I love these sort of discussions. 
	It seems to me that those cultures mentioned below (and many others)
werent as "hungry" as the West. Their cultures and philosophies had so
isolated and worn them down that they could only go so far. Theres a good
reason why Communism met so many adherants from those cultures. The people
of the orient had their backbone bred and beaten out of them for centuries
	It seems to me that Europes climb out of stagnation made them increasingly
eager to "spread their wings". The cultural, scientific, and religeous
reform of the renaisance awakened a great passion for knowledge and
discovery. The world didnt stand a chance.
	
God Bless,
Aaron Siddall


At 11:36 PM 6/26/01 -0500, you wrote:
>>Point taken.  Arabia, China and *many* other places DID make great
>>advances in knowledge/science before the "West".  However, which of
>>those places you mentioned continued to advance in knowledge?  The 
>Arabs
>>aren't known for much else.  The Hindus (the inventors of "arabic"
>>numerals) definitely had no further growth.  And can you name other
>>advancements the ancient Chinese besides the 3 already said.  They 
>got
>>caught in mysticism and superstition.
>
>       The cultures of the West and East seemed pretty much equal in tech. 
>up to the point of the Industrial Revolution.  When England began it, 
>thouygh, the Western world took off like a steam powered rocket.  What 
>made the West more industrial then the East.  I don't know (in fact I'm 
>going to start researching that), but I agree that Christianity might have 
>had something to do with it.  But I think Christianity was one among many 
>factors