5 Ideas that Changed the World

[Resha Caner]

What would you list as 5 ideas that have most influenced the world?

Mine might be something like:
The Logos
The Rule of Law
Number
Newton's Laws
Poetics

 

[Resha Caner]

What would you list as 5 ideas that have most influenced the world?

Mine might be something like:
The Logos
The Rule of Law
Number
Newton's Laws
Poetics

OK. Since no one chose to add their own favorites to the list, I'll ask another question: Where did these ideas come from?

 

[Tolworth John]

The Judeo-Christian believe in equality under the law and before God. This also works into equality for everyone.
Reading writing and printing. Nothing else produced such A society change in any society is the spread of literacy and of life changing books like the Bible.
Railways, permitting rapid transportation of goods and people around a country.
Cheap credit permitting business to flourish.

But everything pales in comparison to the world changing affect of Christianity.

 

[Resha Caner]

The Judeo-Christian believe in equality under the law and before God. This also works into equality for everyone.

This sorta lines up with "rule of law" on my list, though I was thinking more in terms of no one being above the law.

Reading writing and printing. Nothing else produced such A society change in any society is the spread of literacy and of life changing books like the Bible.

This sorta lines up with Poetics on my list. I was thinking in general of human communication and couldn't think of a concise way to list it.

Railways, permitting rapid transportation of goods and people around a country.
Cheap credit permitting business to flourish.

I didn't have these, though I did think about Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations. A good means of transport is huge. Agreed.

But everything pales in comparison to the world changing affect of Christianity.

That's why I listed the Logos. However, people get too stuck on God as an idea rather than God as a person, so I didn't want to enable that habit. Still, Logos is a powerful idea that connects to almost everything else I had on my list.

 

[Resha Caner]

I guess not much interest in the topic. I'll narrow the focus: Newton's Laws --> Motion --> Time.

Where does the concept of time come from?

 

[Tolworth John]

This sorta lines up with "rule of law" on my list, though I was thinking more in terms of no one being above the law.



This sorta lines up with Poetics on my list. I was thinking in general of human communication and couldn't think of a concise way to list it.



I didn't have these, though I did think about Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations. A good means of transport is huge. Agreed.



That's why I listed the Logos. However, people get too stuck on God as an idea rather than God as a person, so I didn't want to enable that habit. Still, Logos is a powerful idea that connects to almost everything else I had on my list.

May I suggest you track down and read, The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy.'

A challenging and thought providing read which basically drives home that the west's civilisation depends upon Christianity.

 

[FireDragon76]

This sorta lines up with "rule of law" on my list, though I was thinking more in terms of no one being above the law.



This sorta lines up with Poetics on my list. I was thinking in general of human communication and couldn't think of a concise way to list it.



I didn't have these, though I did think about Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations. A good means of transport is huge. Agreed.



That's why I listed the Logos. However, people get too stuck on God as an idea rather than God as a person, so I didn't want to enable that habit. Still, Logos is a powerful idea that connects to almost everything else I had on my list.

Logos is not a Christian concept in its origin, it comes from Stoicism. And some Christians don't really affirm this concept since they believe God is the direct cause of phenomena in the world, negating the value of scientific observation.

As far as ideas go, Logos is actually closer to the concept of Dharma or Dao in eastern religions.

 

[Resha Caner]

Logos is not a Christian concept in its origin, it comes from Stoicism. And some Christians don't really affirm this concept since they believe God is the direct cause of phenomena in the world, negating the value of scientific observation.

As far as ideas go, Logos is actually closer to the concept of Dharma or Dao in eastern religions.

I don't agree.

 

[ThievingMagpie]

What would you list as 5 ideas that have most influenced the world?

Mine might be something like:
The Logos
The Rule of Law
Number
Newton's Laws
Poetics

Honestly far too many to choose from. But the 5 that first spring to mind:

• Individualism (from it property rights, democracy, arguably the novel as literary form, humanism etc. Etc.)
• Monotheism (massive impacting force over the last 2000 years, huge impact on art, music, culture etc.)
• Mathematics (being able to think abstractly about space, time and quantity has a huge impact)
• Evolution (huge shakeup to the whole field of biology and changed the way we think of who we are as a species)
• Human Rights (lots of variation within it but the concept of human rights has changed the way we hold nations accountable and has dominated politics for the last 100 years).

Special shout out to intellectual property rights - ownership of ideas their expression and reproduction is a very interesting human idea.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

What would you list as 5 ideas that have most influenced the world?

Mine might be something like:
The Logos
The Rule of Law
Number
Newton's Laws
Poetics

Since you didn't really say whether the 5 ideas had to be positive or negative, then I'm going to take a nod from Benjamin Wiker's book, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World, and posit the following:

1) Religious Idolatry
2) Sexually Deviant Media (not just inappropriate content)
3) Divorce
4) Atomic Bombs
5) Communism (and/or) Materialism [by any other name]

There. There's my list.