If the Age of Enlightenment philosophy's had ruled the world for the past

[Quixote1818]

two thousand years, where would our world be now?

Would their be no wars because everyone's spiritual philosophy's would be celebrated and country's would see less reason to hate one another? How far ahead would science and technology be had the church not been their to hold it back? Would the environment be better taken care of because people would not think the rapture was coming and mankind has dominion over the world as stated in the Bible? Would we have stamped out world hunger or would capitalism caused it to still be a problem?

Anyone want to help me write a book about this? If a book was written about this would you buy it?


For anyone who does not know what the Age of Enlightenment is go here for a summary: http://home.earthlink.net/~pdistan/howp_7.html

[Jesus Saves]

1. Our country was founded on Enlightenment principles

Many of them live on. Think about how far we've come since Galileo.

[libhill]

2. Actually-

Even during the Enlightenment, warfare continued unabated. The Great Northern War, the Spanish Succession, Austrian Succession, American and French Revolutions, ad infinitum. I see nothing enlightening about "The Age of Enlightenment". But, that's only my opinion.

[CindyDale]

8. Unless you see human rights, equality, and working for a saner, more

just world as undesirable for some reason, you support enlightenment values. We take them for granted now, but anyone who goes back and reads what people had to say 200 years ago will see how far they've brought us.

edit: deleted dupe word

[libhill]

11. I did not say

That these things are undesirable - I only meant that, in my own opinion, the original poster has too Utopian a view of the Age of Enlightenment.

[Quixote1818]

13. You said you see nothing enlightening about the Age of Enlightenment

You can't have it both ways. Jefferson A HUGE FAN of the Enlightenment saw knowledge as light and ignorance as Darkness. You don't find knowledge enlightening?

[libhill]

17. I would have found it "enlightening"

if Jefferson had given his slaves their freedom, for starters. Everybody on this planet,in my view, in our age of Jefferson's, has a right to "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". That should not be applied only to an elite aristocracy to the detriment of many others.

[Quixote1818]

22. You need to read my post below.

I can tell you are very smart and have good intentions and on face value your posts make sense but things are a lot more complicated than the way you understand them currently. I would just urge you to study some of this a little more. I was in your shoes a few years ago but then took an interest in all this and did lots of reading.

[CindyDale]

14. I know you didn't and didn't really think you thought so

but I wanted to point out how far our civilization has come. It's important because I don't think everyone in our society understands what it would mean to regress to pre-Enlightenment culture.

[Quixote1818]

9. So then the founding Fathers were stupid and so is our constitution?

The Enlightenment was a movement that started during those times but had very little effect on most of society back then. It was just barely starting to take root then.

Do you realize how much influence the Age of Enlightenment had on our laws and our constitution. Jefferson's bill for Religious Freedom which was basically the blueprint of the First Amendment is basically a baby of the Age of Enlightenment philosophy's. Do you even understand what the Age of Enlightenment is???? It basically says we should USE facts, reason, science and debate to move society's forward. So how do you want to do it?

[libhill]

12. We can start

by "putting our money where our mouth is". As I stated above, I believe you're looking at the Age of Enlightenment through rose colored glasses. For one thing, let's not forget that some of our vaunted Founding Fathers were slave owners. The ideas they formulated may have led to a better society in some respects,but they did little to alleviate misery down on the ol' plantation. In my view, it's only a better world if it's all inclusive, better, that is, for everybody. Not only for the privileged few.

[Quixote1818]

16. Slavery in the New World was given birth from the Old Testament

Most of the founders recognized the hypocrisy of Slavery and tried to get rid of it. Here is a synopsis of Jefferson and slavery.

Jefferson and slavery
Jefferson has been criticized for the keeping of slaves. In his own mind he knew it was an abhorrent system but felt that the wholesale release of a people unprepared for freedom in that particular society was equally irresponsible. He made his position clear with this statement, "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other . . . Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever . . . But if something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children . . ." This was the author of the words, "all men are created equal." Is it any wonder that the issue of slavery was to be an agonizing conflict for Jefferson all of his life? He was born into a family of privilege and a society where the holding of slaves was commonplace. He knew that the public at large would not allow slaves to live as free men, but he sincerely believed that they should be free. He drew up a Bill in his native Virginia to prevent the further importation of slaves which was passed and this was, at least, a first step to the eventual emancipation which was to come in future generations.

[CindyDale]

24. Powerful words

>> But if something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children . . .

and they make me think of what is going on now.

Thanks for posting this.

[libhill]

25. The Old Testament

is a barbaric Book, which also tried to justify child sacrifice, mass murder, gouging of eyes, and various and sundry other atrocities. A mixture of a little history and a lot of myth. I believe that your friend Jefferson was basically a secular humanist, and I certainly hope he would not have tried to justify slavery based on the Old Testament. The sad truth is, the ideas brought forward during the Enlightenment, by Jefferson and others were intended for the betterment of wealthy whites, and did not and were not put into application for other races until many years after the Enlightenment. Nor did the philosophical musings of these men better the lives of ordinary whites, for that matter. This was an age when soldiers and sailors had their backs beaten bloody for minor infringements, when people were jailed for years for debt, when people could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Very enlightening.

[CindyDale]

28. I think what we are saying is that the reason these things don't happen

in our culture now is because of progress we've made as a result of decisions based on Enlightenment values.

I hope we are not headed back to those days!

[libhill]

30. By Jove

I think you've got it. The thinkers of The Enlightenment started the ball rolling toward our modern world, but they can't take all of the credit. Let's not forget Darwin, Wilberforce, Gandhi, M.L. King, and many others , who did what they could to bring knowledge and reason and freedom to the world. And some of these people did much more than sit at Monticello and wax philosophical.

[Quixote1818]

31. Most of the people you mentioned were free thinkers and followers

of the Enlightenment. Had the Enlightenment never happened Darwin would have had his head chopped off. The Theory of Evolution is basically textbook Age of Enlightenment philosophy. Using reason and science to come to conclusions and discover truth.

Buy the way, if it were not for Jefferson's bill for Religious freedom you probably would have Christian Prayers in Public Schools and you would not be free to come to your own conclusions about your own spirituality. You are free to be who and what you are primarily because Thomas Jefferson was one of our founding Fathers.

[CindyDale]

33. Good examples for us to study.

Do we want to be known as the people who talked about stopping the oil wars but consumed more oil than ever? Do we want to be known as the people who preached about leaving a habitable environment but consumed the products of polluters?

[CindyDale]

18. It was easier to condemn slavery than to free slaves

just as it is easier now to condemn oil greed without cutting back our consumption.

I wonder what the world will say about us 200 years from now.

fixed typo

[Enquiringkitty]

3. I personally think, that the influence would have grown and caught

on because with understanding and searching for understanding one can't help but see that force and violence may contain a nation but doesn't free it until the minds of it's people are free to also think, seek, and understand too. By 2005 there would have been great hope for a peaceful world. There are always people who want to take power but with so many knowing that this urge came from a loss of understanding and lake of knowledge of self, there would not have enough people to follow. All evil people and dictators must have a number of people to encourage and believe in them to gain power. This was why the church was so successful in bringing about the end of the Enlightenment era. Blind followers...if people are not blind, they don't need to be lead.

[the_spectator]

4. I'm an Enlightenment fan too!

Don't hate me for saying this, but it's not just Right-wing fundies that hate the Enlightenment. The postmodernist types in the universities don't like it either, for their own wacky reasons, and they tend to be card-carrying "left-wingers" (whatever that means these days.) Anyone trying to defend the Enlightenment these days takes fire from both sides of the aisle.

Ever heard of Jacques Derrida? (I'd do one of those little throw-up smilies right here, except I'm A) a little out of it computer-wise and B) opposed to smilies on principle also, I think.)

[Enquiringkitty]

5. A Stoic?

[the_spectator]

10. Not opposed to smilies in real-life, no ...

I guess its the curmudgeon in me, the principled opposition to computer smilies. Also, I actual use AOL, so I'm already on (or over) the edge of internet gaucheness already -

Thanks for yours, though!

[Enquiringkitty]

23. You're welcome...I'm sure your have a great smile.

[coloradodem2005]

6. I'd like to think something would be better.

[adwon]

7. No

The Enlightenment couldn't prevent the re-emergence of religious wars, albeit in a new guise (French Revolution). Enlightenment principles work better within a state than between states.

[Quixote1818]

20. So what do you suggest would work better? nt

[adwon]

21. In the international arena?

Work to keep wars limited and prevent any single power or concert of powers from dominating the globe. If that can be done, there's a fighting chance for people to better their societies.

[Enquiringkitty]

26. Am I correct in thinking that was one of the original principals of the

UN? To have a discussion area to solve conflicts before war began? I haven't seen the document that was sort of the mission statement for the UN in a long time.

Does anyone know where that might be found?

[adwon]

29. Here you go

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html

It's similar, if I remember correctly, to the underlying idea of the UN. I tend to think of it more in terms of the Concert of Europe after 1815 myself.

[UTUSN]

15. Don't Need to Go So Far Back

If everybody in the 2nd row had won their naturally more enlightened spots, we would be in Utopia now.

[Quixote1818]

19. Thanks for that! nt

[Rex]

27. Depends on what kind of technology they developed in those 2k years

I don't believe mankind can survive without violence. I'm still waiting to be proven wrong.
:evilgrin:

[Quixote1818]

32. Mankind is both good and bad.

My hope is when humans are enlightened they become more good than evil. Perhaps I am too much of an Idealist but I have to have hope.

[The Magistrate]

34. You Make Some Excellent Points, Sir

But here, it will probably not surprise you to learn, we have some differences. Reason is not the antithesis of violence; it can, indeed, provide powerful incentives to violence.

"All men of reason are men of violence at heart."

[Quixote1818]

35. What are your thoughts of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs?

Do you believe self actualized people are violent? Too much Capitalism breeds greed and too much socialism stifles freedom and creativity. Would a truly balanced society breed a more civilized people? A society that valued knowledge and discovery over money and Power?

No one knows because we have never seen such a society, well other than Canada?

So what are your thoughts on Canada?

[CindyDale]

36. LOL All men of faith were, too. Why don't we just say "all men"?

Added: Actually, I think it is more difficult to justify war with reason than it is with faith. Look what a lousy job was done with Iraq.