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Islam strangled western civilisation (Read 3074 times)
freediver
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Islam strangled western civilisation
May 14th, 2017 at 9:06am
 
...

http://www.ozpolitic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Islamic_Incest_Ratchet#Rates_of_in...

With the exception of Spain and Israel, these lands remained under the yoke of Islam. Historically, they were the most advanced civilisation on earth. Farming began in Iraq about 10000 years ago. From there, the centre of western civilisation moved to Iran, several Egyptian cities and Rome before Islam came on the scene. Despite very long and deep boom and bust cycles associated with the rise and fall of past empires, western civilisation always remained ahead of the next most advanced civilisation in China, which kicked off about 2000 years later and until recently remained about that far behind.

Historian Ian Morris has quantified historical human social development, using 5 different measures that roughly equate to standard of living. Different measures tend to produce consistent results. This is what he came up with:

...

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/heavy-legacies-our-past.html#measuring

The Caliphate swept to power following the collapse of the Roman Empire and another decline in living standards. Despite holding the largest land empire that ever existed, it did nothing to improve living standards. This would normally be inevitable, merely by virtue of establishing a massive free trade zone out of disparate warring kingdoms, and the empire also profited significantly by straddling the growing east-west trade route. Whatever benefits were inevitable from such a large empire were undermined by Islam itself. Rather than bettering the human condition, or allowing people to better themselves, all spare effort went into imposing Islam on the population.

Thus, the first time China pulled ahead of western civilisation was during the Song dynasty in China and the Caliphate. The Chinese reached similar living standards to those of the Romans. From there, the definitions of west and east start to break down. Islam kept it's stranglehold on the west. What was once the most advanced civilisation on earth is today one of the most backwards. The west came to be redefined as Europe and it's new-world offshoots. France and Britain only saw settled civilisation when they came into the Roman Empire. The wandering tribes of Germany were never subdued by them. What was until very recently the fringe of western civilisation came to be redefined as the west. This fringe narrowly escaped being dragged into the Caliphate, and it was from this fringe that the new west sprung. It was not until well into the industrial revolution that the west regained and quickly surpassed the living standards of the Romans. Today, the distinction between west and east is losing it's meaning as a new global economy emerges. The world moves on. Meanwhile, the region that was for most of our history the most advanced human civilisation remains a backwater of religious oppression, being dragged kicking and screaming into the 19th century.

Muslims like to blame the backwardness of the middle east and north Africa on recent "western interference," without any appreciation or even awareness of the irony. Had the Caliphate held onto Spain and succeeded in taking the rest of Europe, Europe today would probably look a lot like north Africa. Probably a whole lot worse, given the influence of Europe on the region. When the conquest of Europe faltered, Muslims spent many centuries raiding Europe and the rest of Africa for slaves. The trade in female sex slaves was key to the Caliphate economy, military and the spread of Islam. The western interference that Muslims complain about so much was largely based on ending those slave raids, which had depopulated the coastline of much of southern Europe. This task could not be completed until the Americans arrived on the scene. Once that was done, the interference continued in consistent pressure to end slavery in Muslim countries. This task is barely complete, with some Muslim countries banning slavery early this century. Slavery is still common, and by this I mean genuine slavery, not the whiny-little-bitch "why do I have to get out of bed in the morning" slavery that hippies often complain about today. Of course, ISIS is doing its best to ramp up Islamic sex slavery once more.

Muslims the world over complain bitterly about Israel, a beacon of freedom and democracy in one of the most backwards places on earth, where even Arab Muslims get more rights and more say in government than they do in neighbouring countries. They cannot wait for the new democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan to fail. Abu even complained about the Muslims getting kicked out of Spain and insists that like Israel, it will inevitably be retaken. Further east, the largest Muslim population centres in Indonesia and Malaysia - countries that Gandalf and his merry band of apologists like to hold up as progressive Islamic nations - show worrying signs, despite only being under the yoke of Islam for a far shorter period of time. Indonesia recently jailed the governor of Jakarta for blasphemy, despite the fact he did not actually insult Islam. Malaysia actively discriminates in favour of Muslims and pressures non-Muslims into converting. One state recently passed the death penalty for apostasy into law, only being saved by the federal constitution.
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #1 - May 14th, 2017 at 9:10am
 
polite_gandalf wrote on May 7th, 2017 at 7:10pm:
freediver wrote on May 3rd, 2017 at 7:06pm:
Quote:
The measure I just gave you proves you wrong. Iraq went from wasteland to the intellectual centre of the world with possibly the largest city in the world - built from scratch by the muslims.


Islam achieved the same thing that the Romans did nearly a millenia earlier Gandalf. The best it could do was imitate the greatness of earlier civilisations or contemporary non-Muslim civilisations. Islam only compares well if you leave out the history of non-Muslim society.

Why did you bother responding but not addressing that point Gandalf? Are you going to keep pretending I didn't say it?


I addressed your BS claim that everything Islam took it 'strangled'. By definition, this means taking places that were in one state, and making them into a worse state. Its a simple statement of fact that this is not the case for Baghdad - or Cordoba, or Cairo - all three cities which were built from scratch, and became the greatest centres of learning of its time. All three were the very opposite to being "strangled" under Islam. Simple statement of fact FD. You can't dispute this, and are not even trying. Instead you make some irrelevant argument about the Islamic lands not being as good as it was when another empire controlled it hundreds of years earlier - and conveniently ignoring what happened to these places in the years between Rome's decline and Islam's takeover.


polite_gandalf wrote on May 13th, 2017 at 9:24pm:
freediver wrote on May 7th, 2017 at 7:54pm:
So this is the example you chose - creating new cities? Do you think this had never been done before?


No FD, building cities that became great cultural and intellectual centres of its time certainly has been done before. The difference is, no one, not even you, would ever describe any of those examples with the use of the word "strangled".


freediver wrote on May 13th, 2017 at 9:58pm:
polite_gandalf wrote on May 13th, 2017 at 9:20pm:
Mattyfisk wrote on May 8th, 2017 at 11:20am:
A telling point, FD, and one that undermines your entire thesis.


Indeed. I'd ask FD to explain how creating, from scratch, 3 separate cities that became the intellectual and cultural epicentres of the western world equates to being "strangled"... but I have a feeling I'd be wasting my time.


They were the epicentres of the western world because the Caliphate captured almost all of the western world. Wherever they decided to put the capital, that was where the capital was. It's like someone saying Australia is a great empire because we built Canberra from scratch and put the best museums (in Australia) there. It has all been done before.

Quote:
No FD, building cities that became great cultural and intellectual centres of its time certainly has been done before. The difference is, no one, not even you, would ever describe any of those examples with the use of the word "strangled".


Even if you are strangling the entirety of civilisation, you still need a capital to do it from. You started out by citing their ability to build the city from scratch and it's population - about the same as Rome before it, was something special. Again, it had all been done before. Doing it again is not evidence of anything. The Islamic Empire comes up short compared to what preceded it in the west and what happened in China at around the same time.

The shithole that is the middle east and north africa is the inevitable consequence of Islam. This was once the most advanced civilisation on earth. Not just once, but for all the history of civilisation until Islam came along. Islam strangled it.


polite_gandalf wrote on May 14th, 2017 at 7:17am:
freediver wrote on May 13th, 2017 at 9:58pm:
It's like someone saying Australia is a great empire because we built Canberra from scratch and put the best museums (in Australia) there.


No, it would be like saying the entire western world, including Australia descended into a dark age, and then another civilization overran Australia, and then Australia became, under this conquering civilization, the greatest cultural and knowledge centre of the entire western world, and indeed the only place where western scientific pursuit took place - in leaps and bounds.

You would rightly mock describing such a scenario as a "strangling" of the western world... except, of course if you were talking about Islam.
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #2 - May 14th, 2017 at 9:10am
 
freediver wrote on May 14th, 2017 at 8:06am:
The west has gone through many cycles of building great empires and then descending into a dark age. Islam was not one of those great empires. It was the dark age. It still is in the middle east and north africa, and seems to be heading that way in east asia.

Again, Islam was only the greatest in the western world because it was almost the entirety of the western world and it's influence was even more destructive outside of it's borders. But it fell short of what came before it in the west and what came at the same time in China - in both cases it fell short by a very wide margin. It could not even come close despite already being shown how.

The analogy is entirely apt. Having the greatest whatever within your own borders does not prove a thing. It's like someone saying Australia is a great empire because we built Canberra from scratch and put the best museums (in Australia) there.

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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #3 - May 15th, 2017 at 12:19am
 
I blame Islam.
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #4 - May 18th, 2017 at 8:20pm
 
LOL

polite_gandalf wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 4:47pm:
freediver wrote on May 14th, 2017 at 8:06am:
But it fell short of what came before it in the west and what came at the same time in China - in both cases it fell short by a very wide margin. It could not even come close despite already being shown how.


That is not "strangling" FD.

When you take over a place that is in a dilapidated state (as was the case in most of the territory conquered by the muslims), then build it up to be, on any measure, more prosperous than what it was when you took over - that is the very opposite to "strangling" that place.

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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #5 - May 18th, 2017 at 8:27pm
 
Mattyfisk wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 12:19am:
I blame Islam.


Who could blame you for that?
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #6 - May 18th, 2017 at 8:28pm
 
FD I just provided Frank with two wiki articles stating that the muslims made both Egypt and Cordoba more prosperous than they were before they took over. They even mentioned how the fatimid free trade policies contributed to the prosperity. I know how you love free trade.

Frank flatly rejects the claims in the Cordoba article, but would you like to remind us of your comment about wikipedia articles being "corrected" within half an hour if they are wrong?
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #7 - May 18th, 2017 at 8:37pm
 
So why did this enourmous empire of free trade not lift living standards even close to what they were 1000 years earlier in the Roman Empire? Or close to what they were at around the same time in China? Why did they achieve so little with so much?
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #8 - May 18th, 2017 at 8:59pm
 
freediver wrote on May 18th, 2017 at 8:37pm:
So why did this enourmous empire of free trade not lift living standards even close to what they were 1000 years earlier in the Roman Empire? Or close to what they were at around the same time in China? Why did they achieve so little with so much?



The biggest problem with relying on Morris's index to draw your conclusions is that you are taking an average of all the key "western" centres to draw the same conclusion about Islamic rule as you are about Roman rule. But the two periods are not comparable. Firstly "the west" in the caliphate days had a huge mass of dead weight in the form of dark ages western Europe, that pulled Morris's economic indicators down - and that has to be factored in. Secondly, the Roman prosperity took centuries, and it was built on the back of previous centuries of development by other civilizations. The muslims on the other hand were conquering at the time of the dark ages, when the world economy had crashed.

In any case, if you took away the deadweight, and looked at Morris's actual raw figures you'll see significant increases on all measures in the centres controlled by the muslims. And this index doesn't even look at the significant scientific and intellectual flowering that the muslims ushered in. In summary, nothing even remotelly like "strangling".
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #9 - May 18th, 2017 at 9:36pm
 
Quote:
The biggest problem with relying on Morris's index to draw your conclusions is that you are taking an average of all the key "western" centres to draw the same conclusion about Islamic rule as you are about Roman rule.


Morris' index is not based on averages Gandalf. Furthermore, Islam conquered almost the entirey of western civilisation.

Quote:
But the two periods are not comparable.


Of course. islam conquered a much larger empire than the Roman in a much shorter period of time. It also conquered key east-west trade routes. It also came about 1000 years later, and about the same time as the Song dynasty, so instead of breaking new ground merely needed to repeat what had already been done.

Quote:
Firstly "the west" in the caliphate days had a huge mass of dead weight in the form of dark ages western Europe


Crap. Western Europe was far "darker" when the Roman Empire rose to pwoer. For the most part it did not even know settled civilisation. Furthermore Islam was responsible for a lot of that darkness. For example, it depopulated the Italian coastline. It cut off the trade that made these regions flourish under Rome. Also, there is a fundamental assumption in your argument that western Europe is some kind of pot of gold that has to be conquered to become rich. This is typical Islamic thinking, and why Islam strangled rather than improved western civilisation. Islam sees wealth as something to be taken, not something to be created. The Romans came from nothing to reach amazing new heights. The Caliphate had everything set out before it, but could not even imitate.

Quote:
that pulled Morris's economic indicators down


Crap.

Quote:
Secondly, the Roman prosperity took centuries, and it was built on the back of previous centuries of development by other civilizations.


Another BS argument. Look at the graph. Islam could not even match the rate of increase. It barely achieved an increase at all. When western Europe repeated what Rome had achieved, it took a far shorter period of time. Even the Song dynasty managed it far quicker. Islam created in 100 years a far bigger empire than Rome did in all of its centuries. What it could not do is improve the human condition. If it has all been done before, it does not take as long the second time round. Islam had 1400 years to get it right. It is still getting it wrong. The Caliphate had the greatest opportunity, but achieved nothing with it, and all you can do is offer feeble excuses, like if only they had conquered even more of Europe....

Is the biggest empire the world had ever seen not enough for Muslims to achieve what had already been done, or what has happening at the same time in China? How much to Muslims have to steal to become rich?
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #10 - May 18th, 2017 at 10:24pm
 
freediver wrote on May 18th, 2017 at 9:36pm:
islam conquered a much larger empire than the Roman in a much shorter period of time.


The fact that it was conquered in a much shorter time is exactly my point- they took over areas that had been devastated by neglect, war and population upheavals, and you expect them to get prosperity levels up to Roman levels in a couple of centuries (the height of the golden age that you mock). Had the Golden Age not ended rather abruptly then I would have expected those prosperity levels to continue rising - Roman style.

freediver wrote on May 18th, 2017 at 9:36pm:
Western Europe was far "darker" when the Roman Empire rose to pwoer. For the most part it did not even know settled civilisation.


Western Europe had little to do with later Roman prosperity. What Rome's prosperity did have a lot to do with was the inheritance of mature and stable empires that were still intact and hadn't declined too dramatically - particularly the Hellenic cultures in Greece, Egypt and the near east. The prosperity only spread to the far west by virtue of being connected to the most prosperous areas further east, and as we know, as soon as it was disconnected from the east, they crashed hard and fast.

The difference with the caliphate was that unlike when the Romans took over, the east was not only in major decline on all measures, but also experiencing massive population upheaval due to the mass migrations. Of course had they the time that the Romans had (in terms of the 'golden age') the prosperity would have been far more - but even so, in the little time they had, they undeniably made things better in all the places they overran - and in some areas spectacularly so.
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #11 - May 19th, 2017 at 12:54pm
 
Aussie wrote on May 18th, 2017 at 8:27pm:
Mattyfisk wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 12:19am:
I blame Islam.


Who could blame you for that?


Well, Arab interbreeding with Negroid subhumans, obviously.

As FD says, a plausible theory.
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #12 - May 19th, 2017 at 12:58pm
 
Freediver, how much do you get paid for this propaganda?
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #13 - May 19th, 2017 at 1:01pm
 
Unforgiven wrote on May 19th, 2017 at 12:58pm:
Freediver, how much do you get paid for this propaganda?


That's the beauty of it.

Nothing.
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Re: Islam strangled western civilisation
Reply #14 - May 19th, 2017 at 7:29pm
 
Gandalf, in the recent history in which there is sufficiently detailed information, Morris' index shows four dramatic rises in wealth. The Roman, The Song and both east and west following the industrial revolution. Islam and the Caliphate had the greatest opportunity. Not only did they have the biggest empire that had ever existed, they also had an empire covering most of the west, which for all of human history until that point had been the most advanced civilisation on earth. On top of that, it started with higher standards than the Romans, and had both the Roman and later the Song example of how to build an advanced civilisation. Some kind of massive leap forward should have been inevitable based merely on the sudden trade opportunities. Those opportunities were exploited, but something else was counteracting the beneficial impact - Islam. Despite having the greatest opportunity the Caliphate achieved nothing. The Caliphate is the stagnation of western civilisation between the Roman Empire and the industrial revolution. It locked in the dramatic decline following Rome's collapse. It presided over the first time in human history that eastern civilisation overtook western.

I am not sure how you can keep a straight face while trotting out these lame excuses. None of them even make sense. You cannot even read the graph properly.

Quote:
The fact that it was conquered in a much shorter time is exactly my point- they took over areas that had been devastated by neglect, war and population upheavals, and you expect them to get prosperity levels up to Roman levels in a couple of centuries (the height of the golden age that you mock).


Yes Gandalf. Even faster, as happened later. It only took the Romans a couple of centuries, and they were starting from even worse conditions and did not have an example to follow. The economic benefits should have been immediate. They were immediate, but were offset by the imposition of Islam. It does not take a few centuries to see the benefit of a massive free trade zone.

The fact that it was conquered in a shorter period of time demonstrates that history was speeding up. There is no reason why the benefit to humanity from the free trade should not have accelerated just as the ability to build an empire did. When you do something the second time round, it is easier, not harder, even if your first attempt is mostly destroyed. You don't whine how it is now even harder to do.

Time was not the cause. Islam has had 1400 years, and the Caliphate is still a backwards shithole. While Islam dominated the west, the rate of change itself was far slower than the Roman's achieved, to the point that it was negligible and was eventually reversed. It could not even recreate what had already been demonstrated for them.

Quote:
Western Europe had little to do with later Roman prosperity.


And yet, for some reason, you just blamed western Europe for Islam's lack of prosperity. Any excuse will do for you, no matter how feeble or illogical.

Quote:
What Rome's prosperity did have a lot to do with was the inheritance of mature and stable empires that were still intact and hadn't declined too dramatically - particularly the Hellenic cultures in Greece, Egypt and the near east.


Again, you are viewing things from an Islamic perspective - wealth can only be taken from others, not created yourself. The Romans inherited far less than the Muslims. That's what Morris' index shows. It built on them. Islam inherited more and did nothing with it.

Quote:
The prosperity only spread to the far west by virtue of being connected to the most prosperous areas further east, and as we know, as soon as it was disconnected from the east, they crashed hard and fast.


The prosperity did not 'spread'. It was created. Morris' index does not show the rise of the Roman Empire as a result of a connection with an even wealthier civilisation that is not shown in the index. It shows the rise of western civilisation itself as a result of the Roman Empire.

The Caliphate was far more connected than the Roman Empire. It was even trading with the Roman's equivalent in the east. Muslims could not learn from the Romans. They could not learn from what the Chinese were doing at the same time. They could only wallow in their self imposed incompetence and squalor, blaming everyone but themselves for their inability to improve their lot, despite the massive inflow of wealth from trade. It is no different from what we see today, with Muslims desperately seeking out any scapegoat they can find for the turd they just laid on their own plate.
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