Muslims...tell me something nice about your religion

A Muslim introduced the concept of zero to Europe. That's pretty damn huge.

 

Islamic culture has contributed greatly to art, architecture, medicine, education, maths & sciences, economy, etc..., many of those before the West. However, that has nothing to do with the religion.

The irony is that the West has taken those advancements from Islam and passed the Islamic world. Meanwhile Islamic world has lagged behind and has regressed across the board.

 

Pretty tough to say culture has nothing to do with religion.

 

Not really. Not in the context of my point. Which was it could have been any religion, any god, any belief, no belief, etc... and those advancements would have been created regardless. The Islamic/Koran canon had nothing to do with it.

Back then, that region of the world had tremendous scholars of all disciplines. That's the shame because education and scholarly work from the area now is regressing to the stone age.

But not surprised by your response because most religious people refuse to see all the evil religions have done and instead focus on all of the good they have done. But the good is a ruse. Why, because all of the technological advancements across all disciplines would have happened regardless and most definitely earlier in human history. All religions severely stunted and in some cases stopped advancements. Religions should get or take any credit for good.

 

First, I'm an atheist.

Next, I don't agree that the Blue Mosque and the Grand Mosque would have come into existence without religion, or under some other religion. (Cf. the post you replied to, which is "the context of your point.")

Third, I disagree about the technological advances. You know, a thousand years ago, the random person was not well equipped to make technological discoveries. Like today, discoveries generally required resources, money, books, things like that. Books in Europe used to be printed on sheepskin and they were copied by hand, by monks usually. Pretty expensive and rare. How many people do you think could engage in technological research back in the year 1000? No money, no books, no translations of books (English barely even existed back then), illiterate, no time for hobbies, etc. For better or worse, religion played the R&D role that government does today, in large part. It was the only game in town.

 

Not those buildings specifically but other great buildings in their place.

So how do you explain Sumerian Code (laws), Egyptian Texts (history), The Book of the Dead (funerary instructions), The Code Of Hammurabi (law), Epic of Gilgamesh (poetry), etc...? None of these are religious canon. In fact, some of the first written texts had nothing to do with religion. Most were either codes, law, or historical.

Technological advances came from scientific based philosophy, like that of Aristotle, which eventually led to The Enlightenment. Religions should not get credit for that just because they were in power (rule) during that period of history. Like I said, would have happened anyway and probably quicker.

 

IPA, you're moving the goalposts. Above is the "context of your point." Every example you named cannot possibly have played a role in "preserving knowledge from Rome and the classical periods," and I don't think they influenced mosque architecture either. Further, some of these things you mention were even written on stone tablets! How many people do you think had practical access to those?

I totally agree on the importance of literature, being an English Lit Ph.D. and all. I'm just talking about the reality of what happened in history. Religious institutions were the most invested in literacy, and they had the resources to promote it, which they did.

 

He would have painted something else just as beautiful. Not sure why you guys think nothing in the world would have happened if religions didn't exist. It's mind boggling to me. The world would have gone on just as it does now with religion becoming more insignificant every day.

And btw..., I would easily give up every religious work of art if that meant the inquisition, the crusades, Galileo's imprisonment, latin translation of the bible(commoners couldn't read it lol), forced conversions, religious cleansing's, etc... never happened.

None of that is worth some nice art. You disagree?

 

Like translate the bible into Latin so no one could read it except the priests. You know knowledge is power and we can't let the commoners have access to that knowledge.

I want to be clear, I'm not saying religions haven't done any good. To the contrary, they've done a lot of good. What I'm saying is that all the good they've ever done doesn't come close to the damage they have and continue to do to this day. So yes I would trade all of the good they have done if that meant wiping out all of the damage they have caused. Net positive for the world and humanity minus some nice buildings and art of course. If religion was a checking account we'd have some deposits (good) but the balance would be red (bad).

 

I have some background on this from architecture and art history and also doing research for projects in Islamic countries. There is actually is a direct tie to the religion and to the nature of Islamic art and architecture. The basic mosque design is based upon Mohamed's house so some of the particulars of great buildings like the Mosque at Cordoba's colonnade are specifically derived from the religion. The prohibition against figurative display in Islam is why Islamic art and architecture developed some of the most complex uses of geometric patterns and abstraction. Also the importance of understanding the movements of the Sun and Moon for prayer times and Ramadan helped to fuel mathematics and astronomy in the Islamic world. Besides the religion Arabs were at the crossroads of the ancient Eastern and Western world as traders had a big interest in math and astronomy for navigation reasons.

This is true but the same also applies to China and the Far East where for much of human history China was the most advanced and prosperous nation in the World, while other Asian civilizations were flourishing while the West was floundering in the Dark ages. By the 18th Century all of that had changed.

 

Part of this though though is that for the vast majority of human history there was no distinction between religion, culture, history, philosophy, state and even science. The concept of the separation of church, state and other institutions is really something that has only really existed since the Enlightenment. In nearly all ancient cultures the state's power was derived from religious mandate and the keepers of knowledge of history and physical phenomena were religious figures.

 

Actually, using Latin made everything more readable, because Latin was known across Europe by the educated, even to the time of the Shakespeare. Modern languages had not even emerged, so Latin was the "international" language of science. Commoners didn't even know how to read. I mean, we're not expecting the church to set up public schools instead of the king, are we? You know, some people accused of crimes even had their lives spared simply for the fact that they knew how to read!

In fact, I am pretty anti-religion myself. But I stand by my original claim that it's very difficult to separate culture from religion. Now I have to go to dinner. Perhaps I will write a nice boring post on the tie between culture and religion in modern American society after a couple hours.

 

You did right. Thanks.
I hope more of the likes you would come out of the woodwork.

 

Hmm ..there are 3 common myth ..even some Muslims they think it's true.

No one married a 6 years old , it was impossible if you can count., she was more of 15-18 years old .

Here is more on this subject
http://www.muslim.org/islam/aisha-age.htm

And for the famous 72 virgins. (Though some schoolers think it's true,) there is no mention to these 72 in Quran or Hadeeth .i think human nature created this false image.

3rd , Islam actually spread in larger geographical places with a message of peace than wars, like most parts in Asia . By contrast, there were less harm done. Y the name of Islam than Christianity or any other religion .

4th, 90% of terroir's victims actually are Muslims .when they kill Muslims it considered part of their culture, when they kill other, then it's their savage nature.


Here is what Buddhist do to muslim on Burma
[youtube]MHJ47OL-Pf0[/youtube]

Here how China treat muslim in occupied Uyghur land
[youtube]5UjfyEle1h8[/youtube]

Here is Muslim persecution in Central Africa

[youtube]jRKNdN0_K_k[/youtube]


The list goes on and on , India ,Palastain ,Russia etc but oh it's Muslims' fault

And what add salt to injures those F...terrorist group in name of Islam helping igniting further hate , though ISLAM IS FORBIDDEN TO KILL ANY CIVILIAN EVEN AT WAR
http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/islamic-forbids-terrorism.html

 

Sigh... Is this the go to page to attempt a rebuttal to the WELL ESTABLISHED age of Aisha's age during consummation? I've been linked that same page many times by relatives and online apologists. I've read that page many times from many apologists linking the exact same page.

Two things:
One of the premises of the article basically is "This happened in history thus it can never be determined at a point of certainty" which can be applied to ANY historical assertion.

The source of the rebuttal comes from Maulana Muhammad Ali. All rhetoric that suggests that AIsha's age was that of a teenager points to this man. He was the first to bring it up in the early 1900's. I would suggest doing some light research on the man before you propagate more of his assertions. Let's just say he is in conflict with almost all of mainstream sunni scholars which all conceded that the age of her consummation was 9 years of age which has been cited in MULTIPLE sources.

Sahih al-Bukhari 3896
Sahih al-Bukhari 5158
Sahih Muslim 3310
Sahih Muslim 3311
Sunan Abu Dawud 2116
Sahih al-Bukhari 3895
Sahih al-Bukhari 5081
Sahih al-Bukhari 3894
Sahih al-Bukhari 2581
Sahih al-Bukhari 2967
Sahih al-Bukhari 6130

These are all hadith that mention Aisha's age of consummation before the age of 10. There is no Islamic source that suggests that the age of consummation of Aisha was that of a teenager. Maulana Muhammad Ali's arguments are based in pure conjecture and WISHFUL THINKING. He had clear motive also as he was one of the first Muslims who started missionaries to attempt to convert westerners who had a distaste for Muhammad due to his notoriety for having sex with a child. The argument for Aisha's age of consummation as a teenager only began after an attempt by individuals such as Maulana Muhammad Ali to convert westerners as Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures were fine with child marriages, but by the 20th century the West found it morally reprehensible. All assertions of Aisha's age being greater than 10 started with that man in the early 1900's. No scholar ever contested it before. Pretty much all Sunni Scholars agree it was 6 when the marriage happened, and 9 when it was consummated. Convenient that the narrative to push Aisha's age to an older age happens when the West's cultural norms shifted to sex with children under 15 being morally reprehensible. That should be a red flag for you since in this case the evidence followed wishful thinking. Credible assertions should follow evidence not lead it.

Most Muslims believe in the age for Aisha being 6 because that's what most if not almost all Sunni Scholars believe and why wouldn't they as almost every Islamic source suggests it.

 

Again dodge and deflect...

He married and slept with a girl under 10 years old, deal with it and accept it.

 

It's amazing what you think of other people may thinks

Quran never changed ,it's the same book was 1400years ago, but when it comes to Hadeeth ,it's a bit different story.

Albohkari was a schooler who lived near what China nowadays ,went on a 16 years journey to collect the most accurate Hadeeth.(194years after the death of Mohhamed), which must be very hard to do without Google

He gathered over 70,000 Hadeeth , he selected only 7500 Hadeeth, to be extremely accurate , then the list got further shorter to 3000 Hadeeth considered accurate, (that's less than a 23% accuracy ) .

Most of his weak or questionable Hadeeths record were added when he was quite old (75-82). Add to this the way he gathered Hadeeths were extremely difficult to sustain a reliable source ie , specially after years

Ayisha was and still a controversial person, her opponents made many harsh personal allegation on so many topics not excluded only to her age , so it's much easier to measure her age compared to Asma.

Asma is the oldeer sister of Ayisha who was 10 years older, she was 28yeads old when her sister got married. She reached the age of 100 before she died. There is many research paper on this matter and you seem not to like much

 

Go with your imaginary women and downtown office with many white friends