View Single Post
12-07-2007
  80
FashionCapital
trendsetter
 
FashionCapital's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Stanford
Gender: homme
Posts: 1,236
I respect your ability to back up your arguement with sources, but you've already diverted from your original assertations! You've said:
Quote:
- They invented democracy
- Everything in medicin is in greek (every word), father of Medicine is Hippocrates
- When people tried to survive, they were writing philosophy
- When people used to kill each other, they created masterpieces
- Math, Astronomy all started from ancient Greece
- They created the Olympics, which is not just a competition, it's the global union and the promotion of the healthy and friendly competition (eugenis amilla)that spurs a person to improve his own performance.

They were the best civilization and no one will ever take their place.
If you had said that they developed ideas from previous civilizations as opposed to INVENTING all of these things, your arguement would've made sense. We said that they didn't invent medicine and all of medicine isn't Greek, yet you supplied us with links that just reminded us, once more, about the GREEK aspects of medicine. You provided no rebuttal to what we said. Egyptians used papyri to classify diseases according to syptoms. Indians understood the spinal cord's significance, and used surgical procedures similar to bone setting and plastic surgery. They also developed incoluation, which served as a smallpox vaccine. Westerners didn't know of a smallpox vaccine until the end of the 1700s. Also, Indians used cleanliness and disinfection before operating.

You originally said that they were "writing philosophy", yet we both said that others wrote philosophy before the Greeks. I never challenged that Greek philosophy was the most respected, however, yet you provided links that justify that--why? Whatever happened to backing up your original ascertation that Greeks wrote philosophy before others?

Science-wise, the Chinese were the first to determine that a year was exactly 365 1/4 days. They also were the first to observe sunspots--something that the Europeans didn't do until the 1600s CE. The Egyptians invented a lunar calendar. Indian astronomers identified the seven planets that can be seen without the aid of a telescope. They also accurately predicted eclipses of the Sun and Moon, as well as understanding of the Earth's daily rotation.

Also, it's not as if Greece invented all of math, as you said! They developed many important and significant parts of geometry and other things, yet they didn't develop ALL of it, as you originally said! I hope you've heard of Aryabhata--he was one of the first people known to have used algebra and solve quadratic equations. Indians knew about abstract and negative numbers. They also invented ARABIC numerals, which is obviously used extensively. Also, Egyptians invented a number system based on 10 (similar to decimals today), and they also used fractions and whole numbers. Sumerians divided a circle into 360 degrees, as well as proposing a number system based on 60. That's what we use today in watches and compasses.

Global union, huh? That's why only Ancient Greeks allowed Greeks to attend.

I'm not trying to demean Greece. We owe so much to each and every one of these civilizations, so saying that one was more important than the other is essentially pointless. There are a lot of great things about these civilizations that make them equally important. India and Mesopotamia's religions still exist today (Hinduism/Buddhism and Judaism, respectively), even if those of Greece and Egypt don't. However, Greece and Egypt were incredibly important in SO many other aspects. No civilization is better than the other--that's where you went wrong!

(Any information I've provided can be sourced by "World History: People and Nations, Ancient World" by Holt, Rineheart, and Winston, as well as http://www.imageofsurgery.com/Surgery_history_art.htm)


Last edited by FashionCapital; 12-07-2007 at 11:02 AM.
  Reply With Quote