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Is religion making us all stupid ?

psychoslice

psychoslice

Veteran Member
omega2xx said:
I don't have to. That is the way I post. If you don't like it you have a solution. At least I have something outside of myself to reinforce what I believe.
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Yes that is your belief, for personally I don't have a particular belief system of any kind, truth cannot be packaged and held in an institution called relgoion.
 
Dawnofhope

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
JakofHearts said:
I'm just gonna echo what I have already pointed out before:

I kind of put the Islamic "golden age" into the category of the 'Age of the Barbarians'. After the fall of Rome, Europe was in a weaken state of internal strife, and the Muslims merely took advantage of it as did other barbarians, (i.e. the Vikings, Franks, Visigoths, etc). With historians like Voltaire (a known critic towards the Catholic Church), were always quick to point out the contrasts between a weakened Western Civilization and Islam which was basically where this 'Islamic golden age' narrative came from.

During this time 750-1260AD, the rise of Islam was due to constant battles and war with Europe and the now extinct Sassanid Empire. Historically, Muslims dominated 1/3 of the Mediterranean and put it's conquered cultures under heavy submission or death; and culminated a monopoly in slavery, a not largely known fact that Muslims captured over a million European Christians and brought them into the slave quarters of Islam. And slavery of children still openly exists in some Muslims countries today.

The reason why Islam had a "golden age" was because they conquered a lot of territory and would bring intellectuals from all different cultures together. There were some good things that happened when these different cultures were brought together, by force as it were, in Iraq. One of the things that came out of the golden age was the philosophy that there is no cause-and-effect, and that there are no natural laws. Pretty pseudo-scientific thinking considering science is based on the search for natural laws and is based upon cause-and-effect.

Another aspect of what was supposed to be so good about this Islamic golden age was they preserved all the Greek and Roman material. They did not preserve it at all! They only preserved certain parts of it which was useful for them. They didn't save any of the literature or the art. And as a matter of fact, they destroyed 90% of what they found. Why is that saving 10% of the intellectual treasure of the classical period called a golden age? What are we to call the Greek and Romans who preserved 100% of it?

When one critically looks at the history of Islam you quickly see a pattern of another conquest epic, which revisions of history deem as the same as a golden age.
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Modern historians have a much more positive view of Islam's contribution to science, the arts, and civilisation. Some historians would consider that Middle Ages Europe owed more to Islam than any other contempory source. The sheer breath and depth of knowledge and skills is beyond anything that I'm able to concisely portray on RF.

Islamic Golden Age - Wikipedia

Islam would be much more appropriately compared to Christianity and Judaism, than the Visigoths or Vikings. All 3 are Abrahamic Faiths, with a belief in monotheism, a Manifestation of God or Holy Man who has brough forth a revelation from that One God, and sacred text that with some degree of authenticity represent Their Teachings. These sacred texts have been the inspiration intellectually as well as spiritually that have stimulated the arts and sciences. In each instance there has been a flowering of civilisation.

Is it fair for a Christian to compare Muslims to barbarians because they have have conquered weakened lands when Christian history is full of such wars and conquests? How does Christian civilisation rate in regards to human slavery? Do the Teachings of Jesus or the Apostles explicitly forbid slavery? In regards to rediscovering the antiquities the Muslims readily recognised the treasure they had and made use of it. How about Christian institutions who clearly struggled for centuries with science, especially when it challenged orthodox belief. How tolerant were the Christians to other cultures or even other Christians, for example during the crusades?

I'm admittedly just a student of history but it appears that Islam had a golden age when Western Europe had the relative darkness of the middle ages.
 
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omega2xx

Well-Known Member
psychoslice said:
Yes that is your belief, for personally I don't have a particular belief system of any kind, truth cannot be packaged and held in an institution called relgoion.
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You do have a belief system. You advertise it in your heading. The problem is when it comes to spiritual truth, you have no way to reinforce your system. Of course truth can be packaged and held in an institution, if it has that truth from God, not from themselves. If there is no God there is no spiritual truth.
 
David T

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
psychoslice said:
Yes there is a lot of evidence that religion is certainly making us stupid, just look at the world today, what the......is happening, we all seem to be going backwards, so yes, what do you think, are we getting more stupid, I believe we are.
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Literacy is making us stupid.
 
O

omega2xx

Well-Known Member
psychoslice said:
Yes there is a lot of evidence that religion is certainly making us stupid, just look at the world today, what the......is happening, we all seem to be going backwards, so yes, what do you think, are we getting more stupid, I believe we are.
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Do you really not understand that is a lack of religion that is making us stupid. For about 40 years, Christianity has steadily declined and bad behavior has increased substatntially?
 
psychoslice

psychoslice

Veteran Member
omega2xx said:
You do have a belief system. You advertise it in your heading. The problem is when it comes to spiritual truth, you have no way to reinforce your system. Of course truth can be packaged and held in an institution, if it has that truth from God, not from themselves. If there is no God there is no spiritual truth.
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It depends on what you mean by god, which can be just about anything.
 
psychoslice

psychoslice

Veteran Member
omega2xx said:
You do have a belief system. You advertise it in your heading. The problem is when it comes to spiritual truth, you have no way to reinforce your system. Of course truth can be packaged and held in an institution, if it has that truth from God, not from themselves. If there is no God there is no spiritual truth.
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So truth to you is just words written by someone's hearsay ?.
 
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