The 10 Most Important Events in Human History

[Mortis]

Self awareness
Invention of writing (the Sumerians?)
The Industrial revolution
Mathematics (Algebra and Calculus)
the adoption of "0" (zero/arabic numbers)
Antibiotics/Anticeptics

[kennyc]

Self awareness.....interesting.....

[Fbone]

The fall of Rome.

Although more tragic.

[DixieGal]

Romantic love
Television
Chicken fingers

[wodin]

Aren't you guys forgetting the most important event?

Spoiler:

Wodin was born!

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by wodin

Aren't you guys forgetting the most important event?

Spoiler:

Wodin was born!

But of course that goes without saying!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by wodin

Aren't you guys forgetting the most important event?

Spoiler:

Wodin was born!

Oh, right, see here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=128498

[BenG]

Agriculture would have to be up near the top.
A stable food supply lead to a population explosion and epidemics due to overcrowding, governments formed to organize the food supply and warfare erupted over farmland.
Any one interested should read Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene..._Spencer_Wells

[Mortis]

Originally Posted by BenG

Agriculture would have to be up near the top.
A stable food supply lead to a population explosion and epidemics due to overcrowding, governments formed to organize the food supply and warfare erupted over farmland.
Any one interested should read Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene..._Spencer_Wells

Good point, we should add agriculture and animal domestication.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BenG

Agriculture would have to be up near the top.
A stable food supply lead to a population explosion and epidemics due to overcrowding, governments formed to organize the food supply and warfare erupted over farmland.
Any one interested should read Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene..._Spencer_Wells

Thanks for that Ben, on my To-Read list.

[lene1949]

I think antibiotics and the internet would be the most important ones.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Here are some of my thoughts (not sure how precisely any of these might be measured/delineated)

. . .

christianity

Significantly more important than christianity is judaism. Judaism was the first major monotheistic religion and we should not forget that Christ was born and died as a Jew, not a christian. If it weren't for judaism, there wouldn't be any christianity.

Also not on your list was the papal decision to require priests to be celibate, something that was not on christianity's radar in the first several hundred years of christianity's history. Why was this so significant? For two reasons: First it demonstrated that it was humans who were setting the parameters of the religion, with those parameters shifting as earthly material and political needs had to be met. Second, because it created wealth for the papacy, which enabled it to grow catholicism, the original christianity, by confiscating wealth that would otherwise have been passed on outside the church. The need for material wealth is what humans needed for their own benefit; God certainly didn't need it to get any of his/her previous messages across to humans.

Once the church gained wealth, it could fund events, which is why it took so long to break from the Aristotelian view of the Earth's importance in the universe. Wealth enabled the church to control the sciences and the arts through its patronage, thus creating the world's first organized and foremost propaganda machine.

The wealth from celibacy also made the church such a powerful force that it became its own nation-state, something no other religion was/has been able to accomplish.

Of similar importance was the establishment of the Anglican church by Henry. It was the first successful knife thrust into the heart of the papacy, creating a major rival and laying the groundwork for future schisms. The schisms were of major consequence because they not only caused numerous devastating wars in Europe and the Americas, but they became the foundation on which the idea of European/white supremacy was built.

The final important event as regards christianity was the writing by committee of the King James bible. Its importance was not recognized at the time and is still not widely recognized. What is its importance? It underscores that the bible is the word of man, not the word of a deity because the text of many passages were compromises, that is, the committee members had divergent views and had to negotiate to create a single meaning, something that would not be either acceptable or possible if in fact the text was the unmolested word of a deity. In addition, the bible-by-committee demonstrated that there was/is no single, universally recognized deity. If there were, then there would be but one version of the bible that would be used by every person and religion. Instead, the bible is the product of the telephone game that children play -- wording shifts with every telling.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Angst

antibiotics - probably the largest contributor to human longevity.

And its overuse to the rise of the supergerms that will be the next plague.

[rhadin]

Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit ranks at the top of my list. Absent that the entire course of history -- for all peoples -- would have been wholly different. Don't forget that before eating the forbidden fruit, procreation was by taking a rib. I think I much prefer the current, clearly more degenerate in God's eyes (or at least in the eyes of those who claim to speak for God), yet satisfyingly pleasurable method.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Significantly more important than christianity is judaism. Judaism was the first major monotheistic religion and we should not forget that Christ was born and died as a Jew, not a christian. If it weren't for judaism, there wouldn't be any christianity.
..

Um, ah...well you deconstructed that one. Where's your list?