the burning of the Library of Alexandria

What an incredible amount of knowledge to lose in order to satisfy the greed and need "spread faith". The only reason to burn books is when they contain information detrimental to your cause. That being the case, the cause is never for the good of the many, only for the greed of the few. disgusting to think of it when u consider the modern day equivalent of say an EM pulse disabling our electronics for 50years or something...we'd be back in the dark ages in no time.

I'm not sure which instance of the library burning you're referring to. Are you talking about Theophilus's supposed arsony, or of the version with Omar? Because both are highly suspect, and full of holes that just don't let the story hold up. There is even a third story that involves Julius Caeser! It's useless to attempt to lay the blame on any one party, because we just don't know enough about it.

Originally posted by Or_Die_Trying
What an incredible amount of knowledge to lose in order to satisfy the greed and need "spread faith". The only reason to burn books is when they contain information detrimental to your cause. That being the case, the cause is never for the good of the many, only for the greed of the few. disgusting to think of it when u consider the modern day equivalent of say an EM pulse disabling our electronics for 50years or something...we'd be back in the dark ages in no time.

Well,that was the whole point of burning the library at Alexandria...The library contained information that the leaders of that day and time, particularly the church, didn't want out. They thought it would be detrimental to their cause.

[edit on 13-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

True enough bablyoi, though I think that the original poster's intent can still be felt if we consider that christianity did engage in the destruction of pagan classics, even if they can't be fingered for "the" burning of the Library of Alexandria.

One only has to consider that islam, a monotheistic religion, in the judeo-christian tradition no less, encounted classical knowledge and embraced it, even expanded on it, to see the incredible error of the old christians in that respect.