> On 6 Sep, 00:37, "Dan Drake" dandrake.com> wrote:
>

>>On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:52:35 UTC, LudovicoVan diegidio.name> wrote:
>>

>>>On 5 Sep, 21:20, doug xx.com> wrote:
>>>

>>>>LudovicoVan wrote:
>>>>

>>>>>On 5 Sep, 20:01, doug xx.com> wrote:
>>>>>

>>>>>>Jerry Kraus wrote:

>>

>>>>>>>Galileo, I believe, simply underestimated the Pope. ÿHe thought his
>>>>>>>opponents were fools, and they weren't.

>>

>>>>>>No, he misunderstood his foes. He thought that they were rational and
>>>>>>they were not. ÿThey could not stand the idea that their views might
>>>>>>be wrong because it meant the bible was wrong. ÿRational people
>>>>>>accept change.

>>

>>>>>The Roman Church has never been irrational. The reasons were just
>>>>>political, as they are for all revisionisms, and as they are and have
>>>>>always been in history.

>>

>>>>Irrational in the scientific sense means unwilling to accept reason.

>>

>>>Irrational means not rational, that's all.

>>

>>>>They were rational in the political sense as they wanted to keep their
>>>>power and priviledge.

>>

>>>You are simplifying too much. We are not talking about this or that
>>>priest and not even about this or that Pope. We are talking about
>>>events at the transition from the middle ages to the modern epoch.

>>

>>>>The church folk lived very well, for example
>>>>the Medici pope who spent all the church's money on wine, women and
>>>>song and had to start selling indulgances to finance his parties.

>>

>>>This is not even a legend.

>>
>>I'm genuinely curious here: which part of that mini-capsule account is so
>>seriously wrong (or, if you prefer, not even wrong)?

>
>
> The fact that that is only the surface, something good for people to
> think about matters as if it were a soap opera, but historic analysis
> has nothing to do with it. It is actually even more complicated than
> that, as this shift of perspective from systemic dynamics to the
> behaviour of the single is just another aspect of the flattening of
> all perspectives to one-dimensional analysis. I'll be even (slightly)
> more specific: this was started on a systemic and global level in the
> 50's, when the Institute for World Mental Health, taking all
> cyberneticians advise and putting in practice the exact opposite of
> it, established that all anti-social/non-functional behaviour is an
> individual matter, rather than a systemic problem intrinsic to an
> unbalanced social system. So, if people are anti-social, is not
> because this society is un-human, it's because they need treatment or
> jail. Or, on a bigger scale, terrorism is not due to global dynamics
> of power and exploitation, no, it's because this or that guy is a
> religious fanatic. Etc. etc., you get the picture. (And let's don't
> tell Bin Laden is a bad guy. The point is indeed that they are the two
> sides of the very same coin.)
>

>

>>That the Papacy was grossly corrupt, a treasure for powerful families who
>>fought and killed each other for it? That Popes in and and before the time
>>of Luther -- most famously named Borgia, but that's discriminating against
>>the other families -- gave high ecclesiastical positions to their
>>childre(Sons. The daughters were profitable to marry off.) That some of
>>the Popes were as profligate with the money as with their morals, and
>>badly needed money all the time? (For which we got some really fine art,
>>but they still needed the money) That indulgences were sold for revenue?
>>I'm curious where your revisionism comes in, and how you account for the
>>Counter-Reformation trying to stop some of these mythological abuses.

>
>
> Again, that's just the surface and the soap opera.
>
>

>>>>Although that did lead to the Protestant reformation which diluted
>>>>the power of the church.

>>

>>>And this too: the reasons for the protestant reformation, and then the
>>>anglican, are again mostly political! The power and influence of the
>>>church had been overwhelming on all european countries for centuries.
>>>The reason why those reformations could happen is simply because the
>>>various kings and emperors had had enough: now they wanted their own
>>>empires.

>>
>>Single-factor theories of huge historical movements are always more or
>>less wrong.
>>That includes the ones that attribute everything to high-monded
>>philosophical ideas as well as those which make it all politics all the
>>time.

>
>
> It's a matter of what is relevant to a (true) historical analysis. The
> one-dimensionality is a modern thing, and it is a large-scale control
> strategy, so that people have no instruments to think *critically*
> (which is a scientific term here).
>

> -LV