Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
And people are often governed or motivated by ideas.
People are governed/motivated by self-interest.
So you don’t have ideas in your head about the world that affect how you interact with the world? Might be true for you, but I would say it’s not an universal experience. Also I don’t say it’s juts ideas but ideas are part of our psychology.
You know, from what I’ve read about it, it wasn’t one specific person, and it seems highly likely there were others doing the same thing earlier, but they just couldn’t take root for whatever reason.
What do you mean? It’s always a specific person or a specific small group that comes up with ideas that are later popularized. Like you can pinpoint evolution theory to a small group of biologists with Darwin and Huxley at their forefront.
So as you might be aware, you’ve actually chosen an example with 2 simultaneous inventors. Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea at the same time, actually sent Darwin a letter about it before anything was published, and was credited for it. To be fair, they had similar backgrounds, and like you say were a small group. However, there’s plenty of inventions of the same thing separated across lots of time and space. Writing was invented several times is fairly isolated civilisations, and Gaussian elimination bears a German man’s name, and was thought to be fairly new, but can be found in ancient Chinese works as well.
Who started the enlightenment? Voltaire is often on people’s lips, but if it wasn’t for the French revolution in his area just a few decades after his death, and which made him a sort of saint, he would have a much smaller profile. Meanwhile, if you go back further there’s someone advocating some enlightenment-ish idea recorded from probably every century. Famous names taper off towards the middle ages in Europe, but then so does the record in general, and Arabs like Avicenna or Al-Ma’ari pick up the slack.
But every time writing was invented it had to be invented by a specific dude or a small group of dudes. It did not just come to be out of thin air, someone had to invent it and someone had to popularize it. And so with enlightenment - someone (maybe we don’t even know her name) has to come up with an idea and others, whose names we know have to popularize it.
I get that you are saying that it might have been another person (or small group), sure - but in the end it has to be someone.
Okay, well, sure. Even if it’s inevitably someone, there is an individual or individuals that it turns out to be in the end. I think it would be a large group for the Enlightenment, even if you remove the forgotten advocates of it, but I guess that’s a nitpick. I’m a huge fan of it too, pretty much every other good thing has been a product of it.
On the subject of this way of viewing history, which came up in another place, yeah, it could be depressing, but it depends on how you look at it. Schopenhauer said we’re almost powerless and it’s awful, Nietzsche said we are and it’s great. They were often speaking in more cosmic terms, but I think it applies here. It’s also a lot less pressure, right? And, beyond that, I think it just fits the data really well.
I think it’s important to note that what I’m talking about is a bit like statistical mechanics in physics (small, unpredictable events adding up to a more predictable whole), and statistical mechanical systems are often complex or non-deterministic. I don’t think without heroes human society is actually much diminished; or are our moral responsibilities within it.
But without “heroes” who is doing the actual work? Like again: Darwin, Huxley and couple other dudes actually had to make observations, collect data, come up with an, at that time, absurd sounding idea and defend it against societal pressure. And you don’t think that they have influenced history and could be replaced by anyone else? I vehemently disagree that the data fits your perspective.
Sure, if Darwin had been hit by a horse-drawn bus, we’d still have evolution. And probably a YouTube short about “The sailor-naturalist who almost discovered evolution (but died)”. It would just be Wallace’s theory of natural selection. There you go, one data point.
I was going to bring up some less clear-cut examples, but I guess I should ask what your point is, because I feel like I’m missing something. I think Darwin was a cool guy, but I don’t think he was unexpected. Yeah, they did the work, but work is cheap, every peasant in history did work. Why should I care more about Darwin than the people who fed Darwin, and who were themselves (something like) inevitable?
Religion died the day they invented the scientific method.
Someone forgot to tell that to religions.
Ahh they are withering a slow and painfull death not our problem.
I would very much disagree. They are our problem and we should put them out of their misery.
True colours
I never hid my contempt for most organized religions as systems of oppression throughout human history. At the same time I respect peoples individual spirituality, as long as they don’t force it on others.
You said “we should put them out of their misery”
Any system of power is seen as oppression by those who dont beleive as long as people can choose their flavour of oppression we should be fine.
Who ever started the whole enlightenment
Highly debatable, but one argument could be made for Sultan Mehmed II, which would be a fairly ironic person to give the award to.
Sultan Mehmed II
That’s the dude who fought Dracula? Didn’t know he was involved with enlightenment any sources to read up on it?
The argument is (though it’s certainly not a universally-agreed view) that the fall of Constantinople lead a lot of artists and scientists to flee from the city heading west, along with old texts. Which lead to an increased interest in their knowledge from the west, which is what triggered the Renaissance.
Mehmed II was the Sultan responsible for the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and the siege of Constantinople. Hence, he’s the guy responsible for it, under this model.
That is a funny perspective, I somehow like it.
Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.
But if you think the internet and social media as the continuation of that tradition - maybe that was a mistake after all. /s
Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman
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A person needn’t be good in order to do good things, just as a good person doesn’t necessarily impact the world positively simply by existing.
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Jesus Christ. Lived the life we should have lived and died the death that we deserve. Just so we can go and live with Him. No love is greater than that.
I sure did feel the love and embrace of the son of God as his proud followers directly contributed to various traumatic experiences and abuses growing up that fucked me up as a child and led to me being an emotionally and mentally stunted adult. If this is God’s love, I ain’t impressed, and don’t gimme that shit about having my faith tested cause the sadistic bastard that sees global suffering en masse and explicitly allows it is not deserving of my faith.
Cool that your religion brings ya peace and joy mate, genuinely happy for ya. Shit sucks in the world and we all need some form of comfort, but my advice? Keep it to yourself.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Satan does infiltrate places where God is meant to be. What I am sharing is more than a religion. It’s a relationship with and eternal security in Christ. I stress this enough, the things that happened to you when you were younger WERE NOT okay in any way, shape or form. Bad things happen in schools as well, and other places that are supposed to be a sanctuary. Please don’t allow your bad experience to reflect poorly on Christ. I think it was Gandhi who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
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Romans 3:10-12 ESV [10] as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
John 3:16 ESV [16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
1 Timothy 1:15 ESV [15] The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
Acts 16:31 ESV [31] And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 8:1-2 ESV [1] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
On relationship:
Matthew 18:19-20 ESV [19] Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. [20] For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Romans 8:26-27 ESV [26] Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. [27] And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:34-35 ESV [34] Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Is it possible for you to explain without referencing the Bible?
My favourite thing about that video is that it uses deception and misrepresentation and lies (Come on, it even refers to Bart Ehrman as a “pious protestant”), exact tools satan would use 😂. It does capture satan’s personality perfectly though, pretending to be the good guy.
God is not all powerful if Satan can overcome him.
Satan cannot overcome Him. Satan’s time is limited, in the end he will be defeated.
God was incapable of defeating him when a child was being raped and a perfect being is not capable of change.
The next child being raped will be watched by your God, too, as he will never be capable of defeating evil, as a perfect being will never change.
To change God would be to admit imperfection. Which is why I love the irony of the New Testament.
So if God is not capable of overcoming evil, and we know he is willing to watch innocent children be raped, why worship him?
All of these things are insignificant compared to Heaven. I think Job 38 illustrates God’s perspective on this perfectly. This life is all we know right now.
Revelation shows God defeating Satan. It will happen. Satan’s power is limited right now. Right now we have Jesus to save us in the meantime.
raped children don’t matter compared to my mental comfort
The disgusting selfish ego of the religious is the part I can never empathize with or sympathize with.
So, you admit God must change in the future to defeat Satan? You do not believe he is capable of defeating him as he is?
So God is neither all powerful nor perfect.
You do not worship the main texts of Christianity with those claims.
Notice how you don’t actually want to discuss the topics or respond to the things I’ve said. You want to inject some fluffy talk to reinforce hiding your eyes from the discussion to pretend like you are participating.
If I worshipped something as a God, I would be devout enough to discuss it with a person instead of just talking over their statements about it.
Let’s revisit where my previous comment started
God was incapable of defeating him when a child was being raped and a perfect being is not capable of change.
The next child being raped will be watched by your God, too, as he will never be capable of defeating evil, as a perfect being will never change.
You are happy to worship an imperfect powerless God who let’s children be raped because a book written by child rapists said things might get better one day.
Thanks for existing, you are great advertisement for atheism, keep up the good work.
I’m gonna go with Napoleon purely for the legal code and opening the door for revolutions.
I suspect the couple of hundred thousand that died in his wars would disagree.
Nobody, I think this is an insane question.
So many different people had small impacts on humanity, most of it somewhat regional. Most of the heroes I could think of in Western countries will have had a very limited impact on Eastern history, and vice versa. Also, I am very sure nobody had only positive impact.
Another problem: not everybody will rate a certain impact equally as positive.
I’d suggest to remove focus and attention from god- or hero-like figures and shift it towards improvements won by community action.
Edgy.
How? I think it’s pretty accurate for OP to say it takes a team.
Dude it’s a fun question from the sorts of who is stronger Superman or Goku. But even outside of that - it’s hard to deny that some individuals had more impact on the course of our society than others.
Yeah, there’s some variance, but I’d argue it’s actually pretty small. I’m trying to figure out who I’d choose, but it’s hard, because usually there’s a lot of redundancy even when it comes to kings and generals, and nothings lasts more than a couple centuries or so on pure momentum. When archeologists excavate a place like Rome, without writing it’s hard to even distinguish leaders. Rather, you can see trends smoothly changing over time, usually in response to something obvious like supply chain issues.
You can also see this if you look at the stories of today’s great successes, and then compare them to the stories of people they would have started alongside. There was a lot of online stores in 2000, and one was bound to become Amazon. Amazon itself apparently was the first to allow negative book reviews on it’s storefront, and that helped it through the lean years. That meeting could easily have gone a different way, and then it would have been someone else.
I gave you a good example in another reply. But we can also go deeper - Mohamed, with his freestyle jam on bible, to this day has rather big influence on society. It’s a rather strange and honestly depressing perspective to deny individuals any role in history.
Uh, so administrative question, do we really want to split this across seperate threads? I’m going to suggest you add Mohamed and the futility of existing without individual influence in your response over there (non-federated link, AFAIK Lemmy can’t do comments any other way).
Sure, you can add your response to Mohamed and why do you think that a perspective denying individual influence on human history is useful over there.
