Technology without Jesus Christ

You're confusing water clocks and mechanical clocks.
Mechanichal clocks appeared in the same time in both China and Europe, ca. 1080.

But both inventions are unrelated, like typography and rudder (possibly compass as well, but still debated).

The apparition of mecanichal clock in Europe is directly due to its invention by (and for) religious communauties, and not from widepsreading of Chinese clocks (whom the first ones actually mixed hydraulic and mechanical components).

Well all I was saying was that the Chinese had it just as well as the Europeans (and the Chinese one was apparently started by Buddhist monks) so the Europeans weren't doing anything special or advanced.

Conclusive proof then. I mean, it's not like Germany had to incorporate a decrepid communist run economy at a mismatched currency rate or anything.

Up-to-date statistics also help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked

So Germans are better paid? How does that prove anything to do with efficiency and work ethic? I've heard that Americans are often classified as the most productive workers, but they definitely aren't the best paid.
 
Well all I was saying was that the Chinese had it just as well as the Europeans (and the Chinese one was apparently started by Buddhist monks) so the Europeans weren't doing anything special or advanced.

My point wasn't "Christian monks were more advanced" or "Europe more advanced" (I honestly don't know how you saw that), but actual advances made in Europe were due in large part to christian institutions and/or communauties.

That's all.

Furthermore, the mechanical (or hydraulic) clocks in Asia seems coming more from experimentation and more "secular" (with caution, secular there means withour a established religious dominance) as astronomy, so a more common preoccupation, while the mechanical clock in Europe is issued from the need to know when praying (and later applied to more material needs).
 
So Germans are better paid? How does that prove anything to do with efficiency and work ethic? I've heard that Americans are often classified as the most productive workers, but they definitely aren't the best paid.

GDP per hour worked is not the same thing as how well paid you are. It's simply the total value of all the stuff you sell. Of course, you have to be very careful interpreting labour productivity. You can rank very highly just by having a commodity boom, particularly if you have a small economy.
 
My point wasn't "Christian monks were more advanced" or "Europe more advanced" (I honestly don't know how you saw that), but actual advances made in Europe were due in large part to christian institutions and/or communauties.

That's all.

Furthermore, the mechanical (or hydraulic) clocks in Asia seems coming more from experimentation and more "secular" (with caution, secular there means withour a established religious dominance) as astronomy, so a more common preoccupation, while the mechanical clock in Europe is issued from the need to know when praying (and later applied to more material needs).

Well all I was trying to prove was tha the non-Christians were doing just fine on the science front in any category. I'm not arguing that the Christian world made no advancement, but that the non-Christian world was in no way harmed by not being Christian.
 
Well all I was trying to prove was tha the non-Christians were doing just fine on the science front in any category. I'm not arguing that the Christian world made no advancement, but that the non-Christian world was in no way harmed by not being Christian.

That's sort of true, but I don't think this tells us much about non-Christian Europe. I can't imagine what replaces the Irish monasteries, for instance, and could easily see Britain ending up losing literacy during the Dark Ages.
 
Well all I was trying to prove was tha the non-Christians were doing just fine on the science front in any category. I'm not arguing that the Christian world made no advancement, but that the non-Christian world was in no way harmed by not being Christian.

So far nobody disputed that : again, the point was to show that
1)Christian religion as institutions actually helped to the discovery and widepsread of technologies in Europe, unlike the OP suggested.

2)Christian religion as institution shapened the western scientific methodology up to Enlightement up to XVII century.

I don't think it was needed to proove that Chinese experienced their own technological progress, as it was acnowledged by everyone.
 
That's sort of true, but I don't think this tells us much about non-Christian Europe. I can't imagine what replaces the Irish monasteries, for instance, and could easily see Britain ending up losing literacy during the Dark Ages.

A Druid run state with histories passed down orally and carved in secret caves and stuff?
 
That's sort of true, but I don't think this tells us much about non-Christian Europe. I can't imagine what replaces the Irish monasteries, for instance, and could easily see Britain ending up losing literacy during the Dark Ages.

Not having remaining litterary sources doesn't mean that Britain loosed literacy : it means, basically, that we don't have writed sources.

Admittedly, due to superficial romanisation outside urban centers, and to late christianisation, Anglo-Saxon Britain didn't used written features everywhere. That's a given.

But it's as well the case for Gaul of celtic Brittons, and nobody denied them a literacy yet.

For Irish monasteries, without them you'll end with Benedictine communauties more dominant, even if it would have meant a slower penetration into the Atlantic regions (western Francia, Britain, Ireland).
 
A Druid run state with histories passed down orally and carved in secret caves and stuff?

The druidic feature seems to have been relativly declining already in the Ist century BCE.

Furthermore, their repulsion towards written sources doesn't help to achieve a common institution or even school of tought.

The result for celtic societies was an assimilation into other, more institutionalised cultures with all knowledge about druidism today is almost entierly speculative, except when given by people opposed to it (Romans, Christians).
 
The result for celtic societies was an assimilation into other, more institutionalised cultures with all knowledge about druidism today is almost entierly speculative, except when given by people opposed to it (Romans, Christians).

Well, I would put this down to their conquest by Rome; in the 1st Century BCE there are tentative signs of literacy in Gaul, notably on coins and a couple of monuments.

For Irish monasteries, without them you'll end with Benedictine communauties more dominant, even if it would have meant a slower penetration into the Atlantic regions (western Francia, Britain, Ireland).

But we're talkign about Europe without Christianity, right?
 
Well, I would put this down to their conquest by Rome; in the 1st Century BCE there are tentative signs of literacy in Gaul, notably on coins and a couple of monuments.
No, you had Gaul writings in greek or latin characters up to the IV century (pretty much close to the assumed extinction of Gaul language, in the V century).
The issue is Gauls seems to have favoured writing for daily issues : contracts, comptability, rules of drink games, jokes...

The main issue isn't the language itself, but the fact the druidism as religion wasn't able anymore to be dominant as not only the Roman crushed the druids, but aslo because the more prestigious topics beneficied from being written in latin from the beggining.

But we're talkign about Europe without Christianity, right?
I misunderstood : I tought you talked about the role of Irish monasteries per se, and no longer without Christianity.
 
Were there even Druids left that late in Britain? I thought the Romans suppressed them pretty thoroughly.

The Romans had actually some trouble to do so in Gaul, and regarding the superficial romanisation of Britain, it's not THAT implausible to have a lasting crypto-druidism, being less and less related to classical one of course (admittedly, you had already a decadance of classical drudism in 1st century BCE).

Now, for Ireland, it seems that the bard (fille) took more importance than in continent, while keeping a place far more tied to secular powers than the druid (often considered as nominally, and in facts, superior even to vergobrets).
 
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