[ClumsyPilot]

"think cultural legacy is more deeply intertwined with morals than people appreciate."

The cultural legacy of modern Europe is that of Renaissance, which is a partial rejection of many religious morals and practices we would find abhorrent today. Like burning heretics, astronomers and philosophers at the stake, witch hunts, etc.

People were put to death for translating the Bible into english from latin, mind you.

There was a re-discovery and embracement of great works antiquity, think ancient Greece.

[labster]

This reads like Renaissance era propaganda. It was mostly a reaction to existing social pressures which used the notion of the classics to promote change.

People did not go out and restart republics (for a couple centuries, which is a long time), nor bring back Aristotelian astronomy (rather the opposite), nor rituals of the old gods, nor rediscover ancient works that hadn’t been intentionally preserved by centuries of medieval scribes (papyrus lasts < 500 years in moist Europe). They reinterpreted the past. It was no longer “copy the procedures of the great doctor Galen”, it was “copy the curiosity”.

[ClumsyPilot]

> This reads like Renaissance era propaganda

The fact that we call the time when Church was at the peak of it's power 'Dark Ages' is a testament to success of Renaissance era propaganda

> People did not go out and restart republics

The french revolution?

[Godel_unicode]

Over 200 years after the end of the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, the French were too busy conducting the second deadliest religious war in European history after the 30 years war.