historical RANT
I love history. Let me just say this before I begin.I HATE my Western Civ book. Why you might ask? WHY?
WELL. An understanding of religion is necessary to understand the history of a society/people/culture/whatever. Clearly, religion affects society. Duh. For Egyptian religion, which was so important and intertwined into the society that there wasn’t even a separate word for religion, there were 1-2 pages. For Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, where they believed their ruler was divine and built temples at the center of every town and had patron gods for every city, there was 1-2 pages. For Judaism, which WAS the culture of Israel and incredibly important for the development of the Near East, there were 2-3 pages. For Greek and Roman religions (during the Roman Republic and Empire) there was about 1 page each. For Post-Empire Rome (Byzantine Empire and Western Roman Empire), when Christianity exists, so far, there have been about 12 pages on Christianity. Now granted the role of the church in the development of the Papal States is important and how it affected the Roman way of life is important. Learning about what Saint Benedict thought about monasticism has NOTHING to do with Roman society of the time. Neither do Jerome’s thoughts on the Bible. Or St. Augustine’s books. More than 15 Bible quotes about Jesus said are irrelevant as well as there were none for the other religious leaders. I don’t care what Paul wrote unless it dramatically affects the cultural/political/economic development or is relevant in some other way. But no. It is not.
I’m not saying take out Christianity because it is important in explaining the political and cultural development of Europe. But no more so than the other religions were to their societies. Let’s be fair and equal here and not blatantly endorse a certain religion. You are supposed to be a historian. That means no bias, or as little bias as possible. RAR.
I miss our AP World book from sophomore year because that is one thing it was. Completely unbiased. It did an incredible job of addressing different religions. This book does not and it pisses me off. Let’s have some class here. As a historian Jackson L. Spielvogel does a bad job right now. This book was very well done up until this point. But I have lost all respect for him because being unbiased about Ancient Egypt is not a difficult task. Please. But remaining unbiased about your beliefs can be. It separates the good historians from the bad ones. You Mr. Spielvogel suck. BAH.
I refuse to read anymore history tonight. I am going to go be rageous, take a shower and then wathch The Virgin Suicides with Shannon. This weekend will be spent studying. Band concert Monday night and dress rehersal Sunday at 9. Ugh. Western Civ Exam on Monday.Religion Midterm Thursday. Western Civ Paper Due the following Monday. New Orleans trip next weekend. Plus scheduling fun. Midterms suck. Probably a Stat test in there somewhere. French test was yesterday. Busy busy busy. I hate Midterms weeks. BAH.
posted by kellyisdelightful @ 8:49 PM
5 Comments:
Interesting. I probably would never have caught on that he spent so long on Christianity...I probably would have been flipping through the pages wondering when the chapter was going to end.
New Orleans? To see your Tulane/TCU friend's home? That's fun. Except...isn't New Orleans still trashed?? Yes, I'm ignorant. Now I better go finish my English journal. I love guitar playing boys. There's one playing at the Artisan at the moment. He's rather cute. : )
mmm pam good call on the guitar boys. we're going to get her stuff from Tulane b/c its still there and they haven't been able to access it. yes it is still trashed, generally. I'm a history major. What do you expect?
You do go to TCU...;)
Ah, Deepak has a point.
yeah, see your point but hush. firstly, not by choice, and secondly, it's a history class. not a religion class. in fact no other class has any sort of religious slant. my religion class is less biased than that book.
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