Happy Atheist Forum

I just watched the new episode of family guy so spoilers below.


In the new episode Stewie has a device that allows them to visit alternate dimensions. The first they go to he states that it is the same quahog in the same time period except everything is extremely advanced like a distant future flick. Stewie then says in this universe Christianity never existed and thus the dark ages never happened and the human race is 1000 years more advanced compared to the standard universe. So I wonder, if Christianity never existed would we be that much more advanced?

I just watched it too.  (Actually just finished up American Dad).  We'd be more like 1500 years advanced, I bet they meant for it to be about no religion whatsoever but you can't say that on fox.  If there was no Christianity another batshit crazy religion would have taken its place and we might be worse or better depending on the popularity of certain values.

Dang, I wish we never had religions. (kicks a rock)

So now that Atheism seems to be on a rise and there are major pockets of secular societies in the world, is technology going to advance more rapidly, is it beginning to advance rapidly or faster? (Kurzweil aside, I'm solely talking about the society not being stifled by social artifacts AKA religion.)

What should be blamed for the loss of knowledge the Ancient Egyptians possessed?  They were able to very accurately calculate the positions of starts, had steam powered toys, and apparently even the slope of the pyramids are very accurate too (If I remember correctly the slopes of all the pyramids relate to each other somehow).  The Mayans and whomever built Stonehenge are other examples of cultures who had very good knowledge of the positions of the sun and stars and how to take accurate measurements.  It seems that this knowledge has been lost and learned over the years in various parts of the world.  It would be interesting to see how things could be now if there had always been a means to communicate knowledge with people in other parts of the world.  After all, the dark ages only describes a time of decreased learning (and loss of knowledge) in one part of the world and most greatly affected Western Culture.

Quote from: "Whitney"What should be blamed for the loss of knowledge the Ancient Egyptians possessed?  They were able to very accurately calculate the positions of starts, had steam powered toys, and apparently even the slope of the pyramids are very accurate too (If I remember correctly the slopes of all the pyramids relate to each other somehow).  The Mayans and whomever built Stonehenge are other examples of cultures who had very good knowledge of the positions of the sun and stars and how to take accurate measurements.  It seems that this knowledge has been lost and learned over the years in various parts of the world.  It would be interesting to see how things could be now if there had always been a means to communicate knowledge with people in other parts of the world.  After all, the dark ages only describes a time of decreased learning (and loss of knowledge) in one part of the world and most greatly affected Western Culture.

C"mon now Whitney the pyramids were landing pads by the Go'auld, didn't you watch Stargate?  lol).  Something I watched said the pyramids top was lined up with some star formation.  We lost how they were built, we lost their culture.  We lost the library of Alexandria and all the knowledge in it.  We lost the ability to make damascus because we forgot how (Its like a super tough form of steel that has been infused with carbon).  Lets see the ancient greeks were postulating evolution before the dark ages.  The ancient greeks (well 1) discovered algebra and he was killed, his work burned and algebra was rediscovered more then a millennium later by the Arabs.  Religion and war has destroyed our knowledge throughout time and we've struggled to get some of it back (we may never get all of it back).  The dark ages, religion, and war are to blame for our current state of being, we could be out populating the cosmos right now if it wasn't for these things.  If the cure to cancer is 100 years away we would have already found it, if a cure to any disease was 400 years away we'd have it.  We have been set back as a species.  But we have to make due with what we have up to this point.

The antisemetic Disney universe is by far my favorite so far.

But yeah, the dark ages set back science by about 1000 years.

I thought the dark ages began around 400 >.< I guess i'm wrong lol

Tonight's Family Guy was a hoot.

Guy from far away. . .  "Hey, you look good in that shirt!"

They had another episode regarding atheism that was magnificent. I think it was called "Not all dogs go to heaven" (correct me if I'm wrong) where Meg gets brainwashed by watching too much Kirk Cameron on TV and becomes an evangelical Christian. Then Brian outs himself as an atheist and becomes a pariah.

My anthropology professor said that one thing about Christianity is that they saved everything that was salvaged. I don't really remember how. But I think that's one reason why Christianity is so dominate and maybe why there could be somethings we've lost we'll never know about. Just a thought.

Christianity preserved some things. But without christianity, everything would have been lost. The roman empire was dissolved by a bunch of visigoth barbarians. Do you think they would have advanced science?

Quote from: "Graham"My anthropology professor said that one thing about Christianity is that they saved everything that was salvaged. I don't really remember how. But I think that's one reason why Christianity is so dominate and maybe why there could be somethings we've lost we'll never know about. Just a thought.

Christianity was at the right place (the Roman Empire) at the right time (when it collapsed). Christianity is dominant simply because it was the main religion left as a civilization fell so there wasn't the centralization needed to spread a new religion for a very, very long time. By the time the Renaissance came around, the religion was deeply entrenched and had formed a powerful centralization of its very own: the Vatican.

That's it!! Thanks! I think that's important information.