Our attitude concerning mockery of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon

[Michael]

Do you find it ironic that you use an Eurocentric term as evidence of your lack of eurocentrism?

What ever floats your boat SAM. If you've ever eaten Japanese I'm 100% positive that you have generally referred to some things as "sushi" that the Japanese would of course have specific words for. Does this mean you are Indian-centric (another way of saying narrow minded bigot) or does it mean that the Japanese word sushi is used in a general manner in India as is the word curry here in AU?

I have spent time in a fair number of countries. I always work my hardest to speak the language as best as I can and I naturally appreciate the culture just because I do.

Two more things,
1) you keep forgetting that you are also atheist for a good many Gods and Alien Overlords.
2) Many Greek philosophers were atheists.

RE:
Our attitude concerning mockery of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon

I'm curious so - as this thread was about desecration, what do people think of the fact that the beautiful perfectly smooth sanded marble that covered the great pyramids (for thousands and thousands and thousands of years) was torn off and used in the construction of Muslim mosques? I'm sure, for the Muslims that desecrated those tombs, it must have burned living there in the shadow of those huge structures. Those grand perfectly white smooth marble mountains must have made a mockery of "The" Prophet and his little itty-bitty Xian-copied domed-mosques. Hell they were probably all but blotted out under their magnificence. The obvious answer was to tear them down.

So - what do you think about that. Is it YES that was wrong or are we going to look around another excuse. I'm just curious.

I simply do not find it any real surprise that Muslims built an Islamic temple right dead-center on top of the Jews most sacred holy site. Fit perfectly with the notion: My Prophet is Last and My religions is Best and My Holy Book is the only Perfect one.

Or what of the pile of rubble that was once a few majestic 2500 year old Buddha’s carved from mountains?
I already heard one Muslim justify it as "That's probably what Buddha would have wanted anyway" - anything to justify everything.

How about the Muslim destruction of Nalanda?

Im not saying that Muslims have not fought aggressive wars. I’m sure some did, but what I’m saying is that these were unIslamic and were not commanded by religion.

I have a question Arsalan - where the Crusades fought by Christians? Ooo that's right, Xians do the invading = bloody soaked bloody blood. Muslims go on Crusades and it's sugar a spice and everything nice.

Sorry to pop your bubble but that FACT that Xian monasteries were looted WAS RECORDED. Ooo, now we move on to excuse #287 - well those weren't "real" Muslims.



Arsalan, Egyptians had been living next to Arabs for 7000 years, how exactly where they threatening Arabia? I’m just curious. Who was it exactly? How was is that they were threatening Arabs living in Mecca? Tell us exactly why Egypt needed to be defeated and why their pyramids needed to be desecrated.

RE subsistence farming
The difference in attitudes of Byzantine scientists and their medieval Muslim peers was firm. Byzantium added little to no new knowledge of science of medicine to the Greco-Roman scientific tradition, stagnating in awe of their classical predecessors. This could perhaps be explained by the fact that the initial Islamic surge out of Arabia had captured three of its most productive cities: Alexandria, Carthage, and Antioch. Because of the loss of a highly skilled and centralized government, as well as continuous and devastating Arab conquests into Anatolia, most Byzantine cities could not support the arts and sciences, and there was a mass return to subsistence farming.

N. M. Swerdlow (1993). "Montucla's Legacy: The History of the Exact Sciences", Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (2)

RE: European Enlightenment.
Could you tell me just how “Islam” brought about the Rebirth of Europe? I want to know specifically how Islam is connected to
a) Opera,
b) Ballet,
c) Symphony,
d) Michelangelo's paintings,
e) The understanding that white light contained all colors.
f) Shakespearian Plays
g) Banking and Commerce
h) The human sculpture "David"

I’m just curious how in the Hell “Islam” a religious notion was so influential during a time of secularization of Europe. Please, Arsalan, explain to all of us on how Islam brought about secular institutions in France, Italy, Germany, England.
Thanks Buddy

Note: I especially look forward to hear how “Islam” inspired Jacopo Peri to write the Opera Dafne.

Thanks for that it’ll be a good read!

(I can see it now: A magical fairy winged horse flies Mohammad down from heaven to whisper into Peri's ear...Haaa!)


YES, I agree that Ibn Haytham was a great scientist. Maybe Islam did inspire him, I mean, it was a Muslim who tossed him prison and that is where he made his first observations of the nature of light.
Yeah, Islam supports the notion of a Caliph and it was an arse-hole Caliph who tossed Ibn Haytham in prison.
So Islam = Arse-hole Caliph = imprison brilliant scientist who fains madness = light observation.

I just have one question Arsalan. Which do you think was more scientifically inspiring to Ibn Haytham: Listening to the occasional Friday prayer or spending years translating hundreds of Greek scientific and mathematical texts into Arabic?
a) Islam
b) Copying Arabic translations of Greek mathematical classics like Euclid's Elements and Ptolemy's Almagest..

Well which is it?
Islam or Greek Classics?

I’m more than happy to agree that Ibn Haytham was one of those rarefied and great mathematically minded scientists humanity occasionally conjures up, a man inspired so much by Greek mathematical classics that he felt compelled to dedicate his life to science to which we all own him our gratitude and thanks – as he has served as an inspiration to future scientists on what any one of us can achieve.

I know its hard for you to understand or even accept the fact that Muslims have done great things in the past, for society,science, education, healthcare and philosophy but I would have expected someone who claims to be such a follower of evidence as it were to do some research fpr himself and actually read about what the Muslims did for Western civilization.

A) Greece and Roman were only surpassed in the modern era and so I think it is than reasonable to suggest that, as they did it once, they could do it again. Maybe you don’t get it RE-birth. A RE-turn to Western values - ones that were smudged out by some middle eastern cult called Xiantiy.

B) China has the longest history of being a civilized nation. Using your logic that must be due to Islam as well!!! Yeah that's it!!!

C) People in the ME have had progress for thousands of years. Arabs, if anything, spurred an initial blossoming but not due to “Islam” - due to conquest of the ME itself. Then they RAPIDLY stagnated. RAPIDLY stagnated Arsalan in the ME (Spain didn't but it wasn't fully Islamified now was it). The blossoming had absolutely nothing .. NOTHING to due with a belief in Xenu or in Allah.

The exact SAME THING happened in China after they were conquered by the Mongolians. They had a “Chinese Golden Age” soon after. Are you going to argue that this was due to Mongolian Shamanism? WELL ARE YOU!?!?!? Because that’s exactly what you are arguing when you suggest nomadic Arab herdsmen’s religion inspired scientific thought in the ME.

It’s just silly.

If you want to think Xenu inspired the American Century – go ahead it makes as much sense.

Michael

 

[Myles]

Ah yes, because atheists always call themselves devout Christians (not pagans or believers in several gods).

Does this apply for the "theists" who commit murder and torture as well?

Now you are being silly. You seem to assume that a belief in a god necessarily informs art. I disagree. Anyway, please stick to the subject.

You are overlooking the fact that, until the Age of Reason, most people believed in god but many were theists in name only because they did not wish to incur the wrath of the Church. Was Moliere a theist ? The Catholic church refused him a Christian burial. And how about Voltaire, who believed in god in the sense that Spinoza did?

Would you dismiss Byron's poetry because he had an incestuous relationship with his sister ? He was certainly godless.

Now tell me that Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso were theists !

The list could go on and on, but I will call it a day.

 

[S.A.M.]

Now you are being silly. You seem to assume that a belief in a god necessarily informs art. I disagree. Anyway, please stick to the subject.

You are overlooking the fact that, until the Age of Reason, most people believed in god but many were theists in name only because they did not wish to incur the wrath of the Church. Was Moliere a theist ? The Catholic church refused him a Christian burial. And how about Voltaire, who believed in god in the sense that Spinoza did?

Would you dismiss Byron's poetry because he had an incestuous relationship with his sister ? He was certainly godless.

Now tell me that Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso were theists !

The list could go on and on, but I will call it a day.

I don't see any evidence of atheism, except your subjective assumptions about people and organisations.

 

[S.A.M.]

What ever floats your boat SAM. If you've ever eaten Japanese I'm 100% positive that you have generally referred to some things as "sushi" that the Japanese would of course have specific words for. Does this mean you are Indian-centric (another way of saying narrow minded bigot) or does it mean that the Japanese word sushi is used in a general manner in India as is the word curry here in AU?

Did I continue to do it after learning what the right word was? Did I make up words because all the libraries of the savages could not compete with a single work of wisdom from my "culture"?

RE subsistence farming
The difference in attitudes of Byzantine scientists and their medieval Muslim peers was firm. Byzantium added little to no new knowledge of science of medicine to the Greco-Roman scientific tradition, stagnating in awe of their classical predecessors. This could perhaps be explained by the fact that the initial Islamic surge out of Arabia had captured three of its most productive cities: Alexandria, Carthage, and Antioch. Because of the loss of a highly skilled and centralized government, as well as continuous and devastating Arab conquests into Anatolia, most Byzantine cities could not support the arts and sciences, and there was a mass return to subsistence farming.

N. M. Swerdlow (1993). "Montucla's Legacy: The History of the Exact Sciences", Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (2)

I was under the impression that the relative contribution of the Arabs was yet to be determined.

While the Byzantine Empire initially provided the medieval Islamic world with Ancient Greek texts on astronomy, mathematics and philosophy for translation into Arabic, later Byzantine scientists such as Gregory Choniades were translating Arabic texts on Islamic astronomy, mathematics and science into Medieval Greek, including the works of Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, Ibn Yunus, al-Khazini (a Muslim scientist of Byzantine Greek descent),[5] Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[6] and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī among others. There were also some Byzantine scientists who used Arabic transliterations to describe certain scientific concepts instead of the equivalent Ancient Greek terms (such as the use of the Arabic talei instead of the Ancient Greek hososcopus). Byzantine science thus played an important role in not only transmitting ancient Greek knowledge to Western Europe and the Islamic world, but in also transmitting Arabic knowledge to Western Europe, such as the transmission of the Tusi-couple, which later appeared in the work of Nicolaus Copernicus.[1] Byzantine scientists also became acquainted with Sassanid and Indian astronomy though citations in some Arabic works.[5]

Link

What is Swerdlow's source for the "return to subsistence farming"?

I'm curious so - as this thread was about desecration, what do people think of the fact that the beautiful perfectly smooth sanded marble that covered the great pyramids (for thousands and thousands and thousands of years) was torn off and used in the construction of Muslim mosques? I'm sure, for the Muslims that desecrated those tombs, it must have burned living there in the shadow of those huge structures. Those grand perfectly white smooth marble mountains must have made a mockery of "The" Prophet and his little itty-bitty Xian-copied domed-mosques. Hell they were probably all but blotted out under their magnificence. The obvious answer was to tear them down.

So - what do you think about that. Is it YES that was wrong or are we going to look around another excuse. I'm just curious.

I simply do not find it any real surprise that Muslims built an Islamic temple right dead-center on top of the Jews most sacred holy site. Fit perfectly with the notion: My Prophet is Last and My religions is Best and My Holy Book is the only Perfect one.

Or what of the pile of rubble that was once a few majestic 2500 year old Buddha’s carved from mountains?
I already heard one Muslim justify it as "That's probably what Buddha would have wanted anyway" - anything to justify everything.

Interesting, what do you think of the fact that the American army has a military base on Babylon?

Source for pyramid desecration please?

And there was no temple in Jerusalem for 600 years before Umar (who was a strong advocate of UNITING all three Abrahamic faiths) built a mosque on the STOREHOUSE of the temple (remember, he had no way of knowing where the original temple was, there was only the one wall standing. In fact, he called it Masjid al-Aqsa, or the "farthest" mosque.

As for the Buddha, I find it more interesting that until the western intervention led to the rise of militant groups, the statues survived for 1400 years. Clearly all those superior Muslims of yore had no desire to tear them down.

But hey feel free to hate a few extremists in a backward country while your oh so First World Secular Troops run tanks over Camp Babylon

Shortly after U.S.-led troops entered the Iraqi capital, news agencies reported on the widespread looting of artifacts. The National Museum lost valuable items, some dating back to the dawn of civilization. The British Museum and the UN's cultural arm UNESCO organized a conference in London in April 2003 to discuss ways to preserve Iraq's heritage.

Sarah Collins, a curator at the British Museum, participated in the London meeting. "That conference, which happened in April, was mainly the result of the Iraqi Museum's having been looted -- and the massive, you know, press attention was focused on the looting of the museum and not so much on archaeological sites," she said. "And we held a conference here to try to discuss what help we and other museums and institutions in the world could be to the situation in Iraq."

The war in Iraq ground on, Collins recalls, and the archaeologists continued to worry and speak out about the cultural losses. But the headlines turned to life-and-death issues in the country.

In the same month as the London conference, U.S. Marines set up a camp amid Babylon's ancient ruins. Polish troops succeeded them five months later.

During this time, according to the British Museum, U.S. and Polish heavy vehicles crushed a 2,600-year-old brick pavement. Bricks stamped by Nebuchadnezzar were scattered at the site. The military spread gravel to provide parking lots and helicopter pads and used soil containing artifacts for sandbags. Someone tried to gouge out decorated bricks at the city's famous Ishtar Gate.

A Polish spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Artur Domanski, acknowledged last weekend that the existence of a military base in Babylon "was not beneficial" to that site.

Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski defended U.S. and Polish troops. He said foreign troops actually had saved Babylon from looting and vandalism widespread in the country.

But John Curtis, the head of the British Museum's Ancient and Near East Department, who wrote the new report, says this is only partly true: "It's perfectly true that in the early days of the war, a military presence at Babylon did stop looting. But at that stage nobody could predict that the camp would grow to be so big or that it would remain there for so long. At its greatest extent, it housed 2,000 soldiers, and obviously you don't need 2,000 soldiers to look after an archaeological site."

The Polish Culture Ministry will soon issue a 500-page report on Babylon.

British Museum curator Collins says vandals and thieves are marauding archaeological sites across Iraq now. She says they are particularly attracted to places where scientific excavation is advanced. The thieves see signs of digging and know scholars have found items there and that there are probably more to be found.

In the latest development, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Samir al-Sumaidaie, says three 4,000-year-old marble and alabaster relics used to seal correspondence were returned to Iraq yesterday. They had been looted from the Iraqi National Museum. He says they were seized by U.S. Customs in June 2003 from an American scholar, who admitted buying the pieces on the black market during a trip to Baghdad.

 

[(Q)]

*sigh* Once again, you prove that you are not willing to listen or understand what I am saying. I said I’ve proven it with verses from the Quran where “it” referred to the false notion that the Quran has verses which command killing and pillaging for no other reason than the others are non-Muslims. That is what I refuted from the Quran.

You refuted nothing. You've propped up the Quran with the Quran.

That tells us nothing. It doesn’t tell us why these battles took place and how many innocent people were killed. In fact, it’s a shortened, nitpicked, version from a longer list of dates

I love it how Muslims ignore or dismiss anything not in the Quran. Again, it is utterly pointless to discuss this with you.

 

[Myles]

I don't see any evidence of atheism, except your subjective assumptions about people and organisations.

What a pity their contempories didn't make them wear badges saying, I am an atheist and get then to swear affidavits.

What evidence do you have of Moliere's theism, just to name one ?

 

[Michael]

There are lots of atheistic works of art - at least in the sense that they were created for secular reasons. Actually, I often find it seems that the ME lost it's culture during the Muslims Crusades and thus it doesn't appear they have any other forms of cultural artifacts. Just Islam, Islam and more Islam.

The Japanese have had beautiful man made gardens used to sit and contemplate nature for 1000s of years.

and kimono and many other artistic forms.

Many of the Roman public works have stood for centuries - these were not built for religious purposes but for either purely function (aquaducts) or imperialistic purposes (grandeur) or fountains that are artistic or battle scenes etc.. etc... etc...

What about the "Islamic" Middle East - surely they must have had a little a little bit of non-Islamic art still being produced? I didn't think that collapsed THAT completely?!?!

 

[S.A.M.]

Ha! Stealing from the theists as usual.

Its interesting that after American pressure led to the disavowal of the Emperors divinity, the Japanese became more materialistic and their Shinto and Buddhism has now been relegated to the back burner. In another generation, they can also become mindless drones.

What a tragedy.

 

[Michael]

stealing? I don't get it. A Japanese garden is theistic? Why?
Also, the Japanese are becoming mindless drones? Where did that come from? It doesn't make any sense at all. Do you know any Japanese? What about their dramas, movies, music, arts, fashion, anime, food, karaoke, video games, paintings, etc... if anything they seem to be apt at moving quickly forward, but don't doubt that they don't have a huge sense of their own History. They certainly do.

How many younger people in Italy love Classical Italian Opera? Not all that many - as it's something "the grandparents" do. Does this mean Italians are losing their culture? Becoming mindless drones? I don't think so???

The Japanese had started the processes of Europeanization WAY before WWII. They had formed secular democratic institutions, a parliament etc... the divinity of the Emperor would have gone the way of the divinity of the English monarchy soon enough, WWII or no WWII.

RE Arts
The Tokogawa Shogunate were not theists. They didn't claim any sort of divinity - that always remained with the Emperors family, which were (and had been for centuries) completely powerless. That's the whole point. The Japanese Golden Age was brought about by the military unification of Japan - not by their beleif in fairy-floss. The Japanese tea ceremony, Bushido, flower arrangement, geishya, arts, plays, Ko, pottery, calligraphy, etc... was all built on the back of an established unified japan - not on some new religious beleif.

I wonder - Is it even possible for the ME to progress forward culturally without religion? Do they even have a culture anymore without Islam? Perhaps it simply doesn't exist. It's been smothered out of existence?

The European renaissance was not built on religion - people may have been religious but the Enlightenment was not in response to Christianity (it was definitely not due to "Islam" - that's absolutely absurd).

The Japanese Golden Age was not built on religion either - although there was a backdrop of Shinto and Buddhism. It was a direct response to the Unification started by Oda Nobunaga (just in case, the Japanese Golden Age was also definitely not due to "Islam" - that's equally as absurd. Really you never know with you guys).

The Chinese Golden Age followed their conquest by the Mongolians. It was not built on religion either - although there was a backdrop of Shamanism, Buddhism and Daoism. (again, just in case, the Chinese Golden Age was also definitely not due to "Islam").

 

[S.A.M.]

More mindless droning.

So is there any example of lasting beauty by an atheist?

 

[Michael]

A little back ground on Athiesm:

Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct world-view until the late Enlightenment.[65] The 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher Diagoras is known as the "first atheist",[66] and strongly criticized religion and mysticism. Critias viewed religion as a human invention used to frighten people into following moral order.[67] Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way, without reference to the spiritual or mystical. Other pre-Socratic philosophers who probably had atheistic views included Prodicus, Protagoras, and Theodorus. The 3rd-century BCE Greek philosopher Strato of Lampsacus also did not believe gods exist.[68]

Socrates was accused of being an atheist for impiety (see Euthyphro dilemma) on the basis that he inspired questioning of the state gods.[69] Although he disputed the accusation that he was a "complete atheist",[70] he was ultimately sentenced to death.

Another atomic materialist, Epicurus, disputed many religious doctrines, including the existence of an afterlife or a personal deity; he considered the soul purely material and mortal. While Epicureanism did not rule out the existence of gods, he believed that if they did exist, they were unconcerned with humanity.[71]

The Roman poet Lucretius agreed that, if there were gods, they were unconcerned with humanity and unable to affect the natural world. For this reason, he believed humanity should have no fear of the supernatural. In De rerum natura ("On the nature of things"), he expounds his Epicurean views of the cosmos, atoms, the soul, mortality, and religion.[72]

The Roman philosopher Sextus Empiricus held that one should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs—a form of skepticism known as Pyrrhonism—that nothing was inherently evil, and that ataraxia ("peace of mind") is attainable by withholding one's judgment. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.[73]

 

[S.A.M.]

Look up the Carvakas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka

 

[Michael]

So is there any example of lasting beauty by an atheist?

In case the poems and philosophy written by some of the greatest thinkers (as posted above) are not considered things of lasting beauty:

 

[S.A.M.]

In case the poems and philosophy written by some of the greatest thinkers (as posted above) are not considered things of lasting beauty:

<picture of creation>

Taking credit for the beauty of creation now?

"Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection, Return thy gaze, seest thou any fissure. Then Return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze, Comes back to thee dazzled, aweary." [67:4-5]

(And you can thank the Arabs for preserving the texts of the European atheists)

 

[spidergoat]

More mindless droning.

So is there any example of lasting beauty by an atheist?

I was going to say the Buddhas of Bamyan but they didn't survive Islam.

 

[S.A.M.]

I was going to say the Buddhas of Bamyan but they didn't survive Islam.

Buddhists are not atheists. Thats a western fantasy. Ask the Buddhists

THE US bombs falling on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban are divine punishment for their destruction of the ancient Bamiyan Buddha statues, Hindu and Buddhist leaders said on Sunday.

Lama Lobzang, a leader in the predominantly Buddhist area of Ladakh in Kashmir, said that when the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed the Buddhist community had a "strong feeling that the Taliban regime will pay for it." "Our religion prescribes that one will reap what one has sowed and we strongly believe in that. This is the classic example in that context," he said.

 

[Michael]

Are you somehow trying to pin the blame for those statues destruction on the West?

Also, as for any Iraqi heritage that was destroyed by US armed forces I'd be happy to see those that perpetrated the war, Bush and Cheney, tried in court and sentenced.

 

[S.A.M.]

Are you somehow trying to pin the blame for those statues destruction on the West?

Also, as for any Iraqi heritage that was destroyed by US armed forces I'd be happy to see those that perpetrated the war, Bush and Cheney, tried in court and sentenced.

You'll be paying for it for generations, never fear.

 

[Michael]

Yeah, that's what the North Korea leader Kim Jung Il said the other day. Ooo Ooo Oooo *shakes in boots*
If I can live for generations that's be great
The truth is this whole incident will be long forgotten in the minds of people in the West and East in about 10 years. In a generation it'll be as if it never happened.

So, are you attempting to pin the blame for what the Muslims did on the West?

(note: they must be Muslims because your definition is they believe in one sky-daddy and that Mohammad was one of Its Prophets).

 

[S.A.M.]

Yeah, that's what the North Korea leader Kim Jung Il said the other day. Ooo Ooo Oooo *shakes in boots*
If I can live for generations that's be great
The truth is this whole incident will be long forgotten in the minds of people in the West and East in about 10 years. In a generation it'll be as if it never happened.

So, are you attempting to pin the blame for what the Muslims did on the West?

(note: they must be Muslims because your definition is they believe in one sky-daddy and that Mohammad was one of Its Prophets).

Not really, I'm just wondering what changed in Afghanistan after 1400 years of Islam.

The statues stood for that long, did they not?