h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wouldn't know where to begin or end such a great list.

Here's a starter just on BBC6...Marley's magnificent Redemption Song. Can't imagine it being created without Christianity..however layers of meaning it seems to have. God it made me feel good.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Redemption+Song/2qECC6?src=5

For me, it's the Anglican choral music tradition. I may not believe in a deity, but singing is the closest I get to believing.

1. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

2. Great cathedrals -- Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, etc.

3. Stained glass windows.

4. Choral masterpieces spanning five or six centuries. The most recent notable one was Karl Jenkins' "The Armed Man," which debuted in the U.K. in 2000, and quickly became a favorite of the British people, from what I hear.

5. The King James Bible, which can be read either as devotional material or as literature.

6. Spectacular mosques and temples. The Hagio Sophia in Istanbul was the world's pre-eminent Christian cathedral for centuries. When the Turks took control of it, it changed to the world's pre-eminent Muslim mosque. Marc Chagall, the eminent surrealist artist, designed the artwork for one of the chief synagogues in Israel.

7. Statues of Buddha, in sizes great and small. When I was in Taiwan, I went inside an enormous one that held a chapel inside.

8. The Mormon Tabernacle, which has a bit of a choir.

9. There are many cities worldwide that attract tourists. Many of the sites most worth seeing are places of worship. Tourists to London often want to see Westminster Abbey. In Oxford, there's Christ Church Cathedral. In Paris, there's Notre Dame. In Berlin, there's the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, which had its steeple blown off in World War II. The steeple was not rebuilt, as a reminder of war's devastation.

Choral music, especially all male choirs.. and church organs... I'm sure wihout the religion and the church, they'd just not have ended up being developed in the way they have...

Churchs, big and small.. I just like there atmosphere, the 'feel' of the place, and the acoustics... I've had many discussions with people in churchs, where they don't quite get how I say I can 'hear the ceiling', but I can... just the ambient noise of the buildings shape, and you don't really seem to get that, in most other buildings... and they don't have to be the massive cathedrials etc for this to work...

Art, music, storytelling.

Think that about covers it.

And provision of protective areas for wildlife in citys... Just occured to me, sitting where I am, just opposite, through a little passage way, I can get into the now hardly ever used old cemetry, which is now just basically a loverly area of green, and wild within the centre of the city here... We walked through it err yesterday I think, and its just loverly as as soon as your in it, somehow you can't hear any of the traffic from all the main roads Oh, and in the cetntre of it, is a time capsule building, within which some victorian gentlemen are trapped, and still do theirtrade, of book binding, seemingly unaware its not the victorian era anymore... seriously spooky the first time I ventured into that* place
Other cultural things... sort ot... Would we have the documentary written historys that we have, were it not for the Church? I'm thinking Monks, who could write, and the like at a time when maybe not many people could write; plus all the parish records for churchs big and small (spent hours looking through parish records online, as it was so interesting, looking at the trades and professions given, the way in which 'disabilities' were described, the ages, and mix of people in houses etc...'...

Oh yeah, architecture.

Billy Connolly

As he often said - "I'd just like to thank the Catholic Church and their recommended Rhythm Method of birth control, without which I wouldn't be here today"

Shall I be awkward? Yes. I love churches; big, small and inbetween. All the music, and pretty much everything else that has been mentioned so far, absolutely wonderful. But. It wasn't "given to us" by religion. It was given to us by human beings.

Quite correct HD. Note to self. Be much more precise and accurate in your phrasing of questions on Ask h2g2.

In terms of the 'spiritual' which has been discussed elsewhere and for me has a more vague meaning, but for myself I find this Jackson Pollack expressing that. I've seen this painting a few times and anyone who knows me even a little bit here won't be surprised at home much I love it and can spend a good long time looking at it or almost falling into it.

Summertime: Number 9A

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/pollock-summertime-number-9a-t03977

Somebody called Hoffman once interviewed him.

'... one of the questions he asked Jackson was, do you work from nature? There were no still lifes around or models around and Jackson’s answer was, 'I am nature.' And Hofmann’s reply was, 'Ah, but if you work by heart, you will repeat yourself.' To which Jackson did not reply at all."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock

>> It wasn't "given to us" by religion.
It was given to us by human beings. <<

So.. the notion of religion kinda works like a catalyst.
Like ya gotcher Roman Catalysts...

I think 2legs got the big one, Literacy (and by extension
universal education).

So far we have, Art, Music, Architecture, and Literacy
(IE storytelling etc but perhaps most importantly reading
and writing and consequently the preservation of ancient
knowledge and the evolution of printing and publishing)

Dare I also suggest for discussion:
Law
Organised hierarchical governance
Compassion
Charity
Bingo


~jwf~

We've missed the really* big one.... I'm sure religion.... well European (maybe even UK), anglican Christianity, gave us the jumble sale!



look, a thread bare cardagan, with two of the three buttons missing, and its only twenty five pence!



The 'Church' likes 'same', so its been good at 'preserving' all kinds of things... historical buildings, outdated views, music, stained glass windows, tea bags in the vicars kitchen circa 1921, etc., etc.,
Oh, and the fancy hats the cardanals and the like wear... I mean... they're like so steam-punk...

I'm not sure that European Christianity can claim Literacy as an achievement. The Catholic church persistenly and consistently repressed the idea of the Bible, prayer books etc being translated from Latin into demotic language, and they also, via the monastery system, prevented reading and writing being taught secularly. Literacy was power, and they protected it quite vigorously.

Actually, the main driving force in early history for literacy and numeracy was accountants.

>> The Catholic church persistently and consistently
repressed the idea...<<

Indeed they did.
And yet in the bigger picture - under the non-denominational
heading of 'religion' - it was first the monks of the mis-named
Dark Ages and the equally mis-named Medieval period who
kept the ancient transcriptions alive (with a little help from Arab
scholarship). Yes, the RC church did cling to their knowledge
as power but with the Protestant reformation and the advent
of the printing press it was principally vernacular Bibles that
made the Presses profitable and gave them the cash to expand
and support poets, playwrights, cartographers, biographers...

Once it was possible to more widely disseminate both old and
new ideas through print the whirled of thought exploded. By
being able to publish their work, scientists, political thinkers
medical experimenters, even economic theorists began the
many revolutions that brought us into this modern whirled.


~jwf~

I'll go for two easy ones:
The calendar and astronomy.

"But. It wasn't "given to us" by religion. It was given to us by human beings."

If I may split hairs a bit.

It may have been 'given' to us by human beings, but religion was the inspiration that caused all these things to develop in the way they did (and possibly even at all). Dismissing that is like saying a beautiful landscape has nothing to do with the painting it inspires.

> it was first the monks of the mis-named
Dark Ages ..<

Yes. It's a shame anhaga, a scholar of Anglo Saxon isn't around to contribute. I recently watched a brill doco about the so called Dark Age period. The later Anglo Saxon period when their spirituality/religious beliefs became fused with Christianity produced a great flowering of wonderful objects...notably the most skilled and gorgeous jewellery covered with complex spiralling patterns...not so dissimilar to Islamic art. Some of the jewels and metals came from as far away as India and the middle east. They were a well connected lot. And then of course later the amazing illuminated manuscripts. I've seen some in the British Library.

I must go to Birmingham public Art gallery sometime. They have a recently found hoard of objects on permanent display.

I think they said Alfred the Great tried really hard to get the Celtic and Roman Christian parts of Britain to come together and had his capital at Winchester.

Then the Normans came along and things didn't go so well for the Anglo Saxon culture.

It's true that the Dark Ages are misnamed but it should also be borne in mind that the collapse of the Roman Empire leading into the medieval period was no picnic for those who had to go through it and survive its aftermath.
The Empire's economy, when it was healthy was in some ways like our own - massive farms feeding cities and populations half a world away and relying in turn on other good being paid to them in return - with no local production of many useful things.
As the empire collapsed so did all of that and suddenly there was mass starvation and a huge collapse in population. Those that survived had to either wall their homes to fend off brigands or (more commonly) become brigands to survive. Many former free citizens had to go into bondage to the large landowners to survive as an alternative - the origin of the medieval serf. Localisation of production of nearly everything also led to much less communication across the former lands of the empire and with it less awareness of the outside world.

So whilst it is a misnamed period - largely named as such because of such a poor set of historical soures for use to examine it (that's improved with time) - it was a rather 'dark' period for western Europe in many ways.

The Anglo-Saxons were never really part of the culture of the Roman-Empire - aside from being hired troops so it wouldn't surprise me if their culture was not affected at all by the collapse of the Empire. It may have even been good for them - not so good for the native Briton men who were put to the sword though