By the way, this really cracked me up, for a variety of reasons.
eltejano wrote:Would it have been even bloodier and more tyrannical during the millenium following the fall of Rome or would reason have prevailed over superstition and fanaticism?
The first reason is the assumption that christianity is something different than superstition and fanaticism. In fact, i see no reason to distinguish organized religion from superstition and fanaticism.
The second reason is that "the fall of Rome" was a discrete event, which marks a watershed in European history. That is a false assumption, and indicates a shallow understanding of history.
The first time that Rome was sacked (that we know of--it have been sacked a century earlier, but we have no certain record of it) was in 390 BCE. The Tuscans (that's Etruscans to the dull-witted among us) hired Gauls to help them take the city. They did, except that the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Capitoline Hill held out. The Gauls sacked and burned the city, but drifted away after about two months--very likely, disease was killing them faster than the Romans had.
That was more than 350 years after the foundation of Rome, and more than a century after they had thrown out their Kings and set up the Republic. Not only did the sack of Rome then not end the Republic, it was the starting point for the Romans to build up a power to defy the Tuscans. Within a century, they were masters of Italy. Withing two centuries, they were the masters of the Mediterranean world.
Rome was next sacked in 410 CE. That was the Goths. It didn't really matter, though. Constantine had already divided the Empire into two administrative districts, one west with a capital at Ravenna, not Rome, and one east, with a capital at Constantinople. The sack of Rome in 410 was simply appalling to christians, who had set great store on the idea that their Bishop of Rome (the Pope) had "conquered" Rome (not so, the christians were not then in a position to prohibit other religions). So, the christians pissed and moaned, but the Empire got on with business, and when Alaric and his Goths were near starvation, and wandering around confused in Italy, unsure of what to do, Stilicho cut a deal with them and got rid of them. Problem solved.
Rome was sacked again in 455 CE. Of course, by that time, it was getting a little seedy. That was done by the Vandals. The Vandals and Visigoths were usually Arians (christians who didn't believe the your boy Jeebus was god), and so they already had a bad name with the christians.
Ravenna remained the administrative capital of the western Empire. Italy did not "fall" to the barbarians until the Romans cut a bad deal with the Lombards. For centuries, the Romans had co-opted dangerous barbarian migrations by giving a third of the land in a region to the barbarians, and getting military levies in return. The Lombards pressured the exarch from the East to grant them federated status, and took two thirds of the land (they had already militarily taken it all). With Italy in Lombard hands, the Empire could no longer control the West--France and Spain were cut off, and the Goths and Vandals were taking over northern Africa. That was more than a century after the sack of Rome by the Vandals. Rome was meaningless in the equation. It no longer even symbolically represented the Empire.
The Roman Empire survived in Constantinople until 1453. That is almost a thousand years after the last time Rome was sacked.
Finally, i find this crap of yours hilarious because it ignores how frequently christians not only did not stem the bloodshed, but created it. I've gone down that road so many times in the past at this site, that i'm just not going to both with it.
You should read some history--some reliable history, which wasn't written by a christian with a theological agenda. There's nothing wrong with christians writing history--there is something definitely wrong with anyone with an agenda writing history.
)Nation
