It is a truism we are talking centuries. After Greece was destroyed it was a down hill ride until in the middle ages illiteracy and hegemony by the church was pervasive. People were not allowed to question the church by the penalty of death.
Copernicus' publication On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres was not published until after he died in order for him to avoid being persecuted by the Church. Often called the Copernican Revolution, this actually was not much of a revolution. The book was published in Latin, so the general public was not able to read it. Academics could, but few learned people were willing to face the Church and risk death. It wasn't even until 73 years after it was published, 1616, did the Church consider it important enough to place on its Index of Prohibited Books
burro.astr.cwru.edu
<<Your "history" has some gaping holes in it. The Romans conquered Greece first, and were heavily influenced by Greek culture. After the fall of Rome, the Byzantine Empire took over, and eventually the Ottoman Turks.
"With the Turkish conquest, many Byzantine Greek scholars, who up until then were largely responsible for preserving Classical Greek knowledge, fled to the West, taking with them a large body of literature and thereby significantly contributing to the Renaissance."
How did the Roman Catholic Church suppress these scholars?
"[Socrates] was tried, convicted, and executed for corrupting the young."
You don't see any contradiction between this and your statement "The ancient Greeks encouraged folks to discuss ideas"????? |
