Ch. 15 Cultural Transformations or How Science Turned Religion Upside Down and Other Pope Stories

As I have stated in previous writings, churches are a business, and this line at the bottom of page 721 sums it up:  “many people were critical of the luxurious life of the popes, the corruption and immorality of some clergy, the church’s selling of indulgences, . . . and other aspects of church life and practice.”  You bet your sweet booty!  What a racket!  The Pope mobile is one of the worst offenders.

Right on, Martin Luther!  Somebody needs to question those popes, because they are some of the shiftiest people roaming planet earth.

Here we go, kings/princes, middle-class urban, and common folk are jockeying for positions.

Martin Luther’s movement actually lit a fire under the Catholic Church organization, to the point that the Catholics started a Counter-Reformation!  Good power play, Mr. Luther!  Don’t let those phonies rest on their laurels.

Honestly, people are taking this religious thing way too seriously.  Must they completely destroy other people’s objects with complete destruction?  And urinating on public idols (p. 729)? That is complete insanity.

“It is hardly surprising that such aggressive action generated resistance” (p. 729).  Of course it is not surprising!  What would you do if some foreigner ruined your trinket with his bodily fluid?

Oh, those Jesuits were even craftier than all other previous evildoers combined.  Let’s dress like them [the Chinese], learn their language, and focus on exchange of ideas with the ulterior motive of converting them.  Assimilate, then move in for the kill.  They will never know what hit them.

Oh, please, Strayer!  Christian monogamy would require men having to give up their concubines.  Then, Strayer asks, “What would happen to these deserted women (p. 734)?”  Certainly, no one was worried about these women’s welfare!  The only interest lies in the very act that has caused this world so much grief since day one.

Leave it to the pope to step in and right the ship in China.  Back off, boys, you are practicing Chinese idolatry!

That Muhammad Ibn Saud – what a nice guy!  “He did not insist on head to toe covering of women in public” (p. 736).

Here is a good line to chew on:  “intuitive moral knowledge exists in people . . . even robbers know that they should not rob” (p. 737).  Do humans have built-in morality?  Good Q.

Now this is interesting – how the university concept took off in Paris and other Euro cities.  The emergence of modern science is a breath of fresh air from all of this heavy talk of religion.

Copernicus turned old concepts about earth upside down and started a whole new ball game.  At the center of all of this lies math; scientific principles are described mathematically, providing new realities for non-believers.

I disagree, though, that the heart is just a machine – the heart is a metaphor for feelings.  It can be broken so badly that it is sometimes beyond repair, and that breaking can reverberate throughout one’s soul.  But then, my view is not the scientific view.

“Borrowing.”  That is the perfect word to describe how the world’s various peoples responded to new ideas, conquests, assimilations, and movements.

Ch. 14 Emotional Transformations and Other Historic Tragedies

Imagine the emotional state of the shackled victims in the painting on page 668.  Look at the faces of the four men in that painting and visualize the conversation taking place.  This chapter should be titled Emotional Transformations rather than Economic Transformations.

Whips, leg irons, windowless dungeons – how can people be so cruel and heartless?  I do hope that the tables were turned when these slave traffickers were sent to their final destination of hell.

Oh, those Portuguese were clever peeps!  We don’t have anything valuable to trade with you, so we are going to use our maritime might, whilst borrowing from the Mongols, and forcibly overtake your sorry arses to create a “trading post empire” (p. 673).  When all else fails, use brute force.

Sounds like the Spanish timed their takeover of the Philippines just right!  A combination of weak societies, no other competition, and proximity to China were the perfect combination for an “often bloodless Spanish takeover of the islands” (p. 675).

Why are the islands called the Philippines, yet its peoples are “Filipino”?  Never understood that flip from “ph” to “f.”

The Dutch and English “quickly overtook and displaced the Portuguese, often by force, as they competed vigorously against each other as well.”  Well, that scenario about sums up how the female species in my office operate.

Seems to me that the Dutch were more ruthless than the Mongols.  They “killed, enslaved, or left to starve virtually the entire population of some 15,000 people” (p. 676) and replaced them with slave labor.

When all else fails, another option besides brute force is good, old-fashioned bribery, which is what the Brits had to resort to with the Mughals in India.

Of course the conditions in the silver mines were horrendous!  Mine work is literally a descent into hell.  Check out the song “Blue Sky Mine” by Midnight Oil and notice the juxtaposition in the title words.

I would hardly call infanticide a moral method of birth control (p. 682).

Thankfully, we have environmental impact reports today.  Without keeping tabs on such commercialization as the fur trade, many animals would be extinct, just like what is happening to those poor elephants for their tusks.  Leave those animals be!

Yes, “criminal excess” (p. 685) is an excellent way of articulating how people get seduced by foreign commodities!

Unfortunately, we know all too well what alcohol has done to not only our Native American people, but people the world over – to the point that society functions on rehabilitation centers.

Fascinating that the word “slave” derived from the Slavs; bad timing for the African peoples, who were forced into plantation slavery and such a sad part of history.

I am not buying this line that “Africans did not generally sell “their own people” (p. 693).  Nonsense!

Not only was Mother Earth decimated by deforestation for whatever was in vogue at the time (silver), and animals made nearly extinct, the African population decreased from 18% of the world’s population in 1600 to only 6% in 1900 (p. 694).  These actions signify killing for profit.

Ch. 13 Political Transformations: Spud Encounters and Evil Vices that Make People Happy

Is there any significance to the fact that the Soviet Union was replaced by the Russian Republic on Christmas day 1991?  Why was that particular day chosen?  Is there symbolism?

Winds + innovations – a successful combination for conquering lands across an ocean.  With the wind at your back, you just sail right on in and make your mark.

For some inexplicable reason, I am fascinated by the germs and disease topic and how low tolerance in the Americas was an advantage for the Europeans.  Our book states that up to 90% of the Native American population was decimated by the diseases from abroad: measles, smallpox, malaria, etc.  That is a mind-blowing number.  Really lovely of the Euros to transport their diseases, but little did they know what was coming down the pike.

Here is a new word:  Amerindian.  I have not heard that used before.

One cannot possibly think of potatoes without thinking of the Irish potato famine, yet I never knew that the famine was caused from an airborne fungus from the Americas.  Fascinating!

Corn may have been cheap food for slaves, but it still is used today in just about everything.

Tobacco, chocolate, coffee, tea – Evil vices that people love!

Of course, all of this prosperity brought with it rivalries, wars, piracy, and smuggling – all things that still go on today.

Good way to soften the blow of women’s sexual abuse and rape by first stating that sometimes the marriages were beneficial to women because they acquired land.  Then the bomb drops – knew that one was coming.

Protection my arse!  So Mafioso!

Here’s a good string of words:  “Bearers of Civilization” (p. 628), the roots of status and power.

The Arabs pioneered large-scale sugar production?  Who would have known?

The demands placed on slaves were sinful.  While modern society has a pretty comfortable life, reading about the working conditions of slaves is a sad reminder of how we got to this point in time.

I see similarities in the “dregs” of the colonial world developing into the powerhouse of the United States and smart acquisitions of low-budget baseball teams that get the golden boys for small salaries.  The teams take these guys off of the scrap heap and shine them up into stud ball players.  Nice.

The PETA people would not have liked this fur hunting in Russia!

There has been a recurring theme of paying fees for virtually nothing in return throughout this book.

Peyton Place alert:  Nur Jahan ran the helm of her alcohol-and-opium- addicted husband!  Love it!

Within the space of two sentences, Turkish women are secluded and veiled, YET retained some social power from the pastoral societies.  Does not quite make sense.

The Devshirme Process:  Sheez, I guess if your son is stolen, you might as well look at the bright side:  upward mobility.

Ch. 12 Fifteenth Century or How People Became Jaded

It is about time these men of the past, like Columbus, were deconstructed to reveal their true colors.

Thanks to the Agricultural Revolution, the American Indians have been reduced to relying on casinos as an economy.  What a shame.

“Things Fall Apart.”  They certainly do.

“Warfare replaced successful food getting as the avenue to male prestige.”  Damn straight because certainly women are not the instigators of war.  War is all about men flexing their almighty muscles to prove their manhood.  Sorry if I have offended any of you dudes out there, but it is true.

Those Iroquois had it together by creating the League of the Five Nations.  Right on!

The encyclopedia concept by Emperor Yongle was the best concept ever drummed up by a person of his ilk.  I used encyclopedias from about 7^th – 12^th grades and could not have gotten through school without them.  My dad bought them from a traveling salesman.  Best thing he ever purchased.

I want to hear more about these “eunuchs” (castrated men).  What was that all about, Alfie?

300 ships filled with 27,000 people?  That equates to 9,000 people per ship.  Those things must have been monstrosities, kind of like the cruise ships of today’s world.

Personally, I much prefer reading about Western Europe than places like China, Russia, Africa.  The Renaissance period is fascinating reading in my book.

I like this Christine de Pizan woman and just might read her City of Ladies when WH is over.

I must say, Strayer does a fine job of volleying back and forth between Europe, China, and the Islamic empires.

So, some of the Hindu and Buddhist rulers along Malay and Indonesia converted to Islam with the ulterior motive of attracting traders to their port city (p. 580).  Not surprising at all that religion is used as a method to gain something because that is how people operate.

That’s so cute that the Aztecs had rubber balls!  Rubber balls defined my childhood; I always had a rubber ball and broomstick ready for stickball games.

I am willing to bet that the people responsible for performing human sacrifice rituals were thanking their lucky stars that they were on the other side of the table.

A laundry list of gender parallelism, which sounded so even, then the bomb drops with “None of this meant gender equality” (p. 586).  I do not see a distinction between parallelism and equality.

Thank God, we are finally getting into the modern age!

I like how Strayer words population growth as an “unprecedented jump in human numbers.”  It is procreation, something humans excel at.

It is so much easier to read about modern society, since that is what we know.  Out with the old, in with the new!  The Euros have taken over the world with their dominance in everything, thus creating the jaded human being.

Of course, coincidence and chance played a part on history!  Coincidence and chance play a part in every aspect of life.  We can "what if" all we want, but that will not change what actually happened.  God only knows how much I would like to have changed many things from the past.

Reflections on Ch. 11: Pastoral Peoples or How to have the Pope Shaking in His Boots

Patterns develop when people start forming alliances.  The mind’s wheels spin in directions that create power and wealth, and from reading about the Mongols, they wrote the book on survival of the fittest with kinship, horsemanship, and military might.

Strayer amazes me how empires are created and dissolved in one to three paragraphs.  That has been his running theme throughout this book: the rise and demise in less than 300 words.

Wolf packs led by a kaghan.  Los Lobos, the wolves, now has a whole new meaning tied to their name, and raids are the name of the game.

Sultan is such a sexy word.  Who would not want to be dubbed a sultan?

Those Mongols sure are a conundrum – they left only a modest imprint after being the “largest land-based empire in all of human history.”

Outnumbered?  No problem.  No technological superiority?  Handled.  Just create armies that will kick everyone’s arses, and you have got yourself a Mongol empire.  Desertion means death, so don’t even think about it.

Were Mongols bullies?  I would say, yes, since they used “psychological warfare.”

Great idea:  Let’s “exterminate everyone in northern China and turn in into pasture land.”

Bloodshed and massacres everywhere, and torture for taxes.  I guess that is one way of getting blood from a stone.  God’s punishment for all of these evil doings was to turn the land into desert.

These Mongols make the Mafia look tame.

Can someone please do something different with peasants besides tax and torture them?

Thank God someone came along and finally poked a hole in the Mongols’ hold over creation!  Leave it to the Russians.

Cool that guidebooks were published about how to navigate the Silk Roads.

Wow – the pope and European leaders were shaking in their boots about the Mongols’ intentions all the while with their own intentions of converting Mongols to Christianity.  Let’s see, Mongols versus the pope.  That pope had better run for cover.

Thus far, the Black Death portion is the most intriguing of all.  The rats and fleas were in and of themselves vehicles for disseminating the plague.  In a way, the plague could be viewed as a way of simmering down all of the Mongols’ frivolity over the planet.  It sort of evens thing out.

Reflections on Ch. 9: The Worlds of Islam

I had no idea that as many as “22% of the world’s population identified as Muslims” at the beginning of this century and that they “identified their own God, Allah, with Yahweh, the Jewish High God.”

Well, the book says that “the Quran demanded social justice," but in today’s world, extremists have taken this doctrine to the nth degree.  As the book states on page 411, attacks have “signaled the growing role of Islamic civilization in world affairs.”  Unfortunately, Americans are all too aware of the negative connotations.

These pillars of Islam are way too out there for this cowpoke.  A month of fasting?  How can one even stand up without sustenance for a solid month?

For someone who preaches “spiritual striving”, suppressing turncoat Jews by exile, enslavement, or murder is nothing short of contradictory in my book.

Seemingly, Muhammad had a captive audience, just like Hitler did in Nazi Germany.

I see contradiction in the brotherhood and no superiority themes posed on page 418 because of so much violence in today’s world.

Wow – the Arab armies just rode in and pretty much swept up Asia and Europe.  Were people really that weakened to let themselves get swept away by a foreign invasion?

Honestly, can’t people just get along?  These caliphs end up dividing people instead of uniting them, and then they roll right into a civil war.

I have heard of the Sunni / Shia people but never had an understanding of what this meant, so now I know.

How many offshoots of one religion can people create?  It is almost like a game:  Sunni, Shia, Sufis.  Maybe they should all just sit down together and enjoy some sushi and sake.

Yeah, I was waiting for this one:  in spiritual life, men and women were equal.  Then, you turn the page and get the big BUT.  “In social terms, and especially within marriage, . . . viewed women as inferior and subordinate.”  Of course, they did!

A separate bridge for women – that is hilarious!  This one is even better:  if a woman has to answer a knock on the door while she is using a pestle, she must stick her finger in her mouth to sound like an old lady!  Then they turn around and put equal blame on sin for both Adam and Eve just to level things out a bit.

I would hardly call Muslim egalitarian as stated at the bottom of p. 428.

“Massacres, enslavement, famine, and flight led to a sharp drop in the population” of Anatolia.  Sheez, I should think so!

Here is a nice change of pace:  Islam’s acceptance was “largely peaceful and voluntary” in West Africa.

Ch 10. The Worlds Christendom

Religions take on a life of their own by contracting and expanding, like a breathing organism.  Christianity, which seems to encompass a multitude of sub-religions, is the one religion that seems to have infiltrated the entire globe.

How could a religion decimate so quickly when a new one emerges?  Within a century after Muhammad’s death, “only a few Christian groups remained.”  It seems inconceivable that so many people converted so quickly.  They must have been really unhappy with Christianity – something was not going their way.

Oh, here we go.  Let’s show our control over others by guaranteeing the right to practice religion, largely in private, in return for payment of a special tax (p. 466).  So the Muxlim rulers flexed their muscle by driving Christians underground.  Nice.

Motivation for endorsing a religion:  It allows one to drink alcohol and eat meat, including during worship.  The Mongols liked it!

Wow!  Imagine “twelve linked underground churches” in Ethiopia (p. 469).  Literally, the churches were underground.  That is awesome!

People are not fools.  They are not going to be fooled by the pageantry and ostentation of an emperor who is hoisted high above his peoples as though he is made from divine blood.  That is why Byzantium had to focus on “collecting taxes, maintaining order, and suppressing revolts” (p. 470-1) because the people were on to their shenanigans.

I am not seeing the difference between a serf and slave.  Serfs were not personal property, but were bound to their master’s estates as peasant laborers and owed payments and services to the lord of the manor (p. 478).  That is hardly any different from being a slave, but then maybe it truly was a step up for them.

An anchoress – a woman who withdrew to a locked cell, usually attached to a church, where she devoted herself to prayer and fasting” (p. 484).  That is what I want to be when I grow up!  I am an anchoress, hear me roar!