Actually the first link that you posted to "refute" Andrew Stark says the exact opposite of that. Let me quote: "Catholic monasteries were, at times, a conduit of classical wisdom, as monks laboriously copied and saved the few surviving ancient manuscripts." You have to admit that it's pretty pathetic when you link to an article and claim it says something, and it turns out to say the exact opposite of what you claim.
Even after seeing all of the nonsense that you've posted in this thread, it's still pretty amazing to see that you think you can get away with a lie like this. Anyone who's not completely and totally ignorant of the Middle Ages knows perfectly well that pagan writings, both Greek and Latin and others, were extremely popular and influential at the time. For example, Virgil was the most influential and widely-read author in medieval times outside of the Bible.
Entire books have been written examing Virgil's influence during that period.
Aristotle's works were translated into every European language during the Middle Ages and he was so influential that people referred to him simply as "the philosopher". (In fact more intelligent atheists than you generally complain that Aristotle had too much influence on medieval Christians.) Similarly, it would not be difficult to show that many other Pagan authors such as Plato, Cicero, and Seneca were read during the Middle Ages. Moreover, it was precisely the medieval church that was responsible for preserving, copying, and translating ancient Greek and Latin texts. Thomas Cahill's book
How the Irish Saved Civilization documents how Irish monks in the early Middle Ages were responsible for saving many texts and eventually bringing them back to the European mainstream.
So in short, your claim that the medieval church outlawed Greek writings because they were Pagan is an out-and-out lie. Why do you keep telling these lies? What makes you dislike the truth so much?
Really? Did I ever say that?
You have not offered any proof that "the current group" is anything other than a joke.
If you read post #277, you'll see that I've already explained why it's dishonest for you to cite Cosmoas Indicopleustes and Lactantius as validating your claim about Columbus. I see no need to repeat myself. We're you hoping that I'd forget what I've already written? If not, then what was the point of this paragraph?
How is that a contradiction?
You haven't yet given me a single reference which in any way suggests that any person in Columbus' time believed that the earth was flat.
Except that your point is entirely backwards. In Columbus' time both authority figures and everyone else believed that the earth was round. Columbus only sailed westward across the Atlantic because he believed those authorities. If he had insisted on being a juvenile punk constantly thumping his chest about his contempt for "argument from authority" then he wouldn't have done so. The same can besaid of really anyone who advanced knowledge in any field throughout human history.
