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Was just watching another show, and yet again they claim that Greece was the "birthplace of civilization". Um.... no, it wasn't. I hope younger generations nowadays know better, and know that the Mesopotamians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Arabs, Israelites, and Indus valley all existed *before* the "Greeks".
8 months ago · 👍 digbat, lykso, yamato
@clseibold Don't change my words. I said "western way of thinking was born **mostly** in ancient Greece". I am half Japanese and half European, so I know very well what I am talking about. Ask yourself for example why Japanese people rarely go on strike, but the closer you get to Europe, the more people tend to go on strike. Google won't help you much here, other than some superficial answers but still if you really have a Theology degree, you would know the answer already. · 8 months ago
@yamato Also, you're incorrect about some things when you talk about eastern religion. I don't want to get into it because clearly you think you're right, but you're not. Buddhism is not polytheistic, and Hunduism is a religion that's really a group of religions (plural) where some forms are polytheistic and some forms are in-between polytheism and monotheism, in a sense.
"it was the ancient Greeks who considered for the first time separating nature from humans" - I have no idea what you're really trying to say here, but it's completely false. · 8 months ago
@yamato No, you said western thinking was "born" by the Greeks, key word "born". Again, this is not quite true, it's a vast oversimplification. Western Culture was extremely influenced by the Middle East and the Islamic Empire.
I have a Theology degree, so do't act like you're telling me something new by talking about the differences between eastern religion and western religion, as they are completely irrelevant to what you said. · 8 months ago
@clseibold I didn't say that cosmology or philosophy was invented by the Greeks. What I said is that western way of thinking is greatly influenced by them. If you go to India or farther East that influence is minimal. For example, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, etc. these religions are polytheistic, the same as ancient Greece, but while Hinduism etc, see nature and humans as a single being, it was the ancient Greeks who considered for the first time sepparating nature from humans. There will be some points in common of course, but the foundation of their beliefs and vision of life and nature is totally different. · 8 months ago
Η Ελλάδα είναι προφανώς ο αρχικός πολιτισμός · 8 months ago
@yamato If we want to talk about western culture, we should be honest and say that western culture takes influences (and one might say steals) from many other cultures, including the Middle East, and the Islamic Empire, which is when we developed the numerical system that we still use today as well as a bunch of mathematics and medical science, among other things. Heck, our writing system comes from the Sumerians, Phoenicians, and the Egyptians. And greek art was largely taken from the Egyptians and other peoples among the Mediterranean. · 8 months ago
@yamato As for philosophy, other cultures did philosophy before the Greeks, people just don't call it "philosophy" because there's this eurocentric bias. Take Chinese philosophy, for example. There's also philosophy from the middle east, but again, people don't call it "philosophy", but I think this is a clear bias. · 8 months ago
@yamato I don't think that's what they meant, but even if that was the cast, it still isn't quite true. Cosmology existed well before the Greeks. The Mesopotamians and those in the middle east did cosmology, astrology, and astronomy, and so did the Chinese. The greeks did not create religion and much of religion comes from a mix of the middle east, the Greeks, and the Romans. Indo-European religion predates the Greeks, hence why there's so many similarities in the pantheons of those in the middle east, the ancient arabian religion, and the Greeks and Romans. · 8 months ago
Probably what they meant is that the western culture in terms of way of thinking was born mostly in ancient Greece. Think about philosophy, cosmology, religion, etc. It is very different in middle east, affrican or east asian cultures. · 8 months ago