Secularism

Well there have been secular ideas for a long ass time, if you mean 'when did people start thinking in terms of secularism?'

But yes you're right there was a lot of philosophy around secularism which then inspired the Americans and French to implement it.

>church and state are not to interfere in each others politics?
Difficult, I see no problem that the state interferes with the church, that is legitimate in some cases, like todays Islamic extremism where it is legitimate that the state interferes.

I think the important point is when did the church loose its grip on the state and the primate of politics started.

Well, the US was privileged, as there was not predominant denomination who could demand being in power. Also at the time it was obvious that the world does not end if the Church is excluded from power, so why include them in the first?
France was a hard learned lesson, people where simply feed up with the taxes and special rights of the catholic church, so when they btfo the king, they might as well kick out the church.

That's difficult to say.

Medieval and Early Modern Europe was nominally ruled by monarchs but then they also had to content or work with cities, nobles, the gentry and the clergy. On top of that some bishops were temporal rulers too, they ruled their own land like a noble or elector would.

France knocked out various nobles during the 16th century and the Fronde but Cardinals still occupied important government posts and the clergy still formed a part of the Estates general.

In terms of power or at least technology Europe was definitely top dog by the year 1500. It was from the 15th century onward that the Ottomans, Mughals and to a degree the Chinese were adopting European weaponry rather than developing it themselves. Exceptions apply but in general Europeans had the best gunpowder weaponry and ships. I wouldn't really say Europe was secular at this point.

>In terms of power or at least technology Europe was definitely top dog by the year 1500
Thats why the kept on losing to the Turks then.
Europe was inferior to the Turks, the Mughals and China. They did not overpower them until the 18th century and only in the 19th century they had a clear edge.

At what point in time did the Church lose it's worldly power? 1750's? Napoleon?

Secularism has meant little more than taking power away from the Church and giving it to the Freemasonry.

Hello /pol/, hows the conspiracy theory going for you?

The power and influence of the Freemasonry in secular countries like France, Turkey and most of Latin America is not a "conspiracy theory", it's a fact.

Source please for your "facts"

I don't mean to debate their military strength, rather I was trying to indicate technology was now coming from Europe.

The Ottomans, Sarrafids, Mughals, Japanese and Chinese all adopted the European Matchlock musket within less than a century of it being invented. Sure they tweaked them to their own liking but it was invented in Europe along with corned gunpowder.

The walls of Constantinople were blasted down by cannons cast by European experts. During the 16th century most developments in artillery took place in Europe. Producing new types of shot, new long barreled anti personal cannons and siege cannons. Later on they were the ones to switch to cast iron cannons. The Chinese got themselves Europeans to copy all of them.

Then you get European sailing ships with new developments every two decades. By the 17th century the Ottomans and Italian resorted to hiring crewed Dutch and English warships. I can find you a couple of sources where Chinese admirals and officials flat out write down that European ships were better in most ways.

Secularization honestly started with Luther, and the wars that ensued.

Before that the Catholic Church was essentially a part of the state apparatus.

In my view this culminated with Nietzsche's observations about Europe, and the coming of nihilism.

WW1 was the climax.

Sailing and shipbuilding was indeed a domain where Europe was superior early on. Metallurgy was not so, at least not in the European theater. The Turks made better and bigger guns and also outpaced theu Europeans in logistics and lots of other fields.
Japan wasn't aware of firearms before the Tanegashima incident, it was the Europeans who made the contact, but they would have adapted every concept.
It is true that Europe started to take off on new ideas after the Reformation and the the invention of the print, but by no means they outpowered other cultures at that time. By 1500 the Turks where still expanding and taking European turf, taking vast parts of the Balkans and Mediterranean.
Same goes for the Mughals.
The balance of power only tipped in the late 18th century, which is the high time of secularization.

>implying it's a bad thing

But Luther was not secular and neither was the Inquisition. The catholic church remained part of the state for another 250 years. Also WW1 had nothing to do with religion and/or secularization.

I didn't say Luther was secular either.

But Luther proved it was possible to challenge the authority of the Church with success; a Church that had stood fast for over a millennia.

Do you honestly think this didn't influence anyone? Because it did.

Also, WW1 absolutely had something to do with religion. It wasn't a religious war, but if you think the people who went into that war weren't devout Christians all of them and thought that God was on their side, you're wrong.

It's not a coincidence that less than 20 years after WW1, Germans had already forgotten about Christianity and seeded all their authority and viciousness onto a ruthless secular dictator.

>the fall of religion led to hedonism.

Nihilism*

I am not sure about Metallurgy being better in the Ottoman empire. The bronze ones were often cast by Europeans or European trained founders in the 15th century. This was also when the Ottomans established their first permanent foundries. Though it should be said the Ottomans did cast the largest cannons themselves, larger than anything attempted in Europe. Sources tell us the foundries in the 16th century employed around 50 Germans and several French, Venetians and even Spanish.

If you want a good read I can recommend this. Don't let the name put you off it's all well sourced.

muslimheritage.com/uploads/Artillery Trade of the Ottoman Empire.doc2.pdf
It was the iron industry in the English Weald that used blast furnaces to produce the first cast iron cannons, later on the Dutch took over this role and became the foremost arms producer in Europe. Selling their guns all over the world and even shipping cannons to their Catholic enemies.

>A secret society consisting of underground chambers where middle aged men got shitfaced and played cards
Don't see the problem here desu

The point is, securlism isn't what propelled Europe to conquer the globe.

No Secularism is what made them succeed.

But that's not true. Europeans states were already succeeding, In fact France really became great after Napoleon toned back the secularism.

Just for info, cast iron cannons where unreliable and inferior to bronze cannons. They where just used because much cheaper, but where prone to explode.
Cast steel cannons where the real improvement, but they only came in the 19th century.

Napoleon spread secularism trough Europe like no one else.
Also, Europe did not dominate the world before the 19th century, even in the 18th century they often lost wars to the turks and they didn't even dominate the Mediterranean sea.

Others did that before, shisma was a thing you know. Others challenged the chruch long before. Secularism or the age of enlightenment only took off at least 150 years after Luther. In fact, Religion kept is grip on politics for at least 250 more years after Luther

And WW1 had nothing to do with either secularization nor religion at all. Nations where secular for over 60 years back then.

He spread REPUBLICANISM, but he himself toned it back from the reign of terror. Your right though.

He abolished the political power of the church, confiscated their lands and secularized the laws all over Europe. No one in history did more for spreading secularism than Napoleon.

>Reading comprehension

I know that but for a third (and later an eighth) the price cast iron cannons are more economical. More dakka

I said you were right. I only pointed out he was less secular than the French revolutionaries before him, something which is true.

Depends on, if they explode after a few rounds killing the crew and damaging your fort/ship this might prove more costly than buying some reliable bronze cannons.

Ok agreed, but then those revolutionaries where pretty over the top.

Again, Luther was not the source of European secularization nor was the first world war a religious war or had religious reasons.
Both your points don't make sense.

still waiting on that source, faggot

You've literally supplied zero arguments against my case. You've just said "nuh uh".

>Thats why the kept on losing to the Turks then.
Technically, the Turks would be European, being mostly centered in the Balkans. And they did the same thing - apply European gunpowder and fortifications technology to steamroll the Middle East until other states either adopted their own European tech or invited another European power to defend them.

I did supply many arguments, for the Luther argument that there was no secularization for another 200 years after Luther and that things actually got worse than better.
The invention of printing with letters and the scientific method likely had way more influence on the coming age of enlightenment. That and being feed up with stupid religious wars.Just because some guy had won a theological dispute 250 years earlier doesn't exactly make him the father of Secularism, especially not when he never spoke or thought of secularism.

For WW1 your only argument was that the majority of combatants where, according to you, faithful Christians, which honestly is a non argument.
There where simply no religious reasons for that war, nor does any historian claims it to be a religious war. It simply had nothing to do with religion, face it.

You made two really bold claims, without any arguments yourself, if you want to debate then please provide those.

Very bold claim there friendo. The turks where masters of siege warfare and had a state that was basically a military machine. They did incorporate some European techniques, but then for example parallels in siege warfare was invented by them and later taken over by Europeans (Vauban himself).
And they conquered the Balkans (aka Europe) before they had an European influence.

I said Luther precipitated the start of secularization, because he showed it was possible to challenge the Catholic Church's authority *WITH SUCCESS*.

You responded by saying that schism had happened before. So what? 99% of those schism were utterly destroyed by Catholic states through violent heresy hunts(Such as the Cathars).

Also, I already said WW1 wasn't a religious war. But that doesn't mean religion didn't play a part at *at all*.

Literally all the countries that were involved in WW1, where countries that had religious structures to their authority(e.g divine rights of kings), such as Britain, Germany and Russia.

After WW1, that position became untenable, and Germany, Austria, and Hungary all turned into secular republics, that no one believed in.

None of this is a coincidence, but I get that it's hard to see.

Secularization of states was a consequence of European world domination, not its cause. Before the age of sail Europe was hemmed in by geography and the Asian steppe, and nations were largely defined by traditional crown realms where language, culture and religion defined its subjects and rulers. When Europe began to expand and spread its languages, cultures, and religions to the rest of the world, and when its increasingly more educated and more wealthy citizens began agitating for more rights, secularizing the state allowed them to redefine citizenship to bar non-European converts into their ruling class, the opposite of what a lack of secularization wrought in the Middle East with the Arabs and Persians continuously ruled by convert Turks, Mongols, and Europeans.

The nature of the Ottoman state is actually quite interesting.

Did some reading on it yesterday and I reckon they have some right to call themselves successors of the Romans, they sure could take a setback and could mobilize big armies and sustain them.

Their system of fief holding for cavalry and governors who were switched around gave an awful lot more power to the Sultan than contemporary European monarchs.

Most surprising to me is pic related.The Ottomans could field more conscripts than many European nations could entice volunteers.

The Ottomans sure loved mining during a siege too.

I'm not saying they had European influence, I'm saying they are European, especially from the perspective of those outside of Europe. While we all know the map, the reality was that up until the 16th century the Ottoman Empire was really a state almost entirely based in Thrace and Bulgaria, with a sliver of control in Northwestern Asia Minor, and the rest of Anatolia was controlled by non-Ottoman tributary tribes while Syria, Egypt, and North Africa were colonies.

The Ottoman empire was called the Sick man of Europe.

Frankly I'd say they had a foot in both worlds. The Balkans and Anatolia were the most densely populated followed by the Levant and Egypt.

Unlike some other empires there neck deep in European politics to.

Ottoman Empire was an asiatic power which had territory in Europe. To say they were European is historical revisionism.

It's a fucking secret society. That's the whole point. There are no "sources".

It's pretty much the same, the main difference is that with priests, bishops, cardinals and the Pope you knew who had power over you. Now you don't, because everything is secret and done in the shadows.

>what is Venice
A bunch of greedy assholes?

The Ottomans had a distant origin as an Asiatic power. After Tamerlane they were squarely centered in Europe. They were only not European by definition of European being (Catholic) Christian at the time.

The Mughal treasury fleet got literally niggered up to hell and back by a random English pirate and a bunch of drunk henchmen at the end of 17th century.

They literally claimed to be a successor of Rome for a while. Frankly if the Turks were Christians nobody would doubt their Europeanness for a second.

So? Barbaresque Pirates did slave raids on the British Islands and up to Iceland in the 17th century.

They had a completely different culture, art, science,food, aestetics, religion, heritage and language and writing.
Other than that they are fully European.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Abductions

This. No one would have thought Turks were European...because Turks are Asian. Honestly this just exist to repress the fact that Europeans were enslaved and oppressed by an eastern power for centuries.

It emerged out of necessity because of multicultural states. Surely a religious group governed by another religious group is sure to end in genocidal disaster.

There is a massive difference between kidnapping random peasants in coastal villages and your treasure fleet with the best ships getting sunk.

Just in money, but Turkish fleets plundering British isles and enslaving Britons in the 17th century says a lot about their power level.

It did end in genocidal disaster several times. France, Netherlands, Germany England, Spain and then some. The question is why did this practice end? Why did people start to take religion out of the government?