Vacation Planning, delayed edition.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Your crude excuse for Christians murdering other (putative) Christians is complete sewerage slop.

The world has only become a better place because the power of the church to murder when it suited their venial purpose has been reduced and the replacement, while imperfect, is light-years better. No women have been burned to death for wearing men's clothes (when no other clothes were given them) in more than two centuries. Progress. yrs, rubato

It may seem strange but I agree with the last paragraph. Yes, the ending of ecclesiastical court power to execute, torture etc. and the replacement of it by secular courts was a great improvement. AFAIK burning women for wearing men's clothes has not been on ABC World of Sport for at least 200 years and probably longer. It is progress.

(Historical note: Joan of Arc abjured and wore women's clothes which were provided. She chose to wear men's clothes again when returned to prison, probably because it made rape and molestation more difficult for the jailers. This choice was then used as an excuse to declare that she was obviously recanting, although it wouldn't have made any difference if she'd worn as many dresses as she could - they were still bound and determined to finish her off).

The first sentence though is barking insanity. What "excuse" is it to say that venal English "christians" falsely accused Joan; misused ecclesiastic procedure; blackmailed witnesses; threatend to kill churchmen who opposed the trial; held the "trial" on English territory (in France) so no other authority could intervene; and cruelly, illegally and viciously killed the unfortunate woman for their own perceived gain? Her killers were happy to use the "church trial" as a fig-leaf to excuse their own responsibility. They could always say "It wasn't us English - see, it was all the church taking care of an internal matter". Did I mention liars?

So how exactly did I 'excuse' christians for murdering other christians when it is clearly stated that they did exactly that?

I do hope your French language skills are more organised than those you exhibit in English.

Meade

[Sean]

And what was St. Joan of Arc? A Buddhist?

She was a Mithramist, wasn't she?

The word you're looking for is mentalist (in the Partridgean sense).

She was a complete mentalist.

[rubato]

My lovely spouse has an interest in all things celtic so our path is bending southwards towards Carnac and the standing stones, cairns, &c there. I was advocating for Nantes where the protestant Christians were betrayed and slaughtered by orthodox Christians (having pretty well run out of Jews to kill) but her interest in history is a bit more towards the older than mine is. Less specific too. Probably wise. But I tried to get her interested in Tolland Man w/o success.




Looks a lot like my Danish grandfather.

(an anaerobic environment high in tannins does wonders!)

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

I have to say the French work hard for your money! And do a great job.


If you want a great experience in a wonderful hotel France is a good place to shoot for. Others are the U.S. western national parks. The Old Faithful Inn, the El Tovar, and our local favorite the Ahwanee. The Timberline lodge gets an honorable mention. A personal favorite on the N. Coast is St Orres.




yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Ah Nantes! A name that conjures up the ultimate in perfidy, cowardice and violence as one bunch of filthy French broke their solemn promises, betrayed their own countrmen and killed another bunch of filthy French. As long as France is allowed to keep putting the French on this earth there can be no true peace, justice and mercy anywhere! All the French must be scientifically eradicated, leaving the country and its hotels open for nice scientific people - such as residents of California. Right, Nantesy-boy?

[Sean]

Is it true that France has pre-emptively surrendered to Russia today?

[Crackpot]

I heard it was Britain and Germany

[Lord Jim]

Especially Germany.

[rubato]

It will have to be a different trip but I would like to visit Poitiers where the 1,000-year night descended on Europe.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Ah yes - Charles Martel saving Europe from the Moslem hoardes and thus preventing us all from being suicidal 'plane bombers and having to ride camels to work.

[Lord Jim]

Why does the guy insist on tossing this bigoted ignorant crap into his own vacation thread?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Oh LJ I think it's something like this:

[rubato]

The long nightmare of Europe was lifted gradually after mathematics was introduced by the Arabs who had also preserved Greek philosophy which accompanied it.

And today we have achieved the highest levels of civilization, and highest standards of living in the countries which are the most free from the scourge of religion. As measured by behavior. With the level of success going downwards directly as the level of superstition goes up. As of 1980 the most backwards countries in Europe were the most religious; Ireland and Spain. Both have flowered as the influence of religion has been reduced in public life.

In Europe west of the Iron curtain the highest levels of corruption and the lowest levels of press freedom are in the home of the Vatican, Italy.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

4/10 Young rubato can do better

More correctly, "Moslems" not Arabs. Persian and Egyptian contributions, as well as others, were almost entirely written in Arabic by non-Arabic persons - very important works they were too. Your notion of "dark ages" is almost unacceptable in modern scholarship as a referrent to the period from the collapse of the Roman empire to the 15th century. It is to be noted that the decline of Western civilization was caused not by the Roman church (much as I'd like to blame it) but by the replacement of ordered Latin society by illiterate and barbarian (so-called) invaders who did not succeed in disrupting North African and near Eastern societies. The church, backward as it may have been and corrupt too, preserved much of Latin and Greek knowledge and was particularly aided by (whodda thunk?) the Greeks driven out of Constantinople (by Moslems) and so on. As usual, you pick an element of truth, declare it to be the unholy grail and ignore historical facts that don't suit your bigotry.

[Crackpot]

He's just trying to stimulate debate the only way he knows how.

[Lord Jim]

By displaying his ignorance and bigotry and making himself look foolish in the process...

Yes, that's definitely is his go-to technique for "stimulating debate"...

A very strong case can be made, based on the actual history, (a case I won't bother making for rube; it would be like trying to make the case for the value and contributions of African-Americans to David Duke; a complete waste of time.) That the institution of the Catholic Church, with all its flaws, bears primary responsibility for preventing Western Civilization from completely collapsing during the Middle-Ages...

For hundreds of years during this period, European civilization suffered major blows both from successive waves of plagues, (that wiped out 30-50 percent of the population, and which tore at the very heart of social order and norms.) and invasions from plundering (pagan) hordes...

Throughout all of these traumatic assaults on the social fabric, The Church remained the one institution that stayed more-or-less intact; preventing the complete dissolution of Western society back into a hunter-gatherer condition...

Additionally, it was the success of The Church in Christianizing the pagan marauders that ultimately incorporated them into a broader less nihilistic European culture, which was the essential predicate for the Renaissance and Enlightenment which followed...

On top of all of this of course, (as Meade has pointed out) The Church became during the Middle Ages the last bastion in European society for the preservation of knowledge and the basic tools of civilization, (like reading and writing) Without the Church, these might have been lost to Europe entirely...

Naturally, I do not expect any of this to have any influence at all on a bigot. Bigots begin with a preconceived view and close themselves off to any information or perspectives that might undermine their ignorant foregone conclusions. Bigotry is the "comfort zone" and ignorance is the bigot's "comfort food"...

[Lord Jim]

While you're in France rube, you might find it educational to visit the birth place of this fellow:

Pope Sylvester II or Silvester II (c. 946 – 12 May 1003) was Pope from 2 April 999 to his death in 1003. Born Gerbert d'Aurillac (Gerbert of Aurillac), he was a prolific scholar and teacher. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab/Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era.[1][2][3][4] He is said to be the first to introduce in Europe the decimal numeral system using the Arabic numerals after his studies at the University of al-Karaouine in Morocco. He was the first French Pope.

Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France.[5] Around 963, he entered the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. In 967, Borrell II of Barcelona (947–992) visited the monastery, and the abbot asked the Count to take Gerbert with him so that the lad could study mathematics in Spain and acquire there some knowledge of Arabic learning. In the following years, Gerbert studied under the direction of Atto, Bishop of Vic, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll.[6]

Gerbert was said to be one of the most noted scientists of his time. Gerbert wrote a series of works dealing with matters of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), which he taught using the basis of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric). Walid Amine Salhab asserts that Gerbert's reintroduction of the emphasis on these liberal arts in Europe was inspired by the educational institution of Cordoba in Islamic Spain.[9]

In Rheims, he constructed a hydraulic-powered organ with brass pipes that excelled all previously known instruments,[10] where the air had to be pumped manually. In a letter of 984, Gerbert asks Lupitus of Barcelona for a book on astrology and astronomy, two terms historian S. Jim Tester says Gerbert used synonymously.[11] Gerbert may have been the author of a description of the astrolabe that was edited by Hermannus Contractus some 50 years later. Besides these, as Sylvester II he wrote a dogmatic treatise, De corpore et sanguine Domini—On the Body and Blood of the Lord.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sylvester_II

[TPFKA@W]

What do you call a pointless race that covers 2,200 miles throughout France?
The French.

I expect that the list of cultural offerings by the French is significantly longer than the list of cultural offerings by the Welsh.

[MajGenl.Meade]

What do you call a pointless race that covers 2,200 miles throughout France?
The French.

I expect that the list of cultural offerings by the French is significantly longer than the list of cultural offerings by the Welsh.

True. True. Even the list of cultural offerings from Essex is longer.

[Gob]

What do you call a pointless race that covers 2,200 miles throughout France?
The French.

I expect that the list of cultural offerings by the French is significantly longer than the list of cultural offerings by the Welsh.

True. True. Even the list of cultural offerings from Essex is longer.

You. Outside. Now!