Replies to post #4958 on Distributed Digital Property Board

[Weby]

Alea

Two notes.. 1 Serfdom wasn't abolished in the Russian Empire until 1863. That fact alone explains a good deal about twentieth century history and current affairs re: The Russian Mindset.

2. Council of Nicea also marks the final break between Jewish and Christian theologies and the institutionalism of modern anti-semitism by the Church. There's also a clear relationship between the Roman Empire accepting a single religion and excluding all others.

The human ability seems to be to think of a single grand idea and then to break it down into smaller and smaller parts. So many sects so little unity. E Pluribus Unum has until now been an exception to that rule if you ignore the Uncivil War.

[goin fishn]

Alea-that brings us back to economics

Until larger nation states existed, those who would lead in Europe needed the religious power that the church conveyed. The new, large nation states of Europe were woven together by the richest, most powerful lords-growing rich from the reemergence of trade, and thus able to finance wars that lasted years. Once the larger nation states emerged, they could disregard edicts from Rome, and even leave the Catholic Church, as England did. So, from 1077, when Pope Gregory VII was able to force Henry IV of France to walk barefoot through the Alps to apologize for challenging the Popes investiture rights, to Pope Innocent III's reign when he placed all of England under Interdict, and made King John a vassal-things changed quickly such that by 1302, King Philip IV of France actually arrested Pope Boniface VIII. After that, when a lightning bolt did not strike Philip down, the mystique of church power was broken.

If Philip can arrest a Pope, certainly it was safer than had been thought to criticize the church. Those early criticisms helped foster the real world inquiry that gave birth to scientific thought.