The French Revolution, besides being a war against the ruling class, was also a war against the Catholic Church as well as Christianity in general. Here is a Wikipedia article that might be of interest to many:
This is my personal take on the current world order and the cascading effects that caused it.
The victory of the American colonists over england and the formation of this country is the keystone of all that has happend.
Had the colonies lost. All of the leaders and property owners who financed the rebellion would have been killed or jailed. Slavery would have been abolished as that system allowed property owners to fight a war without any financial loss or risk as their farms were operated by slaves. The history of slavery as we know it would not have happened. No cival war to rip this country apart and set the racial divide. No liinchings, segregation, inequality, civil rights, ghettos. There would not be a separate canada.
There would not have been a western expansion of this country resulting in the near extermination of the native American population.
Had the american revolt failed the French would not have been emboldened to attempt to overthrow their king. No Jefferson or Franklin to encourage them. I will concede that a change was going to happen but I doubt it would have occurred right after the failed American revolt with all of the public executions, property confiscations, and slavery ended by that failed attempt. A more civilized shift of power would have been more likely. A constitutional monarchy like england would have been a more probable result.
Without the French revolution, there would have not been a rise of Napoleon as there would not have been starving masses to fill his armies.
Without Napoleon there would not have been a Congress of Vienna which united the small city states of Germany and Italy. The British wanted strong nations in Europe to counter a strong France and avoid more continental wars that they would have to sort out.
Without a strong German there would not have been a Franco-Prussian war, setting up trenches and armaments which led to the first world war. Modern weapons would not have developed as quickly.
Without the first world war there would not have been a Russian revolution and rise of communism. There would not have been a depression which led to Hitler rising to power promising prosperity and respect to the starving masses resulting in a second world war.
Without a second world war, there would not have been the development of nuclear weapons.
The US would be like Canada. Free health care. No wars in the middle east. No racial divide.
Oh why didn't we lose. Life would be far better if we had.
Oh please!!! Let's have another!!!
Let's do it here!!!
Sounds like a lot of it was mob action—a general grass-roots movement. I doubt there are those feelings here.
But anyway, you lead. I’m too old.
Note also that the rebellion against the churches didn’t wipe out Christianity in France. The Catholic Church was certainly made smaller and deprived of most of its power and wealth.
It seems Reason is a more terrifying God than the traditional ones.
“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
@AtheistReader I guess even Mark Twain can miss the point! Under the old terror, society would survive. Under the new terror, society was destroying itself from the inside. It simply had to stop and return to the older, less intense terror.
@brentan Not sure I agree with you, because I tend to think that the old and the new terrors are not independent of each other. I think it is the old terror that gave birth to the new. And the new changed the nature of the "old" terror. It isn't binary, and society goes through both evolutionary and revolutionary changes. Mark Twain's point was not to be afraid to effect changes, for the sake of the cold comfort of the slave's chains.
The French had a method for getting rid of people with mental disorders known as 'Ship of Fools'. Where those people who they were unable to cope with were put into a boat and sent down the river without paddles or a rudder - in the hands of God to look after.
During the French Revolution, during the Terror, all the clergy of Orleans(?) were placed on a boat with paddles or rudder. And then blown up! Where's your God now aye?