Poll: Do you agree or disagree the Western World is the child of ancient Greece?

Question

1.) American President Lyndon B. Johnson, said: "The Western World is the child of Greece...what we are and how we feel today is linked to what happened in a little Greek city 2400 years ago." See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=26036 .

2.) American President George H.W.Bush, said: "Eisenhower was right to say, the spirit of the West, the modern spirit, is a Greek discovery," http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=19799&st=greece&st1= .

3.) American President William J. Clinton, said: "Two thousand five hundred years ago, the birth of democracy in Greece ushered in one of the true golden ages of Western civilization." See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=62396&st=&st1= .

Answer 1

As far as politics is concerned, yes, I do think that the modern world is the child of ancient Greece.  Before Greece (and long after) the two models of government were dictatorship and monarchy.  Greek democracy (although aristocratic in itself) brought down the hierarchy that governed the rest of the world and implemented civic participation in lawmaking and choosing leaders as a truly novel idea.  Although some would say that representative democracy is different than the direct democracy of the Greeks, and therefore it is not the same, I disagree.  I think that the general idea came from the Greeks and the districts of the Roman Empire set up the federalism that would soon come with it.  Culturally, I would say Greek philosophers have given us a world view that has been nearly rejected or completely modified to coincide with more important Christian theology.  Of course, mathematically and scientifically, Greece, along with the Middle East and other parts of the world, contributed a large part to the basis of the knowledge of the modern world.  OK.  Now go write your essay.    

Answer 2

The western world is the child of Egypt, not Greece. I have believed this all my life and recently found proof of this by studying ancient art works.  Art will tell you everything if you know how to read it.  

Answer 3

True to a point, for the ancient Greeks did usher in the birth of democracy and did a pretty d**n good job, but I would say we are the continuum of the Roman Empire, from its birth as it is also an out growth of the ancient Greeks.  They took the Western Civilization much further, boarder and faster, now, we hold the torch, will it die in our hands or can we break away from the constraints of those civilizations that would see the Western Civilization finally buried in the ashes that one where....I wonder.  The West is dying under secularism can it be stopped.