Stive said:

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BQ78 said:

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Plentiful resources for sustaining life in Europe versus Africa. When you are struggling to live it is harder to be enlightened.

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Such as? It seems like they have lands for crops, meat to eat, wood/thatch/mud for shelter, water availability in most areas. What were they lacking?

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Yeah, based on my experience in Kenya and Tanzania, I was going to take BQ78's statement and actually argue the opposite.

The bountiful resources are in Africa, not in Europe. Therefore, people in Africa can continue to live in a Hunter Gatherer type culture, just living from day to day. Their food, clothing and shelter needs are easily met in Africa.

On the other hand, it snows in Europe for starters. There's a shorter growing season, etc. You would have to innovate in order to be able to survive in the harsher climate.

Now as mentioned, religion plays a factor. But so does the establishment of an organizational structure for the benefit of the Feudal Lord, or King who is trying to establish a House that will last for multiple generations while their African counterparts have no such goals.

If I use the Australian Aboriginals as a proxy for the Africans in this discussion, with no written history and no speaking of the deceased, learning is severely stunted.

The Egyptians had paper thousands of years ago, as did the Chinese. Being able to write things down gives a culture a huge advantage over time.

Stive said:

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But your Christianity argument basically gives zero credit to the advancements that Greece and Rome had already made prior to Christ ever showing up on Earth.

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Christianity, Holy Roman Empire, etc. definitely played a big part as a precursor to modern civilization.

But, so did religion in China, in Arabia, etc.

Throughout my travels in Asia and the Middle East, there's one place that continues to fascinate me. That is India. Observing the lack of progress in India over the past decade, has made me wonder if the key driver in a moving culture forward doesn't have more to do with a belief in a monotheistic religion?

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Any theories or thoughts on why the development of the southern half of Africa slowed and never happened when compared to the northern parts (Mali, Egypt, Carthage). Or did they and I'm just not aware of them? For example...when reading about the Iron Age, they have specific century windows on when different areas of Eurasia began to work and live with iron....but nothing is revealed about Africa and it seems that those advancements didn't extend into the sub-Saharan continent.

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I don't know why but, I can tell you that even today, Africa is still slow to develop and slow to adopt technology.

Today, I did an installation in a computer co-location center in Los Angeles. In their waiting room, they had an advertisement playing which stated that they had over 200 data centers on 5 continents.

So, in the year 2020, with over 200 locations, they still do not have any operations in Africa. Curious.

Awesome info. Thanks!

With the tribal, warrior type culture that many of their areas lived by, you'd think having stronger, more effective weapons would have been welcomed with things like bronze and iron. When compared to, for example, the NA Indians, there was a strong trade option as soon as they were shown metal weaponry (knives, axes) not to mention guns. I know the slave traders traded slaves for many of those things, but it's curious to me why that wasn't more extensive all over the continent in the time of Hannibal than it seems to have been.

Interesting.

Potable water is not plentiful. When you have to walk miles everyday to get water for the day its hard to write the Magna Carta.

In no way do I "abhor" the idea of religion playing a major role". In fact, I made this comment earlier in the thread:

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I'm not downplaying the aspects of Christianity but to say that because a culture didn't have it they ended up behind seems like you're ignoring a lot of other factors.

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My premise throughout this thread has simply been that there were powerful empires and civilizations that existed and made advances prior to Christianity existing. Many aspects of our current knowledge and discoveries are based on things that some of those empires "discovered" or "invented". I liken it to a relay race. One civilization figured some things out, advance some things, then died off leaving some of their learning behind as a basis for the next group that either toppled them or came along in some form afterwards. Then that same aspect happened again....and again... We happen to be living in an age where Christianity has been a presence, in some way, shape, or form for 2,000 years. While that has been a piece of the equation (I stated that in my quote above yesterday) I don't think it's the only one otherwise we would have to logically state that there were no advances by the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, etc.

My perspective of what you're saying (maybe incorrectly on my part) is that you seem to have taken the premise that because those empires died out without advancing their newfound knowledge all the way to what we now know, that they somehow failed and if they had had Christianity they wouldn't have.

My counter to that (possibly pointless if that's not what you meant) is that we'll only know how this stretch turns out if we can fast forward 2,000 more years and look back to see if we're still in existence (as a Christian society, or as an American empire of some sort). If not, then by your logic we will have failed to advance science and will have "died, stillborn" because we didn't finish the race, and someone else is running with the baton.

I've appreciated your contributions to the thread and I've learned some things from our back and forth and digging into things that we have discussed.

BQ78 said:

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Potable water is not plentiful. When you have to walk miles everyday to get water for the day its hard to write the Magna Carta.

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Water problems can be solved. The Romans did it. The Egyptians were smart enough to live next to the river - Luxor, Cairo, Alexandria. They even used irrigation.

But, if you don't have a written language, the Magna Carta isn't going to happen. And it isn't going to happen without leadership and structure of some form or fashion. And I guess you could add that you'd also have to believe in some sort of value of a human, rights, etc.

According to Wikipedia, the Roman Aqueducts date back to the 3rd Century B.C.
And yet we still have people in Africa and India who, as you mentioned, are still carrying water every day.

Stive said:

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Awesome info. Thanks!

With the tribal, warrior type culture that many of their areas lived by, you'd think having stronger, more effective weapons would have been welcomed with things like bronze and iron. When compared to, for example, the NA Indians, there was a strong trade option as soon as they were shown metal weaponry (knives, axes) not to mention guns. I know the slave traders traded slaves for many of those things, but it's curious to me why that wasn't more extensive all over the continent in the time of Hannibal than it seems to have been.

Interesting.

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Again, I'll used my experience in Australian and New Zealand as a slight proxy for Africa here.

In Australia and New Zealand, you have indigenous populations with completely different methods for going about life.

Australia and its Aborigines are more of a hunter gatherer society with no written language and no memory (on purpose) of the deceased. What little knowledge they have of the past is passed down through song/chants/legends (what we might call in American speak - tall tales).

In New Zealand, you have a warrior caste in the Maoris. They've been fighting other Islander groups for centuries and have developed their language and culture and rituals accordingly.

When the Brits arrived, you had two completely different outcomes.

Aboriginals, without the means for waging war, were killed en masse and driven off their land. Although modern woke Australians can't do a "Welcome to Country" ceremony fast enough to acknowledge the traditional landowners.

Maoris fought the Brits until the British came to a peace agreement with them. As a result, the Maoris are full citizens in New Zealand and have the full respect of all New Zealanders.

My point here is, don't assume that there were too many warrior castes in Africa. Now certainly there were wars with the British, Belgians, etc. But by and large, the Europeans - with their "guns, germs and steel" were able to come into Africa and take over.

Since the mainland of Africa could be bypassed for ancient overland trade routes between Europe and Asia, I guess the indigenous population never developed a taste for more modern weapons. The other part of that is, they didn't really have anything of value to trade. They didn't have Tobacco, or Silk, or any finished goods. So, even if they wanted to purchase weapons, they probably didn't have anything to trade with.

Interesting. That prompts another question about why certain areas (China, India, heck even NA with furs) were able to establish, and care about trade cultures as opposed to much of Africa. Or did they establish trade items once the colonists arrived? The colonists wanted ivory, furs, jewels/gold, rare timber, etc all of which the natives could get... but not having anything to trade almost implies that they didn't want anything that the colonists/travelers had?

That seems unique.

North Africa had trade routes In and around the Med and down the Nile. Wonder why that mindset stopped the further south it go?

Stive said:

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North Africa had trade routes In and around the Med and down the Nile. Wonder why that mindset stopped the further south it go?

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The Bible tells us who the sailors were for those Mediterranean trade routes. It wasn't Somali pirates. And it certainly wasn't anybody further South.

Most seafarers are just local fishermen. Not the types of sailors or ships that are going to be suitable for long haul trading.

Back in the mid-1980s, I had an opportunity to spend a week in Egypt. We toured the museums in Cairo as well as the Pyramids, Sphinx and the Citadel. We also were lucky enough to go down to Luxor and tour Karnak Temple, and The Valley of the Kings.

I can't remember which tomb it was in but, I distinctly remember the story depicted of an expedition up the Nile (South) where they discovered Black people. It was fascinating to me the way this distinction was depicted in the hieroglyphics and art in the tomb.

I'm sure they probably brought back some gold, etc. but the Egyptians had ventured into sub-Saharan Africa several thousand years ago. I guess they didn't find enough value there to continue to make the trip.

And this is where the role of Christianity comes into play. Jesus taught us to go and spread the word. So, for two thousand years, a large part of Christianity has been establishing missions and bringing the message of Christ to the unchurched.

Even today, the Mormon (LDS) church is a good example of people carrying on that missionary work to go penetrate the furthest reaches of the globe to spread the message.

In Africa, even Egypt, there might have been some interest in establishing trade but there was not a charter to go enslave all people everywhere and have them bow down to Pharoah.

I think without this goal of Evangelism, the Judeo-Christian West would not have developed as it did.

Simple answer - Roads

Kingdoms led to established roads.
Roads led to trade.
Trade let to the exchange of ideas.
The exchange of ideas led to innovation and shared moral eithics.

The Roman Empire covered almost almost all of Europe and touched the Eastern world with trade. Without that transportation system in place, Europeans would not have known about ideas and resources beyond their borders. And those ideas and resources helped European culture grow and eventually culminated into the Industrial Revolution.

HollywoodBQ said:

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I think without this goal of Evangelism, the Judeo-Christian West would not have developed as it did.

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I would also offer that before Evangelism or even colonialism of the Renaissance/Industrial Age, maybe it was just too difficult to cross the Sahara or cross the Jungle. Without water routes, those were perilous journeys.

I'm really going to have to dig up which tomb it was where I saw the journey up the Nile depicted.

Think about the exploration to the Americas. A large portion of that bankroll from Spain came with strings attached. Evangelism strings. That's why most of South America is Catholic and speaks Spanish.

Now a good question is why didn't the Spanish explore Africa in the same way they did the Americas? Legends, promises and discoveries of gold? Maybe. I don't really know.

gigemhilo said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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I think without this goal of Evangelism, the Judeo-Christian West would not have developed as it did.

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I would also offer that before Evangelism or even colonialism of the Renaissance/Industrial Age, maybe it was just too difficult to cross the Sahara or cross the Jungle. Without water routes, those were perilous journeys.

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And with the Sahara and jungles mixed into the equation, we're now back to "geography" being the differentiator.

Just based on the limits that deserts created, mountain ranges, jungles, etc I'm starting to lean towards that barrier across north central Africa as maybe being the biggest factor as to why the southern half of the continent didn't slowly progress at the same speed as India, Persia, Western Europe, and North Africa did.

Stive said:

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gigemhilo said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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I think without this goal of Evangelism, the Judeo-Christian West would not have developed as it did.

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I would also offer that before Evangelism or even colonialism of the Renaissance/Industrial Age, maybe it was just too difficult to cross the Sahara or cross the Jungle. Without water routes, those were perilous journeys.

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And with the Sahara and jungles mixed into the equation, we're now back to "geography" being the differentiator.

Just based on the limits that deserts created, mountain ranges, jungles, etc I'm starting to lean towards that barrier across north central Africa as maybe being the biggest factor as to why the southern half of the continent didn't slowly progress at the same speed as India, Persia, Western Europe, and North Africa did.

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It's really important, as is the prevalence of tropical disease and possibly the north-south orientation of the continent.

HollywoodBQ said:

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I'm really going to have to dig up which tomb it was where I saw the journey up the Nile depicted.

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I tried to find the paintings I saw and couldn't. I did find a bunch of things similar on some guys web site who seems to be focused on racial remembrances of ancient Egypt. According to him, a lot of statues and paintings being destroyed because they depicted black people or black features.

http://ancient.egyptian.over-blog.com/the-african-history-of-the-nile-valley

HollywoodBQ said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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I'm really going to have to dig up which tomb it was where I saw the journey up the Nile depicted.

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I tried to find the paintings I saw and couldn't. I did find a bunch of things similar on some guys web site who seems to be focused on racial remembrances of ancient Egypt. According to him, a lot of statues and paintings being destroyed because they depicted black people or black features.

http://ancient.egyptian.over-blog.com/the-african-history-of-the-nile-valley

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Depicted them as guests? Inhabitants? Depicted them how?

Stive said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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I'm really going to have to dig up which tomb it was where I saw the journey up the Nile depicted.

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I tried to find the paintings I saw and couldn't. I did find a bunch of things similar on some guys web site who seems to be focused on racial remembrances of ancient Egypt. According to him, a lot of statues and paintings being destroyed because they depicted black people or black features.

http://ancient.egyptian.over-blog.com/the-african-history-of-the-nile-valley

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Depicted them as guests? Inhabitants? Depicted them how?

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My simplified summary of the story depicted is that the Egyptians went up the Nile (to the South) and discovered people with Black skin. So, essentially, they were a discovery.

I don't know near enough about the Mali Empire to say what is readily out there. It's a blind spot for many of us for sure.

Stive said:

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A lively discussion occurred today at the house of a family member. The current racial tension, historical elements that had played into the current cultures and mindsets on all sides, government issues and involvements (or lack thereof in some cases), things that can be changed and things that can't, etc. All of it was fair game and for the most part all of it was respectful.

One of the oldest members there leaned quite heavily on the idea that the African continent had never been "successful", relative to the rest of the world, because of its people. He used Europe as his gold standard and thought whites had an out and out advantage historically. I remained quiet throughout most of this conversation and simply took in the dynamics at play (I love just watching stuff like this and seeing the different elements and personalities play out), but made a mental note to myself to learn more about different historical aspects of why different continents and areas and/or groups of people seemed to have done better over the last 1,000-1,500 years than others. Was it an element of invention (guns, navigation, printing press)? Was it an element of natural resources? Was it cultural? Was it kingdom making (Alexander, Cyrus, Rome) expanding ideas? Was it trade routes? Or was it something else totally?

I've never really thought through or read much about these types of dynamics played out over millennia but today's "old man claims" made me realize that I don't know much about that type of history.

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There are alot of answers and posts in this thread that just don't get to the heart of the matter because it is ugly, maybe racist if you have thin skin, unseemly, uncomfortable, whatever you want to call it, and it has nothing to do with religion.

Not all cultures, races, communities etc. have the same ethos and ethics as others. Not all cultures have the prevailing sentiment and ethic / work ethic to strive to make things better for yourself, your family, and your children by what you do every day, the decisions you make, etc. And I am not saying Anglos have that and nobody else does. And certainly not everyone in a group/race/culture/community has the same traits or lack thereof. But there is a reason stereotypes exist, as they are based on prevailing facts and statistics for the majority of that group/race/culture/community, though it will not apply to all and you should not assume it applies to all or to any individual.

You know why our "rebuilding" "mission" in Afghanistan has been a total and complete failure? Because we talk about helping them build roads, schools, hospitals, infrastructure............ they don't care about any of those things. They will live today like their ancestors did 200 years ago and don't care if their descendants 200 years from now do the same.........

In addition to the river and road transportation networks, as mentioned above, in Europe, look at the differences in natural harbors. Fantastic in Europe. Pitiful in Africa.

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Now a good question is why didn't the Spanish explore Africa in the same way they did the Americas? Legends, promises and discoveries of gold? Maybe. I don't really know.

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The Treaty of Tordesillas divided up the world along a line of longitude somewhere in Brazil. West of that, Spain colonized, east was Portuguese. Thus you get all the Portuguese colonies in India, Africa & the Spanish in the Phillipeans, Cuba, Central/South America etc. *See the Robert DeNiro movie "The Mission" which touches on this. Great, great movie from the 80's.

Africa was poorly explored because of Malaria, Sleeping sickness etc. & lack of navigable rivers which prevented inland exploration. Malaria killed European people by the tens of thousands as they ventured inland.

New Poster here. Class of 92

Great read here as I find this topic fascinating.

When I was in school at A&M I met a fellow student who had a different major than mine yet he was taking one of our (turf) classes as an elective. He was carrying a book about archeology. This prompted several discussions much like this thread here. The result of several similar discussions is that race, skin color etc. is and has been a "no-no" for lots of university research as it is taboo in many respects.

As far as this thread and its topic, the spread of Christianity makes great sense to me.