I also view my faith in a similar way, where made in this world and have to learn how to do things by ourselves, but every so often we need guidance as well. I just really like the metaphor Newton used with the watch and comparing ourselves to said watch.

lol I just love the fact that Galileo, even in death, hates the church and is supper petty.

It's interesting how many times the Bible has been translated into many different languages. But each time you translate something there will always be a little bit of nuance and word changes because most languages have words that don't translate well into another language. There's also different cultural aspects to think about, and the bible is an ancient, historical text, that if you don't fully understand what the culture and the people where like at that time there is going to be missing pieces in our understanding of the scripter. Also there's so many different versions of the bible, some of them where translated with an agenda in mind for personal gains. However, Luther translating the bible for the first time isn't %100 a bad thing, more people/cultures could relate and understand the bible better, the Catholic church over time stopped doing shady stuff like with the indulgences. Protestantism became a thing and while yes there was so much in fighting with the Catholic church and Protestants, (the protestants weren't saints, they did a lot of shady shit too over time) it has also connected millions of people together all around the world. So yah the Protestant reformation is supper interesting to me, along with learning about other religions.

I found this interesting that a Tsar of the Russian empire would personally go under cover and learn things from Europe. I'm sure he could have had someone else do it for him but the fact he did this by himself really shows character. I don't know much about him but considering he was called Peter the great, and did this, I think shows how much he care about his country and his people. But I could be wrong.

I wonder what led Zhu Di to overtake the throne. Was it out of greed, like in many cases through out history? Was his nephew an incompetent ruler and he felt that he had to step in? Maybe it was a combination of both? Idk I could love more context on why Zhu Di did what he did.

I never new that China had exposer to outside places by sides Rome, though now that I think about it makes since geography and with the time period.

I remember learning about this before and I've seen seen picture of the women's feet (without shoes on) and its absolutely heart breaking. It should have ended way before it ended around the 1911-1940's. I also remember a little bit about how they did the foot binding and it results in some much bending and breaking the bones, then binding them with cloth, it takes years so the girls had to start off young. again it just breaks my heart every time I think about it.

I remember vaguely in my eastern philosophy class about Confucius. He I believe lost his father young and grew up poor, even though he was originally a noble. He studied and started his school/teachings because of this discord around him, lots of political murders, wars, ect. He wanted order and morals brought back from the old Chinese classics. I doubled checked stuff to make sure I was getting my info right but let me know if I messed something up.

When I first read this, I started being curious about these Germanic tribes. Who were these people? What was their culture like before they had to flee from Attila the Hun? I also noticed the wording, “The city of Rome itself fell to the barbarians.” Why are these people who destroyed the city of Rome called “barbarians?” Where the “barbarians” the same Germanic tribes that escaped the Huns? I don’t know about others, but I personally find the term “barbarians” both vague and kind of insulting. But that's just a personal bias of mine.

Another thing I found interesting is that this population crisis occurred over 150,000 years ago. Our professor said we don’t fully understand how this population crisis happened, which makes it even more intriguing. Was it a plague that caused the population decline? Was it because of climate conditions or some other environmental impact? I just find this interesting to think about.

I find it interesting how our understanding of the agricultural revolution has changed over the years. We as humans tend to think about history, and really a lot of things, in a chronological order. We’ve learned over the years that it isn’t always the cause, especially in our understanding of pre-written eras.