How Dark Were the Dark Ages?

[Blake Bowden]

Great video!

 

[jwhoff]

Sorry ... don't buy it.

As to the question.

How Dark were the Dark Ages?

Answer: Look around.

 

[dfreybur]

The dark ages were before the light bulb was invented. Pretty dark to anyone who grew up with light bulbs so everyone on the planet nowadays. ;^)

 

[pointwithinacircle2]

I have already made up my mind so don't confuse me with the facts. <--- Sarcasm, in case you missed it.>
The idea that we are mentally superior to humans who lived a few hundred or few thousand years ago seems like intellectual snobbery to me. Bizarre claims that the pyramids were built by ancient aliens are based on the equally bizarre idea that "People were too stupid to figure out how to do that way back then". I believe that until a person can accept that the intellect of ancient people was equal to our own they will never understand the past.

 

[jwhoff]

The dark ages were before the light bulb was invented. Pretty dark to anyone who grew up with light bulbs so everyone on the planet nowadays. ;^)

Just think how much darker those days would have appeared to the huge number of people who live IN THE DARK today.

 

[jwhoff]

"I have already made up my mind so don't confuse me with the facts. <--- Sarcasm, in case you missed it.> The idea that we are mentally superior to humans who lived a few hundred or few thousand years ago seems like intellectual snobbery to me."

I get it Brother. Nice point (withinacircle), There is absolutely no basis that humans today are in any way mentally superior to humans during the Dark Ages. The point of the Dark Ages is that, in general, the great majority of mankind was kept isolated from the knowledge of advancement.

"Bizarre claims that the pyramids were built by ancient aliens are based on the equally bizarre idea that "People were too stupid to figure out how to do that way back then". I believe that until a person can accept that the intellect of ancient people was equal to our own they will never understand the past."

Oddly enough, these people of which you speak are today living in the Dark Ages. They, with all the enlightenment of Modernity, are still looking for EASY answers to the many perplexing questions of today's world. In a word, they have capitulated all the sweat equity of our forefathers (and masons like Voltaire, Franklin, and Newton) to get us to this point in civilization. Hell, these fools usually don't even bother to vote. Should we ever expect that they would not revolt against the Information Age?

Still, if we look further, and to mathematical and archeological science, we find the answers to the question of the pyramids. But, who has time for that? Let's just kick back and watch an "aliens done it", off the wall, twist. (again, I agree, but with a plea to look closer)

Please Brethren. Look deeper into the presentation above. Who gave it? What was its premise? Who are they out to "get?" How do you think this group of people would have looked at Sir Isaac Newton? Franklin and Voltaire? For instance, do you think they would not also have banished Voltaire to England for having supported the vaccination of children in France? Do you not think they too, upon his return to France, would have denied him a proper burial?

I know, I am to visceral in my view of this seemingly (though is it) harmless video.

But, am I?

Please, before you answer go back to the gest of the FC degree. Know well the morals it teaches. MAKE SURE that you are prepared to interpret your surroundings. Thus freeing yourself from the ternary that persist, no matter the Age. Yes, it will take much hard work and thought.

"What price Liberty?"

 

[Flatworlder]

The Dark Ages is only a label.. Should be revisited..

 

[dfreybur]

The Dark Ages is only a label.. Should be revisited..

So it's *your* lodge that has the TARDIS with the labels on the control panel! I'll pass on using your time machine to visit the Medevil era.

 

[pointwithinacircle2]

Look deeper into the presentation above. Who gave it? What was its premise? Who are they out to "get?"

To be honest it was the question "Who are they out to get?" that caught my attention. So I re-watched the video, wrote down some names, and did some searching. The answer came into view rather quickly.

Oddly enough, these people of which you speak are today living in the Dark Ages. They, with all the enlightenment of Modernity, are still looking for EASY answers to the many perplexing questions of today's world. In a word, they have capitulated all the sweat equity of our forefathers

Thank you for mentioning the concept that many still live in the dark ages. Simply turning that thought over in my mind has spun the wheels of perception and given new meaning to the phrase "brought to light".

 

[Flatworlder]

The dark ages were before the light bulb was invented. Pretty dark to anyone who grew up with light bulbs so everyone on the planet nowadays. ;^)

With my luck.. id be Lower cast.. if I was to go back in time.

 

[jwhoff]

Ditto that.

 

[Pscyclepath]

From literature:

"They convened at eight in the evening, the intellectual cream of the community, many of whom had voted to outlaw evolution and geology, but they were not fanatics and they wanted to hear what the old man had to say.
‘Tonight is the twenty-second of June 1976, and when the lights go down we shall see the heavens as they are outside this planetarium. Now, I’m going to turn the sky-clock back 922 years. It is again June 22 in A.D. 1054. The sky looks almost the same as it does tonight, a few planets in different positions, but that’s about all.
‘I’m going to speed through eighteen days, and here we have the heavens as they appeared at sunset on the night of 10 July 1054. Let’s go to midnight in Baghdad, where Arabic astronomers are looking at the sky, as they always did. Nothing unusual. Now it’s 11 July 1054, toward three in the morning. Still nothing exceptional. But look! There in the constellation Taurus!’
In the silence of the planetarium the audience watched in awe as an extremely brilliant light began to emerge from the far tip of the Bull’s horn. It exceeded anything else in the heavens, infinitely brighter even than Venus, and increasing in brilliance each moment.
‘It was a supernova, in the constellation Taurus, and we know the exact date because Arabic astronomers in many countries saw it and made notes which confirmed the sightings in China. Indians in Arizona saw it and marveled. In the South Pacific natives marked the miracle. And watch as daylight comes in 1054! The new star is so bright it can be seen even against the rays of the Sun , which was not far off in Cancer.
‘For twenty-three days, the astronomers of Cathay and Araby tell us, this supernova dominated the sky, almost as bright as the Sun, the most incandescent event in recorded history. No other nova ever came close to this one. Look at it! Challenging even the Sun! And watch how it commandeered the night sky, this flaming beacon.’
He allowed his planetarium to run rather slowly , re-creating the cycle of those twenty-three unequaled days, when watchers throughout the world had been stunned by this miracle. By day, by night , it filled the planetarium so that John and Penny Pope could see each other in its radiance, and the faces of all around them . And then, on the evening of the second day of August 1054 the great new star diminished, fading with a speed more precipitous than that with which it had arisen, until Taurus looked as it had for a thousand years and would look for a thousand years thereafter.
‘Why do I tell you these things on the night we honor our cherished son John Pope? For one simple reason. This great star, which must have been the most extraordinary sight in the history of the heavens during mankind’s observation, was noted in China, in Arabia, in Alaska, in Arizona and in the South Pacific, for we have their records to prove it. But in Europe nobody saw it. From Italy to Moscow, from the Urals to Ireland, nobody saw it. At least, they made no mention of it. They lived through one of the Earth’s most magnificent spectacles and nobody bothered even to note the fact in any parchment, or speculate upon it in any manuscript.
‘We know the event took place, for with a telescope tonight we can see the remnants of the supernova hiding in Taurus, but we have searched every library in the western world without finding a single shred of evidence that the learned people of Europe even bothered to notice what was happening about them.
‘An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.’ "

[Michener, James A. (2014-03-18). Space: A Novel (Kindle Locations 12445-12449). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ]

 

[jwhoff]

From literature:

"They convened at eight in the evening, the intellectual cream of the community, many of whom had voted to outlaw evolution and geology, but they were not fanatics and they wanted to hear what the old man had to say.
‘Tonight is the twenty-second of June 1976, and when the lights go down we shall see the heavens as they are outside this planetarium. Now, I’m going to turn the sky-clock back 922 years. It is again June 22 in A.D. 1054. The sky looks almost the same as it does tonight, a few planets in different positions, but that’s about all.
‘I’m going to speed through eighteen days, and here we have the heavens as they appeared at sunset on the night of 10 July 1054. Let’s go to midnight in Baghdad, where Arabic astronomers are looking at the sky, as they always did. Nothing unusual. Now it’s 11 July 1054, toward three in the morning. Still nothing exceptional. But look! There in the constellation Taurus!’
In the silence of the planetarium the audience watched in awe as an extremely brilliant light began to emerge from the far tip of the Bull’s horn. It exceeded anything else in the heavens, infinitely brighter even than Venus, and increasing in brilliance each moment.
‘It was a supernova, in the constellation Taurus, and we know the exact date because Arabic astronomers in many countries saw it and made notes which confirmed the sightings in China. Indians in Arizona saw it and marveled. In the South Pacific natives marked the miracle. And watch as daylight comes in 1054! The new star is so bright it can be seen even against the rays of the Sun , which was not far off in Cancer.
‘For twenty-three days, the astronomers of Cathay and Araby tell us, this supernova dominated the sky, almost as bright as the Sun, the most incandescent event in recorded history. No other nova ever came close to this one. Look at it! Challenging even the Sun! And watch how it commandeered the night sky, this flaming beacon.’
He allowed his planetarium to run rather slowly , re-creating the cycle of those twenty-three unequaled days, when watchers throughout the world had been stunned by this miracle. By day, by night , it filled the planetarium so that John and Penny Pope could see each other in its radiance, and the faces of all around them . And then, on the evening of the second day of August 1054 the great new star diminished, fading with a speed more precipitous than that with which it had arisen, until Taurus looked as it had for a thousand years and would look for a thousand years thereafter.
‘Why do I tell you these things on the night we honor our cherished son John Pope? For one simple reason. This great star, which must have been the most extraordinary sight in the history of the heavens during mankind’s observation, was noted in China, in Arabia, in Alaska, in Arizona and in the South Pacific, for we have their records to prove it. But in Europe nobody saw it. From Italy to Moscow, from the Urals to Ireland, nobody saw it. At least, they made no mention of it. They lived through one of the Earth’s most magnificent spectacles and nobody bothered even to note the fact in any parchment, or speculate upon it in any manuscript.
‘We know the event took place, for with a telescope tonight we can see the remnants of the supernova hiding in Taurus, but we have searched every library in the western wo rld without finding a single shred of evidence that the learned people of Europe even bothered to notice what was happening about them.
‘An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.’ "

[Michener, James A. (2014-03-18). Space: A Novel (Kindle Locations 12445-12449). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ]

Read, met, and loved Michener. Read everything, met him while he was doing work at the University of Texas. Have been to his hometown, Doylestown, PA. His works Kent State and The Fires of Spring helped me at a critical time when I was developing my own World View. I was able to work through my feelings on race and growing into manhood during the early 70s. Michener's books were inspiring and always at hand.

One of my pet peeves in masonry is to make sure those brethren going through their FC degrees do not do so in haste. I want them to know that, by arming themselves with the knowledge offered in the FC degree, they can free themselves to become strong masons. Without committing themselves to the seven sciences represented by those seven steps, they cannot ever hope to be free men equipped to strip the profane world of fear, ignorance, and intolerance.

The week of the Winter Solstice I presented a 20-minute moment on the history at a stated meeting of the Solstice, the relationship between the deacons of the lodge and the Sun as it travels across the sky. And, the exact times at several locations across the planet when the Solstice would occur. Next week I will, with the consent of the Worshipful Master and the help of the deacons, plot the travel of the Sun through the Equinox and the Ides of March. And, tell them the exact time when the Sun will reach the PI of this century. All, knowledge that can be obtained by studying the FC sciences.

Only when we understand the importance of knowledge will we be able to keep ourselves free from despotism and those fear mongers among us attempting to take our freedom away. Dark Ages? You bet! They can return in the twinkling of an eye. Freedom is earned every day. It often times requires blood, but it requires logic, awareness, and diligence every day of our lives. So precious, so easily lost.