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http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl Member Run Boards >> Islam >> Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1461333128 Message started by GordyL on Apr 22^nd, 2016 at 11:52pm

Title: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 22^nd, 2016 at 11:52pm

Oh no, oh dear.

What a racist.

https://staffanspersonalityblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/richard-dawkins-upsets-liberals-and-muslims-by-confronting-them-with-reality/

https://youtu.be/WZCuF733p88

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 10:53am

Neil blames Islam.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 12:46pm

I blame the Koran ;)

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 12:49pm

"No greater scientific golden in the history of man" than the Islamic golden age.

Ooops! Here's another spineless apologist FD - better show him your graphs to set him straight.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 1:05pm

My goodness Gordy, thats about the exact opposite to what I was expecting.

He doesn't blame Islam - if he did then he wouldn't be singing the praises of Islam's "cultural heritage" of the Golden Age. All he's saying is that its time for muslims to return to what they were. He could only do this if he believed Islam was inherently anti-Science. If he did he'd have to be doing FD-like mental gymnastics to try and prove how Islam never had any scientific tradition - instead of praising the past achievements of Islam.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:10pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 1:05pm:

So you're telling me that of the 1400 year history of Islam there were 300 productive years which occured mostly towards the beginning of the religion when there was free sharing of ideas.

So how do you plan to turn the clock back and reverse the majority of the history of Islam which has been a scientific desert......since that 300 year golden age which occured in ancient history?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:22pm

GordyL wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:10pm:

So how do you plan to turn the clock back and reverse the majority of the history of Islam which has been a scientific desert......since that 300 year golden age which occured in ancient history?

ban Islam?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:33pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:22pm:

GordyL wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:10pm:

So how do you plan to turn the clock back and reverse the majority of the history of Islam which has been a scientific desert......since that 300 year golden age which occured in ancient history?

ban Islam?

Saudi Arabia and any Muslim country can be as Islamic as they please. In Australia we should Demand 100% secularism with no pandering to Islam.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:35pm

GordyL wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:33pm:

In Australia we should Demand 100% secularism with no pandering to Islam.

...in order to create more muslim nobel laureates?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:41pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:35pm:

GordyL wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 2:33pm:

In Australia we should Demand 100% secularism with no pandering to Islam.

...in order to create more muslim nobel laureates?

Nah, more anti biotics, Internet, cochlear implants, polio vaccines, dusk sensing headlights,..secular jurisprudence.....you know, all the stuff that's been invented in countries without Islam.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Yadda on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 11:34pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 12:49pm:

"No greater scientific golden in the history of man" than the Islamic golden age.

Ooops! Here's another spineless apologist FD - better show him your graphs to set him straight.

"......the Islamic golden age."

What a pathetic and disingenuous fraud upon mankind such claims are.

Any rational person [with a previous experience in dealing with any moslem and their 'pronouncements'], must simply take any moslem account of ANYTHING, as an absolute fabrication/lie.
[......unless he has irrefutable hard evidence confirming any moslem claim.]

Q.
The reason ?

Moslems 'confuse' truth with lies.

i.e.
Any [seemingly irrefutable] lie, which portrays ISLAM/moslems in a good light, has always been 'forged' into a 'confirmed historic truth' by moslem 'blacksmiths'.

Moslems are inveterate LIARS.

Every culture on the planet, who has had dealings with the moslem knows this claim to be the truth.

Moslems are unashamed, barefaced LIARS.

That, is what mankind's historic interaction with 'the moslem' has confirmed.

e.g.
Yadda said.....
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1409737480/42#42

Quote:

Whenever moslems write accounts of history, .....it has been shown time and time again, that moslems will shamelessly fabricate the 'history' of some past circumstance or event, so as to favour some current moslem interest.

And these false historical accounts which moslems 'produce' as evidence, invariably always portray moslems, in their current conflicts [with their enemies], as correct/virtuous/or as victims of injustice.

e.g.

[quote]

Chief Muslim claims Jewish Temples never existed
March 15, 2007
"....The Jewish Temples never existed.......descriptions of the Jewish Temples in the Hebrew Tanach, in the Talmud and in Byzantine and Roman writings from the Temple periods were forged, and that the Torah was falsified to claim Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were Jewish when indeed they were prophets for Islam."

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=40628

Quote:

Temple Mount '100% Islamic'
June 01, 2008
"....Taysir Tamimi, chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most influential Muslim leaders in Israel, argued the Jewish Temples never existed,...."

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65919

[/quote]

.

DECEITFUL, WITH A MALICIOUS INTENT.....

IMAGE...

Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami

Quote:

How Circumstance Dictates Islamic Behavior
January 18, 2012

Preach Peace When Weak, Wage War When Strong

"...all notions of peace with non-Muslims are based on circumstance.

When Muslims are weak, they should be peaceful; when strong, they should go on the offensive."

Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami - an ISLAMIC scholar and Egyptian Salafi leader
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/how-circumstance-dictates-islamic-behavior/

.

Quote:

A Study in Muslim Doctrine

"...while sincere friendship with non-Muslims is forbidden,

insincere friendship - whenever beneficial to Muslims - is not."

http://www.meforum.org/2512/nidal-hasan-fort-hood-muslim-doctrine

.

Yadda said........
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1458991733/12#12

Quote:

QUESTION;
How can we know when moslems are lying to us [about ISLAM, or about their true motives, towards us] ?

ANSWER;
We can't.

But it is a sure bet, that moslems are lying to us, and often!!

I do go on, and on, ....and on.

I feel like i should apologise.

......but i'm not going to.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Dustwun on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 11:11am

Seems there's been a pretty long drought of scientific endeavor in Islamic countries.

Any theories?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 11:42am

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 12:49pm:

"No greater scientific golden in the history of man" than the Islamic golden age.

The "islamic" golden age is once again, not quite accurate. More specifically, it was a Persian golden age. Almost all great "islamic" scholars were persians, who were absorbed into islam rather than produced by it. Since Persia has been yoked by Islam, they haven't contributed anything. Not only does Islam produce no thought, it snuffs out the innovative spirit of those it subjugates.

The contributions of arabs to the sum of human knowledge is comparable to that of aborigines. In fact, one could even make a case that it is less than zero, as an unimaginable wealth of knowledge was destroyed in the siege of baghdad, when the pride and folly of dumbass arabs led the mongols to near annihilate them. They are equally as full of inexplicable pride and folly today, as they were then.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 12:09pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 11:42am:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2016 at 12:49pm:

"No greater scientific golden in the history of man" than the Islamic golden age.

Scientific endeavour ENDURED in the early years of Islam until it fully took hold and snuffed it out.

Would Gandalf suggest that brief magical 300 year period was the true Islam and the 1000 plus years of intellectual barrenness is the aberration?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:36pm

GordyL wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 12:09pm:

Would Gandalf suggest that brief magical 300 year period was the true Islam and the 1000 plus years of intellectual barrenness is the aberration?

Absolutely - and 300 years is a bit unfair. The best years consisted of 500 years at least - and even after that, many great scientific works by muslims continued such as in astronomy.

For comparison, Christiandom was an intellectual wasteland for around 1000 years

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:48pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 11:42am:

Others have made the argument that it was in fact principally led by Syrian christians and/or jews - to which I make the same response. Even if it were true (which its not), then you have to acknowledge that this Persian golden age didn't begin until Islam came along. So why couldn't these great Persians create this unprecedented scientific flowering when they were free and unoccupied? You simply can't get past the fact that Islam not only allowed, but actively enabled such a scientific surge. You really don't want to get into the contortions FD has to get into to argue the opposite. Its not pretty I can assure you.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:29pm

Quote:

Even if it were true (which its not), then you have to acknowledge that this Persian golden age didn't begin until Islam came along.

The acahaemenid empire was the worlds most advanced and enlightened empire, 1000 years before Islam.

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:48pm:

So why couldn't these great Persians create this unprecedented scientific flowering when they were free and unoccupied?

Why didn't 10th century chinese know genetic engineering?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:32pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:48pm:

[
Others have made the argument that it was in fact principally led by Syrian christians and/or jews

They could have a point. So we've got syrians christians, jews, persians....but no arabs. Where are all the wonderful arab moslems?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:44pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:29pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:48pm:

So why couldn't these great Persians create this unprecedented scientific flowering when they were free and unoccupied?

Why didn't 10th century chinese know genetic engineering?

It all goes back to eugenics, doesn’t it?

Sorry - scientific racialism.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:45pm

Educate yourself Honky - there is a long list of great arab scientists.

Start with probably the most renowned and famous of all the golden-age scientists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:46pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:32pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:48pm:

[
Others have made the argument that it was in fact principally led by Syrian christians and/or jews

They could have a point. So we've got syrians christians, jews, persians....but no arabs. Where are all the wonderful arab moslems?

Too busy interbreeding with the negroid sub-races, I’m afraid.

Scientific.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:50pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:45pm:

Educate yourself Honky

He’s already tried that.- you could safely say it wasn’t exactly a resounding success.

Honky’s settled on educating us.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:52pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:29pm:

The acahaemenid empire was the worlds most advanced and enlightened empire, 1000 years before Islam.

1000 years eh?

So what happened after that, and why did their revival only occur after they fell to the muslims? They could have had a cultural flowering any time during that interim 1000 years - most of which they were a great and free power in their own right. Doesn't it seem funny that they could only find their intellectual feet again once they were under the yoke of the muslims? Ditto for the Syrian Christians and jews.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:55pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:45pm:

Educate yourself Honky - there is a long list of great arab scientists.

Start with probably the most renowned and famous of all the golden-age scientists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen

Sometimes known as Alhazen the Persian.

Quote:

Alhazen (965 - 1039)

Persian scientist and mathematician whose full name is Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, was considered the father of modern optics. In mathematics he may have been the first to find a formula for the sum of the first 100 numbers, which he proved using geometry. He developed analytic geometry to provide a link between algebra and geometry. Alhazen was the first to attempt to prove Euclid’s parallel postulate. He attempted to square the circle and worked on perfect numbers in number theory.

Quote:

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (Arabic: أبو علي الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم, Latinized: Alhacen or (deprecated) Alhazen) (965 – 1039), was an Arab[1] or Persian[2] Muslim polymath who made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, physics, psychology, visual perception, and to science in general with his introduction of the scientific method. He is sometimes called al-Basri (Arabic: البصري), after his birthplace in the city of Basra in Iraq (Mesopotamia), then ruled by the Buyid dynasty of Persia.[3]

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Oh man. I thought there'd be a couple of arab outliers, but it's worse than I thought.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:01pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:52pm:

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 3:29pm:

The acahaemenid empire was the worlds most advanced and enlightened empire, 1000 years before Islam.

Because that's when the advances you now consider significant, were made. It seems my counter-question about 10th century genetic engineers wasn't sufficient to make you think, so let's dial the absurdity up a notch:

Why couldn't the japanese reach the cutting edge of electronics until after they had nukes dropped on them? Clearly, it was the bombs that enabled their scientific advance.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:11pm

Al-Haytham (Alhazen) wasn't a Persian - I don't know where you got your information from Honk.

Quote:

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (Arabic: أبو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم‎; c. 965 – c. 1040 ce), also known by the Latinization Alhazen or Alhacen,[9] was an Arab[10][11] scientist,[12] mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher.[13] Ibn al-Haytham made significant contributions to the principles of optics, astronomy, mathematics, meteorology, visual perception and the scientific method.[14] He spent most of his life close to the court of the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo and earned his living authoring various treatises and tutoring members of the nobilities.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:11pm

Al-Ghazali has been referred to by some historians as the single most influential Muslim after the Islamic prophet Muhammad

PERSIAN

Avicenna was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age.[5]

PERSIAN

Sibawayh was an influential linguist and grammarian of the Arabic language. His seminal work Al-Kitab was the first written grammar of the language.[4] Despite his significance to the development of the Arabic language and linguistic tradition, Sibawayh was an ethnic Persian and wasn't a native speaker of Arabic, having learned the language later in life. He has been referred to as the greatest of all Arabic linguists and one of the greatest linguists of all time in any language.

PERSIAN

Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a Persian[3] mathematician, astronomer and geographer during the Abbasid Caliphate, a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.

In the 12th century, Latin translations of his work on the Indian numerals introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world.[4] Al-Khwārizmī's The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations in Arabic. He is often considered one of the fathers of algebra.[5][6] He revised Ptolemy's Geography and wrote on astronomy and astrology.

PERSIAN

Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī was a Persian[3][4] polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history of medicine.

PERSIAN

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:18pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:11pm:

Al-Haytham (Alhazen) wasn't a Persian - I don't know where you got your information from Honk.

Quote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen

Wikipedia is the only source that says he's an arab. You may have seen on one of my links:

Quote:

was an Arab[1] or Persian[2] Muslim polymath

You can swear that he's arab until you're blue in the face if you really need to, but there is no dispute his birthplace is in Persia, and no way to prove his arabianity(?). The fact that it's hard to find even one unequivocally arab scientist illustrates my point better than I could hope to.

What have you got against Persians? I thought you'd be grateful to them - they're the only ones giving this silly Islam thing any capital at all.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:24pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:01pm:

Why couldn't the japanese reach the cutting edge of electronics until after they had nukes dropped on them?

something to do with the billions in US aid and opening their markets up to the west and installing democracy that encouraged innovation etc?

Is your point that great people don't do great things until a great power comes in and creates the right political and cultural climate for them to flourish? You know what - I agree!

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:27pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:18pm:

Wikipedia is the only source that says he's an arab.

Incorrect. The wiki article provides two additional sources for the claim. Also, Britannica:

Quote:

Ibn al-Haytham
Arab astronomer and mathematician

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-al-Haytham

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:31pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:24pm:

something to do with the billions in US aid and opening their markets up to the west and installing democracy that encouraged innovation etc?

Todays oily arabs seem to have a few bucks to throw around. Do they use it to further research on the mysteries of life? No, they use it to "sponsor" Instagram models and make them eat poo. Google: dubai porta potty.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:33pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:27pm:

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:18pm:

Wikipedia is the only source that says he's an arab.

Incorrect. The wiki article provides two additional sources for the claim.

Did you look at them? They're hardly authoritative:

Quote:

Vernet 1996, p. 788: "IBN AL-HAYXHAM, B. AL-HAYTHAM AL-BASRI, AL-MisRl, was identified towards the end of the 19th century with the ALHAZEN, AVENNATHAN and AVENETAN of mediaeval Latin texts. He is one of the principal Arab mathematicians and, without any doubt, the best physicist."
Hess 1995, p. 66: "It is known that Galileo had a copy of "Opticae Thesaurus" of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), an Arab scholar who is praised today for his experimental method, although views on what this method entails and which importance it has in Ibn al-Haytham's work differ. (Omar 1979:68)."

And here's why you can't trust wiki. On another article about his work, he's referred to as a Persian scholar:

Quote:

The Book of Optics (Arabic: Kitāb al-Manāẓir‎ (كتاب المناظر); Latin: De Aspectibus or Perspectiva; Italian: Deli Aspecti) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Persian scholar Ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen (965– c. 1040 AD).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Optics

But, you know what?

He can be Arab. I done told ya I expected an outlier or two, and the point is surely proven by now. You scrape and you twist and you argue about this one, whereas I can just rattle off a few more persians. Presumably those people you mentioned who attribute much to Syrian christains and jews could rattle of several names too.

But arabs... :-/

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:44pm

Come on Honk, you dug up 2 sources, one from that most famous world-renowned sites 'http://web.olivet.edu/', and the other says he was either an arab or a persian. Against, among others, Encyclopedia Britannica.

And you speak of authority on the matter?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:47pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:36pm:

GordyL wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 12:09pm:

Would Gandalf suggest that brief magical 300 year period was the true Islam and the 1000 plus years of intellectual barrenness is the aberration?

So whats going wrong recently? Any by recent I mean 500 years.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:56pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:44pm:

No, Honk’s just saying he couldn’t possibly be an oily Arab. I believe it has something to do with negroid genetics and/or inbreeding.

Honk should be able to fill you in on the genetics. If we’re lucky, FD will provide a graph.

You see? We’re all here to help raise human consciousness and understanding.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:04pm

Quote:

As Ibn Khaldun, the fourteenth-century Arab historiographer and sociologist suggests, it is a remarkable fact that with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars in the intellectual sciences were Ajams ("Persians"):

Thus the founders of grammar were Sibawaih and after him, al-Farisi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were of Persian descent… they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar … great jurists were Persians … only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the prophet becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it' … The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them … as was the case with all crafts … This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana [=modern Central Asia], retained their sedentary culture.
— Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R.N. Frye. p. 91.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world

I've got to ask - Why?

Why have you taken on this fools errand? I'm not taking anything away from "islamic" scientific advancements, I am just going into more detail.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:20pm

GordyL wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:47pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:36pm:

GordyL wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 12:09pm:

Would Gandalf suggest that brief magical 300 year period was the true Islam and the 1000 plus years of intellectual barrenness is the aberration?

So whats going wrong recently? Any by recent I mean 500 years.

Oh, we got rid of religious dominance. The Enlightenment, the scientific revolution, the French and subsequent European revolutions. We simply decided we’d had enough, so we went our merry way.

The church didn’t like it, but as Weber said, the gates to the church will always be left open.

This is why so many are returning - from Bible Belt USA to secular Arab states, Turkey, and of course - Persia. The gates to the church - and the mosque - are still there.

The Enlightenment still needs to be defended, and this means guarding our freedoms from the reactionaries, goons and "scientific" racist propagandists. Australia is in no danger of becoming an Islamic state, but parts of our own Western tradition are starting to look like a distant dream. People are getting dumber - voluntarily. There has never been.more information and propaganda, and people have never reacted against it more. There has never been.higher literacy, but there has never been so few people reading real books. We’re in danger of revisiting the Dark Ages.

Use it or lose it, effendes. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:34pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:20pm:

People are getting dumber - voluntarily. There has never been.more information and propaganda, and people have never reacted against it more. There has never been.higher literacy, but there has never been so few people reading real books. We’re in danger of revisiting the Dark Ages.

Yes, I agree.

But I think the only way I can fight this trend is to "be the change that we wish to see in the world"

Do you think habitual disinformation on the internet would have a positive, or negative impact on the trend?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 6:26pm

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:34pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:20pm:

I think habitual disinformation is a symptom - and a cause. In the US, when the financial markets crashed in 2008, people rushed to join the Tea Party, a movement funded by neocon investors, including the billionaire Koch brothers. Its aim was a distraction from financial reform (and health care reform, which this movement cut its teeth on). It distracted with issues like immigration , gay marriage and guns. It rallied the knuckleheads to look over there while the bankers, big investors and lobbyists quietly went back to business as usual.

The movement grew in its power - bigger than the bankers, big investors and lobbyists ever intended. A celebrity billionaire arose to capture them. Forget knuckleheads like Sarah Palin, we now have the disseminator of habitual disinformation par excellence - one Donald J Trump.

To date, the habitual disinformationists have not risen to power. Sure, they’ve had a few victories, scuttling or watering down most initiatives their nemesis, the first tinted president, proposed. But they have not risen to political power, not since the fall of George W Bush. Fox News is no longer the voice of Middle Amerika, and the legacy of Bush still rots away in US history, leaving an obvious stench on another knucklehead movement, neoconservatism.

But elected office is not the end-point. The purpose of the habitual disinformationists is to keep the public gaze away from the deals of its players, who own all the big global monopolies, who don’t pay tax, and who have the rules of the game quietly fixed in their favour. They even have a government who’s showed it’s prepared to bail their businesses out with taxpayer dollars, and they’re brazen enough to give hundreds of millions of those dollars to themselves in bonuses - money that is quietly stashed away in offshore tax havens, so they even avoid paying any of it back in tax.

Not wages, remember, but bonuses; gifts - their tax-funded reward for bringing down the global economy and perpetuating the biggest fraud on bondholders the world has ever seen. To date, out of all the players in the GFC, only one loan broker has been charged. He got a two year suspended sentence.

So yes, Honk, the media "elite", the feminist ballbusters, the Muslims banning Christmas and prayer in schools, the Mexican rapists, the gay mafia, the Pakistani tree-loppers, all of them are one big cover up to keep you busy frothing at the mouth and happily spreading habitual disinformation to keep the real players out of the news.

Not you, Honk, of course. I just mean people in general. You’ve changed. You’ve seen the light.

You’ll never be conned again.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:36am

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:20pm:

The Enlightenment still needs to be defended, and this means guarding our freedoms from the reactionaries, goons and "scientific" racist propagandists. Australia is in no danger of becoming an Islamic state, but parts of our own Western tradition are starting to look like a distant dream. People are getting dumber - voluntarily. There has never been.more information and propaganda, and people have never reacted against it more. There has never been.higher literacy, but there has never been so few people reading real books. We’re in danger of revisiting the Dark Ages.

Absolutely. And I would sum up the current state of affairs thusly:

we must defend our proud western intellectual heritage - by becoming dumber and dumber

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 10:31am

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:36am:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:20pm:

Absolutely. And I would sum up the current state of affairs thusly:

we must defend our proud western intellectual heritage - by becoming dumber and dumber

Another FD quote?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 10:41am

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:36am:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 5:20pm:

Absolutely. And I would sum up the current state of affairs thusly:

we must defend our proud western intellectual heritage - by becoming dumber and dumber

Love how you're turning this around, yet the science just keeps rolling out of secular democratic countries.

meanwhile...

When the 2005 earthquake struck Pakistan, killing more than 90 000 people, no major scientist in the country publicly challenged the belief, freely propagated through the mass media, that the quake was God's punishment for sinful behavior. Mullahs ridiculed the notion that science could provide an explanation; they incited their followers into smashing television sets, which had provoked Allah's anger and hence the earthquake

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 11:26am

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:36pm:

GordyL wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 12:09pm:

Would Gandalf suggest that brief magical 300 year period was the true Islam and the 1000 plus years of intellectual barrenness is the aberration?

Gandalf would you mind highlighting that 500 year period on this timeline of human development in the east and west?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1404336014

How about rattling off what you think are the dozen most significant scientific contributions by Muslims in this period, so that we may be impressed by their genius?

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:48pm:

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 11:42am:

Would you describe the absence of historically significant social, economic and scientific advances as a "contortion"?

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:24pm:

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:01pm:

Why couldn't the japanese reach the cutting edge of electronics until after they had nukes dropped on them?

What did the Muslims do with their great power Gandalf? Create an empire of inbreds?

Quote:

People are getting dumber - voluntarily.

Can you back this up Karnal? When do you think 'people' were at their smartest?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 11:39am

Would you like to provide the source of your graph, FD?

I’m curious.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 11:44am

See the link immediately below the graph.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 11:51am

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 11:26am:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 2:36pm:

GordyL wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 12:09pm:

Would Gandalf suggest that brief magical 300 year period was the true Islam and the 1000 plus years of intellectual barrenness is the aberration?

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 11:42am:

Would you describe the absence of historically significant social, economic and scientific advances as a "contortion"?

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:24pm:

... wrote on Apr 24^th, 2016 at 4:01pm:

Why couldn't the japanese reach the cutting edge of electronics until after they had nukes dropped on them?

What did the Muslims do with their great power Gandalf? Create an empire of inbreds?

My you do have a bee in your bonnet about this don't you.

Maybe you should take it up with deGrasse - he seems to have swallowed this outrageous lie too.

Why so insecure about identifying scientific greatness anyway? It was hundreds of years ago, isn't it enough to ridicule muslims for their stagnation since then?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:08pm

Quote:

Why so insecure about identifying scientific greatness anyway?

Good point. Why stop at a dozen? Lets see your list of the 20 most significant scientific contributions by Muslims during the period. I apologise for trying to hold you back.

Quote:

It was hundreds of years ago, isn't it enough to ridicule muslims for their stagnation since then?

It looks like stagnation from the beginning. Muslims have had 1400 years of history, standing on the shoulders of giants, and produced an empire of inbred midgets.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:17pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 11:44am:

See the link immediately below the graph.

A link to your own thread - without the graph.

A mistake, was it?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:19pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:08pm:

Quote:

Why so insecure about identifying scientific greatness anyway?

Good point. Why stop at a dozen? Lets see your list of the 20 most significant scientific contributions by Muslims during the period. I apologise for trying to hold you back.

[quote]It was hundreds of years ago, isn't it enough to ridicule muslims for their stagnation since then?

It looks like stagnation from the beginning. Muslims have had 1400 years of history, standing on the shoulders of giants, and produced an empire of inbred midgets.[/quote]

And just think, friends- all this came from Abu.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:20pm

The graph is in the first post in that thread Karnal.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:23pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:20pm:

The graph is in the first post in that thread Karnal.

So where did you get it from?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:28pm

See the title of the other thread.

For your next question, I refer you to the text of the opening post.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Honky on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:29pm

This must be karnal illustrating his point about people getting dumber.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:30pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:08pm:

It looks like stagnation from the beginning. Muslims have had 1400 years of history, standing on the shoulders of giants, and produced an empire of inbred midgets.

This is the Islamic-history version of climate change denial.

No serious scholar on the subject accepts this view of yours. You are so far out on your own here FD. And I'm not going over old territory, as I recall you spent about a month arguing how advances in mathematics don't count as scientific advances. But I'm sure you're off even as we speak digging up that old thread and making a new thread about it.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:44pm

I recall you struggled to come up with a single scientific advance, and when you did you were unable to indentify (understand) what the contribution was.

What is it that "serious scholars" disagree with me on? If you remove all the historical context and focus only on what was happening locally, you can add all the unqualified superlatives you want. Historians will wax lyrical about a tooth they dig out of the dirt. But you will not find a human development index that makes Islam's history anything more than a shadow of what came before, and all the fluff about Islamic science disappears into hot air as soon as I offer you the chance to impress us by listing the contributions made by Muslims during their golden age.

No wonder you do not want to revisit it.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:52pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:44pm:

you struggled to come up with a single scientific advance

I came up with dozens - but you kept shifting the goalposts to make them somehow ineligible. But go on, I know your off right now digging up the discussion to make another grudge thread that everyone will ignore.

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:44pm:

If you remove all the historical context and focus only on what was happening locally, you can add all the unqualified superlatives you want. Historians will wax lyrical about a tooth they dig out of the dirt.

Good point FD. Like how we can remove all the historical context of muslims contribution to scientific advancement and wax lyrical with unqualified superlatives about inbred midgets and such. We could even throw in a meaningless graph on "social advancement" as if that somehow proves the point.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:00pm

Quote:

We could even throw in a meaningless graph on "social advancement" as if that somehow proves the point.

How is it meaningless? Do you even know what it is measuring? Can you find some serious (non Muslim) scholars using those superlatives to describe how much better the golden age was than the Roman empire that preceded it?

Quote:

Why are you so insecure about identifying their scientific greatness?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:11pm

I think its true to say that Christianity / Islam has allowed scientific advancement in spite of itself, not because of itself.

To this day, for example, (or at least until very recently) American 'neo-christianity' has resisted on religious grounds, blood transfusions (in the case of some), stem cell research and climate change, to name a quick three...

Anti-science is a doctrinal peculiarity evident in both Christianity and Islam.. With Christianity starting the ball rolling and plunging Europe into the Dark Ages...

Maybe Islam borrowed from its elder brother in this regard.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:11pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:00pm:

Can you find some serious (non Muslim) scholars using those superlatives to describe how much better the golden age was than the Roman empire that preceded it?

No, why would I? What a silly thing to expect someone to come up with. But it typifies your simplistic mindset I suppose.

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:00pm:

Why are you so insecure about identifying their scientific greatness?

Already have. Go dig up the thread, I know you will eventually. It will be fun to see again all the contortions you went into to claim how each and every one of them was somehow invalid. I particularly liked the way you made mathematical advances ineligible on the basis it somehow wasn't science.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:18pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:11pm:

I think its true to say that Christianity / Islam has allowed scientific advancement in spite of itself, not because of itself.

Not true of Islam. Islamic doctrine is very clear on the virtue of seeking knowledge and discoveries etc, and is widely identified as the driving force behind the advancement of science during the golden age. Its not to say Islamic doctrine can't be (mis)construed to say the opposite - which it sadly has since the golden age - but there is little dispute that what drove those early scholars, as well as the patrons of science - going right up to the Caliph - was a theological driver.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:18pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:11pm:

I think its true to say that Christianity / Islam has allowed scientific advancement in spite of itself, not because of itself.

OK... Will take your advice on that...

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:24pm

Quote:

No, why would I?

Because that is what historical context is Gandalf. This "golden age" can only be described that way if you don't compare it to what came previously. If you do give Islam that context, you see the reality that Islam merely locked in the low point in living standards following the collapse of the Roman Empire, despite having the biggest empire in human history until then.

Quote:

We could even throw in a meaningless graph on "social advancement" as if that somehow proves the point.

How is it meaningless? Do you even know what it is measuring?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:52pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:24pm:

Because that is what historical context is Gandalf.

Historical context is not saying how one empire was "better" than the other. Thats something a 5 year old would say.

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:24pm:

How is it meaningless? Do you even know what it is measuring?

A graph of "social advancement", which I recall measures economic output, does not prove or disprove the contributions to world science of one civilization or another. Again, this is well trodden territory. One of the many points I made last time was that the Islamic empire did not have the infrastructural or knowledge base to rapidly build a economic powerhouse like the Romans did. Rather they emerged out of the ruins of the collapse of two major empires, and all the economic and social destruction that entailed. From that low base they did pretty well - but again, their scientific contributions isn't much related to that measure. Hence it is meaningless.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

I'd be very happy if Islamic-critics ran with that line. Instead of what I have to contend with here, that Islamic doctrine is crystal clear in its evilness, oppression, anti-freedom etc etc - and thats the end of the matter. And that the best thing muslims can do is be less Islamic, or, preferably, not muslim at all.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:48pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:30pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:08pm:

It looks like stagnation from the beginning. Muslims have had 1400 years of history, standing on the shoulders of giants, and produced an empire of inbred midgets.

What about the last 200 years? Not much going on.

Why?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:55pm

Quote:

Historical context is not saying how one empire was "better" than the other. That's something a 5 year old would say.

What about a supposed "golden age" actually being a low point in the history of human civilisation? Or do I need to dumb it down for you again?

Quote:

A graph of "social advancement", which I recall measures economic output

It does not measure eocnomic output, but I would expect economic measures to show the same pattern. It is a human development index, similar to modern ones used to measure human devlopment, except that the measures were chosen for their ability to be applied to hisotrical societies.

Quote:

does not prove or disprove the contributions to world science of one civilization or another

Correct. That is why I also suggested you impress us with that list of scientific advancements. If you are too embarrassed to go back over that one, let's look at the broader impact on human development instead.

Quote:

One of the many points I made last time was that the Islamic empire did not have the infrastructural or knowledge base to rapidly build a economic powerhouse like the Romans did

.

;D

They had the biggest empire the world had seen until then, much of it part of the old Roman Empire, they had your alleged Islamic devotion to learning, they had the Roman example to show them it could be done and how, and they had their Thousand Year Reich. What else could it be other than a squandered opportunity? What the Roman Empire did was unprecedented. The Muslims could not even play catch-up. Their problem was not that they were starting from the social and economic destruction that followed. Their problem was that they were the social and economic destruction. They have been from Muhammed until today. They took over what was until then the most civilised place on earth and turned it into an eternal backwater. Other nations can leapfrog the Muslims in a matter of generations.

Quote:

Rather they emerged out of the ruins of the collapse of two major empires

As did all the other groundbreaking historical empires that pushed the envelope of human development.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:58pm

Never mind 200 years Gordy, not much has happened in the last ~800 years.

Why? Lots of reasons, one of them being the Islamic world falling under the control of kill-joy anti-scientists. Google the Mihna and Hanbal and the rise of the so-called 'traditionalists'.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 3:02pm

A wikipedia article giving a very brief description of the indices used in Morris' follow-up book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Measure_of_Civilization

A free e-book containing more detail:

http://ianmorris.org/docs/social-development.pdf

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 3:24pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

It does seem clear that the established doctrines of Christianity and Islam have been used to justify hegemony of the traditional over the modern, resulting in a, sometimes rapid, sometimes gradual decline of the civilisations founded upon them.

It can't all be about religion, though, as the decline of Chinese culture over the last five hundred years attests... What is amazing in the case of the Chinese is that they have managed to reverse the trend so successfully.

I'd put that down to the Chinese not having a single authoritarian religion that would reimpose its ancient hegemony and, in doing so, suppress science and modernism within its sphere of influence.

Religions by their nature (most particularly when practised in their extreme forms), are suppressive.

And if that is true, then Islam would not be alone in this tendency to suppress science and modernism... Christianity, given the chance, would reassert itself in no less a suppressive way.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 5:39pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:28pm:

See the title of the other thread.

For your next question, I refer you to the text of the opening post.

And I refer you to a graph with no reference. You think I didn’t do those things?

Google Taqiyya, eh?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 5:58pm

I refer you to the text of the opening post. Here it is for you:

Although a rough measure, the index highlights some interesting trends - see attached (figure 3.7, p 166).

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:02pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:55pm:

They took over what was until then the most civilised place on earth and turned it into an eternal backwater.

Laughable.

Was Cordoba during Islamic rule an "eternal backwater", or was it in fact the most advanced and most prosperous city in the whole of Europe?

Baghdad wasn't "the most civilised place on earth" when the muslims took over it - it didn't even exist. They built it from scratch and turned it into the intellectual centre of the the west. Similar story with Cairo.

Honestly FD, the argument that the muslims didn't achieve as much as they should is one thing - but to turn this around and say that in fact they took over some sort of bastion of civilization and turned it into a wasteland is just a whole new level of farce. Literally everywhere the muslims conquered they improved things using Morris's social development criteria (go check for yourself the muslim centres before and after Islam came). And no, the places the muslims conquered didn't include the heart of the previous Roman Empire, but provincial backwaters - the near east and North Africa. Spain was a bit closer, and look what they did to that - made it the most advanced and prosperous place in Europe.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:23pm

Quote:

Was Cordoba during Islamic rule an "eternal backwater", or was it in fact the most advanced and most prosperous city in the whole of Europe?

It was backwards compared to what had been previously, and what existed in the east at the time.

Quote:

Baghdad wasn't "the most civilised place on earth" when the muslims took over it - it didn't even exist. They built it from scratch and turned it into the intellectual centre of the the west. Similar story with Cairo.

Good job completely missing the point Gandalf. For most of human history, the most advanced civilisations were in Iraq, Iran and Egypt. Islam conquered these and they have remained a backwater ever since. The Roman was the only groundbreaking civilisation (in a long list of them) to be centered outside what was captured by the Caliphate. The creation of Bagdhad is hardly a major event in the history of human development.

Quote:

Honestly FD, the argument that the muslims didn't achieve as much as they should is one thing - but to turn this around and say that in fact they took over some sort of bastion of civilization and turned it into a wasteland is just a whole new level of farce.

For most of human history, the most advanced civilisations were in Iraq, Iran and Egypt. Many of these places played a significant role in the Roman Empire. Islam conquered these and they have remained a backwater ever since. The creation of Bagdhad is hardly a major event in the history of human development.

Quote:

And no, the places the muslims conquered didn't include the heart of the previous Roman Empire

Did I say they captured Rome? And so what? The Muslims depopulated a lot of the Italian coastline catching slaves. Was there something special about the geographic location of Rome that prevented the Muslims from making something better out of an even bigger empire that happened to exclude it?

Are you arguing that Muslims are only capable of having advanced civilisation if they take it from someone else? Did inheriting the fragments of the old Roman Empire somehow condemn the Muslims to 1400 years of stagnation? Why were the Muslims unable to repeat the feats of empires that came previously, that existed at the same time in the east, or that came later, other than imposing themselves on people?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:26pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 5:58pm:

I refer you to the text of the opening post. Here it is for you:

Although a rough measure, the index highlights some interesting trends - see attached (figure 3.7, p 166).

Thanks, FD. Not hard, is it?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:26pm

I think even you could manage Karnal.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:30pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:26pm:

I think even you could manage Karnal.

Are you sure? You make it look so easy.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Frank on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 7:03pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

Can you point to any historic even where Islam stood for freedom, openness, human dignity, freedom of conscience, speech, association?

I can't. Please help.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 7:06pm

The period until Muhammed gained some political authority.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:10pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:23pm:

Such crap on so many levels.

Firstly, neither Iraq or Iran or Egypt had been centres of great civilization for hundreds if not thousands of years before Islam came. The wars of the Byzantines and the Persians had largely decimated both populations and economies of the once great Mesopotamia, and it was Islam that rebuilt it. As for Egypt, it was the breadbasket of the East Roman Empire until the muslims conquered it. Yet despite its importance for the East Romans, their energy output was still lower than what the muslims produced during the caliphate. Again, this is from the Morris data.

The creation of Baghdad was a major event for human development, as it became an intellectual hub for scientific advancement as well as translation of Greek works - which of course later found its way to the west, contributing to the start of the renaissance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:23pm:

The Muslims depopulated a lot of the Italian coastline catching slaves.

Thats the second time you've made this bs claim. Muslim slave raids along the Italian coast didn't start until after 1500AD. At least get some clue about basic historical facts FD.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:11pm

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 7:03pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

Can you point to any historic even where Islam stood for freedom, openness, human dignity, freedom of conscience, speech, association?

I can't. Please help.

Of course you can't - because you are willfully ignorant of basic history.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Frank on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:28pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:11pm:

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 7:03pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

Can you point to any historic even where Islam stood for freedom, openness, human dignity, freedom of conscience, speech, association?

I can't. Please help.

Of course you can't - because you are willfully ignorant of basic history.

You are not pointing to anything, you are just denouncing me.

In Islam that may be an argument. Outside Islam it isn't. You have to be more than emotional here.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:33pm

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:28pm:

You are not pointing to anything, you are just denouncing me

Sorry, you may not have heard anyone mention the Islamic Golden Age. Its only mentioned in the OP video, and throughout the thread.

Would you like me to spoon-feed you some basic facts about it, or would you prefer to read up on it yourself? try google: Islamic Golden Age freedom.

Oh what the hell, here's to get you started:

Quote:

Perhaps the most significant feature of the Fatimid era were the freedoms given to the people and liberties given to the mind and reason. People could believe whatever they liked provided they did not infringe other's rights. The Fatimids reserved separate pulpits for different Islamic sects, and scholars expressed their ideas in whatever manner they pleased. The Fatimids gave patronage to scholars and invited them from every place, financially supported them, and ignored what they believed in, even when it went against Fatimid beliefs.[67][73]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Freedom_of_expression

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Frank on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:41pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:33pm:

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:28pm:

You are not pointing to anything, you are just denouncing me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Freedom_of_expression

16 year old Muslims are shooting Chinese police accountants in Parramatta because of the 'golden age'????

Who knows. Maybe they do.

Otherwise I don't see the relevance of some 800 year old propaganda. Do you?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 9:02pm

Quote:

Firstly, neither Iraq or Iran or Egypt had been centres of great civilization for hundreds if not thousands of years before Islam came. The wars of the Byzantines and the Persians had largely decimated both populations and economies of the once great Mesopotamia, and it was Islam that rebuilt it. As for Egypt, it was the breadbasket of the East Roman Empire until the muslims conquered it. Yet despite its importance for the East Romans, their energy output was still lower than what the muslims produced during the caliphate. Again, this is from the Morris data.

The center of western civilisation only moved out of the area covered by the Caliphate when it was in Rome. None of this makes sense as an explanation for why the Muslims could not rebuild an even better empire. It is not like they were the Aztecs stuck on the other side of the world, not even aware of what came before. The center of western civilisation had moved around plenty of times before, and the Caliphate covered all of them except Rome. The Muslims either had it all, or it was right on their doorstep.

Quote:

And no, the places the muslims conquered didn't include the heart of the previous Roman Empire

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 6:38am

There's something ironic about the argument against Islam and its deleterious effect on 'enlightened' empires (i.e. the Roman Empire).

Edward Gibbon and Voltaire before him (among others) name Christianity as a major contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire (after all the Caesars were initially implacable enemies of Christianity).
[olist]
As Christianity advances, disasters befall the [Roman] empire—arts, science, literature, decay—barbarism ...

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
[/olist]
In any event, Christianity's hold on European Princes brought on the (so called) Dark Ages, that only ended with the 'Renaissance'. Its protagonists needed to exercise considerable political power and cunning so as to resist the Catholic Church in its initial attempts to quash this rebirth.

As a result of this secular movement, the great minds of Europe ultimately rediscovered Europe's lost history of its philosophical and scientific thought through the multitudes of manuscripts held by Islamic scholars - those manuscripts having survived the Dark Ages.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 8:12am

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 6:38am:

Cool history lesson.

So what do you feel is the cause of the stagnation for the last 300 years or so, and what can be done to turn things around?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Sprintcyclist on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:59am

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:41pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:33pm:

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:28pm:

You are not pointing to anything, you are just denouncing me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Freedom_of_expression

cultists do.

esp those that follow a paedophile and kill if anyone says that.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm

The erosion of Rome's power can be attributed to the erosion of the relatively inclusive political institutions that spurred its dramatic rise. The same can be seen in the rise and fall of the Venetian city-state. While the 'fall' hasn't happened, the same influence can be seen in the footprint of the French empire on continental Europe and much of the British empire's footprint.

Where I think Christiantiy did play a role was the absence of slavery in Eruope from the fall of the Roman Empire (with the exception of the incursion of the Islamic Caliphate). British and even Spanish leaders were motivated by Christianity to abolish slavery in the new world, and eventually succeeded. There was even a conscious effort to abolish slavery in the middle east, which is not quite complete yet. Short-sighted critiques of this history often pretend that European powers caused the slavery. The reality is that slavery was the norm, both in the old and new world. Europe was the exception. The same success that caused Europeans to be slave owners in the new world is also what lead to the eventual eradication of slavery. Slavery was a symptom of their success, not a cause, as some would argue, which is why their success only increased with the eradication of slavery.

Without this key absence of slavery, the labour market changes that preceeded the industrial revolution would not have happened. The increased value of labour that followed plagues and the introduction of industrialisation would have been kept by the slave owners rather than passed on to the labourers and a key driver for the economic success of the relatively free-er norther European countries would have been lost. This is in fact what happened further east.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:00pm

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm:

Where I think Christiantiy did play a role was the absence of slavery in Eruope from the fall of the Roman Empire (with the exception of the incursion of the Islamic Caliphate). British and even Spanish leaders were motivated by Christianity to abolish slavery in the new world, and eventually succeeded. There was even a conscious effort to abolish slavery in the middle east, which is not quite complete yet. Short-sighted critiques of this history often pretend that European powers caused the slavery. The reality is that slavery was the norm, both in the old and new world.

Yes, slavery is redundant when a class system creates its own unique brand of slavery - serfdom...

Australia (or should I say the British in Australia) exploited its own unique brand of slavery... Convicts.

Its modern, 'democratic' incarnation? Illegal immigrants!

As Barry Humphreys had Dame Edna quip, "Illegal immigration... Democracy's answer to slavery".

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:13pm

Sprintcyclist wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:59am:

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:41pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:33pm:

Frank wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 8:28pm:

You are not pointing to anything, you are just denouncing me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Freedom_of_expression

cultists do.

esp those that follow a paedophile and kill if anyone says that.

Christians? Jews?

You’re right there, Sprint. I wouldn’t want Jehova on my case either.

Lucky we believe in the Son of a virgin child bride, eh?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:19pm

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm:

Yes, FD, but a pity you missed the part of history where the Christians ramped up slavery to industrial levels unprecedented even in the ancient world.

Still, history was never your strong point, was it?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:21pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:00pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm:

There is a fundamental difference. When plagues created a labour shortage in Europe, those 'serfs' were able to move around and get higher paying jobs. It was the start of a free market in human labour. Without it, the emergence of today's civilised society from Western Europe would not have happened. The slave owners would have simply pocketed the increased value of their salves as they sold them to the highest bidder.

The latte socialists who try to equate what they don't like in the world today with the genuine slavery of the past are destroying one of history's most important lessons, and celebrating their own ignorance.

Quote:

Yes, FD, but a pity you missed the part of history where the Christians ramped up slavery to industrial levels unprecedented even in the ancient world.

No Karnal, I addressed it fairly openly, but then you would have to read the post to realise, wouldn't you?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:26pm

Post it for me, FD. Do you have the simple ability to cut and paste?

Cat got your tongue?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:27pm

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:32pm

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:27pm:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Evading now, eh?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:34pm

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:21pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:00pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm:

It must have been a great comfort to serfs everywhere in Europe condemned to living in between plagues, knowing that in a mere couple of hundred years they'll be all economically 'free' for at least 20 years...

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:24pm

I am not suggesting you thank these people for their serfdom. I am giving you the reality of history.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:29pm

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:24pm:

I am not suggesting you thank these people for their serfdom. I am giving you the reality of history.

That’s right. And Christendom.eradicated slavery from the world while it similtaneously brokered a burgeoning global slave trade.

Ah, the reality of history. It is a jolly world, no?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:36pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:19pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm:

What are your thoughts on current day slavery like UAE A-Rabs keeping Paki men to build their towers and Paki boys to race their camels?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:49pm

GordyL wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:36pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 9:19pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 12:48pm:

What are your thoughts on current day slavery like UAE A-Rabs keeping Paki men to build their towers and Paki boys to race their camels?

Little more than slavery. I’ve met a few Curries, Sri Lankans and Philippinos who sign up for this. They pretty much give up their lives to get their kids an education and, hopefully, help their children spend their lives with their own families.

In the developing world, this is what men do - work in the cities while their families live back in their villiage. This is how globalised labour works. It’s FI/FO tinted-style.

Personally, I’m grateful I’m in the top ten percent of the world’s population not subject to such modern indentured labour. When privaleged people like me rail against the tinted races, they’re clawing back their own class interests.

Modern racism is not so much about race, but class. Your aversion to tinted working conditions hits the nail right on the head.

Of course, to a hammer everything looks like a nail, no?

Stop the boats indeed.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 6:18am

freediver wrote on Apr 26^th, 2016 at 10:24pm:

I am not suggesting you thank these people for their serfdom. I am giving you the reality of history.

I think the reality of history (or human nature) in this context is that of how a ruling class can always find ever inventive ways of conjuring a social structure to have the lowest ranks do all the heavy lifting cheaply or for free - without too much of a risk of revolution.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Hop David on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 7:04am

Just prior to the opening with the Arabic Star Names Tyson did a shtick on President Bush (Google for Bush, Tyson and star names video). Sadly for Tyson, his story was shown to be false. (Google Adler, Washington Post, Tyson).

I am surprised people think Tyson is credible. I believe Tyson is making up the passage where Ghazali supposedly says math is the work of the devil.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 7:40am

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 9:02pm:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along. That 'paradise of civilization' that you seem to think encompassed the future caliphate was basically a desert wasteland - long since abandoned by Rome, and decimated by decades of war between the Persians and East Romans. Centres that were still standing when Islam took over undeniably became more prosperous and more productive under Islam (from you own source). More importantly they built major cultural and intellectual centres from scratch. The idea that they actually made places worse when they took over is beyond laughable.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm

Quote:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along.

Civilisation does not disappear in a few centuries Gandalf. The Europeans were harkening back to the glory days of Rome for over a millenia.

Quote:

That 'paradise of civilization' that you seem to think encompassed the future caliphate was basically a desert wasteland - long since abandoned by Rome

So Rome just walked out and left it when they noticed the desert? Would you describe the Nile delta as a desert wasteland? What about those places you previously described as breadbaskets? Also desert wasteland? Is Italy some kind of island of green in a brown mediterranean wasteland?

Quote:

and decimated by decades of war

Just like the downfall of every other great civilisation in the past. That did not stop the next, bigger civilisation from rebuilding something far better. Why are Muslims so uniquely unable to improve upon what came before and what even existed concurrently in the east? Why do you keep spinning this BS without addressing this fundamental point? Are you having trouble understanding it? Was it all America's fault perhaps?

Quote:

Centres that were still standing when Islam took over undeniably became more prosperous and more productive under Islam (from you own source).

To a level far below what the Romans had achieved without precedent.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 6:15pm

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Quote:
Centres that were still standing when Islam took over undeniably became more prosperous and more productive under Islam (from you own source).

To a level far below what the Romans had achieved without precedent.

So they did improve even just a little bit eh?

What happened to the line about Islam making every place they conquered worse? You do remember your claim about Cordoba don't you? Do you even know where Cordoba is?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:49pm

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Quote:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along.

Civilisation does not disappear in a few centuries Gandalf. The Europeans were harkening back to the glory days of Rome for over a millenia..

No, FD, half a millenia. The "rebirth" of Roman civilization - the Renaissance - happened in the late 15th century.

What’s 500 years between friends, eh?

But guess which empire Western Europe got their texts to enact that rebirth from.

Do you want to have a stab?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:59pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 6:15pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Here is that "line" again for you Gandalf:

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:23pm:

Quote:

Was Cordoba during Islamic rule an "eternal backwater", or was it in fact the most advanced and most prosperous city in the whole of Europe?

It was backwards compared to what had been previously, and what existed in the east at the time.

You still haven't explained what your point is with all of this. Are Muslims only capable of having advanced societies if they capture them alive and kicking?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 9:37pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:49pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Quote:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along.

Civilisation does not disappear in a few centuries Gandalf. The Europeans were harkening back to the glory days of Rome for over a millenia..

All this ancient history is making my poor little racists brain hurt.

How can we turn the Islamic world around. Could it be simpler a matter of buying them a bigger bookshelf?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 9:40pm

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:59pm:

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 6:15pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Here is that "line" again for you Gandalf:

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:23pm:

Quote:

Was Cordoba during Islamic rule an "eternal backwater", or was it in fact the most advanced and most prosperous city in the whole of Europe?

It was backwards compared to what had been previously, and what existed in the east at the time.

You still haven't explained what your point is with all of this.

Oh, sometimes a question is just a question.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 7:35am

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:59pm:

Here is that "line" again for you Gandalf

Thanks, but its probably more useful to show me the quote of you saying Islam turned everything it touched to poo. That would be more relevant to how you are backpeddling now.

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:59pm:

You still haven't explained what your point is with all of this.

Good question FD - we started by talking about muslim scientific achievements - which even you acknowledged was rather irrelevant to this "social development" rating.

And yet here you are banging on about it.... again.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 7:43am

GordyL wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 9:37pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:49pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Quote:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along.

Civilisation does not disappear in a few centuries Gandalf. The Europeans were harkening back to the glory days of Rome for over a millenia..

All this ancient history is making my poor little racists brain hurt.

How can we turn the Islamic world around. Could it be simpler a matter of buying them a bigger bookshelf?

Acknowledging history is important gordy. As deGrasse said in the OP video, muslims have a proud heritage, and acknowledging that heritage is not merely good for nostalgia but important to aspire greatness in the future.

Most people are on board with these basic facts of history. But as you can see, FD is determined to rewrite history - with absolutely no evidence as always. As I'm sure you can appreciate, this is not an honest and objective interpretation of history (FD must engage in willful ignorance to maintain his version) - it is very much front and centre of the muslim- bashing narrative.

You rightly want to look at the future and how muslims can improve themselves. I'm telling you that being honest about the history is absolutely vital for this journey forward. deGrasse knows this - which is why he made mention of it in his pitch for muslims to move forward.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by GordyL on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 8:28am

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 7:43am:

GordyL wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 9:37pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:49pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Quote:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along.

Civilisation does not disappear in a few centuries Gandalf. The Europeans were harkening back to the glory days of Rome for over a millenia..

All this ancient history is making my poor little racists brain hurt.

How can we turn the Islamic world around. Could it be simpler a matter of buying them a bigger bookshelf?

Equally important is being brutally honest with yourself and analysing what you can do differently to move forward.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 10:10am

Gordy no one is saying the "Islamic way" as it is expressed today doesn't need changing. Least of all me. But in this debate there are two opposing sides - of which Islamic history is absolutely pivotal to both: on the one hand we have FDs camp, the "climate deniers" of Islamic history, who insist that Islam never ever can be open, progressive and conducive to scientific pursuit. And they use their rewritten version of Islamic history to "prove" this narrative: Islam never can be, because it never has. On the other hand, there is the predominant view that Islam can be conducive to scientific pursuit - and the fact that it already has been during the Golden Age suggests that it can do the same again.

I can't emphasise enough how important history is to this debate.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 11:00am

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 7:43am:

GordyL wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 9:37pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 8:49pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2016 at 5:13pm:

Quote:

Rome had been the centre of western civilization for many hundreds of years before Islam came along.

Civilisation does not disappear in a few centuries Gandalf. The Europeans were harkening back to the glory days of Rome for over a millenia..

All this ancient history is making my poor little racists brain hurt.

How can we turn the Islamic world around. Could it be simpler a matter of buying them a bigger bookshelf?

It's why FD refuses to discuss his willingness to use porkie pies.

Google taqiyya, no?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 11:10am

As an aside, listening to Turnbull the other night making baseless claims about the impact of removing negative gearing, gleefully dismissing the need for actual facts and data in place of "common sense" - was FD all over. Maybe they've been swapping notes.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:04pm

Quote:

Thanks, but its probably more useful to show me the quote of you saying Islam turned everything it touched to poo. That would be more relevant to how you are backpeddling now.

You mean like this?

Quote:

Good question FD - we started by talking about muslim scientific achievements - which even you acknowledged was rather irrelevant to this "social development" rating.

I would expect they are strongly correlated. Here is a quote from you earlier in this thread throwing in the towell on the science argument.

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:30pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:08pm:

It looks like stagnation from the beginning. Muslims have had 1400 years of history, standing on the shoulders of giants, and produced an empire of inbred midgets.

Have you changed your mind?

Quote:

Most people are on board with these basic facts of history. But as you can see, FD is determined to rewrite history - with absolutely no evidence as always. As I'm sure you can appreciate, this is not an honest and objective interpretation of history (FD must engage in willful ignorance to maintain his version) - it is very much front and centre of the muslim- bashing narrative.

You rightly want to look at the future and how muslims can improve themselves. I'm telling you that being honest about the history is absolutely vital for this journey forward. deGrasse knows this - which is why he made mention of it in his pitch for muslims to move forward.

I think deluded themselves about their "glorious past" is just another effort to avoid looking at the ultimate cause of their dysfunction.

Quote:

Is this why you are so reluctant to list those scientific achievements you accused me of being insecure about?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:37pm

Quote:

I think deluded themselves about their "glorious past" is just another effort to avoid looking at the ultimate cause of their dysfunction.

Their past interbreeding with the negroid sub-races or their willingness to take away the Freeeedom of decent white people everywhere?

Please explain, FD. Your newfound obsession with race is an interesting development. What do you think the 2007 FD would say?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Secret Wars on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:52pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:37pm:

What do you think the 2007 FD would say?

What does that mean?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 6:29pm

Secret Wars wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:52pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:37pm:

What do you think the 2007 FD would say?

What does that mean?

FD has two personalities; one calm, rational and curious, the other - well. Let’s just say FD has two personalities.

He gave up the old one in 2007. We’re stuck with the new FD.

And it’s all thanks to a former poster known as Abu. Allah Uakbar, no?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Secret Wars on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 6:41pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 6:29pm:

Secret Wars wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:52pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:37pm:

What do you think the 2007 FD would say?

What does that mean?

No. Your record seems stuck.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 6:50pm

freediver wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 5:04pm:

Is this why you are so reluctant to list those scientific achievements you accused me of being insecure about?

Have you found the old thread yet?

One of my favourite was the tusi couple. Remember that? You even acknowledged that as a significant advancement in astronomy.

Would you like to argue again how mathematical discoveries have nothing to do with science? that was the best of your inane tangents I think.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 8:30pm

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

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 9:07pm

The good thing about FD is his versatility. You can have a chat with him about something one day, and the next - poof.

Provide proof.

Start a new thread to discuss that.

Or the old favourite:

....

Sorry, FD, could you clarify?

...

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 9:49pm

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.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 9:54pm

Watch this.

FD, do you rule out the use of porkies in your campaign against the Muselman?

No rush.Take your time.

...

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 7:01am

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.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 9:39am

freediver wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 9:49pm:

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.

And yet I just gave you one. If you can't recall something I said less than 24 hours ago, its not really surprising you can't remember a thread from 3 years ago. But then again, your memory is remarkably selective. You'll "recall" with remarkable detail everything Abu said about Israel and homosexuals from nearly 10 years ago.

Do you ever wonder why I often just can't be bothered any more FD?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 7:02pm

Quote:

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?

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.

Quote:

And yet I just gave you one.

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?

Quote:

Do you ever wonder why I often just can't be bothered any more FD?

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?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 7:56pm

What’s the matter, FD?

Cat got your tongue?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 7:57pm

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

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?

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.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 8:47pm

So, drawing a straight line eh? Number one contribution to science?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 9:13pm

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

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

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?

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?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 9:41pm

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

Quote:

Not sure about that (Islam always having a negative influence on the society it dominates) ... William Dalrymple, who writes extensively about India (where he has lived on and off since 1989), laments the damage done to Indian culture since Partition (i.e. since the extraction of a large portion of the native Muslim population). Salman Rushdie and Tariq Ali also agree on this...

I don't believe that Christianity, by its existence, has necessarily had a positive effect on the societies it dominates... Usually the positive effects are in spite of Christianity not because of it.... As for the Dark Ages... They're not a part of history that started at half past four and ran till quarter to nine one day in the 6th century... They ran for 500 years... Largely because of Christianity.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:06pm

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?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Frank on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:14pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 9:41pm:

I don't believe that Christianity, by its existence, has necessarily had a positive effect on the societies it dominates... Usually the positive effects are in spite of Christianity not because of it.... As for the Dark Ages... They're not a part of history that started at half past four and ran till quarter to nine one day in the 6th century... They ran for 500 years... Largely because of Christianity.

Nonsense.

The 'dark ages' was the transition from the Roman Empire to a consolidated European political structure, finally established in 800 when Charlemaine was crowned as 'Roman Emperor'.

The roughly 400 years between that and the fall of Rome was not because of Christianity but because of the falling apart of Rome - which, by the way, did not happen for another thousand years on the Eastern Roman Empire which was also Christian all along.

The lazy Christian-bashing is stupid. Think before you utter if that's not too much to ask (it is too much to ask for some other poster here).

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:21pm

freediver wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:06pm:

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

But did Christianity actually drive abolitionism? Christians had worked the slave trade for centuries? Wasn't it more likely enlightened humanism influencing western European thought?

The British (by the 19th century) had definitely developed a repugnance of slavery... But then, the British had the concept of the working class to look to for their homegrown slaves... Not to mention using convicts as slave labour... They could afford to moralise.

Not sure Christianity made them abolitionists... Maybe it made them more inventive in disguising their own forms of slavery. I'd bet Charles Dickens would agree with that.

The Spanish (and a more Christian European country you will not find) weren't much into abolitionism... Until they were forced.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Frank on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:35pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:21pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:06pm:

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

Oh, so the British abolished slavery because they had the working class coming on tap, plus convicts so they calculated all that passionate stuff to cover up their scheme to access cheap Irish labour and the navvies and the working class generally? And the Spanish, not having access to the Irish navvies, resisted the whole 'no slavery' caper for HR reasons?

What kind of blinding resentment is fuelling this particular idiocy?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:48pm

Frank wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:35pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:21pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:06pm:

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

Yes, I guess the British were lucky to have their entrenched class system and their aristocratic moralising to justify the likes of convicts as slaves. Easy to moralise about the venality of other countries' blatant slavery when yours has invented other means of enslaving people... Without the need for chains and whips (except for convicts, of course).

The 'great' Churchill was fond of reminding his politically nearest and dearest of the inferiority of the brown and black races.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Frank on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 11:06pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:48pm:

Frank wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:35pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:21pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 29^th, 2016 at 10:06pm:

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

So today's pay-as-you- go taxpayers are simply the slaves of yesterday. Especially if they are non-white immigrants.

The British Navy's stance against international slave trade was just a cunning plan - thanks, Boldrick.

You are out of your tree, pal. You have been captured by some monomaniacal ideology that will not let you come up for air.

What stance against slavery or other degradation would you recognise as honourable? Give us a historic example so we can know what strandards you are measuring the British against.i

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 7:25am

Quote:

But did Christianity actually drive abolitionism? Christians had worked the slave trade for centuries? Wasn't it more likely enlightened humanism influencing western European thought?

I think you are creating a false dichotomy here. Everyone had worked the slave trade since shortly after civilisation began. Tell me, what influence do you think the story of exodus might have had?

Quote:

Not sure Christianity made them abolitionists... Maybe it made them more inventive in disguising their own forms of slavery.

They hid their slavery by 'hiding' it in the form of 'not slavery'?

Quote:

I'd bet Charles Dickens would agree with that.

Speak for yourself. You do not know slavery, so you see it in being forced to get out of bed in the morning.

Quote:

The Spanish (and a more Christian European country you will not find) weren't much into abolitionism... Until they were forced.

The Spanish crown made genuine efforts to get rid of slavery, while they were at the top of their game making huge piles of money from it. No-one forced them. They too cited Christianity as a motivator. They were not as successful, but not through lack of will. Christian Europeans actually started banning slavery among themselves long before they managed to stop Muslims raiding the European coast taking slaves. The absence of slavery from civilisation was an almost exclusively European anomoly that they exported to the world in an unusually short time. The Europeans went from tribal backwater with no written history to leading and freeing the world in 1 to 2.5 millennia. Where Islam now dominates the bulk of the traditional western civilisation, they have had up to 12 millenia of civilisation and to show for it are squeezing out little nuggets like ISIS.

Quote:

Yes, I guess the British were lucky to have their entrenched class system

Crap. Their class system arose because of the absence of slavery. What do you expect? The Bible arrives on their doorstep and they decide overnight to free their slaves and establish a functioning, liberal democracy? Or better yet, they decide to abandon their wandering tribal ways and export liberty and democracy to the rest of the world? In a historical context, that is pretty much what happened. You can see quite clearly what they came from and where they went to. It is all around you, staring you in the face. But for some reason you blame them for what they came from and deny them any credit for where they went to.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 8:19am

It is a true irony that, while the British around the turn of the 19th century were vehemently resisting slavery (i.e. the trafficking of people as slaves to foreign empires and states), they were constructing a new form of slavery - this time with a moral argument more conducive to the captors' cause - Convicts.

As a British officer, Captain Hill, wrote of the conditions in the convict fleets -

"The slave traffic is merciful compared with what I have seen in this [second] fleet; in that it is in the interests of the masters to preserve the healths and lives of their captives, they have a joint benefit with the owners; in this, the more they can withhold from the unhappy wretches, the more provisions they have to dispose of at a foreign market, and the earlier in the voyage they die, the longer they can draw the deceased's allowance to themselves."

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:01am

Do you think the British resistance to slavery has had a positive impact on the world? It's OK North, it won't hurt you to say it.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:06am

Looks like your crusade in the name of Freeeedom has come down to fighting slavery, FD - in all its 18th century forms.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:17am

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:01am:

Do you think the British resistance to slavery has had a positive impact on the world? It's OK North, it won't hurt you to say it.

No, North’s saying the end of slavery had little to do with Christianity (which was also used to justify slavery), and almost everything to do with economic and class interests.

William Wilberforce was more inspired by Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau than Christianity, and this was quite normal for educated English men at the turn of the 19th century.

Britain did not deliver a "functioning liberal democracy" anywhere. In Britain itself, non-landowners only got the vote in the 20th century. The influence (fear) of communism did more to deliver liberal democracy to Mother than any noble sentiments in the British intellectual tradition. Not even Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill called for universal suffrage.

Women - and working men - fought and died to be a part of "functioning liberal democracy". Every other European power had had revolutions to establish this.

Mother, in fact, was one of the last European monarchies, to reform.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:21am

Do you think European opposition to slavery began in the 19th century?

What influence do you think the identification with slaves through the story of exodus has had on the enlightenment?

You may speak for yourself Karnal.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:51am

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:21am:

Do you think European opposition to slavery began in the 19th century?

What influence do you think the identification with slaves through the story of exodus has had on the enlightenment?.

None. European powers did not identify as slaves. Britains, remember, "never never never shall be slaves".

Never ever, eh?

Britain didn’t have to give up slavery. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it had a labour surplus. Women did the domestic work, men did the manual labour and both worked in the factories that kicked off the industrial revolution.

Simply, Britain had no need for slave labour. In the colonies, it used indentured labour - Tamils, Cantonese, Kanacks. Australia was an aberration in the use of convict labour. Australia as a penal settlement was a short experiment, quickly abandoned.

The Americas relied on slave labour, and at the time of abolition, only a few British companies invested there.

Even in America at the time of the civil war, slavery had declined as a major source of labour. While Christianity and Enlightenment ideals were certainly refered to - by both sides - slavery was killed off because of economic reasons.

It was interesting to watch Tarrantino’s move, Django Unchained. It showed the vast state-wide infrastructure necessary to keep (and discipline) slaves in the deep south. Think today how much it costs to keep prisoners. Alternatives to detention are far cheaper, and far more effective in preventing recidivism.

These ideas go back to the atheist Jeremy Bentham who, along with penal reform, was a strident campaigner against slavery. The utilitarians showed the economic importance of supporting and training the lower classes, and it was this movement more than any other that influenced the abolition of slavery.

Utilitarianism was also the forerunner to modern.economics, with its creed, the greatest good to the greatest number, still the defining purpose of economics.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 11:41am

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:51am:

Britain didn’t have to give up slavery. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it had a labour surplus. Women did the domestic work, men did the manual labour and both worked in the factories that kicked off the industrial revolution.

Simply, Britain had no need for slave labour. In the colonies, it used indentured labour - Tamils, Cantonese, Kanacks. Australia was an aberration in the use of convict labour. Australia as a penal settlement was a short experiment, quickly abandoned.

Interesting post.

Yes, Britain had a labour surplus it could exploit with poor pay (or oftentimes none at all) - Britain's working class were indoctrinated in 'accepting their lot' by the aristocratic ruling classes and the Church of England all members of whom were, of course, Christians.

I haven't read where any Christian denomination played any significant part (or any part at all) in ending convict (slave) labour.

Britain used its own forms of slavery wherever it believed it needed to. Convict labour and press gangs, for instance, (as seamen were excluded from the Magna Carta - Not, by the way, a Christian doctrine!).

It is a truly facile argument that 'Christianity eliminated slavery'... Its been around for 2000 years, 1300 of which it was at the pinnacle of European power and influence. If it were so (Christianity's 'saving the slaves') why did it take 1300 years?

Clearly there were other reasons for the sudden distaste for slavery from the late 18th century.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 12:11pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 11:41am:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:51am:

Utilitarianism ended penal settlements with the invention of the penetentiary, or what Bentham originally called the Panopticon.

The 18th and 19th centuries saw the rise of new technologies and methods of harnessing the labour of populations, not slaves. Factories, schools, hospitals, work houses and institutions all arose to mobilize the new proletariat class.

The 20th century, I think, saw them mobilized into new ways of fighting wars. When the wars were done, these populations were mobilised into new forms of mass consumption. New electronic media were crucial in this development, just as it is today.

When these new technologies were deployed, slaves - and convicts - simply became defunct.

Christianity had no part in this process whatsoever.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 12:43pm

Quote:

After they inherited the benefits of the absence of slave labour. The absence of slavery preceded your 'absence of the need for it'.

The decline of slavery had been happening since the fall of the Roman Empire, while Europe was a backwater. Those labour markets that fueled the industrial revolution only arose because of the absence of slavery. Britian did not get rich, then go back and change it's social history to support that wealth.

Quote:

It is a truly facile argument that 'Christianity eliminated slavery'... Its been around for 2000 years, 1300 of which it was at the pinnacle of European power and influence.

So tell us about these 1300 years north.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:12pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 12:43pm:

Those labour markets that fueled the industrial revolution only arose because of the absence of slavery.

No, they arose in the mid 1700s - when slavery was in full flourish.

You're conflating two separate things: there were never slaves (or very few) slaves in Britain itelf, but the wealth that Britain acquired from its empire relied heavily on the international slave trade (estimated 40% of all enslaved Africans between 1701-1800 were transported on British vessels). Without the lucrative slave trade before she abolished it - Britain almost certainly wouldn't have been to kick start its industrial revolution.

And as for the labor market for the industrial revolution, that came from the farming revolution, where technological advances released a mass of farm labourers - who migrated to the cities and were scooped up by industrialists to work in their factories.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:26pm

It arose from the absence of slavery in Europe for centuries prior to the 1700s. The changes to the labour market, before they had any involvement in the international slave trade.

Quote:

And as for the labor market for the industrial revolution, that came from the farming revolution, where technological advances released a mass of farm labourers - who migrated to the cities and were scooped up by industrialists to work in their factories.

All thanks to the absence of slavery. What you are describing is a free market in human labour. Workers freely choosing to travel in search of higher paying jobs, rather than being sold to the highest bidder. This was the ultimate driver of Britain's success. They did not purchase the emancipation of their own citizens by launching themselves into global affairs. Rather, they were able to launch themselves into global affairs because of the previous changes at home.

Quote:

Without the lucrative slave trade before she abolished it - Britain almost certainly wouldn't have been to kick start its industrial revolution.

Britiain did not "kick start" the industrial revolution. That is something a communist would say. It happened because the conditions - technology and labour market - were ripe for it. It happened largely in parallel in many northern european places where conditions were similar.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:31pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:26pm:

It happened largely in parallel in many northern european places where conditions were similar.

Correct - all slave trading nations.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:34pm

I don't believe any religious dogma would be promoted over and above that which it proscribes where those proscribed actions are crucial to the survival, building or the enriching of a state (After all, all's fair in love and war, apparently).

Those states' ruling classes will simply ignore, condemn, reciprocally proscribe or subvert the dissenting religious doctrine.

The golden rule is extant in multitudes of religions (more likely because we probably instinctively intuit its value) and in fact it does not need a religion to justify its moral value.

But even the golden rule is ignored or subverted when we believe circumstances require it.

Its easy to instinctively intuit that slavery is wrong, whether you believe god exists or not... Sooner or later our more virtuous instincts bear out in our actions - It just requires the security of the state, our respective culture and its national psyche to be assured before they will be borne out.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:43pm

The conditions were ripe for all these things, FD, because of laws passed to manage them. The corn laws and the poor laws were instrumental in "encouraging" former serfs to move to the cities, and once they did, to round them up.as vagrants and put them to work in the work houses. .

Of course, earlier still, those serfs were literally the property of the aristocracy, who owned the peasants just as they owned all game on their lands.

That aristocracy were the only group allowed to vote in England until the industrialists fought and won the vote in the late 18th century.

History does not just happen. It’s the result of groups struggling to advance their interests.

We’ve discused the lassez faire belief that Britain just liberated its people and economy and went on to become a great and fair world power. It’s an FD favourite.

And nothing could be further from.the truth.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:58pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:31pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 1:26pm:

It happened largely in parallel in many northern european places where conditions were similar.

Correct - all slave trading nations.

Gandalf, all trading nations at the time were slave trading nations. Slave trading did not set them apart. What did set them apart was the emerging (free) labour market. That they rose to the top of the slave trade reflects the greater freedom of these people to participate in it and other markets, that they also rose to the top of. Again, this was another symptom, but not a cause of their success. You would have just as much luck arguing that Britain's power came from trading tea.

You cling to this 'slavery as the cause' explanation because as a communist, you cannot bear to acknowledge the reality.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:04pm

Quote:

Again, you are attempting to turn the end of slavery and a free market in human labour into "just another form of slavery". They were not rounded up. They went to the city as free men in search of better paying work. They found it, and in doing so made western European nations and their offshoots world leaders. You are describing this process while not being able to see the wood for the trees.

Quote:

That aristocracy were the only group allowed to vote in England until the industrialists fought and won the vote in the late 18th century.

Again, you are not able to see the wood for the trees. The transition to democracy was fudamental to western European power. It did not have to happen overnight for this to be true. It only had to give them an advantage over other more oppressive regimes. Their rise to power does not have to wait until the process was complete for this to be true. You would expect their rise to power to lag only slightly, which is exactly what happened.

Quote:

History does not just happen. It’s the result of groups struggling to advance their interests.
We’ve discused the lassez faire belief that Britain just liberated its people and economy

You mean, you have projected this on to me and then knocked it down. You have discussed it with yourself, oblivious to what is going on around you.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:08pm

Quote:

Its easy to instinctively intuit that slavery is wrong, whether you believe god exists or not... Sooner or later our more virtuous instincts bear out in our actions - It just requires the security of the state, our respective culture and its national psyche to be assured before they will be borne out.

Nothing is certain, and the bulk of history suggests that the opposite is true - stable civilisation prevents the emancipation of slaves. It was no coincidence that Europe was the fringe of western civilisation rather than the center.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:18pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:08pm:

Quote:

I don't think the southern states of the US were so stable... They were threatened since the revolution by the prospect of the removal of what they believed was the mainstay of their economic prosperity - slavery... This and the industries it supported were as significant then as are Microsoft or Apple today. The more the 'haughty high-minded' in the north rattled on about falling in to line with world opinion regarding slavery, the more the southerners became insecure about what would happen to them economically (and physically) were all the slaves to be freed and, of course vehemently resisted emancipation, even quoting Biblical passages to justify their resistance. To be sure, they were in a state of severe existential angst about this for over 70 years before the inevitable happened (with them, the south, firing the first shot).

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:24pm

Free men looking for better conditions? Farm labourers were thrown out of work and starved. They moved to freezing slums, where many died of cholera, smallpox or alcoholism, if they escaped transportation to Australia, or the work house, which put you in a uniform and locked you in.

Conditions of the British slums were far worse than their equivalents in Mumbai, Manila or Mogadishu today. For a start, there was the Northern European Winter, but one of the biggest killers was the work itself. Factory work was deadly - particularly to new, inexperienced workers.

Hardly anyone, particularly those with families, moved to "better themselves" - especially illiterate rural labourers. They moved because they were starving to death. Back then, all land was private. You could be hung for poaching.

Things are different today. Transportation is faster and better, education levels are higher, levels of health are even higher - a two-dollar packet of antibiotics can cure no end of dangerous diseases.

A refugee from the countryside in 18th century England had it much tougher.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:27pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:24pm:

Conditions of the British slums were far worse than their equivalents in Mumbai, Manila or Mogadishu today. For a start, there was the Northern European Winter, but one of the biggest killers was the work itself.

Hardly anyone, particularly those with families, moved to "better themselves" - especially illiterate rural labourers. They moved because they were starving to death and could be executed for poaching.

Charles Dickens, who witnessed first hand these massive social injustices, says as much about the appalling state of the British underclasses during the 19th century.

In fact Frank McCourt says the same about southern Ireland in 'Angela's Ashes'

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:29pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:27pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:24pm:

Charles Dickens, who witnessed first hand these massive social injustices, says as much about the appalling state of the British underclasses during the 19th century.

That he did, North. The idea that they were free agents competing on a level playing field is ridiculous.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:35pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:29pm:

The idea that they were free agents competing on a level playing field is ridiculous.

Yet thats the basic principle behind laissez faire economics. And despite the improvement in worker's conditions, the concept is almost as absurd now as it was in Dicken's day.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 3:04pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:18pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:08pm:

Quote:

You have your blinkers on. Think instead of the several millenia of Egyption kingdoms, and the Islamic world since Muhammed. This is what I mean by the majority of history, not the American civil war.

Quote:

No-one said it was meant to be easy. Are you saying the crappy English weather disproves my argument? They cannot be free and cold at the same time?

Quote:

Conditions of the British slums were far worse than their equivalents in Mumbai, Manila or Mogadishu today.

Conditions in the UK were worse than those in warmer climates for almost the enirety of human history. This in fact played a causal role.

Quote:

Hardly anyone, particularly those with families, moved to "better themselves" - especially illiterate rural labourers.

I see. Starving to death isn't much of a motivator to improve your lot eh?

Quote:

Things are different today.

As a result of our history, including the ending of slavery.

Quote:

Charles Dickens, who witnessed first hand these massive social injustices, says as much about the appalling state of the British underclasses during the 19th century.

I doubt he was foolish enough to equate it with actual slavery, but you never know. People invoke slavery all the time, even novelists.

Quote:

Yet thats the basic principle behind laissez faire economics. And despite the improvement in worker's conditions, the concept is almost as absurd now as it was in Dicken's day.

Good thing that no-one is actually pushing that eh Gandalf? But it would make your promotion of socialism not quite such an uphill struggle, wouldn't it? We only got rich off the backs of black slaves and anyone who isn't a socialist wants to bring back toll bridges.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 3:37pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 2:08pm:

Quote:

Throughout history, where slavery (and/or its other incarnations like serfdom or convict labour) was perceived to be crucial to the survival, building or the enriching of a state, it was practised - And practised writ large in the New World until the 19th century.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:01pm

Except of course where people rejected it on moral grounds, despite the economic implications. These theories are fairly new. I doubt the people involved realised they were making their nations rich and powerful by abandoning and banning slavery.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:07pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:01pm:

Then there's the likes of Thomas Jefferson (not a Christian) who continued to keep slaves, yet -

'In his writings on American grievances justifying the Revolution, he attacked the British for sponsoring the slave trade to the colonies. In 1778, with Jefferson's leadership, slave importation was banned in Virginia, one of the first jurisdictions worldwide to do so. Jefferson was a lifelong advocate of ending the trade and as President led the effort to criminalize the international slave trade that passed Congress and he signed on March 2, 1807, a few weeks before the British did the same.'

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:29pm

That was several centuries after the Spanish crown made similar rulings, in the name of Christianty. Emancipation was a long and messy path, not a single event by a single person.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:38pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 3:04pm:

I see. Starving to death isn't much of a motivator to improve your lot eh?

No. We call that a push factor. A pull factor's driven by education and aspiration - the sort of thing you meant when you said British workers exercised their Freeeedom to improve their lot and move to the cities.

Where their living conditions worsened.

It's interesting that you see anyone with an alternative position to your own Freeeedom narrative as a socialist. It's probably not too hard to detect my political-economic influences, but I doubt you'll predict my views.

Funny how some things change and some stay the same. Now the British are escaping back to the country.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:42pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:01pm:

I doubt the people involved realised they were making their nations rich and powerful by abandoning and banning slavery.

Except the ones in Amerika, who argued just that.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Ashley on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 5:44pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:38pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 3:04pm:

I see. Starving to death isn't much of a motivator to improve your lot eh?

Given the muslim invader problem they have over there, that is no surprise. I'd say the pull factor of an IQ less than 81 is mighty weak.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:01pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:38pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 3:04pm:

I see. Starving to death isn't much of a motivator to improve your lot eh?

Here's a tip, if you want to know what I mean, ask me.

Slavery undermines both the push and the pull factor. In fact, I think you are creating a false dichotomy here.

Quote:

It's interesting that you see anyone with an alternative position to your own Freeeedom narrative as a socialist.

I see Gandalf as a socialist, because he is a socialist, and this particular argument appears to be more motivated by socialism than Islam, though both ideologies create an incentive to undermine those "wishy washy western liberal morals".

Quote:

Except the ones in Amerika, who argued just that.

Can you quote them? If so, this theory is older than I thought. Note that morally righteous does not have the same meaning as rich and powerful.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:07pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:29pm:

That was several centuries after the Spanish crown made similar rulings, in the name of Christianty. Emancipation was a long and messy path, not a single event by a single person.

Interesting that Charles V abolished slavery of Amerindians only after the slavery of Africans to replace the Amerindian slaves had been established.

One of the saddest stories ever told... that a (Christian) Dominican friar having seen the damage done to native Americans by slavery, supported instead the transportation of Africans to take the natives' place as slaves in the new world... This was seen as more just as the Africans were resistant to European diseases and could survive exposure to the sun for longer than the native Americans.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:21pm

You are failing to see the wood for the trees again North. One bloody minded Friar does not change the fact that Christian society basically brought an end to slavery the world over.

If only they had cheerleaders along the way, maybe then you would see it for what it is.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:37pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:21pm:

There has never been a single society in all history that abolished slavery purely on moral grounds where the existence or well-being of the state was at stake as a result of abolition.

Even Abraham Lincoln said if he could preserve the Union by not freeing any slaves, he would do it.

The 'good angels' of human nature that would call a society to abolish slavery would only be heard where the state or its society were not threatened with destruction because of it.

Even the Catholic Church did not formally condemn slavery until the 19th century when, by then, slavery had served its purpose.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:43pm

Karnal has also suggested that other arguments beside moral ones were put forward at the time. Can you cite them?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:50pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:01pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 4:38pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 3:04pm:

I see. Starving to death isn't much of a motivator to improve your lot eh?

Here's a tip, if you want to know what I mean, ask me.

No worries, FD. When you said
Quote:

They went to the city as free men in search of better paying work

, did you mean:

A) They hopped down to Manchester and London to get a good job with better pay and conditions?
B) They were thrown off the farms their families had lived on for generations and left with no alternative but to move to crowded city slums and beg for a 14 hour day, 6 day week, factory job?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 7:27pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:43pm:

Karnal has also suggested that other arguments beside moral ones were put forward at the time. Can you cite them?

Not only were writers and thinkers arguing against slavery on economic grounds in 19th century America, there were arguments between convict versus free-settler labour in Australia.

Similar arguments were used for slaves as convicts. Settlement in Christian societies would civilize slaves, after a life of honest work, they could - perhaps - earn the chance to gain their freedom, but importantly, their work would contribute to the development of new, free nations. They would tame the land in the new world, and in so doing, they could be made to tame the animal instincts in themselves.

Here, we can see the reflection of lassez faire economic theory, where free trade was a civilizing influence in itself. Work, whether it be picking cotton to make clothes, or tobacco to make lung cancer, was noble in and of itself. Likewise, trade, whether it be in grain for bread or opium to hook Chinese coolies, was similarly civilizing. These two activities - manual labour and business - would lift the new world out of the war, corruption and nepotism of the old European monarchies.

What do you think, FD? Did it work?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Ashley on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 8:26pm

One more post in a row should get FD to log back in for you ;D .

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 8:55pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 7:27pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:43pm:

Karnal has also suggested that other arguments beside moral ones were put forward at the time. Can you cite them?

What were these arguments against slavery on economic grounds Karnal?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:12pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 8:55pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 7:27pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:43pm:

Karnal has also suggested that other arguments beside moral ones were put forward at the time. Can you cite them?

What were these arguments against slavery on economic grounds Karnal?

What do you mean by economic? Adam Smith called himself a moral philosopher. Economics in the 19th century was known as political-economy.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:21pm

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:12pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 8:55pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 7:27pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:43pm:

Karnal has also suggested that other arguments beside moral ones were put forward at the time. Can you cite them?

What were these arguments against slavery on economic grounds Karnal?

What do you mean by economic? Adam Smith called himself a moral philosopher. Economics in the 19th century was known as political-economy.

It is curious that both you and North projected an amoral argument for the abolition of slavery onto those who fought so hard to make it happen, but neither of you can say what it was.

Perhaps North will have more luck understanding the question.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:31pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:21pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:12pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 8:55pm:

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 7:27pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 6:43pm:

Karnal has also suggested that other arguments beside moral ones were put forward at the time. Can you cite them?

What were these arguments against slavery on economic grounds Karnal?

What do you mean by economic? Adam Smith called himself a moral philosopher. Economics in the 19th century was known as political-economy.

Gee, FD, that's the first time I've seen you give up on a question. I don't think anyone's claiming an "amoral argument for the abolition of slavery" (whatever that means). I'm claiming an economic one. Here's Abraham Lincoln:

Quote:

Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful. The slave-master himself has a conception of it; and hence the system of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you can not drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope, for the rod. And yet perhaps it does not occur to you, that to the extent of your gain in the case, you have given up the slave system, and adopted the free system of labor."

Officers in NSW came to similar conclusions with convict labour. They found that the whip did not work as well as incentives, including rations of rum. Most convict labour in the early Sydney colony became what we would now call free labour. Convicts could come and go freely, build their own houses, and do a fixed amount of labour a day. While money was banned, they traded in rum and tobacco. Female convicts traded with sex. While rum and sodomy played their part in early Sydney, the lash was not as prominent as it's often made out to be.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:38pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:21pm:

I didn't think I was projecting (or insinuating) an amoral argument for abolition... Just not an exclusively Christian one.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:41pm

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

It has become popular among socialists and other groups with an axe to grind against capitalism, economic freedom, democracy or even white people in general, to insist that the rise of western Europe and its colonies is a result of slavery. This can be an attractive fallacy, given that the recent rise of European powers coincided with their involvement in the global slave trade. However, it is a correlation, not a causation. I argue here the opposite – that freedom and democracy are the cause of Europe’s rise.

The historian Daron Acemoglu uses the broader terms of political and economic inclusiveness to describe this theory. This is in part to avoid inevitable arguments about what constitutes true freedom, democracy or capitalism. Furthermore, his argument is (rightly) that these are opposite extremes on a spectrum, and more significantly, that this is a naturally polarising spectrum. That is, countries tend to drift towards the nearest end of the spectrum. In his book, Why Nations Fail, he explores the positive feedback loops (ie, self-reinforcing mechanisms) that make this happen.

In the context of the arguments regarding slavery, I would phrase it thus: only a small advantage was needed for European nations to have the upper hand and take over the world. The historical tendency for corrupt nations to reinforce their oppressive social institutions meant that Europe’s competitors were easy to overtake. This, combined with Islam’s grip on the bulk of western civilisation, meant that European countries did not have far to go to get that upper hand. Although Europe was rapidly transitioning towards liberal democracy, history would not wait for perfection, and so a society recently risen from barbarity found itself ruling the world. Thus Europeans ramped up the slave trade, as they ramped up all global trade. But they also brought their liberal morals in whatever form they took at the time, and as the path to liberalism continued they wound down the global slave trade, while continuing to ramp up the global market.

During the Roman Empire, this advantage took the form of political inclusiveness – a rough, messy form of democracy that was eventually abandoned, to Rome’s detriment. Later, this advantage took the form of economic inclusiveness. Slavery turned into serfdom, which turned into a free market in human labour every time a plague increased the value of labour and decreased the relative value of capital. Entrepreneurs were more free in western Europe than elsewhere to invest in the industrial revolution and take advantage of the mobile workforce (and profit from it). Political inclusiveness came later – a sudden upheaval in mainland Eruope, a gradual transition in Britain.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:46pm

Quote:

Thanks Karnal. That is an impressive argument against slavery, and one that I would still call economic and amoral, unless of course you think an extra 50 pounds of hemp is a moral imperative.

Have you seen any arguments that it would make the country richer and more powerful? I am looking for an earlier version of Acemoglu's argument.

In light of this argument (I assume you agree with it, and there is ample evidence that people work harder when freed from slavery), why do you struggle with the idea that it was the absence of slavery at home, rather than participation in slavery abroad, that drove the industrial revolution?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:48pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:46pm:

Quote:

Thanks Karnal.

No worries. You only have to ask, you know.

Do you mind if I ask you a question?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:50pm

Have I ever complained about your questions?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:52pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:50pm:

Have I ever complained about your questions?

Never. Will you answer my question?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:55pm

Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:55pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:41pm:

Although Europe was rapidly transitioning towards liberal democracy, history would not wait for perfection, and so a society recently risen from barbarity found itself ruling the world. Thus Europeans ramped up the slave trade, as they ramped up all global trade. But they also brought their liberal morals in whatever form they took at the time, and as the path to liberalism continued they wound down the global slave trade, while continuing to ramp up the global market.

By what measure does he use with regard to the term 'rapidly', I wonder?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:03pm

By the passage of time. History, as it were.

How long do you think it should have taken?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:05pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:41pm:

I'm also interested in the presumption that 'history' has a teleological awareness of itself.

It sounds like the same popular fallacy that 'evolution' somehow had humans as its goal or endgame 'in mind'.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:07pm

That was not my intention. For the specific part you quote, refer to my argument that only a small difference was necessary to gain an advantage of their competitors. This is to counter Gandalf's and Karnal's (and yours?) implicit argument that freedom and democracy could not possibly be the ultimate cause of their wealth and power because they got rich and powerful before they became a liberal democracy.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:14pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:07pm:

OK, enlightenment thinkers certainly took issue with monarchical absolutism and proposed alternatives... But I'm not sure they had 'liberal democracy' in mind. Even their versions were elitist.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:21pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:03pm:

By the passage of time. History, as it were.

How long do you think it should have taken?

By what measure? Over the last 150 years or the last thousand?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:31pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:14pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:07pm:

OK, enlightenment thinkers certainly took issue with monarchical absolutism and proposed alternatives... But I'm not sure they had 'liberal democracy' in mind. Even their versions were elitist.

I do not claim they had liberal democracy in mind. They did not even know what it was. Perhaps that is why it took them so long to get there.

There is an "end" in the sense of Acemoglu's theory - that these things are self reinforcing and thus societies drift to the extremes.

Quote:

By what measure? Over the last 150 years or the last thousand?

Civilisation (in the form of a stable government and a political border) first reached western Europe via the Roman Empire a bit over 2000 years ago. For places further east like Germany, it was after the collapse of the Roman Empire - a bit over 1000 years ago. Not sure exactly when.

In contrast, the original centres of western civilisation have had it for about 10 millenia. I think that many of those places have never experienced liberal democracy.

Of course, given the right conditions and with a bit of prodding, countries can do it a lot faster these days, like South Korea did.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:35pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:55pm:

Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see

Interesting. You're even evading about answering a question.

Do you have something to hide?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:37pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:31pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:14pm:

[quote]By what measure? Over the last 150 years or the last thousand?

And the last 2000 years defines 'rapidly' ?

Revisionism is one thing and hindsight is a fine thing... but presuming the last 2000 years was an inevitable march with liberal democracy in mind is one hell of a stretchy thing!

Be careful that rubber band doesn't snap and hit you in the eye!

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:38pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:31pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:14pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:07pm:

OK, enlightenment thinkers certainly took issue with monarchical absolutism and proposed alternatives... But I'm not sure they had 'liberal democracy' in mind. Even their versions were elitist.

By what measure? Over the last 150 years or the last thousand?

Not to mention Iraq.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:41pm

Quote:

And the last 2000 years defines 'rapidly' ?

I would call it rapid, given the 10000 years it took western civilisation to get to that stage (and Europe had not even started down that path yet).

Quote:

Revisionism is one thing and hindsight is a fine thing... but presuming the last 2000 years was an inevitable march with liberal democracy in mind is one hell of a stretchy thing!

Where did I say it was inevitable? Did you miss the bit where I just said they did not have anything in mind? Does describing it as rapid not suggest it was not inevitable?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:44pm

There is some degree of inevitability, which is demonstrated by the frequent parallel developments in science, engineering and politics. But you only see those when you look at the small steps, not the whole path.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:47pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:41pm:

Quote:

And the last 2000 years defines 'rapidly' ?

I would call it rapid, given the 10000 years it took western civilisation to get to that stage (and Europe had not even started down that path yet).

Really? In human (as opposed to geological) terms you would call 2000 years rapid?

How will society look in 4016? Should be easy to divine for anyone whose measuring stick of rapid is 2000 years.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:56pm

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 10:44pm:

Doesn't account for the sudden halt in Chinese culture 400 years ago... Who could have predicted that? Or that the Chinese would have all but forgotten their cultural superiority in less than 200 years.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 8:32am

Parallel development had nothing to do with the decline in China. That had entirely different causes.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on May 1^st, 2016 at 9:58am

freediver wrote on Apr 30^th, 2016 at 9:41pm:

Not quite true. Exploitation in general would be more accurate. Though of course actual slavery was a key component for several centuries.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 10:25am

What is it that set western Europe apart Gandalf? Did they become richer and more powerful because they were more exploitative, or less?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on May 1^st, 2016 at 11:25am

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 8:32am:

Parallel development had nothing to do with the decline in China. That had entirely different causes.

Yes, no doubt...

An easy trot of an ascent to the pinnacle of cultural and scientific advancement (4000 years)...

A canter towards a Chinese golden age (as predicted by the Chinese historian, futurist and Crab Cream cook, Fug Yu) - 3000 years...

A gallop to the horizon (500 years).

A screaming bolt into the promised land... Oops... Well it looked like a horizon during the epochs of canter and gallop... Turns out it was a cliff...

So, over they go, Fug Yu...

A slow and steady climb out of canyon... Dead horse of history previously cooked and eaten with Crab cream sauce. (500 years).

Buy new history horse at bargain basement price after crash and burn of Soviet Union from Mongolian futurist and Yak balls soup cook - Getdis Downya - 1 day.

Back on top and on new horse with descendant of Fug Yu, Fug Yu Tu and now telling west where to go (25 years).

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by gandalf on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:03pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 10:25am:

What is it that set western Europe apart Gandalf? Did they become richer and more powerful because they were more exploitative, or less?

Exploitation expanded to an unprecedented level under western imperialism. You can't deny that.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:28pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 8:32am:

Parallel development had nothing to do with the decline in China. That had entirely different causes.

Interbreeding with superior white genes?

A plausible theory.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:36pm

North, do you have a point?

polite_gandalf wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:03pm:

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 10:25am:

What is it that set western Europe apart Gandalf? Did they become richer and more powerful because they were more exploitative, or less?

Exploitation expanded to an unprecedented level under western imperialism. You can't deny that.

Everything expanded to an unprecedented level. Can you tell what is the cause and what is the symptom?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:45pm

FD, I’d like to know how the Muselman destroyed his genes by marrying his cousins, but the Romans (and then the European aristocracy) came out completely unscathed.

Are you up for questions yet?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:51pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:36pm:

North, do you have a point?

polite_gandalf wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:03pm:

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 10:25am:

What is it that set western Europe apart Gandalf? Did they become richer and more powerful because they were more exploitative, or less?

Exploitation expanded to an unprecedented level under western imperialism. You can't deny that.

Everything expanded to an unprecedented level. Can you tell what is the cause and what is the symptom?

Everything there is keeps on expanding and expanding in all of the directions it can whizz. As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know, twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:52pm

I have no idea what the rate of cousin marriage was in the Roman Empire, but I would not say they came out unscathed. You know the empire collapsed, right?

As for the European aristocracy, a lot of them lost their heads as well, and they all lost power. Probably not a direct result of inbreeding, but there are some well documented diseases among the aristocracy resulting from the inbreeding.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on May 1^st, 2016 at 1:00pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 12:52pm:

Right. So the cause of the cancer that is Islam - cousin marriage and sinister tinted inbreeding - does not apply to the"inclusiveness" of the Roman empire, despite the fact that inbreeding there was how power was maintained.

Is that what you mean by inclusiveness? You haven’t said.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 1:38pm

The political inclusiveness of the Roman Empire is a reference to their democratic mechanisms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#Ancient_origins

The inbreeding in Muslim countries is not a reference to power relationships. They are all doing it:

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by moses on May 1^st, 2016 at 2:07pm

Quote:

FD, I’d like to know how the Muselman destroyed his genes by marrying his cousins, but the Romans (and then the European aristocracy) came out completely unscathed.

Are you up for questions yet?

I believe FD has got it right with ("they are all doing it")

As I see it, the inbreeding in the Romans and the European aristocrcy was in all probability confined to the upper ruling classes, with the general populace mostly practicing non consanguineous marriage.

Resulting in a healthy general population.

It's the exact opposite with the muslims.

Inbreeding is widely practiced across the entire spectrum of their society. muhammad did it so everybody has been doing it repeatedly for the last 1400 years.

To the point where muslims are now the most inbred low intelligence people on this planet.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on May 1^st, 2016 at 2:09pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 1:38pm:

How long did the Roman republic last, FD?

I’m curious.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 2:11pm

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

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on May 1^st, 2016 at 2:40pm

Sorry, I Didn’t catch your answer, FD. Did you just say it ended in 27BC with the rise of the Caesars?

I see. So by inclusiveness, you really mean a system of patronage that was held together by inter-familial marriage, right? Uncles, aunts, cousins, and in the case of Caligula, his sister. A system so nepotistic and entrenched that the church stopped priests marrying to avoid such "inclusiveness".

Good to see you putting it all out there, FD.

Can I ask you a question?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 2:57pm

Here is the last time I answered your question Karnal. I will get out the crayons, just for you:

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 1:38pm:

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by Karnal on May 1^st, 2016 at 3:23pm

Aha. Mechanisms.

Did slavery have anything to do with them?

How about the Caesars?

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:39pm

Greek Athenian (direct) democracy - We wouldn't want that would we? Imagine a proposal put to the people (voting en masse) to confiscate 10% of the wealth of the state's richest 10%... Popular proposal? I bet it would be.

Roman 'democracy' - More like what we'd call today (and the ancient Greeks did call) an Oligarchy in disguise.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:45pm

Voting by delegable proxy combines the best aspects of direct and representative democracy.

People learn soon enough not to kill the goose.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:48pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:45pm:

Voting by delegable proxy combines the best aspects of direct and representative democracy.

People learn soon enough not to kill the goose.

You can only kill the goose once - No good learning not to after its dead (RIP Socrates).

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by freediver on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:49pm

We tend to only kill it a little bit. It is remarkably resilient, our goose.

Title: Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Post by NorthOfNorth on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:52pm

freediver wrote on May 1^st, 2016 at 5:49pm:

We tend to only kill it a little bit. It is remarkably resilient, our goose.

A little bit dead... Like a little bit pregnant?