Hi Robert,


> You're splitting hair . The difference to the
> little peasant in the dark or middle ages is
> insignificant . Like renaissance , which means
> Re-Birth, did not start in 1500 , the dark ages did
> not end in 1000 .

It makes a huge difference. You wrote:

"It destroyed evidence of everything that did not conform to its doctrine. During the dark ages , for which it is responsible , it allowed only 2 major advances the gun powder imported from china and gutenberg 's printing machine , which ironically led to its demise."

What did it destroy? The Roman church tried hard to preserve what classical learning it could - Galileo's heresy wasn't that he went against the bible but against Classical Greek learning. During the "Dark Ages" (which are usually considered to fall roughly from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the C11 AD) the church preserved writings wherever it could.
I have never heard anyone claim that the dark ages were the church's fault. As for allowing only 2 advances that is quite frankly complete rubbish.

To give you an idea, from the fall of Rome in Europe:

500-1000AD (Dark Ages) - Heavy horse plough, stirrups, horseshoes, horse collars, silk technology in Byzantium, soap (widespread use)

1000-1500AD (Middle Ages) - tandem hitching of horses, horizontal loom, artesian wells, percussion drilling, tidal mills, mechanical rat traps, glass mirrors, spectacles, windmills, arabic numerals, paper, the magnet, compasses, the wheelbarrow, blast furnaces. Oh, and the flying buttress.

That's just a few. The notion that the church was supressing technology is a nonsense.

"It had a hand in the majority of wars that took place since its creation and if you want the major culprit for the massacres of colonisation on every continent , look no further ... and Mankind has had to endure it for almost 2000 years."

The majority? I'd say it was running about even with Islam in terms of religious wars.

> Everything that was not conform or did not
> conform to the dogma was burnt ( that includes
> People )

And I agree that the Inquisition, and Auto de Fe, were disgusting. But they do not represent the whole of the history of the Roman Church nor do they represent the total of its ideology. The Church in 1000 was very different than it was in 1500 and it was different again by 1700.

> The roman church was caught in a forgery
> with the donation of Constantine Circa 754

Yes it was. So what. It's the most powerful institution on the planet - of courese it is at times corrupt. There is also the argument that the church managed to prevent the complete collapse of Europe following the fall of Rome and gained enough time to allow stable nation states to emerge.

> and if you ' ve read M. Baigent 's book The
> dead sea scrolls deception ,they were still up
> to their old tricks less than 20 years
> ago.

I have read it. How much is the Church and how much was the particular scholars involved is open to debate. I am not claiming the RC church is free of blame or guilt. I just think it should be blamed for what it did rather than what people think that it did.

Pete



God is our guide! from field, from wave, From plough, from anvil, and from loom; We come, our country's rights to save, And speak a tyrant faction's doom: We raise the watch-word liberty; We will, we will,we will be free!