MDs, Islam, Medievalism & the Enlightenment

[cybercoma]

Obsessed much? You mentioned me twice in a reply to another poster. Get over yourself.

[Bonam]

There will be no Reformation in Islam. There will only be victory or defeat.

I don't know if expecting that either victory or defeat will ever happen is realistic.

Victory for Islam would mean the conversion or dhimmitude of the entire world. Thing is though, while for now the West is just sitting around and being tolerant, once they really feel threatened by Islam, they will fight back. It will be later than it should have been, and the resulting conflict will be much bloodier than it had to be (just like WWII), but it'll happen. And if/when it does, the Western powers will almost certainly be victorious. Not to mention that to achieve victory, Islam would also have to spread to places like China, Russia, etc, and those countries would be much quicker in taking off the gloves and blowing the hell out of the middle-east and other places.

As for defeat.. how would you define that? If it means the failure of Islamic states and Islamic civilization, then we can clearly see that Islam has spent the last few hundred years defeated. But it's still around. Defeat could only be the extermination or conversion away from Islam of all Muslims, the destruction of all Islamic institutions and physical symbols of Islam, the sustained occupation for generations of all Muslim lands and a relentless campaign to eliminate all information about Islam and to purge it from the memory of the peoples of the world, and that's something that the West would never allow to happen, even at the end of a terrible conflict.

So I don't think that either total victory or defeat for Islam are likely outcomes. I think it's just going to stay there, in various degrees of conflict with other cultures for a given amount of time, until people get tired of fighting over it. Or maybe they will never tire of it, and the conflict will continue for as long as humanity exists. After all, the people of the lands that now make up the Islamic world and the people of the lands that now make up the West have been fighting each other for a good 3000 years at least already. In all those millenia of conflict, neither side has ever achieved total victory over the other, and not for lack of trying.

[jbg]

Not one western discovery was siezed upon by Islam, and in fact western discoveries were explicitely excluded as the work of the infidel and thus tainted.

Wrong. Dynamite, gunpowder, and airplane pilot controls were.

[jbg]

Islam today, 14 centuries after its birth, is virtually unchanged and even regressive, and the Islamic world's main export is gnashing of teeth and "seething."

A bit of history about the Muslims is in order.

During the pre-Muslim era, the wanton and vicious habits of the desert people of the area from Egypt through Saudi Arabia is well known, and memorialized in the oral history contained in the Bible. The stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the binding of Isaac (by negative implication the ritual child sacrifice among neighboring peoples), the purposeless plugging with sand of water wells dug by Abraham and Isaac are but some examples. The wickedness and idolatry prevalant in these areas, along with sexual perversion and violence, existed well before Islam and the fault for them must be laid at the door, not of Islam, but of local "cultures".

Islam's extremely violent start is also well known. Their virtually unhindered spread from the Mecca area to the Atlantic and to the borders of modern India occurred largely at the point of a sword. There were, during those early years, some constructive developments. In many areas, intellectually, they were ahead of Europe, then in the "Dark Ages". They were more tolerant of Jews and Christians than Christians were of Jews and Muslims. At least "dhimmitude" allowed survival, under conditions of degradation and financial servitude.

Their predatory habits on the trade of other peoples is also well-known. One of the great impetuses for the development of shipping was the need to avoid travel through mortally dangerous Muslim lands en route to the Far East. Later, the Barbary Coast pirates and pirates off modern-day Somalia, all Musims, made theft from Europeans (and eventually Americans) and the "white slave" trade an art form. Then as now, it took the Americasns to crack down rather than pay tribute.

Since then, the Barbary Coast Pirates have morphed into OPEC (all of the money benefits the rulers, not the people), the UN, and disaster-milking. Remeber those pitiful faces on ads for charities after the Indonesia tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake? How much rebuilding do you think has really happened? Then as now, there are producers, and there are extorters and takers. After the Holocaust, an undisputed atrocity, its victims picked themselves up, and are now valuable contributors to the world wherever they live.

Did (do) they have cause to be "angry" with the butchers that killed 6,000,000 of them? Where are their suicide bombers? Where are the Americans attacking bazaars in Araby after September 11? Where's the anger of the non-Muslim world against Muslims? Instead of anger, you see the Michael Moores of the world prattling about "negotiations".

[jbg]

I think progress, especially scientific and technological progress, occured in step with the decline of religious power. When Christianity had as strong a hold on the population in Europe as Islam currently has in some middle-eastern countries, those European countries were also very stagnant and averse to scientific progress.

Brilliant post Bonam!

The hold of religion, except among Chasids, never seemed to retard the Jews scientifically.

[jbg]

So I don't think that either total victory or defeat for Islam are likely outcomes. I think it's just going to stay there, in various degrees of conflict with other cultures for a given amount of time, until people get tired of fighting over it. Or maybe they will never tire of it, and the conflict will continue for as long as humanity exists. After all, the people of the lands that now make up the Islamic world and the people of the lands that now make up the West have been fighting each other for a good 3000 years at least already. In all those millenia of conflict, neither side has ever achieved total victory over the other, and not for lack of trying.

If the Muslims were geographically isolated as they were up to WW I I'd agree, they could remain in the sloughs of misery and be stagnant. Their violent interactions with the more advanced West will, I fear, force a resopnse that will cause an incredible loss of life.

I don't see much hope for a way around it.

[sharkman]

I think progress, especially scientific and technological progress, occured in step with the decline of religious power. When Christianity had as strong a hold on the population in Europe as Islam currently has in some middle-eastern countries, those European countries were also very stagnant and averse to scientific progress.

This is nonsense. Great Britian, a christian nation, became a great empire, using technology and science of the day. How about France? Spain? The U.S. is decidedly Christian, and has led the way in science the last 100 years.

at any rate, the world will have to deal with Islam's followers who want world domination sooner or later. At the end of the day, whether the extremism comes from superstition or main stream Islam doesn't change the problem.

[Moxie]

It's not the West that needs to change it's idiology it is Radical Islamist that live in Medieval times. Many Muslims who lived in England for twenty/forty years are being singled out as "Not Muslim Enough" and face daily harrassment we need to join forces globally with them and make our governments accountable for denying them a SAFE voice in public debate. To speak out about Radical Islam if you are muslim is like putting a Moose outfit on in NFL during hunting season. You will be a target.

I really enjoyed your long post jbg but didn't want to hit the quote button lest I offend.

[jbg]

I really enjoyed your long post jbg but didn't want to hit the quote button lest I offend.

You won't offend me. It's not borrowed content.

I wrote it.