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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   33982 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Or telling him that for much of the next 2000 years, Europe would be dominated by a religion created by Jews.

The fact that there was quite persecution of Christians in the roman empire obviously showed that Romans were worried about the potency of said religion.

Or telling pretty much anyone in 1870 about antibiotics, nuclear weapons, the moon landings, and computers.

Twenty Thousand Legues under the sea was 1870, from earth to the moon was written in 1865 (Jules Verne just rules), Ada Lovelace was dead for 20 years and the idea that we will have bombs that make even bigger bang was not far fetched.

But try and explain to someone in 1969 that 70 years later we won't be having any presence outside of the LEO.

Or telling pretty much anyone in 1870 about antibiotics, nuclear weapons, the moon landings, and computers.

Yes, that one was a poor example. The person of 1870 would have rolled their eyes and gone "Oh you mean all those things the novelists are writing about right now?"

1870 was the year Verne published his follow-up to "From the Earth to the Moon", entitled Around the Moon. Stop me and say if any of this is sounding familiar from the moon missions of the 20th century:

Four days later, the crew of a US Navy vessel, Susquehanna, spots a bright meteor fall from the sky into the sea. This turns out to be the returning projectile. A rescue operation is assembled, intending to raise the capsule from a depth of 6096m (20,000 ft), using diving bells and steam-powered grappling claws. After several days of fruitless searches, all hope is lost and the rescue party heads home. On the way back, a lookout spots a strange shining buoy. Only then do the rescuers realize that the hollow aluminium projectile had positive buoyancy and thus must have surfaced after impact. The 'buoy' turns out to be the projectile and three men inside are found to be alive and well. They are treated to lavish homecoming celebrations as the first people to leave Earth.

The fact that there was quite persecution of Christians in the roman empire obviously showed that Romans were worried about the potency of said religion.

The persecution of the Christians does seem to have been somewhat overstated by Christian authors, whose writing comes down to us with a bit of an agenda.

There was only ever really one concerted push to stamp out Christianity and that was under Diocletian. Before this point the persecution of Christians was largely sporadic and localised. Even when Diocletian actually tried to eradicate Christianity, enforcement was spotty and largely depended on the feelings of local officials.

To reduce the opinions of a vast number of people, living across several centuries, down to a sentence. The Romans did not feel threatened by Christianity, they found Christianity to be weird, alien and therefore unsettling.

The fact that there was quite persecution of Christians in the roman empire obviously showed that Romans were worried about the potency of said religion.

I don't think it does by itself? persecutes is one of the most common relationships between groups, historically, so its presence doesn't tell us much.

No subjugation is most common. Persecution is a lot rarer because of its low ROI

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