You'll have to remind me. Tell us more about these wonderful scientific advances Gandalf.

I do not think a single person here could name a single one of these wonderful scientific advances off the top of their head Karnal. As Gandalf keeps saying, you would have to dig up the old thread.

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 10:10am:

I strongly agree that history (i.e. a balanced view of history) is important in a debate like this.

What I believe history teaches us in this context is that the clinging and absolutist practise of religious dogma leads ultimately and inevitably to 'unenlightenment' (or, using a more religious metaphorical term - 'darkness of the soul').

My guess about the 'Golden Age of Islam' is that it was the result an Islamic population that was confident of itself, enough to apply Islam in a benign way as opposed to a fanatical and absolutist way. This is also true of the practise of Christianity... And history also bears this out. Could there have been anything more unenlightened, suicidal and a gross repudiation of the foundations of Western civilisation than to have closed Plato's Academy and to have promoted Christian dogma as the only texts worthy of study?

History also demonstrates that when religious texts (particularly their subsequent doctrinal dogma) are relied upon by a people as the sole source of authority and wisdom, then that society so constituted will decline (sometimes quickly othertimes slowly) into a dark age.

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Islam has always had a negative influence on the society it dominates. Despite being the largest land empire that had existed until then, living standards remained well below what they had been rpeviously in the west and what they were concurrently in the east. Gandalf's only counterargument to this is the Islamic empire did not capture any societies that already had high living standards.

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Ah, so you did. A way of making a straight line from circles. I apologise that it made no impression on me. Would you say this is at the top of your list of 20 Muslim golden age contributions to science?

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Because you don't want to revisit the embarassment of trying to justify the use of the term "golden age" to describe the emagre contributions of those Muslims to science?

freediver wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 7:02pm:


Because we'll have another 50 page thread which you will completely forget in a year or so and demand that I repeat the entire discussion again. You know, like you're doing now. Either that or you'll "recall" my arguments as insisting that gays must be killed for flaunting their sexuality mardi gras style - or some such.

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 7:57pm:


Or he’ll reference this thread in the Wiki as evidence the "Golden Age" never existed.

Get with the program, G. FD’s fully signed up to this. Some people learn harmonica, some knit, some tinker with machines. FD likes to tell porkies about the beliefs of awful tinted Muslims, and why not?

Freeeeedom, innit. We might not agree with what FD has to say, but we’ll fight to the death for his right to evade questions, no?

Other than the incorporation of western Europe into the Roman Empire, do you know what Europe was prior to the dark ages?

Here is a historical human development index. Guess where the "golden age" fits in?



What religion do you think was most cited by those who brought an end to slavery?