You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe. Which one would you prevent?

Hmmmm. i think if i could prevent a disaster, et al, I would have prevented Mt. Vesuvius from erupting and destroying Pompii. The beauty and history of the period makes me weep.

None, we always think that all bad things have no good to come of it, but there is always a positive side to a negative event, for example, without many machines that were used for torture, there wouldn't be A LOT of things that would have not been invented.

You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe. Which one would you prevent?

The Gulf of Mexico

I'd stop...whoever said I could only stop one, then I'd go back again and stop them all.
Seriously though, I'd go for stopping the Wall Street Crash.

How would you do that? Go back to 1928 and tell everyone there was going to be a crash in 1929? That would cause panic and the crash would be pushed back to 1928!

I would prevent the dying out of dinosaurs. They would make cool movie props and the steaks off of an apatosaurus would feed a village for a long time.

Penda's death at the Battle of the Winwaed

- with the English global dominance that happened in the centuries thereafter, it's arguable that, had Penda not been defeated, Christianity (Catholicism) might not have got its foot in the door so thoroughly across Europe all through the Middle Ages and onward.

With England remaining "pagan" (or disinterested in religion) humanity could have made unbelievable advances in every sphere of learning. Imagine if the crushing, stifling hand of the Church had not held back every breakthrough by calling it blasphemy. Imagine if they hadn't burnt every free thinker that dared to have ideas, however challenging to the bible.

We would be so many centuries further ahead now if Europe had not gone so hook, line and sinker down the organised religion road.

Interesting. I like it. However, it was the Christians who kept the Muslims out of Europe. I might be typing through a burka if things had happened differently.

That's one of the silliest things I've read in a long time. Thanx for the early morning laugh, sam.

Let me guess...

right wing...
er...
middle-aged plus...
Almost certainly American...
Owns a gun in case the crucifix isn't quite powerful enough...
Did not go into further education...

Not true of Mr. Andrews, for the most part.

Good point on the burkhas...

Didn't think that through!

I'll go birth of Margret Thatcher or Adam Smith then. They both have a lot to answer for.

I bet I'm not far off.

What specifically is wrong?

You can read his profile. I think it's pretty honest. Merry is in his 70's, one of the oldest members here. I don't find him to be particularly conservative in the way you are thinking, and I would never lump him into the "dittohead" category that some of the conservatives here wallow in.

I take it back then. But I maintain Penda was a legend.

Maybe Merry will return and elaborate on his statement a little. He's a smart guy and I don't think it's as simple as it appears - or maybe it is? Merry?

All good guesses.

Mostly wrong but, still, quite good.

1. Certainly not right-wing. Perhaps slightly left of center would be the closest.

2. Unfortunately, a bit beyond middle age. Unless 71 is now 'the new 51.'

3. American by adoption. Born in Northeastern Europe.

4. Do own a couple of fire-sticks but no crucifixes at all.

5. Two academic degrees. Never went for the PhD.

I do appreciate GW's standing up for me although I took no offense at your estimate, sam. And, since I've been asked, I'll explain what I meant by being amused at your post.

I'm no Christian, but I do think that early Christianity has taken a largely undeserved beating at the hands of the atheist hordes here on A2k and elsewhere. Say what you will about the closed minds of the so-called Church fathers in the early days following the collapse of the Roman Empire, but if it weren't for the monks and priests working to copy some ancient manuscripts (including a great deal of secular scientiifc work), we might not have anything resembling a Euro-centered culture at all today. The hordes coming out of the Schwartzwald and crossing the Rhine -- Goths, Vandals, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Franks, etc. etc. -- were burning everything in sight, particularly books (known as codices) and parchment scrolls since these were of no use to the invaders. None of them could read.

It is largely due to one Patricius (whom the Irish now dub Saint Patrick) that some of the Western culture -- Aristotle, Archimedes, Eratosthenes etc. etc. etc. -- is still available to us. Patrick brought not only Christianity to Ireland but literacy as well.

And if you read anything at all about the early Church in Eire, you will soon come to the conclusion that the intransigence of Church hierarchy was by no means as rigid as we like to believe. Learning was valued above all and there was a kind of equality which later ages would have considered quite heretical, not to say blasphemous. Prioresses in female convents often had as much authority in the administration of a parish as male bishops and archbishops. We also tend to forget that monasteries were about the only places where anything resembling scientific research was being conducted at all. Granted, by today's standards some of this experimentation seems nothing more than superstition -- alchemy, atrology, the search for the philosopher's stone. Nonsense, right? But compare that to what was going on outside those monasteries. The Christian religious institutions were almost the only pin-points of light in those so-called Dark Ages. (I say 'almost' because there was certainly an interest in scientific inquiry among the Jews of Europe. But their access to research materials was limited and, given the prejudices of the time, they were inclined to maintain a low profile.

I also quite agree with Green Witch regarding the wearing of the burqa. Would we really rather see an Islamic-dominated world today rather than a nominally Christian one?

nicene council

i'd go back to change that

The Big Bang, definitely