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141 " Echoing his teacher, but using many more words, St Thomas Aquinas began his analysis of just prices by posing the question ‘Whether a man may lawfully sell a thing for more than it is worth’.53 He answered by first quoting Augustine that it is natural and lawful, for ‘you wish to buy cheap, and sell dear’. Next, Aquinas excluded fraud from legitimate transactions. Finally, he recognized that worth is not really an objective value – ‘the just price of things is not absolutely definite’ – but is a function of the buyer’s desire for the thing purchased and the seller’s willingness or reluctance to sell, so long as the buyer was not misled, or under duress. "
― Rodney Stark , Reformation Myths: Five Centuries Of Misconceptions And (Some) Misfortunes
142 " Property is insecure. In this one phrase the whole history of Asia is contained. "
― Rodney Stark , How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity
143 " Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and the impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services. "
― Rodney Stark
144 " Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable--the rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars. "
145 " Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "
146 " Imagine a society’s discovering a vaccine against a deadly disease that has been ravaging its people and continues to ravage people in neighboring societies, where the cause of the disease is incorrectly attributed to improper diet. What would be the judgment on such a society if it withheld its vaccine on the grounds that it would be ethnocentric to try to instruct members of another culture that their medical ideas are incorrect, and to induce them to adopt the effective treatment? If one accepts that one has the good fortune to be in possession of the true religion and thereby has access to the most valuable possible rewards, is one not similarly obligated to spread this blessing to those less fortunate? "
147 " Because God is a rational being and the universe is his personal creation, it necessarily has a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting increased human comprehension. This is the key to many intellectual undertakings, among them, the rise of science. "
148 " That new technologies and techniques would be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. Hence, no bishops or theologians denounced clocks or sailing ships--although both were condemned on religious grounds in various non-Western societies. "
149 " The truth is that not only did Christianity not impede the rise of science; it was essential to it, which is why science arose only in the Christian West! "
― Rodney Stark , The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion
150 " In addition, local authorities were ordered to seize each Christian man, to pluck out his beard and to tattoo a black mark on his shoulder. When few Christians defected in response to these measures, the Khān then ordered that all Christian men be castrated and have one eye put out—which caused many deaths in this era before antibiotics, but did lead to many conversions.37 "
151 " Christianity became a European faith because Europe was the only “continent where it was not destroyed.”44 "
152 " As the distinguished medievalist Warren Hollister (1930–1997) put it in his presidential address to the Pacific Historical Association, “to my mind, anyone who believes that the era that witnessed the building of Chartres Cathedral and the invention of parliament and the university was ‘dark’ must be mentally retarded—or at best, deeply, deeply, ignorant.”60 "
153 " As Augustine pointed out in his Confessions, the basic Christian message is so simple that it can easily be grasped by children, while its theological ramifications are sufficient to challenge the most powerful intellects. "
154 " paganism was “no more than a spongy mass of tolerance and tradition.”3 "
155 " As one of China’s leading economists put it, “in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”42 Neither do I. "
156 " To sum up: Western history consists of four major eras: 1) classical antiquity, then 2) the Dark Ages when the church dominated, followed by 3) the Renaissance-Enlightenment which led the way to 4) modern times. For several centuries that has been the fundamental organizing scheme for every textbook devoted to Western history,9 despite the fact that serious historians have known for decades that this scheme is a complete fraud—“an indestructible fossil of self-congratulatory Renaissance humanism.”10 "
157 " As the distinguished medievalist Warren Hollister (1930–1997) put it in his presidential address to the Pacific Historical Association, “to my mind, anyone who believes that the era that witnessed the building of Chartres Cathedral and the invention of parliament and the university was ‘dark’ must be mentally retarded—or at best, deeply, deeply, ignorant. "
158 " the truly fundamental basis for the rise of the West was an extraordinary faith in reason and progress that was firmly rooted in Christian theology, in the belief that God is the rational creator of a rational universe. "
159 " Women were especially drawn to Christianity because it offered them a life that was so greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led. "
160 " DURING THE SUMMER OF THE year 64, the emperor Nero sometimes lit up his garden at night by setting fire to a few fully conscious Christians who had been covered with wax and then impaled high on poles forced up their rectums. Nero also had Christians killed by wild animals in the arena, and he even crucified a few. "