Post #14,436
10/21/01 11:34:32 AM
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Can't say that.
Islam is a religion for ignorant savages following tribal warlords. It is a leading religion of third world coutries because no Islamic country will ever make it out of the third world.
Islamic discoveries are what knocked the Church out of power in Europe, and spawned the Reinassance.
Accounting. Compasses, yadda yadda.
The currently *application* of Islam is just a tool for power, just as the Church used its influence in the middle ages to attempt to run things.
And even then, you've still got a *lot* of scientists exploring and praying to Mecca.
I've always considered Islam to be far *more* tolerant and encouraging of discovery than Christianity.
Christianity usually considers investigation into things as bad - there's no *need* to know that. (Witness the various fights over orbital theory, centers of universe, all the way to today's investigations into sub-cell mechanics). Of course, then Christianity is also more accepting of these, usually, once they pass into the "Normal" realm of things. I don't know of any Christians who think that the Earth is still the center of the Universe, and there are very few who have a problem with medical practices.
Islam, on the other hand, tends to consider knowledge a gift from Allah, so scholarship is to be pursued. Discovery, in the Islamic mind, enhances Allah's prestige, instead of destroys it. Finding out *how* Allah does something is wonderful, and its what people are *supposed* to do.
So the Tribal leaders, saying that they're against knowledge, isn't really a true measure of Islam.
But it quickly degenerates into the sort of thing "BUt that's not a REAL [follower of religion]". And thus, is harder to characterize.
Addison
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Post #14,440
10/21/01 12:36:11 PM
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Did this "Islamic Golden Age" ever extend . .
. . much beyond the courts of rulers so wealthy and powerful they did whatever they wanted? Was all this supported by police state repression far and wide (including unfriendly clerics)? I do not know this so I am open to convincing evidence in either direction.
Islam's response to the citizens of a conquered city who begged that their library be spared: "If what is in these books is not in the Koran, than it is false. If it is in the Koran, then it is redundant".
Of course there were damned few libraries left after Christianity had gone through the area. I do not intend my criticism of Islam to exhonerate Christianity or Judaism (upon which Islam was founded) for their own crimes against humanity.
As for the Renaisance, note the predominance of pagan themes in Renaisance art, not Islamic themes. Contributions from the courts of the Islamic rulers seem to be mostly "hard science" (mathematics, chemistry) which would be relatively safe.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #14,441
10/21/01 1:10:05 PM
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We're on the boundaries of my knowledge.
So I not an expert in the area.
Was all this supported by police state repression far and wide (including unfriendly clerics)?
I couldn't find a quick link discussing it, but many of the older libraries were protected by Muslims (or would have been, had not crusading christians burned them), so back then, Islam was by far more tolerant of other religions and writings, than say, the Church.
Islam's response to the citizens of a conquered city who begged that their library be spared: "If what is in these books is not in the Koran, than it is false. If it is in the Koran, then it is redundant".
Could be. Again, the distributed nature of Islam means its even harder than the middle age christian church to describe monotypically.
As for the Renaisance, note the predominance of pagan themes in Renaisance art, not Islamic themes. Contributions from the courts of the Islamic rulers seem to be mostly "hard science" (mathematics, chemistry) which would be relatively safe.
My dependancy was not that it was themed - but the fact that Islam was making discoveries that were potentially threatining, and they beat back the Crusades. The learning and discoveries spread from the east, westward.
Addison
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Post #14,548
10/22/01 10:18:53 AM
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I'm no expert either, but I'd like to put that another way:
Addison writes: I couldn't find a quick link discussing it, but many of the older libraries were protected by Muslims (or would have been, had not crusading christians burned them) ...or, IOW (and according to all we know from history): Of the few books that *did* survive the Middle Ages, most of them did so *despite* Christianity and *thanks to Islam*. Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
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Post #14,553
10/22/01 10:27:44 AM
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But...but....
aren't you the man that knows fucking everything???
: ducks.
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #14,555
10/22/01 10:35:37 AM
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Some stuff is so obvious, don't need to be Xpert to know it
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Post #14,454
10/21/01 5:25:50 PM
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I believe it did - a personal anecdote
First some background.
I don't know much about Islam. But in graduate school my officemate was a muslim from Pakistan, and we talked a little. So what I know is heavily influenced by that.
His claim is that Islam is a faith which repeats time and time again the message that knowledge is valuable. Believers should seek to learn, and seek to understand. In fact he quoted the Koran as part of his inspiration for why he wanted to learn more about math, and he said that the reason why Islam preserved so much knowledge from Roman times was that it held knowledge to be valued.
It is true that there are branches of Islam today which believe that all which is worth knowing is in the Koran. However his belief is that those branches are false both to what the Koran says, and to the history of Islam. (And they are false in other ways as well. For instance Islam preaches that believers are to respect and protect other "believers in the book". This is a duty which is inconsistently followed.)
For more on the specifics of what we owe to Islam, [link|http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/introduction/woi_knowledge.html|this page] seems to have a decent summary.
Cheers,
Ben
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Post #14,483
10/21/01 9:16:50 PM
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Surprised you didn't mention Al'Khwarizmi (~790-850 AD).
An Arab mathematician whose name is the source of the word algorithm. In 730 AD he wrote Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah, a treatise os solving quadratics. Al-jabr is where the word algebra comes from. His book about how the Hindus wrote down numbers (after later being translated to Latin) is why we call 0.1....9 Arabic numerals.
Alex
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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Post #14,487
10/21/01 9:49:47 PM
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Follow the link
I devoted my post to material and opinions that were not in it. :-)
Cheers,
Ben
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Post #14,499
10/21/01 10:09:12 PM
10/21/01 11:46:08 PM
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Indeed. I should have read more of the link.
May the manure of a thousand camels cover my grave. ;)
Alex
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Edited by a6l6e6x
Oct. 21, 2001, 11:46:08 PM EDT
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Post #60,737
11/2/02 1:13:55 PM
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3 to 1, 2, 1. Probability factor of 1 to 1
We have normality. I repeat, we have normality.
Anything you still can't cope with is therefor your own problem.
[link|http://193.15.117.36/~g736397/ram/hhgttg/px.ram|Please relax.]
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #60,762
11/2/02 3:04:41 PM
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^^ This is irritating ^^
-drl
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Post #60,803
11/2/02 8:13:29 PM
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If there had been enough time...
...I'm certain that the sperm whale would've come to the same conclusion.
Thud.
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #14,459
10/21/01 7:02:02 PM
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Re: Addison is making sense - you are not winning this arg
with the points being made - appears as bigotry
Cheers
Doug
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Post #14,479
10/21/01 9:10:29 PM
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But he is open to evidence.
That is an admirable trait.
I've learned a lot from this thread.
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Post #14,491
10/21/01 9:52:40 PM
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Interesting nugget
The booksellers street in Cadiz spain under the Sultan offered a whole street of texts, books in the thousands. The University of Paris had 12 books total at that time.
thanx,
bill
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
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Post #14,493
10/21/01 9:58:52 PM
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Re: But he is open to evidence - yes
he does - and we could do with more like him :-) Andrew is usually worth reading -
but he does seem to come across as a bit testy about Islam & Muslims :-)
Cheers
Doug
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Post #14,509
10/21/01 11:33:49 PM
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The point was deliberately inflamitory . .
. . to see what it would bring.
Many years experience with usenet and forums has taught me that a reasonable inquiry is unlikely to inflame sufficient passion to produce a useful response. Sorry to be manipulative, but what works, works.
Addison has provided very good information, which will take me a bit to digest.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #14,536
10/22/01 9:24:04 AM
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This is part of what made this thread interesting.
I suspected that you might be baiting in order to get an answer.
Apparently, some here have learned how not to add gasoline to an obvious fire.
There are some smart cookies here. There are also some folks here (not you Andrew) that love to inflame some of our community. I think I'm learning the difference between the many types of posters here. Some want to learn and share, a few want to bring anger and criticisim to the discussion.
Kudos to those that have shown compassion for the IWETHEY community members and ignored the obvious flamers. I hope these types can learn from the nice people here (or that they realize they are unwelcome and find another community to direct their hate at).
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Post #14,556
10/22/01 10:39:48 AM
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Oh yeah?
[insert random flaming insults here] and your mother too!
(you do know I'm just kidding, right?)
Don Richards,
Proud recipient of the ABBA.
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Post #14,559
10/22/01 11:11:54 AM
10/22/01 11:12:34 AM
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Are you sure
your last name isn't Zimbardo? :)
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
Edited by cwbrenn
Oct. 22, 2001, 11:12:34 AM EDT
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Post #14,544
10/22/01 10:04:42 AM
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Yup, AFAIK, it did.
Da Gryge: Did this "Islamic Golden Age" ever extend much beyond the courts of rulers so wealthy and powerful they did whatever they wanted? Yup; from all I've read about it, such tolerance and open-mindedness seems to have been, not an exception, but the rule. Was all this supported by police state repression far and wide (including unfriendly clerics)? No, from what I've gathered (in my admittedly scattered and not-very-deep reading), it wasn't. Why is it so hard for you to believe that they really were pretty good guys, a few centuries back? Has the current wave of general-demonization-of-Islam propaganda already had so much of an effect on you (all), or what? Islam's response... It isn't that monolithic; that's about as over-simplified as talking about "The Christian attitude to Jews" (or whatever). ...to the citizens of a conquered city who begged that their library be spared: "If what is in these books is not in the Koran, than it is false. If it is in the Koran, then it is redundant". Replace "Koran" with "Bible", and doesn't it look *exactly* like a corresponding mediaeval Christian statement? (And, hey, considering that we're only in the sixteenth century, by *their* reckoning, isn't it *appropriate* for them to be mediaeval right about now...? :-) On the whole, I think "If what is in these books is not in the Bible, than it is false. If it is in the Bible, then it is redundant" is more typical of Christianity, than "If what is in these books is not in the Koran, than it is false. If it is in the Koran, then it is redundant" is of Islam. Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
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Post #14,564
10/22/01 11:27:48 AM
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So, then, what happened?
(and don't think for a moment I consider Bible banging Christian fundamentalist thugs one bit better than any other sect of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic line of religions).
How did the Islamic world fall from intellectual dominance into the hell hole of ignorance it is today? It certainly wasn't defeated by the Christians.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #14,568
10/22/01 11:38:39 AM
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And when?
From all appearances, the Islamic golden age had been in decline for some time before the Renaissance was under way.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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Post #14,597
10/22/01 1:43:53 PM
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I am no scholar but...
I believe a combination of factors were at work. First of all there were internal factors, combined with external invasions. You had the Christian Crusades, then Ghengis Kahn, then Tamerlane and a resurgance of European power. Internally you had decadence and the growing ignorance of what the Koran said due to the fact that Arabic became less and less known to the general public. Judging by [link|http://users.erols.com/zenithco/decline1.htm|this lecture] on the topic, those combined with the internal decadence were the main problems that they see. (Incidentally that lecture contains a wonderful description of what the Arabic world was like at its height.)
However you then had several external factors that aren't so visible. First you had the great European voyages of discovery. Prior to those, the primary trading routes to the East went along the Great Silk Route, enrichening Islamic peoples on the way. But as it became cheaper for Europe to trade directly around the world, trade moved away from the expensive overland routes leading to an economic decline.
A second factor is a change in what you compare it to. An enlightened and prosperous society by the standards of 1000 AD is not so enlightened or prosperous by the standards of 1700, and it is downright downtrodden by the standards of 2000.
A third factor was Napoleon. From the Crusades to Napoleon, European military abilities progressed tremendously, but Europe continued to think of the Islamic world as much better than them militarily. Then Napoleon conquered Egypt without trouble and Europe realized how much things had changed. Very shortly thereafter you find European countries bullying the Islamic world pretty much at will. (Hence the famous comment about how sick the Ottoman Empire was - by size it was a great power, but even minor European countries were more powerful.)
Then we discovered the value of oil, and began playing games of realpolitik with their governments.
Cheers,
Ben
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