Who would have thought thousands of years ago, that we would have faith that a fancy piece of paper with a picture of a president, or other leader, and a number would be worth something. And then to top that, put a different president/leader on another piece of paper, and a different number, and magically it is worth 5, 10, or 20 times as much as the original one. That takes some faith, guess that is why it is backed by the full faith and trust of the government.
Why Did We See The Industrial Revolution And Technological Revolution In The Last 150 Years?
- Thread starter Big Moose
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Haha, I must have also not read what was written. Gutenberg did indeed invent the Gutenberg printing press.
Yes sir, that was my point and what I had said. I don't know where my brother was coming from.
How about not even using money itself, but a piece of plastic with a special "pin" number that allows you to buy anything. Hopefully not having a pin number "666" as its authorizing mark.
There's no doubt that there is government opposition...but sometimes it seems like the church is most itself when under persecution. Many are just made more curious by "anti-superstition" policies.
The number one opponent of the church in china is not the government, it's Westernization. I see more negative impact from materialism via Hollywood and naturalism via London than from any government policy.
This thread reminds me of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of capitalism. Any Weber fans here?
As I see the discussion, it can be in below categories, can be more : )
Is man’s achievement to create things (such as things to facilitate communication/printing press) : it was driven more by an atmosphere as a result of the Christian faith...
Or
Is man’s achievement to create things: it was driven by selfish reasons…of idolatry of Wealth…
Or
As man has similarities with his Creator: there is happiness in creating things
Or
Is man’s achievement to create things (is as expected by Daniel prophecy) as a sign, that is:
Colossians 3:17King James Version (KJV)
17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
Is man’s achievement to create things (such as things to facilitate communication/printing press) : it was driven more by an atmosphere as a result of the Christian faith...
Or
Is man’s achievement to create things: it was driven by selfish reasons…of idolatry of Wealth…
Or
As man has similarities with his Creator: there is happiness in creating things
Or
Is man’s achievement to create things (is as expected by Daniel prophecy) as a sign, that is:
- neutral as to first and second above….simply a sign of increasing knowledge….
- Or not neutral, more on the second above, as “to and fro”, seems to say, : busy for nothing?
Colossians 3:17King James Version (KJV)
17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
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Yes, I think so more on nationalism or sentimental to traditions… even to architecture : )
"All things were made by him and for him, and without him nothing is made that was made." All the laws of physics and all the mathematical formulas used for electronics or any other thing would not exist if is was not created by God in the beginning. All the plants that can be used for healing the human body was also created by Jesus Christ in the beginning. What man invents for evil God can and does use for his good.
Are you saying China equates Christianity with Westernization, or at least a component of Westernization?
Exactly why didn't China and Persia and Babylonia have this explosion of invention and technology, then?
Yes, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Ben Franklin, etc., could not have invented anything without double book accounting.
The question is why did this all happen in a relatively short period of recent history? There was electricity in 1,000 B.C., but it wasn't until the 1600's that theories developed. Even that is only 400 years ago. China had thousands of years to work on it.
Yes, mankind is motivated by selfish endeavors. That is why Paul warns believers to not use your freedom in Christ as an excuse for selfish desires.
It cannot only be man's will. Otherwise man would have attained this knowledge sooner, even before Christ.
Any good idea can be corrupted for uses not intended by the creator. The Crusades and the Inquisition were both bastardizations of winning converts. Atomic energy can be used to create electricity or destroy entire cities. The Pharisees took God's good law and used it to control others and elevate themselves. Adam was given a perfect garden and misused it and sinned.
The question is why this knowledge was not gained before Christ's time, and why freedom was the catalyst, and why this concept of freedom was born of the Christian faith.
1st Part. There was an explosion of invention and technology, but sadly due to culture, war and politics most had been forgotten until the Renaissance or later. Though some like glass blowing, gun powder, castles and many medicines were used in the Middle Ages and forward.
2nd Part. It was double book accounting that gave rise to the merchant being a class in feudal society. This "Middle" class allowed people that either would have become monks or lived only as serfs into a new structure that allowed more time off from the year of work, more money to spend and led to a consumer economy. This spurred on the desire for goods from the East and led to the Renaissance which led to the colonisation of the New World and Far East.
There are connections that come from just a single event. Touchstones were discovered by accident and led to non-fiat currency instead of barter. Another good one is the loss of pitch and tar from the Carolinas after the American Revolution spurred on a series of events ending with making plastics.
One thing leads to another in history.
3rd Part. Covered in part one.
The rest of the parts. Ancient man was not dumb by any means. Ptolemy had already made star charts long before this era that are still only a couple of degrees off. The Chinese made the printing press, paper currency and other things before the West was out of its mud huts. The Arabs were creating triage, medicines, mathematics and even deduced that the Earth turned on its axis once every 24 hours.
The issue again was the culture and politics that kept it from leaving their borders. IF they had developed secular humanism as fast as the West had, we might be saying thanks more to Abu Nasr Al-Farabi and Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi. But the inventors that made pinhole cameras, fountain pens, windmills, paper, movable type, blast furnaces and so on won't get much credit due to Western culture thinking they are so vastly superior.
The Renaissance would not have been so forward thinking if they had not been built on the ideas of the past.
And yes things can be misused, as Christians did so elegantly in so many ways in their wrestling with flesh even though God said not to.
The Chinese also made movable type as well.Haha, I must have also not read what was written. Gutenberg did indeed invent the Gutenberg printing press.
Too bad the isolationism of politics never got it out to us.
This is WHY isolationism, like so many in the US want, is a bad thing.
Most don't. I don't. Though I do prefer non-interventionism which is quite different.
Some say so, but China is a big place with the land mass and diversity of populations and beliefs that you find in the US...just with a lot more people. They don't stereotype easily. My closest friends here have a family that has been Christian for more than 5 generations and the origination of their faith due to any western influence is lost in history now.
The point of the comment though was not that the equation of Christianity with westernization is the problem. The problem is the westernization of personal identity and philosophy. America was famous for "the American Dream" and for being a land of economic opportunity. Now many in China believe it's their turn. Time for the Chinese dream of economic prosperity. This goal of advancement toward the good life is formed with one eye on the west. It's as if we made a promise that the answer to the brokenness of life can be found in economic prosperity and pop-culture and many here are taking that as their new gospel.
Added to this, rise of aggressive new atheism out of England haas really taken root in Japan and is beginning to really press it's influence on universities here as well.
I will agree that majoritarianism will route a country to despotism faster in a centralized direct democracy.
However I also would suggest that a representative system is not immune to majoritarianism, even if its highly decentralized. I would even go so far as to say that horizontal separation of powers will in time be fruitless to stop it as well as we witness Madison's predictions of impossibility for liberty to be realized.
Agreed. I was reminded of a Benjamin Franklin quote, went to look it up and found a couple more good ones.
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
~Benjamin Franklin
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” ~Benjamin Franklin
“This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins. ” ~Benjamin Franklin
Do you believe there is a hybrid form of democracy, with elements of direct and representative, which would offer more protection from the tyranny of the majority? Second, what is the reason horizontal separation of powers would fail eventually? Could it be preservation of power or the coalescing of platforms to maintain electability?
So it is more of a "we want the benefits of free enterprise, yet maintain our culture" thing. We see this often in the Middle East with Arab areas wanting the prosperity of what the Jewish people have built over time, with God's blessing, but unwilling to make the reforms in their culture to peacefully work toward the same goal.
Let me see if I understand your opinion. Most, if not all, advancements were built on previous knowledge, and the rapid increase in advancements during the last one and a half centuries are due to a convergence or confluence of knowledge which not just adds, but multiplies exponentially as this knowledge is brought together. Makes sense.
Still, is it only culture that caused China to lack the drive for ingenuity? Is it as simple as capitalism vs. communism? I think there is something special in western culture, and especially American culture, which allowed and even encouraged ingenuity. Having the common Christian heritage and belief system caused a trust in our fellow believers that we could count on each other to not only refrain from interfering with our neighbor's endeavors, but to help them in those endeavors.
There was nothing standing against ingenuity in China. They invented many things we take for granted today long before the West did.
The insular and isolationist society of the time. Autocratic rule and the desire to control by the Emperors led to the ingenuity being withheld. Things leaked out along the Silk and Spice routes. But it was nothing like the open ideals of the West.
That was NOT the Church that did that. They kept even the Bible from people by only making sure peerage and clergy had access to it. It was the humanism that led to the Renaissance that opened the doors for that sharing and bringing knowledge and The Bible to the masses. To the common man.
We can thank forward thinkers, the merchant class that rose up in the late Middle Ages and emergence of rebellion against feudal ideals for the open atmosphere that led to such great revolutions of thought, science, industry, faith and politics.
If these things had been in China, the world would have developed far sooner than it had. Perhaps even reaching this level of tech by the midpoint of last century or sooner.
And a China free from socialist totalitarianism would be awesome. A united Korea would be good too.
Who knows by today in that alternate time line we may have had a worldwide government.
But sadly, it did not come to pass due to the minds of fallen men.
Something to think about. I just did and may be it means nothing at all, but the pilgrims were the ones to come to America and settle it, correct? They were in fact a "Church relocation". They were run our of England and went to the Netherlands I think and then came to America for the ability to practice freedom of religion. They established the New World as a Christian location and began to worship God freely.
If my memory is correct, and I am sure someone will help me if I am not right, but weren't all the Ivy League schools originally Seminaries?
Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth weren't all schools that educated Christian men to be teachers and send them out to educate the populace?
It seems to me that God blessed that attempt and look at what we have become.
I believe so. The university system itself was established from the Catholic Church and many non-Catholic Christians continued on with this trend (very much so from Calvinists) as it was intended to educate seminarians and other works that could be extended to better serve. Not just Ivy League, but certainly Ivy League. I remember my grandfather mentioning University of Pennsylvania's purpose as a seminary since he went there, but that was awhile ago.