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There's nothing inherently wrong with being religious, I think the major problem is fundamentalism: if you consider your Holy Book (be it the Koran, the Bible o

by rob74 6y ago

There's nothing inherently wrong with being religious, I think the major problem is fundamentalism: if you consider your Holy Book (be it the Koran, the Bible or whatever else), or even more commonly a narrow interpretation of it, as the single source of truth and condemn all who deviate from it, that's a recipe for stagnation. That happened in Europe in the Middle Ages, and it's happening in the Arabic world now.

sangnoir 6y ago
> That happened in Europe in the Middle Ages... This is a common misconception - the church was fundamental to the development of the scientific methods, and a long list of scientific contributors were men(and was almost exclusively men) of faith[1]. To do ground-breaking science, you had to have free time and this meant you had to be independently wealthy, or had benefactor (e.g. church) sponsor your upkeep. I suspect clergy and peerage are overrepresented in science because everyone else had to work the fields (or boats) and upward mobility wasn't yet a thing. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scient...
DSingularity 6y ago
You are right and you are wrong. What’s happening in the Arabic world is far from this. What’s happening in the Arab world is a continuation of existing European and US foreign policy which seeks to maintain the low cost of energy by ensuring that the Middle East remains subjugated. It has to be the entire Middle East to ensure that those Saudis never look up and demand to be free. Instead they keep pumping that oil and selling it on the global market.
- cbnotfromthere 6y ago
  You are entitled to your own opinions but you're not entitled to your own facts. The history of fighting and division between Arabs / Muslims starts almost immediately after the death of Prophet Mohamed. The Arabs have been colonized for many hundreds of years by the Ottoman Turks. When mentioning "existing European and US" you avoid any mention of URSS and current Russia. Basically you wrote an ideological rant that's fact-free.

by rob74 6y ago

sangnoir 6y ago

> That happened in Europe in the Middle Ages... This is a common misconception - the church was fundamental to the development of the scientific methods, and a long list of scientific contributors were men(and was almost exclusively men) of faith[1]. To do ground-breaking science, you had to have free time and this meant you had to be independently wealthy, or had benefactor (e.g. church) sponsor your upkeep. I suspect clergy and peerage are overrepresented in science because everyone else had to work the fields (or boats) and upward mobility wasn't yet a thing. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scient...

DSingularity 6y ago

You are right and you are wrong. What’s happening in the Arabic world is far from this. What’s happening in the Arab world is a continuation of existing European and US foreign policy which seeks to maintain the low cost of energy by ensuring that the Middle East remains subjugated. It has to be the entire Middle East to ensure that those Saudis never look up and demand to be free. Instead they keep pumping that oil and selling it on the global market.

cbnotfromthere 6y ago
You are entitled to your own opinions but you're not entitled to your own facts. The history of fighting and division between Arabs / Muslims starts almost immediately after the death of Prophet Mohamed. The Arabs have been colonized for many hundreds of years by the Ottoman Turks. When mentioning "existing European and US" you avoid any mention of URSS and current Russia. Basically you wrote an ideological rant that's fact-free.