Reddit reviews The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World

I said:

> > No culture whose influence is SOLELY Christian ever makes any enlightened progress.

You responded:

> THE UNITED STATES? Oh, I don't know, circa every decade before recently? Yes, I know it's not a "Christian nation" but to pretend like Protestant Christianity isn't part of the history of the United States' psyche is pretty goddamn revisionist.

Logic is not your strong point is it? First of all, the United States was founded on the principles of the social contract and other pre-French revolution liberal ideals. It was post-Humanism anti-ideological concepts of freedom and democracy. To say that its solely influenced by Christianity is idiotic.

On the other hand there are areas in the deep south, that are largely Christian. So we can simply narrow the question, to ask what scientific principles have been foster in the deep southern bible belt? Let me know when you've come up with your list.

Also your moving of the goal posts from what I said: "SOLELY influenced Christian ideology" to "Protestant Christianity is part of US history" is about as exposed and uncontroversial a logical fallacy as I've seen.

> Did you just put Confucianism in a positive light? Did you really just do that? Do you know fuck at all about Chinese history?

I only have the Needham books. So admittedly its second hand information. But the Chinese, throughout their history, made steady, if slow progress in philosophical thought and invention. You can argue it is pre-science, but it is really borderline and clearly part of an intellectual progression. And FAR in excess of any developments in Christian Europe during medieval times.

> Did you know Confucianist principles are the basis for the DPRK?

Do you know how logic works? I don't claim Christianity is the only way to siphon intellectual thought from a society. And I doubt that the DPRK's problem is too much Confucianism. They have entirely different problems.

> Also, "paganism" isn't an idempotent religion,

In the context of the rise of Christianity and early medieval times, it is understood to mean Roman paganism. For example.

> Hinduism also put PEOPLE INTO A CASTE SYSTEM FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. A CASTE SYSTEM. Do you know that word: CASTE.

I am well aware of that. The Hindus also managed to create the decimal number system including the 0 that we all use in arithmetic today.