/lit/ - Literature

>>6368285
>this decline also predates Christianity

Pic related. Compare the 500BC to 200BC period with the period following 100AD. There was already a decline before Christianity and actually Greek mathematics got a small revival under the Christian Empire.

>>5281262
You can't really quantify "scientific advancement" this way, but if you really want to talk about the decline of Greek science in the Late Antiquity (which is what this infographic is all about) you must return to much earlier.

Some cultures enjoy cultural booms which last 150-200 years when suddenly there is a release of creative energy and genius which forever defines their intellectual activity. There were the Italians from 1300 to 1600, the English from 1550 to 1750 (Tallis, Byrd, Purcell- composers, Boyle- father of chemistry, Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, ...-literature, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley-philosophy, Gilbert- discovered magnetism, Harvey- physiology, blood circulation, Newton- the greatest scientist ever, Halley- astronomy, Cavendish- physics & chemistry, discovered hydrogen etc)

The Jews are experiencing one right now, since the 1800s they have produced Kafka, Mahler, Marvin Minsky, Otto Lilienthal, Salman Waksman, John Von Neumann, Hermann Broch, Karl Landsteiner. But such things don't last forever. The Italians are not nearly as creative and productive as they were in the Renaissance, and even the German genius, which molded the Second Industrial Revolution was somewhat dried.

Now, if there was a outburst that forever changed the world, it was the Greek one from 400 to 200 BC, but like i said, it wasn't eternal, by the beginning of the first century there wasn't much going on, as Edward Gibbon said, Greek science has become a "cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators". The only real genius in that period where Galen and Hipparchus, now compare to 100 BC.

So Christianity is irrelevant in the context of the decline of Greek culture in the Roman world. It was a culture that exhausted itself.

Now it's preservation is something we owe only to Christians, which is notable.

Now the political collapse of the Roman Empire, which is what we refer to as the "Dark Ages". You have to remember that it began before Christianity became a force, during the Crisis of the Third Century, the Roman Empire collapse, as Empires are wont to do, under it's own height. As with Greek science, the survival of Roman political forms and law is another thing we should thank the Christian Church instead of talking about how they could have done it more. It's not fucking easy to to science when Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Huns, Alans are wrecking your shit.

PS: A interesting sidenote is that the only part of the Christian world that escaped destruction during this era experienced something of a Golden Age during the European Dark Ages. Ireland, which was never part of the Roman Empire and therefore wasn't sacked experienced a age of unrivalled cultural (and even scientific, though i admit not much) production during this period. Eurigena, Dicuil, Fingal, Dungal where some of the highlights.

Of course that ended when the Vikings wrecked their shit. Should we blame Christians for that one too?