire during the later Middle Ages, many Byzantine Greek scholars fled to Western Europe bringing with them many original Greek manuscripts, and providing impetus for Greek-language education in the West and further translation efforts of Greek scholarship into Latin.[2]

If you would like to make an actual argument against this referencing what you think is wrong, please do. It would make a pleasant change

As cited all this was very late in the Middle Ages.

Yes that was my original argument. We then started talking about how Greek texts arrived in the West, which is why I am discussing how Greek texts arrived in the West.

This is incidental to my main argument regarding the influence of Christianity on Western liberalism (liberal democracy).

As cited above their influence arrived very late.

How many times, liberal democracy, as in political liberalism. Also, Christianity is not limited to a rank Biblical literalism.

I am not and never have referred to Biblical literalism. There is absolutely no guidance from the Bible for the intellectual movements for democracy nor the separation of church and state,and there is no indication of early movements in the Roman churches governed by Roman hierarchy before the intellectual movements in the Middle and Late Middle Ages with the influence of Greek philosophy

And the major translator and preserver of Greek texts in the West was the Church which doesn't exactly suggest a general desire to prevent access to this material.

Not true based on the the references until the Middle to the Late Middle Ages.

Christianity is a diverse tradition that has lasted 2000 years, of course there are different attitudes within it.

So what?!?!?!?! Not remotely addresses the issue.

That's not what your sources say.

Yes it is if you read the whole of the sources as cited above.

 

[Vouthon]

There was no sense of liberal thought nor progressivism in Christianity prior to the introduction of Greek philosophy.

In light of what @Augustus has explained to you, with great care and patience in this thread, and my own discussions with you in respect of this in the past, I find your statement above to be incredibly misinformed.

For the reasons dutifully outlined, liberal thought and progressivism were not simply absent from Greek philosophy but impossible if one actually takes account of the constraints of the worldview in which they operated with their cyclical, elitist, theocratic and unconstititional understanding of law and society.

You keep confusing 'democracy' - in the sense of direct participation in the decision-making roles of a small polis or city-state, by a cadre of elite free, property-owning males - which absolutely originates from ancient Greece; with liberal individualism, natural rights, the rule of law and secularism which absolutely doesn't originate from Greek philosophy.

The Greeks pioneered a great many things - from democracy to early forays into understanding of the natural world to mathematics and geometry - but liberalism, individualism, the rule of law, progressivism and secularism they did not. As the legal historian Professor H.L. Pohlman has noted in this regard:

During the age of the Greek polis the orthodox view was that humanity was naturally unequal. Non-Greeks were perceived to be "barbarians," slavery was widespread, women were subservient, and the "aristoi" (aristocrats) of each city claimed a special birthright.
​

The medieval historian Brian Tierney has explained how, between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Catholic canonists and decretalists of the medieval church, relying on early church sources, “worked out a series of definitions of ius naturale (natural law) as subjective right”.

I don't know how many authoritative Graeco-Roman sources I'd need to quote before you concede that they don't bear the slightest similarity to anything even anticipating let alone approaching a liberal, secular and humanistic worldview.

Perhaps, I'll try a simpler approach (for once, brevity not being my strong suit). Let's take the most enlightened classical mind, Seneca, of the first century A.D., representing the most egalitarian school of thought the Graeco-Roman civilization could come up with, Stoicism, and compare his thinking with his contemporaries Jesus and Paul.

Now, I want a straight answer if you please: which is closer to liberal thought?

First, Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65):

"We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason - to separate the sound from the worthless"

- (Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (1995). Seneca: Moral and Political Essays.Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 0-5213-4818-8. Retrieved November 2, 2013.)​

As with the Greeks preceding him, Seneca retains their fundamental division between "sound" and "worthless" humans born "weak and deformed", advancing the idea that it is a work of "reason" to drown such "abnormal offspring".

For Plato, Aristotle and their mentor Socrates, the end result had likewise been that the government should care for the health of the strong, the weak should be left to die and those with little intelligence should be killed, to quote directly from Plato's Republic:

Socrates:[9] These two practices [legal and medical] will treat the bodies and minds of those of your citizens who are naturally well endowed in these respects; as for the rest, those with a poor physical constitution will be allowed to die, and those with irredeemably rotten minds will be put to death. Right?

Glaucon: Yes, we’ve shown that this is the best course for those at the receiving end of the treatment as well as for the community. (409e-410a)​

Do you reckon that this would have been a propitious soil for humanism and liberalism to grow out of?

Now, let's turn to Jesus and Paul in the New Testament:

St. Paul:

Galatians 3:28 (NRSV)

28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:11​

There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!
​

Jesus:

Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you" (Luke 14:12-14)

So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles [Greeks and Romans] those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)​

As the secular New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman explains in his book Misquoting Jesus:

Whose Word is It?

Most scholars remain convinced that Jesus proclaimed the coming Kingdom of God, in which there would be no more injustice, suffering, or evil, in which all people, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, would be on equal footing. This obviously proved particularly attractive as a message of hope to those who in the present age were underprivileged—the poor, the sick, the outcast. And the women...

One of Jesus’s characteristic teachings is that there will be a massive reversal of fortunes. Those who are rich and powerful now will be humbled then; those who are lowly and oppressed now will then be exalted.

An entirely new order appear, in which peace, equality, and justice would reign supreme... It was impossible to promote this teaching while trying to retain the present social structure.

​

Which moral universe here is closer to the modern Secular Humanist one? Plato, Aristotle and Seneca or Jesus and Paul?

Remember that Seneca the Stoic philosopher lived at the exact same time as Jesus and Paul, in the Roman Empire.

 

[Augustus]

The sources cited.

Also note From: Transmission of the Greek Classics - Wikipedia

Early Middle Ages in the Western Provinces
In the Western Provinces (what today is considered the Western Europe's heartland), the collapsing Roman empire lost many Greek manuscripts which were not preserved by monasteries. However, due to the expense and dearth of writing materials, monastic scribes could recycle old parchments. The parchments could be reused after scraping off the ink of the old texts, and writing new books on the previously used parchment, creating what is called a palimpsest.[12] Fortunately for modern scholars, the old writing can still be retrieved, and many extremely valuable works, which would have otherwise been lost, have been recovered in this way. As the language of Roman aristocrats and scholars, Greek died off along with the Roman Empire in the West, and by 500 CE, almost no one in Western Europe was able to read (or translate) Greek texts, and with the rise of the Islamic Empire, the west was further cut off from the language. After a while, only a few monasteries in the west had Greek works, and even fewer of them copied these works (mainly the Irish).[13] Some Irish monks had been taught by Greek and Latin missionaries who probably had brought Greek texts with them.

So? Your point is? How does any of that relate to Greek texts not existing in Greece and the Greek Eastern Roman Empire as you claimed?

Do you understand the difference between the Western and Eastern Empires and their subsequent histories?

As cited all this was very late in the Middle Ages.

So?

Me: "Well much of it was also preserved by the Byzantine Empire as it was their heritage, but philosophers in the Islamic Empire certainly made significant contributions and additions. I'm not the one denying multiple influences here."

I am not and never have referred to Biblical literalism. There is absolutely no guidance from the Bible for the intellectual movements for democracy nor the separation of church and state,and there is no indication of early movements in the Roman churches governed by Roman hierarchy before the intellectual movements in the Middle and Late Middle Ages with the influence of Greek philosophy

Individual moral responsibility and equality before God, progressive teleology, etc. all emerged in Christian theology based on Biblical exegesis.

The Bible is a start point for Christianity, not the end point. Ideas and concepts that emerged from theology were added to, combined and evolved over centuries.

Not true based on the the references until the Middle to the Late Middle Ages.

Are you saying that you agree that in the Middle to Late Middle Ages (c12th-15thC) there was a major translation movement mostly funded by the Church?

Just one of many examples of Church funded translation:

Toledo School of Translators - Wikipedia

Yes it is if you read the whole of the sources as cited above.

Then I'm sure you can copy/paste the specific sentences that refute my point, for some reason I'm guessing you can't though

 

[shunyadragon]

In light of what @Augustus has explained to you, with great care and patience in this thread, and my own discussions with you in respect of this in the past, I find your statement above to be incredibly misinformed.

For the reasons dutifully outlined, liberal thought and progressivism were not simply absent from Greek philosophy but impossible if one actually takes account of the constraints of the worldview in which they operated with their cyclical, elitist, theocratic and unconstititional understanding of law and society.

Liberal thought and progressivism were not simply absent from the Bible and early Christianity, but impossible taking into account the constraints of their world view taking into account their strict theocratic and unconstitutional understanding of law and society, which by the way continued up until the rebellions that over threw the unconstitutional and theocratic world views of the royal houses of Europe...

You keep confusing 'democracy' - in the sense of direct participation in the decision-making roles of a small polis or city-state, by a cadre of elite free, property-owning males - which absolutely originates from ancient Greece; with liberal individualism, natural rights, the rule of law and secularism which absolutely doesn't originate from Greek philosophy.

The Greeks pioneered a great many things - from democracy to early forays into understanding of the natural world to mathematics and geometry - but liberalism, individualism, the rule of law, progressivism and secularism they did not. As the legal historian Professor H.L. Pohlman has noted in this regard:

During the age of the Greek polis the orthodox view was that humanity was naturally unequal. Non-Greeks were perceived to be "barbarians," slavery was widespread, women were subservient, and the "aristoi" (aristocrats) of each city claimed a special birthright. ​

Same may be said of Eurpe and even the USA when it became independent.
​

The medieval historian Brian Tierney has explained how, between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Catholic canonists and decretalists of the medieval church, relying on early church sources, “worked out a series of definitions of ius naturale (natural law) as subjective right”.

I don't know how many authoritative Graeco-Roman sources I'd need to quote before you concede that they don't bear the slightest similarity to anything even anticipating let alone approaching a liberal, secular and humanistic worldview.

Perhaps, I'll try a simpler approach (for once, brevity not being my strong suit). Let's take the most enlightened classical mind, Seneca, of the first century A.D., representing the most egalitarian school of thought the Graeco-Roman civilization could come up with, Stoicism, and compare his thinking with his contemporaries Jesus and Paul.

Now, I want a straight answer if you please: which is closer to liberal thought?

First, Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65):

"We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason - to separate the sound from the worthless"

- (Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (1995). Seneca: Moral and Political Essays.Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 0-5213-4818-8. Retrieved November 2, 2013.)​

As with the Greeks preceding him, Seneca retains their fundamental division between "sound" and "worthless" humans born "weak and deformed", advancing the idea that it is a work of "reason" to drown such "abnormal offspring".

For Plato, Aristotle and their mentor Socrates, the end result had likewise been that the government should care for the health of the strong, the weak should be left to die and those with little intelligence should be killed, to quote directly from Plato's Republic:

Socrates:[9] These two practices [legal and medical] will treat the bodies and minds of those of your citizens who are naturally well endowed in these respects; as for the rest, those with a poor physical constitution will be allowed to die, and those with irredeemably rotten minds will be put to death. Right?

Glaucon: Yes, we’ve shown that this is the best course for those at the receiving end of the treatment as well as for the community. (409e-410a)​

Do you reckon that this would have been a propitious soil for humanism and liberalism to grow out of? [/quote]

These citations are selective and do not reflect the whole of Greek philosophy. They also reflect the view of the Royal houses of Europe up until the rebellions the over through them.

Now, let's turn to Jesus and Paul in the New Testament:

St. Paul:

Galatians 3:28 (NRSV)

28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.​

Jesus:

Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you" (Luke 14:12-14)

So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)​

As the scholar Bart Ehrman explains in his book Misquoting Jesus:

Whose Word is It?

Most scholars remain convinced that Jesus proclaimed the coming Kingdom of God, in which there would be no more injustice, suffering, or evil, in which all people, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, would be on equal footing. This obviously proved particularly attractive as a message of hope to those who in the present age were underprivileged—the poor, the sick, the outcast. And the women...

One of Jesus’s characteristic teachings is that there will be a massive reversal of fortunes [in the Kingdom]. Those who are rich and powerful now will be humbled then; those who are lowly and oppressed now will then be exalted.

An entirely new order appear, in which peace, equality, and justice would reign supreme... It was impossible to promote this teaching while trying to retain the present social structure.

​

Which moral universe here is closer to the modern Secular Humanist one? Plato, Aristotle and Seneca or Jesus and Paul?

Remember that Seneca the Stoic philosopher lived at the exact same time as Jesus and Paul, in the Roman Empire.

Actually neither. Democracy evolved from these philosophical ideas, but no form whatsoever of democracy is presented in the Bible, along with Biblical slavery, and no secular rights for women.

The seeds and beginnings of democracy were in the Native American Nations (acknowledged by our founding fathers.), and Greek philosophy, and absolutely nothing from the Bible and the early Roman hierarchy of the Roman Churches.

You seem to demand that these ancient cultures had to be fully formed democracies, ridiculous when you cannot cite anything specific from the Bible nor the early concerning the origins of democracy.

Your selective citation from the Bible are nice and fuzzy, but had nothing to do with the rise of intellectual movements nor democracy. In Christianity Divine right ruled in the Christian world as a Roman hierarchy not any form of democracy including slavery based on the Bible

Your citation of the limits of democracy in Greece including slavery fit very well with the United States when it became independent, You stoically refuse to acknowledge the evolved nature of democracy from these sources yet our founding fathers were humble enough to do so, as they fought of the yoke of Divine rule.

 

[shunyadragon]

So? Your point is? How does any of that relate to Greek texts not existing in Greece and the Greek Eastern Roman Empire as you claimed?

Do you understand the difference between the Western and Eastern Empires and their subsequent histories?



So?

Me: "Well much of it was also preserved by the Byzantine Empire as it was their heritage, but philosophers in the Islamic Empire certainly made significant contributions and additions. I'm not the one denying multiple influences here."



Individual moral responsibility and equality before God, progressive teleology, etc. all emerged in Christian theology based on Biblical exegesis.

The Bible is a start point for Christianity, not the end point. Ideas and concepts that emerged from theology were added to, combined and evolved over centuries.

Vague foggy generalities,but nothing specific from the Bible nor the early history of the church.Evolvedyes, but from the influence of Greek philosophy and the emerging intellectual movements.

Are you saying that you agree that in the Middle to Late Middle Ages (c12th-15thC) there was a major translation movement mostly funded by the Church?

Just one of many examples of Church funded translation:

Toledo School of Translators - Wikipedia

Yes,and the source of the inspiration for the intellectual movements and democracy.

Then I'm sure you can copy/paste the specific sentences that refute my point, for some reason I'm guessing you can't though

Failure for you to read and comprehend the references as a whole refutes your point,and your persistence to justify your agenda based on foggy generalities from the Bible for which there is no evidence for guidance.for the evolution of democracy.

 

[Vouthon]

@shunyadragon

citations are selective and do not reflect the whole of Greek philosophy.

So extensive quotations from, analysis of and scholarly descriptions giving the appropriate context for, the main works by Plato, Aristotle and Seneca - representing the schools of Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism respectively - in addition to Socrates himself, is "selective"?

Your selective citation from the Bible are nice and fuzzy, but had nothing to do with the rise of intellectual movements nor democracy. In Christianity Divine right ruled in the Christian world as a Roman hierarchy not any form of democracy including slavery based on the Bible

Again, you take the discussion back to democracy when I was explicitly discussing the liberal element of contemporary democracies. Liberal democracy is completely different from classical Athenian democracy.

And again, you are quite wrong that "divine right of kings" was the accepted mode of governance in the Christian middle ages. That's a classic error thatcan be easily refuted, so I thank you for giving me this gift

You are applying the concept of "absolutism" or divine right anachronistically to the medieval period, when in fact the idea did not exist at that time owing to feudal society, which resulted in generally weak monarchies with dissipated sources of authority operating alongside independent republics, city-states and communes.

Absolutism was a phenomenon of early modernity, namely the 16th - 19th centuries, when nation-states emerged. This needs to be clarified before the discussion can continue, because this misunderstanding is leading us to talk past one another. Read the following from Oxford University's dictionary of the Social Sciences:


Absolutism - Oxford Reference

Absolutism

The theory and practice of unlimited, legitimate state power and authority, typically concentrated in the person of a monarch. The theoretical basis of the doctrine was developed by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes in response to the political upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They argued that power should be absolute and undivided in order to maintain social order. In practice, absolutism is associated with the consolidation of the state in early-modern Europe. The “Age of Absolutism” lasted from 1648 to 1789, and was personified by Louis XIV of France and Frederick II of Prussia, although czarist Russia retained many absolutist features until its collapse in 1917.​

Medieval governments were entirely different, as the scholar Professor Jan Zielonka of Oxford University explains here:


Europe as Empire

In particular, medieval empires characteristically had limited and decentralized governments, performing only a few basic governmental functions. They were ridden by internal conflicts between a king or emperor and the lower aristocracy, whether feudal or bureaucratic, while the persistent divergence of local cultures, religions and traditions implied a highly divided political loyalty

​

By the 12th -13th centuries medieval canon lawyers had begun to develop due process (ordo iudiciarius) based upon rational means and the idea of natural rights, one of them being the fundamental right of the litigant to a fair and free trial rather than through a trial by "ordeal", which Pope Innocent III declared illegal in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council (the same year as the Magna Carta enshrined trial by jury). The professors in the canon law schools, which were then proliferating across Europe, had long looked down upon the judicial ordeal as "crude and unsophisticated".

So, again, the right of every person to a fair and free trial before his or her peers was a feudal-canon law tradition already developed during the High Middle Ages, many centuries before the Enlightenment.

And you seem to overlook the entire history of papal-emperor confrontations culminating in the Concordat of Worms(1122)

It was not in the medieval papacy's interests to endow kings with "absolute authority" since they would obviously represent a threat to papal power and the freedom of the Church as an independent institution that had been won, with great effort, as a result of the Gregorian Revolution which had triggered the Investiture Controversy (1056-1122).

Therefore, the reality is in fact the opposite: the papacy and the church did everything it could to limit and curtail the power of secular princes, while in turn the kings struck back by doing everything they could to curtail papal power and centralize their fledgling proto-states.

From out of this tussle, the West emerged as a unique society with a balanced division between church and state unparalleled elsewhere in the world.

Here's a scholarly reference, from the Springer Enclyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, published 2011 and written by a scholar I haven't yet brought up, Professor John Kilcullen (yet another expert in politics and medieval studies):


Medieval Theories of Natural Rights - Macquarie University

From the 12th century onwards, medieval canon lawyers and, from the early 14th century, theologians and philosophers began to use ius to mean a right, and developed a theory of natural rights, the predecessor of modern theories of human rights. The main applications of this theory were in respect of property and government.

This is the ancestor of the modern idea of human rights, i.e. rights belonging permanently to any human being as such, independently of the law or customs of any community

A fully-fledged medieval natural rights theory consisted of two elements: a treatment of property rights, and a treatment of political rights. Whether property itself was a natural right was disputed; theologians generally said that property was not natural but a creation of human positive law, lawyers generally said that property, or at least some kind of property, existed by natural law. But it was generally agreed that every person has a natural right to self-preservation and hence a natural right to use things-in a situation of necessity even things belonging to another.

Medieval writers postulated other natural rights with important implications for politics. They held that everyone has a natural right to self-defence. Like the right to use things to sustain life, the right of self-defence was seen as implied by the natural law duty to preserve human life, one's own first of all. Another natural right with political implications was the right to freedom. The right to use things, the right to freedom and the right of self-defence were included in Isidore's statement of natural law: "the common possession of all things and the one liberty of all... and the repelling of force with force" (quoted Gratian, I dist.1 c.7, Friedberg, vol. 1, col. 2)...

In a number of places (OND 88.308-10, Brev. iv.10.54-8, 3.1 Dial. 2.28, 3.2 Dial. 3.6) Ockham invokes the canon Ius civile, in which Isidore explains the meaning of the term "civil law": "Civil law is the law proper to itself that each people or city establishes, for divine and human reason." Ockham interprets this not merely as the explanation of a term but as an assertion of the right of each people to establish for itself a law and a government and to elect its own ruler...

Even in normal situations, the rights or powers of a ruler are limited by the rights of subjects, not only by the right to replace a tyrannical ruler but also by other "rights and liberties". The ruler's power is obviously limited by the natural rights of subjects. Ockham takes this pretty much for granted, since no one claimed that rulers have power superior to natural law.

His main contention, in regard to both popes and secular rulers, is that their power is limited not only by divine and natural law and natural rights, but also by positive rights and by natural and positive liberties...Ockham's accounts of the right to use, the right to property, the rights of rulers and the rights and liberties of subjects make no reference to the difference between Christian believers and unbelievers. Political rights belong to all human beings.

Theories like Ockham's were put forward by many later medieval writers. The leaders of the Conciliar movment studied Ockham (d'Ailly, for example, produced an abbreviatioof Ockham's Dialogus) and were also influenced directly by the canonist tradition that had influenced Ockham (Tierney, 1955).

Gerson's conception of a body whose members had individual rights prior to any enactment by that body, rights that include a right to self-defence and also certain "political" powers (Tierney, pp. 220-5), echoes both Ockham and the canonist tradition. The political theory of Locke's Second Treatise has obvious similarities with Ockham's; the Conciliarists are the most likely medium of transmission of fourteenth century ideas into the seventeenth century (see Oakley).

​

None of this is traceable to Greek philosophy. It's derived from church canons inspired in turn by the Bible and Church Fathers.

Do you believe that so many experts in the field, wedded to the abundance of primary source material supporting it, are wrong about this?

 

[Augustus]

Vague foggy generalities,but nothing specific from the Bible nor the early history of the church.Evolvedyes, but from the influence of Greek philosophy and the emerging intellectual movements.

Vague foggy generalities that are the foundation stones of liberalism...

You just keep saying it came from Greek philosophy yet haven't provided a single source to justify your belief.

I wonder why that is?

Let me guess, you could make a perfectly cogent, rational argument that would totes prove your point big time, but you just don't feel like it? But you could... Which is the main thing...

Failure for you to read and comprehend the references as a whole refutes your point,and your persistence to justify your agenda based on foggy generalities from the Bible for which there is no evidence for guidance.for the evolution of democracy.

Again, textbook interneting

"My sources really do prove you wrong, but I'm not going to quote the specific parts that do, even though I could. Just read them yourself. It's definitely there. Honestly. Trust me. Nobody has better sources than me. My sources have the best footnotes. Bigly."

 

[Vouthon]

@shunyadragon

Your citation of the limits of democracy in Greece including slavery fit very well with the United States when it became independent

Except that the US was not an Athenian democracy under the ancestral laws of the Greek gods that lacked any recognition of individual rights and the rule of law or constitutionalism but in fact a constitutional and secular regime with parliamentary representatives acting for the people according to due process and strict limits, including a Bill of Rights setting out a charter of individual liberties that would have been unknown and impossible in the classical Greek context.

You conflate, again, democracy - the US wasn't founded as a democracy - with liberal secular constitutionalism.

Yes, the US had slaves and the franchise was originally restricted to property owners but look what happened next: over the next few decades the northern states abolished slavery. By the 1820s, Jacksonian democracy had enfranchised all white males, including rural poor. By 1865, the north defeated the South and abolished slavery entirely.

This did not and could not have happened in ancient Athens, because slavery and elitism were intrinsic to it's democracy in a way that they weren't to the liberal Declaration of Independence that proclaimed human equality under God which underpinned the American Revolution.

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither we're the high ideals of the Declaration in the US, but the ideals were present at the foundation of America, hence it's progress in implementing it over the next 70 years, whereas such egalitarian ideals formed no basis in Greek society.

There was a tension and contradiction at the heart of America's claim in 1777 - noted even by contemporaries - to represent equality of humans under God and the existence of slavery, which led in time to the birth of an abolitionist movement that was ultimately successful. There was no contradiction at the heart of ancient Greek democracy over it's slavery of barbarians because Greek democracy was prefixed on the notion of natural inequality.

 

[shunyadragon]

So? Your point is? How does any of that relate to Greek texts not existing in Greece and the Greek Eastern Roman Empire as you claimed?

They were only translated and transferred to the West to a limited extent. For example Beothius only translated texts on math, geometry, astronomy, and music. Greek philosophy was not well excepted. In fact St Jerome opposed Greek philosophy.

Do you understand the difference between the Western and Eastern Empires and their subsequent histories?

Yes . . . they were not well connected, and not much of the Greek texts were transmitted, and before the Middle Middle Age they were for the most part not kept nor translated until Middle Middle Ages and later as per reference.

Me: "Well much of it was also preserved by the Byzantine Empire as it was their heritage, but philosophers in the Islamic Empire certainly made significant contributions and additions. I'm not the one denying multiple influences here."

No, it was Greek heritage and as referenced under suspect and not well received in the Byzantine Empire as cited.

Individual moral responsibility and equality before God, progressive teleology, etc. all emerged in Christian theology based on Biblical exegesis.

The Bible is a start point for Christianity, not the end point. Ideas and concepts that emerged from theology were added to, combined and evolved over centuries.

Not remotely related to the origination of the movements toward democracy, separation of church and state, nor the intellectual movements that led to humanism and the 'Age of Reason.'

 

[shunyadragon]

@shunyadragon



Except that the US was not an Athenian democracy under the ancestral laws of the Greek gods that lacked any recognition of individual rights and the rule of law or constitutionalism but in fact a constitutional and secular regime with parliamentary representatives acting for the people according to due process and strict limits, including a Bill of Rights setting out a charter of individual liberties that would have been unknown and impossible in the classical Greek context.

You conflate, again, democracy - the US wasn't founded as a democracy - with liberal secular constitutionalism.

Yes, the US had slaves and the franchise was originally restricted to property owners but look what happened next: over the next few decades the northern states abolished slavery. By the 1820s, Jacksonian democracy had enfranchised all white males, including rural poor. By 1865, the north defeated the South and abolished slavery entirely.

This did not and could not have happened in ancient Athens, because slavery and elitism were intrinsic to it's democracy in a way that they weren't to the liberal Declaration of Independence that proclaimed human equality under God which underpinned the American Revolution.

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither we're the high ideals of the Declaration in the US, but the ideals were present at the foundation of America, hence it's progress in implementing it over the next 70 years, whereas such egalitarian ideals formed no basis in Greek society.

There was a tension and contradiction at the heart of America's claim in 1777 - noted even by contemporaries - to represent equality of humans under God and the existence of slavery, which led in time to the birth of an abolitionist movement that was ultimately successful. There was no contradiction at the heart of ancient Greek democracy over it's slavery of barbarians because Greek democracy was prefixed on the notion of natural inequality.

A history lesson does not support your case. Yes, democracy evolved, and it did not have its roots in Christianity. Its roots were in cultures other than the Bible and early Roman Christianity.

From: Direct democracy - Wikipedia

Early Athens

Main article: Athenian democracy
Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 600 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model, none were as powerful, stable, or well-documented as that of Athens. In the direct democracy of Athens, the citizens did not nominate representatives to vote on legislation and executive bills on their behalf (as in the United States) but instead voted as individuals. The public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire of the comic poets in the theatres.[13]

Solon (694 BC), Cleisthenes (608–607 BCE), and Ephialtes (562 BC) all contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Historians differ on which of them was responsible for which institution, and which of them most represented a truly democratic movement. It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Cleisthenes, since Solon's constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes revised Cleisthenes' constitution relatively peacefully. Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were subsequently honored by the Athenians for their alleged restoration of Athenian freedom.

The greatest and longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles; after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolution towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts are of this 4th-century modification rather than of the Periclean system. It was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but the extent to which they were a real democracy is debatable.[14]

 

[9-18-1]

I believe that at one time Islam was a light to the world and the spiritual renewal of civilization, but no more. As time passed Islam remained cloaked in ancient tribal culture, outdated Shiria Law, failure to separate religion from the secular state, violently divided and failure to acknowledge a diverse evolving world.

It is a patriarchal institution that utilizes a male central figure as a model man, which is essentially idol worship. The principle relationship that sustains all human life on the planet is men and women - the "other" genders exempt as they have their own problems.

That Muhammad had several wives and instructed his followers to have up to four makes for a completely unstable and imbalanced system. It goes without saying that women are coveted in Islam which manifests in the form of forcing them to cover themselves. Of course many Muslims appeal to another idol 'Mary' to justify how women should dress.

On the whole Islam is an idolatrous patriarchal institution which falsely asserts that the Qur'an is "inspired" - we know where the Qur'an came from and Mecca didn't even exist at the time of Muhammad; neither were the mosques built toward "Mecca" until the mid-8th century.

The problem is people that "believe" things that are not true. And in this I say "belief" is not a virtue meanwhile Muslims "believe" that "belief" is the highest virtue one can have. Hence, those who are "unbelievers" are lesser beings. This "believer" vs. "unbeliever" division existed in Christianity well before Islam and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions.

In this I say China is more than grounded when they stated Islam is a mental illness - it actually is. I know it is harsh, but it is also true - when someone "believes" something that is not true, if/when upset, they will act rashly to protect/defend whatever "belief" (identity) comprises their being. This is precisely the role idols (such as Muhammad) play - create psychological/emotional attachment and lead the masses through that. It is all idol worship.

 

[Ancient Soul]

Hooray, another person who doesn't understand logical fallacies yet insists on using them.

A straw man is when you misrepresent someones idea then attack the misrepresentation. I didn't reply to what you said as I don't care about. It wasn't relevant.

My point was about the historical contributions of Christianity to Western society, not "isn't Christianity marvellously perfect" (I already corrected you on this misrepresentation). I'm not a Christian so have no problem acknowledging it has caused many problems. Something causing many problems, doesn't preclude the same thing from having other positive influences also, especially something as old and diverse as Christianity (really Christianities).

Hence:

"Given the Christian West produced modern liberal democracy, and the Islamic world didn't why should we assume that?

Christianity had a huge influence on political liberalism, gave birth to the concept of secularism and has constantly been updated to adapt to an evolving world (as has Islam, but less so due to greater theological rigidity).

Obviously there are also many problems it has caused, but on these points there are significant differences."


Have you any opinions on 'these points'?

So once again you are trying the "straw man" tactic even after getting called out on it! I can see you sure do cling to deceitful tactics.

When you get around to DIRECTLY addressing the points I made in my post let me know.

 

[shunyadragon]

It is a patriarchal institution that utilizes a male central figure as a model man, which is essentially idol worship. The principle relationship that sustains all human life on the planet is men and women - the "other" genders exempt as they have their own problems.

That Muhammad had several wives and instructed his followers to have up to four makes for a completely unstable and imbalanced system. It goes without saying that women are coveted in Islam which manifests in the form of forcing them to cover themselves. Of course many Muslims appeal to another idol 'Mary' to justify how women should dress.

On the whole Islam is an idolatrous patriarchal institution which falsely asserts that the Qur'an is "inspired" - we know where the Qur'an came from and Mecca didn't even exist at the time of Muhammad; neither were the mosques built toward "Mecca" until the mid-8th century.

The problem is people that "believe" things that are not true. And in this I say "belief" is not a virtue meanwhile Muslims "believe" that "belief" is the highest virtue one can have. Hence, those who are "unbelievers" are lesser beings. This "believer" vs. "unbeliever" division existed in Christianity well before Islam and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions.

In this I say China is more than grounded when they stated Islam is a mental illness - it actually is. I know it is harsh, but it is also true - when someone "believes" something that is not true, if/when upset, they will act rashly to protect/defend whatever "belief" (identity) comprises their being. This is precisely the role idols (such as Muhammad) play - create psychological/emotional attachment and lead the masses through that. It is all idol worship.

I understand this perspective, but I do not consider it idolatry. It reflects is the extreme patriarchal tribal nature of the older Abrahamic religions; Judaism. Christianity and Islam that is the setting and context of the Religion of the time. It is a considerable.part of the reason why they are no longer relevant to the contemporary world and out of context of time and place of today's world.

 

[Augustus]

So once again you are trying the "straw man" tactic even after getting called out on it! I can see you sure do cling to deceitful tactics.

When you get around to DIRECTLY addressing the points I made in my post let me know.

AS: you didn't address my points!

Augustus: I know. That's because I don't care about them.

AS: A strawman! Such deceit!

Bravo

 

[Augustus]

They were only translated and transferred to the West to a limited extent. For example Beothius only translated texts on math, geometry, astronomy, and music. Greek philosophy was not well excepted. In fact St Jerome opposed Greek philosophy.

Yes . . . they were not well connected, and not much of the Greek texts were transmitted, and before the Middle Middle Age they were for the most part not kept nor translated until Middle Middle Ages and later as per reference.

Why do you keep arguing against the Greek Byzantine Empire having Greek texts by referring to Latin Western Europe then?

The Greeks didn't need translated texts because, unsurprisingly, they spoke Greek.

No, it was Greek heritage and as referenced under suspect and not well received in the Byzantine Empire as cited.

Good grief, do you simply have to disagree with everything I say out of stubbornness? The Greek speaking Byzantine Empire included Greece, it was thus their heritage.

Surely you can at least acknowledge that this statement is, to borrow your term 'outrageously false': "there is no evidence that the Byzantine Empire had any or significant Greek philosophy texts before they received them through Islam in the Middle Ages"

You are basically arguing that there is no evidence that the Greeks had any Greek texts until they got them from the Muslims, and also that Greek texts were not well received in Greece.

Do you think the Greeks just destroyed all of their texts as soon as they became Christians and then these texts magically reappeared in the hands of some Arabs centuries later who then kindly retaught Greeks their own heritage that they had completely destroyed?

The height of the Islamic translation movement was approx 8th-11th C. How do you think the Islamic Empire came to be in possession of so many Greek texts throughout this period which began centuries after Christianisation of the Roman Empire?

Far from having no knowledge of Greek philosophy, the Greeks (Byzantines) continued to possess, teach and produce commentaries on Greek philosophy throughout the Empire's existence. The Muslims even acquired many texts from the Byzantines.

Can we agree on this now?

Not remotely related to the origination of the movements toward democracy, separation of church and state, nor the intellectual movements that led to humanism and the 'Age of Reason.'

You will of course be making a rational argument in support of this, won't you?

Perhaps you could start by providing a reasoned discussion of why it is 'outrageously false' to suggest that an event which formalised a degree of separation between church and state power might have had some connection to the separation of church and state.

 

[shunyadragon]

Perhaps you could start by providing a reasoned discussion of why it is 'outrageously false' to suggest that an event which formalised a degree of separation between church and state power might have had some connection to the separation of church and state.

If you are referring to your hokus bogus claim the dispute between Henry IV and the Pope formalized a degree of separation between church and state, yes, the dispute only formalized the submission of the State, Henry IV to the Roman Church

From: http://www.lhschools.org/Downloads/Gregory vs Henry.pdf

Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV Conflicts between the medieval Christian church, led by the Pope, and nations, ruled by kings, occurred throughout the Middle Ages. One great clash between a pope and a king took place between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire. Henry was very young when he became king. As early as the age of fifteen, Henry moved to increase his power over clergy in the Holy Roman Empire. Eventually Henry’s actions brought him into conflict with Pope Gregory VII who was one of the great leaders of the Medieval Church. Pope Gregory was both devout and clever. He worked to bring spiritual reform to the church by increasing the power and authority of the popes. Gregory believed that the church was the supreme authority on earth; he felt that rulers and ordinary people alike were all subject to the will of the church and its pope. He did not hesitate to use the terrible punishment of excommunication as a way to resolve conflicts of church and state. The conflict between Henry IV and Gregory VII concerned the question of who got to appoint local church officials. Henry believed that, as king, he had the right to appoint the bishops of the German church. This was known as lay investiture. Pope Gregory, on the other hand, angrily opposed this idea because he wanted the power for himself. He responded to the emperor’s attempts to name new bishops by excommunicating Henry. In addition, Gregory used an interdict to released the emperor’s subjects from their feudal obligations of loyalty to their leader. Fearing the rebellion of his vassals, Henry sought the Pope’s mercy. During the harsh winter of 1077, Henry and his servants made a long and dangerous journey through the snowy mountains of northern Italy to meet the Pope. They met in a small town called Canossa in the mountains of northern Italy. Then when he arrived, the Pope made the humiliated Henry wait in the bitter cold for three days before finally agreeing to see him. Contemporary accounts report that when Henry was finally permitted to enter the gates, he walked barefoot through the snow and knelt at the feet of the pope to beg forgiveness. As a result, the Pope revoked Henry’s excommunication.

It is possible you are confusing when there was later also:

From: Investiture Controversy - Wikipedia

. . . a brief but significant investiture conflict between Pope Paschal II and King Henry I of England from 1103 to 1107. The conflict ended in 1122, when Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V agreed on the Concordat of Worms, which differentiated between the royal and spiritual powers and gave the emperors a limited role in selecting bishops. The outcome was largely a papal victory, but the Emperor still retained considerable power.

This conflict resulted in a degree of separation and shared Divine authority appointing bishops between the King or Emperor and the Pope,but the Divine authority remained as the role of the king, and the Divine authority of the Roman Church over the king and the people..

 

[Augustus]

As you didn't reply, can I assume you do agree with me on the fact that much Greek philosophy was preserved in the (Greek) Byzantine Empire now, and that the Greeks didn't need the Arabs to translate their own philosophy for them in order for them to have it?

If you are referring to your hokus bogus claim the dispute between Henry IV and the Pope formalized a degree of separation between church and state, yes, the dispute only formalized the submission of the State, Henry IV to the Roman Church

Well, it's probably more accurate to say it redefined the relationship between Emperor and Pope, as thinking in terms of church and state is somewhat anachronistic at this point. But ultimately it led to the acknowledgment of separate realms of power which is comparable.

Have you not realised that spending 2 mins googling a topic you know nothing about and then speaking authoritatively about it often leads to you making mistakes you are unaware of, yet are easily apparent to others?

From: http://www.lhschools.org/Downloads/Gregory vs Henry.pdf

Did you actually link to a primary school handout written in size 20 font? 20! Oh my...

That certainly puts peer-reviewed academic research back in its place

Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV Conflicts between the medieval Christian church, led by the Pope, and nations, ruled by kings, occurred throughout the Middle Ages. One great clash between a pope and a king took place between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire. Henry was very young when he became king. As early as the age of fifteen, Henry moved to increase his power over clergy in the Holy Roman Empire. Eventually Henry’s actions brought him into conflict with Pope Gregory VII who was one of the great leaders of the Medieval Church. Pope Gregory was both devout and clever. He worked to bring spiritual reform to the church by increasing the power and authority of the popes. Gregory believed that the church was the supreme authority on earth; he felt that rulers and ordinary people alike were all subject to the will of the church and its pope. He did not hesitate to use the terrible punishment of excommunication as a way to resolve conflicts of church and state. The conflict between Henry IV and Gregory VII concerned the question of who got to appoint local church officials. Henry believed that, as king, he had the right to appoint the bishops of the German church. This was known as lay investiture. Pope Gregory, on the other hand, angrily opposed this idea because he wanted the power for himself. He responded to the emperor’s attempts to name new bishops by excommunicating Henry. In addition, Gregory used an interdict to released the emperor’s subjects from their feudal obligations of loyalty to their leader. Fearing the rebellion of his vassals, Henry sought the Pope’s mercy. During the harsh winter of 1077, Henry and his servants made a long and dangerous journey through the snowy mountains of northern Italy to meet the Pope. They met in a small town called Canossa in the mountains of northern Italy. Then when he arrived, the Pope made the humiliated Henry wait in the bitter cold for three days before finally agreeing to see him. Contemporary accounts report that when Henry was finally permitted to enter the gates, he walked barefoot through the snow and knelt at the feet of the pope to beg forgiveness. As a result, the Pope revoked Henry’s excommunication.

About those mistakes you are not aware you are making...

Other than being a primary school handout written in size 20 font, it also stops a mere quarter of a century before the end of Henry IVs reign.

Now, what happened next? (basically lots of violence which made people very fed up with these disputes)

Now, I don't have anything in size 20 font for you, but here's another historian for you to dismiss out of hand (my guess is you will decide that the use of the term Christendom in the title constitutes biased, agenda driven apologetics):

The Pope, locked into a desperate power struggle though he certainly was, had ambitions as well that were breathtakingly global in their scope. His goal? Nothing less than to establish the ‘right order in the world’.7 What had once, back in the time of Gelasius, appeared merely a pipedream was now, during Gregory’s papacy, transformed into a manifesto. By its terms, the whole of Christendom, from its summit to its meanest village, was to be divided into two. One realm for the spiritual, one for the secular. No longer were kings to be permitted to poke their noses into the business of the Church. It was a plan of action as incendiary as it was sweeping: for it required a full-out assault upon presumptions that were ultimately millennia old...

To be sure, Gregory today may not enjoy the fame of a Luther, a Lenin, a Mao – but that reflects not his failure but rather the sheer scale of his achievement. It is the incomplete revolutions which are remembered; the fate of those that succeed is to end up being taken for granted. Gregory himself did not live to witness his ultimate victory – but the cause for which he fought was destined to establish itself as perhaps the defining characteristic of Western civilisation. That the world can be divided into church and state, and that these twin realms should exist distinct from each other: here are presumptions that the eleventh century made ‘fundamental to European society and culture, for the first time and permanently’. What had previously been merely an ideal would end up a given...

Not that it had ever remotely been Gregory’s own intention to banish God from an entire dimension of human affairs; but revolutions will invariably have unintended consequences. Even as the Church, from the second half of the eleventh century onwards, set about asserting its independence from outside interference by establishing its own laws, bureaucracy and income, so kings, in response, were prompted to do the same. ‘The heavens are the Lord’s heavens – but the earth He has given to the sons of men.’13 So Henry IV’s son pronounced, answering a priest who had urged him not to hang a count under the walls of his own castle, for fear of provoking God’s wrath. It was in a similar spirit that the foundations of the modern Western state were laid, foundations largely bled of any religious dimension. A piquant irony: that the very concept of a secular society should ultimately have been due to the papacy. Voltaire and the First Amendment, multiculturalism and gay weddings: all have served as waymarks on the road from Canossa.

Tom Holland - Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom

 

[Augustus]

Just noticed this as you edited the post after I'd already replied.

It is possible you are confusing when there was later also:

From: Investiture Controversy - Wikipedia

. . . a brief but significant investiture conflict between Pope Paschal II and King Henry I of England from 1103 to 1107. The conflict ended in 1122, when Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V agreed on the Concordat of Worms, which differentiated between the royal and spiritual powers and gave the emperors a limited role in selecting bishops. The outcome was largely a papal victory, but the Emperor still retained considerable power.

This conflict resulted in a degree of separation and shared Divine authority appointing bishops between the King or Emperor and the Pope,but the Divine authority remained as the role of the king, and the Divine authority of the Roman Church over the king and the people..

No, I am not 'confusing when there was later also' that you've just found out about

The reason why the pre-Gregorian conception of double leadership within the Church, of priest and king, Pope and Emperor, and with it the notion of the state as a function of the Church, could not last, was that the demarcation-line between the two supreme powers and authiorities was in practice very difficult to define. Even though the superiority of the spiritual over the temporal was undisputed on principle, the right order between the two was not easy to maintain in the contingencies of history. This difficulty caused the eleventh and twelfth century struggles between the Papacy and the leading European states, the most formidable of which was the Investiture Contest with the Holy Roman Empire, which concerned the question of who should invest or endue bishops and abbots with their spiritual offices and appertaining possessions. As a result of these struggles, great changes occurred in the relationship between Church and State; and now we are actually more justified in using this modern term for the relationship.

Aspects of Medieval Thought on Church and State​

Gerhart B. Ladner
​

Still think it is 'outrageously false' btw?