My relatives keep posting this shit:

Seriously, this same shit once every couple months:

In 1787, after 20 years of labor, Edward Gibbon completed his The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In it he attributed the fall of the Empire as being
1. “The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.”
2. “Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies for free bread and circuses for the populace.”
3. “The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.”
4. “The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within, the decadence of the people.”
5. “The decay of religion–faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people.”
Hmmm, sound like any current country you might know?

The first time it was posted, I corrected their misunderstandings (I have a historian as a fiance, so I know a bit about history). I didn’t think they would be necessarily greatful for being corrected, but I thought they would realize their mistake and quietly stop believing this crap. That wasn’t how it worked out (that’s a story for another time). I learned my lesson from last time about correcting these people so I’m not going to try again. That doesn’t mean I can keep my damn mouth shut about it though.

For those of you who don’t know who Edward Gibbon is, he was the very first person to study the history of the Roman empire. The very first one. Like—the first. As in—there was no one before him and he could say whatever he wanted about Rome and no one was around to correct him.

As if this simple fact isn’t enough to discard the above statements as unfounded and not worthy of repeating as if it were fact, he also contributed the fall of the Roman empire to something I’m not sure my devoutly religious relatives would be pleased with: the rise of Christianity. It is interesting how this view of Gibbon is conveniently left out of the above statement, especially considering how his entire legacy is centered around his controversial remarks about Christianity’s part in the fall of Rome. You see, Gibbon thought that the rise of Christianity made the Roman soldiers liberal pansies. He is quoted as saying:

“As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister…” (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 39)

He also claimed that the old, pagan religions of Rome were more tolerant than Christianity and a quote many, many are familiar with is also attributed to Gibbon:

“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosophers as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”

Of course, I’m not trying to say that Christianity was the reason for the fall of Rome, nor am I saying that it was even one of the reasons. Historians have, for over 200 years, been criticizing Gibbon’s claims. They say that he had absolutely no grounds for such claim. I’m sure my relatives would agree with those historians—their buddy Gibbon was WAY off on that Christianity thing, but he was definitely right about how it’s the gay liberal pagan’s fault that their empire fell.

For people who actually know history, they know that the reasons the the fall of Rome are much less sinister than Gibbon and my relatives seem to believe. The fall of Rome is attributed to military and political reasons, not social. Rome was just too big, its borders couldn’t be protected; politicians were too corrupt… and numerous other reasons.

The funniest thing about this whole thing is that one of the comments in response to my relative’s post said, “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” With that, I agree, it’s just a shame that they are so confused about what the real history says.