Atheism and Historical Revisionism
by: ViolentPeace
If you are a follower of Atheist
blogs, Facebook groups, or the religious who attempt to combat them, or perhaps
you have friends that are and you end up reading the internet activity
overflow, you may be familiar with this meme. It started a few months ago (to
the best of my knowledge) and when I first saw it, it hurt my brain by its
oversimplification of history. Yes, I realize that the point of the meme is to
be witty, sometimes funny, sometimes revealing, but this one is just a good
example of historic revisionism by the Atheist community.
Full disclosure: I am an Atheist.
I first saw this graphic on @AtheistWord
on Twitter and my first response to it was along the lines of: This is such a
western view of civilization. What about the scientific advancement of the
Arabs? If you study history, you will have come to realize that it was middle
eastern scientific advances that spurned the Renaissance. It was in the Middle
East that they maintained ancient Greek texts. King Richard the Lionheart waged
his crusade and after that the Middle East opened up to the west and not only
did trade explode, but ideas began to seep back into the minds of the west,
many which we lost to Christian Fundamentalism (the burning of the Great
Library is a perfect example of the destructive forces of Christian Fundamentalism).
So the Lionheart’s crusade brought into Europe what the Arabs had been doing
for the past 500 years. Scientific advancement was not so stagnant during this
time if we take into consideration what was occurring around the world.
Not only did this glaring error of
western blindness, but also the promotion that Rome was some sort of
intellectual powerhouse before 1 CE. It wasn't. Rome copied everything from the
Greeks. There was no great intellectual of Rome, all the intellectuals were
Greek or closely related to Greece. During Rome’s long reign they never produced a
mind that could compare to Archimedes or even a playwright that could match Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides.
In terms of scientific or cultural advancement, Rome was practically defunct.
What Rome did invent was bureaucracy, they knew how to run an Empire and it was
because of this (plus roads, which were invented long before, and aqueducts,
also not invented by Romans) efficient way of ruling were they able to achieve
the Pax Romana, a period of relative peace and stability. Most of that took
place during the labeled “Dark Ages” above.
Let’s now talk about something perhaps a bit more important than scientific advancement, women’s rights. When the Roman Empire was created and their form of Athenian democracy ceased, Women started to reacquire the rights they had lost during the time of the Republic. You can read about women in Ancient Rome on this website for children, they lay it out quite nicely and it is very easy to read: http://rome.mrdonn.org/women.html.
Let’s now talk about something perhaps a bit more important than scientific advancement, women’s rights. When the Roman Empire was created and their form of Athenian democracy ceased, Women started to reacquire the rights they had lost during the time of the Republic. You can read about women in Ancient Rome on this website for children, they lay it out quite nicely and it is very easy to read: http://rome.mrdonn.org/women.html.
The same thing happened when Rome fell. The tendrils of Othrodox Christianity were swimming in Rome and made women controversial again, but under the rule of the “barbarian” kingdoms, did they regain their status and autonomy.
There perhaps is much more to show that this meme is a gross simplification of history to that I have not yet addressed. Atheists who might not know their history exactly may fall victim to this very gross simplification. The reason I bring up women’s rights is that generally we credit more proper uses of scientific advancement as to why civil rights are returning to women and people of color, but as demonstrated above that has not always been the case.
Whenever literacy spreads in ancient (and even today) women’s rights have always suffered. God is a god of a book, so is Allah, and Yahweh. Even when Buddha’s teachings were put into writing, his female followers suffered. God is perhaps a reason for the lack of scientific advancement, but it’s not the fault of the religious exactly, it’s the fault of the words and their writing. If we took a chart like it is above and decided to use it to express when literacy was promoted in comparison to human rights, you would see a more accurate advancement of the oppression and lack of original thought in the world. Radio, TV, and the internet have freed us from written word and thus we begin to see the advancement of human rights across the world.
Whenever literacy spreads in ancient (and even today) women’s rights have always suffered. God is a god of a book, so is Allah, and Yahweh. Even when Buddha’s teachings were put into writing, his female followers suffered. God is perhaps a reason for the lack of scientific advancement, but it’s not the fault of the religious exactly, it’s the fault of the words and their writing. If we took a chart like it is above and decided to use it to express when literacy was promoted in comparison to human rights, you would see a more accurate advancement of the oppression and lack of original thought in the world. Radio, TV, and the internet have freed us from written word and thus we begin to see the advancement of human rights across the world.
If I had to sum this up in a sentence; nice try fellow atheists, but next time please look deeper because your oversimplification is hurting our credibility.
