Replies

STARK: By then Christianity may well be the dominant religion in China. Latin Americans probably will be as churched as North Americans. Africa will be more than half Christian. As for Europe, it will be well along in a major revival of religion, one way or the other: Christian or Islamic.

With the Pentecostal revival, along with Christian television via satellite and Internet, STARK, your estimates could be very conservative!

WORLD: Could you be specific? What were some of the "Dark Ages" innovations that show the folly of considering Greek and Roman culture the apex of civilization until recent times?

STARK: How about the perfection and widespread use of waterwheels, windmills, and pumps, the invention of the compass, stirrups, the crossbow, canons, effective horse harnesses, eyeglasses, clocks, chimneys, violins, double-entry bookkeeping, and insurance?

Ummm... lessee:
1) Waterwheels: in regular use by the Romans.
2) Windmills: 7th century BC, Persia
3) Pumps: Regular use by the Romans
4) Compass: Chinese
5) Stirrups: Chinese
6) Crossbow: Roman
7) Cannon: Derived from Chinese gunpowder
8) Horse Harnesses: Probably Mongolian
9) Eyeglasses: apparently simultaneous development around 1280 in Italy and China
10) Clocks: first mechanical, Antikythera mechanism, 87 BC Greece
11) Chimneys: Northern Europe, 1200's
12) violins, double-entry bookkeeping, and insurance: Yawn.

OK. Does this guy have some sort of point?

"As for Europe, it will be well along in a major revival of religion, one way or the other: Christian or Islamic."

The only thing that prevented Islam from conquering Europe one thousand years ago was the Christian beliefs which then prevailed there. Now that Western Europe is Atheist/Socialist and eastern Europe is mostly Christian, the battle for Europe will continue with Western Europe becoming Muslim and Eastern Europe and China becoming Christian. There are only two things I have not figured out. Where are all the Hollywood Idiots going to go? When are they going to go?