Can you please provide evidence of "systematic destruction" of things they "disagreed" with? How do you explain the survival of Plato's works when some of his philosophical ideas were not accepted by the Church but rather Aristotle's? And not all of Aristotle's ideas were accepted, but the ones that were true were incorporated by theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas, who was very heavily influenced by Aristotelian philosophy. Not all the great Christian thinkers were unorthodox. Here's one you can look up -- Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit priest and missionary to China. He was orthodox, and he was also extremely well educated. The Church was not opposed to heliocentricity because Nicholas Copernicus proposed that theory before Galileo, but he proposed it as a theory not insisting it be presented as fact (as Galileo did, which is what got him into trouble) because the scientific instruments necessary to PROVE heliocentricity hadn't been invented yet.

Here's a link to an article you can read http://www.lewrockwell.com/wo... , and I also recommend a book "Those Terrible Middle Ages!" by Regine Pernoud.

I majored in history at the University of Texas at Austin, and I took medieval history from a decidedly anti-Christian professor, yet what I learned in that class was that the Catholic Church preserved the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, founded universities and hospitals, encouraged the development of art and architecture, etc. In short, it built European civilization. Maybe you should study history from a more objective point of view.

Hi Jo.

"Can you please provide evidence of "systematic destruction" of things they "disagreed" with?"

Read a bit more about the period, and the role the Christian church had in doing so. It sounds like you have an interest in history, so read about the role of the Chrisitan church in the suppression of knowledge. It's not like I have an unusual opinion on this. The church's role is hunting down any Greek writing on "atomism" is well known. Only one copy of "De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things)" survived the censors of the church. Some might call that a "miracle". The greatest book burnings in history were done in the 4th Century, when Christianity achieved power in the Roman Empire. This isn't a secret, it's well-known and widely documented.

Like you, I don't type out or photocopy every book I read just to answer future internet requests for documentation. It's unreasonable to expect people to do so for every situation.

"How do you explain the survival of Plato's works when some of his philosophical ideas were not accepted by the Church but rather Aristotle's?"

Obviously their attempts at censorship failed in some cases. Many which existed beyond the reach of Christianity survived.

"And not all of Aristotle's ideas were accepted, but the ones that were true"

"True" and "true in my opinion" do not necessarily mean the same thing.

"Not all the great Christian thinkers were unorthodox."

I didn't claim they all were

"but he proposed it as a theory not insisting it be presented as fact"

You obviously don't know what "theory" means, so I will help you. I hope this is helpful:

Fact: something we can observe or measure.
Hypothesis: proposed explanation of how a bunch of facts fit together. Some hypotheses fail. Those that don't graduate to the status of . . .
Theory: a hypothesis which has proven to work, and to successfully predict. There is no single instance in which it fails to work when tested. If it does, it becomes a failed hypothesis.

People who don't understand what these words mean often think that a "fact" is higher than a theory. It is precisely the opposite. A theory is the highest level that a scientific explanation can be.

Scientific theories are both fact and explanation.

There is no university class on "Atomic Fact". Chemists learn "Atomic Theory". We study "Germ Theory" in medical departments, the "Theory of Gravity" in physics departments, and "Plate Tectonic Theory" in Geology departments. The Theory of Evolution will never "graduate" into the Fact of Evolution. It is already fact.

"Maybe you should study history from a more objective point of view."

That's great advice. I find that most people who are religious are unable to follow it, because they are unable to suspend their emotional attachment to their religion when studying, or even discussing, anything to do with it. Cheers.