What's wrong with this picture? Pikachu wants to assure us the ancients weren't dumb (even though he insults them by claiming they were so dumb that the needed to "borrow" ideas of a sacred meal from each other). So he pops us a picture of Atlas "holding the Earth on his shoulder" -- only, he wants us to know, it was not the Earth that Atlas toted. Please be assured that the Greeks were not THAT dumb.

It was actually "the cosmos, the celestial spheres" he was holding up. Now doesn't that make the Greeks look so much smarter?

Well actually, that's not the point. This is part of a long-winded sermon Pikachu gives about how we have to "get beyond modern misconceptions" and see the universe as the ancients see it. As someone whose job has been to do just that for years, I agree. I also can say, because I have spent years doing it, that Pikachu is better at foisting modern misconceptions than just about any atheist, Skeptic, or agnostic I have ever run across.

What do I mean? We'll show that as we go along; but for example, it is clear that Pikachu has never heard of the ancient understanding of probabilities. I talk about that in some detail here. If he had known about it, he wouldn't make the silly mistake of posting pictures of imitative art (i.e., Jesus and Mary made to look like, i.e., Isis and Horus) because if he really knew ancient thought, he'd know that this was not a sign of religious copying (in either direction). It was part of the process of "advertising" and one-upsmanship that religions did.

At any rate, Pikachu gies us a few comments on ancient civilization; most of it isn't in need of comment, but we do have a few points to consider.

The Ignorants Pikachu assures us that for much of recorded history Europeans were a primitive bunch who passed through a dark age living in tribal villages, assisted by no real government, exploited by gangster lords, ignorant of the world beyond a day's walk of their dirt floored shacks. With no written language of their own they were illiterate, superstitious, afraid of witches, magic spells, and a thousand forest spirits. Life was brutal, ugly, short. Yes, it was. But it was the same in the Roman Empire for over 99% of the population, and that's something Pikachu fails to mention. For much of recorded history the vast majority of people in the Roman Empire were also a primitive bunch, who passed through a dark age living in tribal villages, assisted by no real government, exploited by wealthy patrons, ignorant of the world a day's walk beyond their dirt floored shacks. With no written language of their own they were illiterate (95-99% of them, actually), superstitious, afraid of capricious deities, malevolent spirits, and gruesome fate.

It was always so -- for the vast majority of ancient populations.

Pikachu tries to pull a fast one by making light of specific political advances (city states, nations, etc.) which he says provided "civic institutions" which brought stability and prosperity to millions. That's just plain bunk. It brought stability and prosperity to a tiny portion of the population -- less than 1% -- while the remaining people continued to live in comparably primtive conditions. Pikachu's "cosmopolitan cities" were overwhelmingly dark, dirty, crowded, and filled with disease. His "roads" were rare and were used mostly by Rome to make sure that they could get their military where it needed to be to quell any disturbances of the Pax Romana. His "travel" was rare and overwhelmingly limited to that 1% set, as were the "suburbs, learning, literature, drama, representative art, engineering, architecture, mathematics, philosophy" he cites. Put it another way: Life here was also nasty, brutish and short for the vast majority of the population -- just as it was in the "Dark Ages" (a term which has become increasingly less meaningful as more and more has been learned about the society to which it is often applied -- see relevant entries here). The average lifespan was only 35 in the Roman Empire. Don't let Pikachu get away with anything here -- the wonderful things he lists (like indoor plumbing) in an effort to make it sound like Rome was an era of high culture that was ruined by the snot-nosed Christian barbarians -- is a purposeful deception. At best 1% of the population may have had access to such wonders; that 1% didn't spread the wealth, as it were, to that extent; the vast majority of people got their water from the usual places -- community wells, rivers, and other such sources. The actual number who accrued any benefit from such things as indoor plumbing was exceedingly small.

I don't ordinarily use popular encyclopedias as sources, but I want to use this one to show just how badly out of touch Pikachu is: The period between the fall of Rome and the Industrial Revolution—from approximately ad 500 to 1500—is known as the Middle Ages. Contrary to a popular image, however, this period was not “dark,” isolated, or backward. In fact, greater technological advancements were made in this period than during the Greek and Roman eras. (In addition, the Byzantine and Islamic cultures that thrived during this period were active in the areas of natural philosophy, art, literature, and religion, and Islamic culture in particular made many scientific contributions that would be of great importance in the European Renaissance.) Medieval technologies do not fall into simple categories, however, because the technology of the Middle Ages was eclectic. Medieval society was highly adaptive, willing to acquire new ideas and methods of production from any source—whether the cultures of Islam and Byzantium, or China, or the far-ranging Vikings. You can see more about medieval innovations at the link.

We'll skip the rest of Pikachu's diatribe on ancient culture, which is mostly blatter about these culturally advanced ancients thinking that having sex at the temple with a stranger was some sort of duty. Very enlightened of them, I'm sure, especially when it came time to do service to the goddess Gonorrhea. We will have some comments on Pikachu's "Ancient Religion for Dummies" and "Ancient Religion Syncretism" (sic)].