We should start going back past Greece and Rome, to where they got their ideas, ie, Egypt and Mesopotamia, get over Asia Minor and Cyprus and go past the Euphrates to the Tigris and south to the cradle of civilization. Those Greek philosophers vacationed and studied in Egypt... Our predilection to begin in Greece comes in large part to our Christian prejudices, since we have to open ourselves to a whole different set of religious/philosophical views and views of societies and politics. This gives credence to the contributions of all races including African and Arabian. After all, they had knowledge, wisdom, opulence, success, and eventually experienced the first decline of civilizations, we can definitely learn something by looking beyond the polarizing hierarchical Platonic assumptions that Western Civilization spoon feeds, especially to Americans. I say this as a white, American, Christian. I'm not xenophobic, I believe in respect for all races and living things. I like Derrida on animals. I recommend "This is not Sufficient", by Lawlor.

Robin

The ancient Greeks weren't christian

Who are you referring to when you say "we"?

Are you thinking in terms of educational institutions?

I personally recognize that the early Greeks got a lot of their ideas form the Jains in India. Ideas for both philosophy and mathematics.

Most of my recent studies concerning spiritual philosophies stem from ancient India, Mongolia, and the European "Celts" which is an ill-defined culture, but there is still a lot of history available concerning many of their beliefs and traditions.

But I think I recognize what you are saying. Thoughout my life in America I wasn't truly taught the philosophies and spiritual views of many of those civilzations. At least not in a 'serious' way. They were treated superficially as if they didn't hold much water. More like they were recoginzed to be mere mythologies and unworthy folklore.

The truly sad thing is that they held every bit as much crediblity as any Mediterranean folklore, philosophy and religions.

Mirrow points out that the ancient Greeks weren't Christians. But I'll point out the fact that Zeus was the precursor to Yahweh. So it's still the same basic religion and philosophy. The people who invented Yahweh simply took Zeus and made him into a homophobic male-chauvisitc pig and then gave him a jealously complex to boot.

I think that says it all.

Wow! Thanks for posting that graphic.

It is so TRUE!

How disgusting.

And to realize that it's still around causing predjudice, ignorance, and darkness in the background of our lives today is truly sad.

Someday in the far future history books will record this a the 'Abrahamic Catastrophy'.

Many people have already recognized this. But many others are slow to wake up.

Didn't christian monks persevered alot of science history during the dark ages and later own conducting many observations and experiments on their own? Also the Ottoman empire persevered alot of the knowledge lost during the fall of Rome and the dark ages. The cause the dark ages where the fall of the empire cause by disintegration of the economy of Rome and the barbarian invasions and weakling leadership?

Why always start with Aristotle? Western bias perhaps?

That's true about the monks preserving knowledge and the fall of Rome.Good point on that.Not sure the Aristotle thing is western bias though.I think he and other greek philosophers were just the first to codify and articulate a lot of these philosophical concepts in a more or less logical pattern and that is why we start with him

I thought we started with Aristotle because his name started in "A".

Yes many small groups of Christians tried to preserve knowledge, but the Catholic church and almost every major religious power wanted to keep people in line, and knowledge is power . . . .

The burning of Alexandria was one of the foremost disasters for mankind's knowledge.