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Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 4:32amSanction this postReply
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I agree wholeheartedly with Professor Khawaja's attack on moral relativism but I disagree adamantly with his moral judgement on the Civil War.

There have been only two just wars in American history: the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. But the wrong side won the Civil War. And Abraham Lincoln was the worst president in our history.

Anyone else's thoughts?

Bob

P.S. Question? Who was the greatest president in American history? Answer: William H. Harrison. He only served one month and didn't have time to do anything. :-)



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Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 8:29pmSanction this postReply
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Why on earth should the South have won the Civil War?! The South would not have been any sort of Libertarian paradise had it won. In fact, you would still see the horrible injustice of slavery being practiced. Is that something you morally support? I find your position disturbing.

Adam



Post 2

Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 8:45pmSanction this postReply
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Bob Palin. You speak like a true anarchist. Disgusting.

The Southern states seceded in protest against Lincoln's election, believing that the Republicans were a threat to their slave-based economy. Good riddance to them! Slavery has no place in a republic that advocates human liberties. The U.S. would have been better off without the South, at least until the Confederates learned to treat their plantation laborers like human beings.

I'm no fan of Lincoln, but come on! FDR must rank worse. Best President in recent years? Reagan, hands down.


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Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 10:09pmSanction this postReply
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Do people REALLY think the American Civil war was about furthering human rights...about freeing slaves. Or is this a useful modern justification? I don't know....this is a question I put out there to those who have studies the history in more depth than myself.

Post 4

Monday, September 20, 2004 - 2:07amSanction this postReply
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I thought this was a remarkably poor and intellectually dishonest article. It's one long, round-about, obfuscating excuse for terrorism. That Civil War and Reagan/Botha stuff was particularly intellectually tricky, disengenuous, and PC.

The whole article reminds me of apologists for the police "blue wall of silence." It reminds me of Cornel West justifying black racism.The bottom line is: there's no excuse for any of this crap. And there's no excuse for the rest of us not morally condemning it. Indeed, the chief evil here lies with the good guys. By falling silent, we allow evil free run. In effect, we create it and are it.

What's the real reason moslems massively practice, and massively fail to condemn, terrorism? Because they're slime. That's basically it. That's really all you have to know.

No doubt many or even most are quasi-decent individuals -- at least on some level. It's kind of hard to say. It really depends on what you mean. But there's NO doubt that they come from a grossly inferior society and culture.

Islam is a very different religion than judaism, christianity, mormonism, and moonyism. The first two, for instance, were created in order to destroy reason and philosophy. As such, they had to incorporate many elements of the hugely civilized, truly virtuous, highly RATIONAL culture of Greece and Rome. Otherwise they wouldn't have been plausible and competitive intellectually.

Islam, on the other hand, was created out of the Dark Age. It was a product of the horror and terror of church "doctors" Tertullian and Jerome. It was the raw evil of "saint" Augustine raised to a whole new level (heavily aided by fanatical jews).

But it's even worse than this. Moslems never had a Reformation in response to the Reasonist ascent of the Renaisssance and Enlightenment.

And it's even worse than this. Virtually all moslems live in dictatorships. This lets them put the most uncivilized, destructive, and terrible elements of their belief-system first.

So islam is three orders of magnitude -- three massive levels of evil -- worse than the judeo-christian West. Whenever George Bush and Tony Blair say that moslems are normal-type people and have a normal-type religion -- they're lying.

Ten or twenty years ago, insightful and high-integrity people used to observe the nightmare of Iran and say "The problem in that part of the world isn't radical islam -- it's islam." We in the West need to regain this insight, and then some.

It's not as if they don't make their nature abundantly clear. We Westerners just prefer to look in the mirror and then lie thru our teeth about this. This is a head-in-the-sand approach which is morally depraved and doomed to failure.

Ultimately, the problem here is political correctness. It's the Western evil of multiculturalism, diversity, inclusion, and identity politics. It's moral equivalency writ large. The reason moslems don't condemn terrorism anything like the way Western jews and christians do is because, relatively speaking, they are cultural, intellectual, and moral SLIME.



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Post 5

Monday, September 20, 2004 - 4:54amSanction this postReply
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Why Don't Muslims Condemn Terrorism?

1. They believe that they are an insular, discriminated-against minority which must stick together. (See black Americans and their overwheliming support of OJ Simpson).

2. Fear--they have seen what these guys do to strangers, let alone to other Muslims who assist the infidel. (See the success of the Italian and Russian mob, against whom it is near impossible to get anyone to testify).

Post 6

Monday, September 20, 2004 - 8:09amSanction this postReply
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Is there such a thing as moderate Islam? Given that Islam was created by a man who plundered, conquered, terrorized and slaughtered, is not Islam at its core a warrior religion? If so, on what basis does a Muslim rise up and speak out against these activities?

Now, I’m not saying that all Muslims practice their religion. But if "moderate" for a Muslim means leaving the religion or evading major parts of the religion, then "speaking-up" means attacking the religion. Is that possible in most Muslim countries today?



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Monday, September 20, 2004 - 8:58amSanction this postReply
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Rick --

There is a website called "Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society."  They don't think that Islam itself can be secularized.  Their URL is http://www.secularislam.org/law.htm


Post 8

Monday, September 20, 2004 - 8:23amSanction this postReply
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Martin: I might make the pre-Civil War era seem more cut-and-dried than it really was. But I still stand by what I said.

All four national Presidential candidates in 1860 were in favor of maintaining the U.S. as an undivided nation, warts and all. They wanted to remain strong enough to show Europe that the country wasn't falling apart.

But the institution of slavery was the inescapable root cause of the war. It just manifested itself in a contest over "state's rights." Call me a Yankee, but I know the difference between "state" rights and human rights.

And I wouldn't care if Europe is watching. If there is a disease in my home, I would want it eradicated sooner than later, so that the healing may begin. The South refused to recognize the evil in their midst. They left in a huff. We should have let them, unionism be damned.


AZ: Evidently, you've never met any peaceful, productive Muslims in your homeland. I have. American Muslims, who wanted to live a better life than what they faced in the Middle East.

Oh, and BTW, the Jews predated the Greeks by several hundred years.

Your ignorance is unwelcome.

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Post 9

Monday, September 20, 2004 - 8:37amSanction this postReply
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It's Islam, or ideas have consequences


Some brave ex-Muslims explain it wonderfully, through reason:

"A letter to Mankind", by Ali Sina,
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina40908.htm

"Dear Friend,

"Madness has overtaken a portion of humanity and what they do is nothing short of insanity.

"We are losing the fight against terrorism. That is because we are missing the target.

"We must reach to the world and let everyone know that terrorism is the symptom and the real problem is the ideology behind it.

"We need your help. Please read the following short “Letter to Mankind” and if you agree please forward it to all the people in your address book and request them to do the same.

"Send a copy to your newspaper and politician too. Everyone must hear this message.

"Sincerely yours

Ali Sina"


Post 10

Monday, September 20, 2004 - 10:01pmSanction this postReply
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That's quite a website. Faithfreedom.ORG (not to be confused with Faithfreedom.com) makes quite a strong case for renouncing Islam, by clearly interpreting its central text.

Thing is, I doubt that most of the good "Muslims" out there (that is, the ones that Ali Sina wouldn't call Muslims) interpret the Quran so clearly. They pick and choose, finding what they think is right about their religion, and ignore the rest. That's hypocrisy.

Heh. God bless Hypocrisy! Not a full-blown virtue, but certainly an important stepping stone towards the embrace of Reason.

Take a look at this article, from the same website:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/debates/elus.htm

This woman's attitudes resemble those of the "Muslims" that I befriended long ago. And certainly, her interpretations of the books she reads differ substantially from those of the terrorists. She thought about what she was reading (presumably), and came up with a lifestyle that was life-affirming.

But Sina studied the same texts and revealed them to be filled with hate and death. His analysis is much more consistent with the text of the Quran. Hers is more consistent with her sense of life.

Which is probably why most "Muslims" don't condemn the terrorists. They're too busy living their lives, being noble hypocrites, to realize that there are evil people who actually believe what they themselves would believe in if they took their faith seriously.

Post 11

Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - 6:11amSanction this postReply
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Rather than argue my earlier statements myself, here is a review from Laissez Faire Books of Thomas J. DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln that sums up my position:

"The Civil War ended some 140 years ago. But two years ago another bloody battle was fought, with the publication of The Real Lincoln. It seems some subjects you`re just not supposed to talk about, including the war aims and conduct of our 16th President. Many of the book`s claims are actually documented elsewhere. What riles the critics, apparently, is that DiLorenzo fails to soft-soap the truth in a haze of Lincoln-worship.

"Some critics discuss the real issues raised. But many are nitpicking, diversionary, or downright abusive. DiLorenzo responds to his critics in a new chapter written especially for this new edition.

"Among the charges DiLorenzo makes in the book:

* The Civil War was fought not to end slavery but to preserve and protect centralized government.

* American slavery could well have been ended without bloodshed, as it had been in countries around the globe. But no effort was made to do so. Nor was Lincoln any kind of abolitionist: he had always supported the "rights" of slave-owners to their "property.

* Abe sought to expand the intrusive power of the federal government. Before becoming President he fought for protectionist tariffs and corporate subsidies. After? Well... read the book.

* During the War, Lincoln functioned as dictator. He jailed thousands of Northern anti-war protesters, including newspaper editors; deported a congressman who dared speak out against his domestic policies; endorsed Sherman`s annihilationist war strategy; etc.

* The aftermath: legions dead, dire new precedents for tax slavery and draft slavery, rapidly expanding federal government.

"DiLorenzo`s path-breaking study has been subjected to a storm of criticism. Read for yourself his indictment of Lincoln -- and his new response to critics, exclusive to this just-released paperback edition."




Post 12

Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - 10:23amSanction this postReply
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Don't get me started about The Sadistic South.

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Post 13

Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - 5:09pmSanction this postReply
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What riles the critics, apparently, is that DiLorenzo fails to soft-soap the truth in a haze of Lincoln-worship.
No, actually what "riles" the critics is that whenever DiLorenzo is challenged, his preferred "argument" is to poison the well by accusing his critics of "Lincoln worship" or worse.   
 "Some critics discuss the real issues raised. But many are nitpicking, diversionary, or downright abusive.

Not that DiLorenzo can answer the polite ones. As for "downright abusive," can anyone compete with DiLorenzo? Disagree with him, and you become a "cultist," an "idolater," a "liar," "crazed," or a "totalitarian," as for instance here and here. It wouldn't occur to him that his critics had simply wiped his "thesis" off the face of the earth.

 The Civil War was fought not to end slavery but to preserve and protect centralized government.


It was fought for both purposes: "centralized government" was the only institution capable of ending slavery, so preserving and protecting it was an indispensable means to ending slavery and protecting the freedom of the freed slaves once they were freed.

 American slavery could well have been ended without bloodshed, as it had been in countries around the globe. But no effort was made to do so. Nor was Lincoln any kind of abolitionist: he had always supported the "rights" of slave-owners to their "property.


The sum total of the evidence for the first claim consists of the assertion that American slavery, which was unlike slavery anywhere else in the world, would have taken the same trajectory as slavery in the rest of the world--ignoring all the dissimilarities between American slavery and slavery everywhere else. Great argument--if you accept the primacy of consciousness. For a simple demolition, consult paragraphs seven and eight of this paper. For a more complex demolition read this book and this one.

Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist because the abolitionists were essentially deontologists who believed that slavery ought to be abolished immediately though the heavens may fall. (This becomes clear if you read the writings of the abolitionists, rather than use "abolitionist" as floating abstraction to mean "the Good Guys".) By contrast, Lincoln, who believed slavery to be one of the greatest human evils, realized that it couldn't be abolished immediately, and so sought to put it on a bloodless course toward its "ultimate extinction." (This also becomes clear if you bother to read him, since he must have said this dozens if not hundreds of times over decades in his writings, and no honest or diligent reader could possibly mistake his meaning.) 

He was absolutely right to believe what he believed. His views were superior to many if not most of the professed abolitionists; his political thought is more teleological and more reality-oriented than theirs. But his gradualist approach to slavery was tragically subverted by the Confederates, who fired the first shot at the Union at Fort Sumter, and forced Lincoln to respond with retaliatory force until they surrendered, which is exactly what he did, and exactly what he should have done.

Lincoln supported the legal "right" of slave-owners to their legally-sanctioned "property" not because he thought they had the moral right to hold slaves or because he thought people had the status of property, but because he wanted to abolish slavery by legal means without initiating anarchy, civil war, or chaos and also wanted to re-assure the Southerners of his intentions. It is truly obscene to accuse Lincoln of the sins of the slaveholders, considering that it was Lincoln who was responsible for the whole of his adult life to put slavery on a course of  "ultimate extinction" in a gradualist fashion whereas it was the Confederates who not only spurned his overly generous offer, but attacked the federal government in the name of slavery, while initiating anarchy, civil war, and chaos. And I don't think "always supported slaveholders' property rights" can quite make sense in light of the Emancipation Proclamation, which did not exactly show great "respect" for the "property" of the slaveholders.
 Abe sought to expand the intrusive power of the federal government. Before becoming President he fought for protectionist tariffs and corporate subsidies. After? Well... read the book.


Yes, this was certainly a mistake, but by any rational standard a rather milder set of sins than slave-holding, slave-trading, treason, secession, and the initiation of a civil war that killed 600,000 people.  There is a difference between error and evil. Lincoln was guilty of error, not evil. His adversaries were guilty of both.  

 During the War, Lincoln functioned as dictator. He jailed thousands of Northern anti-war protesters, including newspaper editors; deported a congressman who dared speak out against his domestic policies; endorsed Sherman`s annihilationist war strategy; etc.


A textbook case of package-dealing. Yes, some of his actions were violative of civil rights, e.g. in the Vallandigham case. But some of those "protesters" were making war against the United States, and so had to be dealt with as enemies of the federal government and its citizens. DiLorenzo's inability to distinguish between these two categories of individuals is an indication of his capacity for objectivity, and incidentally also an indication of his method of concept-formation, which is to "define everything by moral non-essentials."

As for Sherman's strategy, it was not "annihilationist" (whom did it "annihilate"?); it was a perfectly rational and justifiable policy, and we should all be thankful he employed it, because it broke the back of the Confederacy and won the war. If only we had a Sherman to win the war we're currently in--isn't it painfully obvious that we don't? I don't think Sherman would have sat around at Fallujah or Najaf worrying that the use of his weapons might hurt the enemy--but might also hurt the bricks, tiles and facade of this or that Shia shrine (where the enemy was hiding).  

Incidentally, this complaint about Sherman directly contradicts the claim that Lincoln had great respect for the slaveholders' property. If Lincoln endorsed Sherman's strategy, how could he have had respect for the slaveholders' property? The strategy consisted in destroying their property and freeing their slaves.  
 * The aftermath: legions dead, dire new precedents for tax slavery and draft slavery, rapidly expanding federal government.


Evidently, all of that outweighs a couple million people freed from bondage, the destruction of a fascist regime that initiated force against us, the preservation of the United States of America, and the creation of the foundations of a legal system (the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments) that led to the only jurisprudence of freedom that this country has actually had, and  will form the basis for whatever freedom we'll ever have. The list above outweighs my list--by what standard?

Never mind: I guess we should have turned the other cheek and let the Confederates attack us, let them keep their slaves, kept the Dred Scott decision in place, returned their fugitive slaves when they demanded them, let them settle Kansas and make it a slave state, and let them keep expanding southward and westward with their slaves as they wished. Anyone who thinks that freedom would have been served by that course of action needs to check their premises and figure out what freedom really is.

(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 9/21, 6:59pm)


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Post 14

Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - 7:55pmSanction this postReply
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I thought this was a remarkably poor and intellectually dishonest article. It's one long, round-about, obfuscating excuse for terrorism. That Civil War and Reagan/Botha stuff was particularly intellectually tricky, disengenuous, and PC.

The whole article reminds me of apologists for the police "blue wall of silence." It reminds me of Cornel West justifying black racism.The bottom line is: there's no excuse for any of this crap. And there's no excuse for the rest of us not morally condemning it. Indeed, the chief evil here lies with the good guys. By falling silent, we allow evil free run. In effect, we create it and are it.

What's the real reason moslems massively practice, and massively fail to condemn, terrorism? Because they're slime. That's basically it. That's really all you have to know
I think you're a remarkably poor reader and reasoner. And prima facie, I don't think your honesty is much to write home about, either. 

You say that I "excuse" terrorism. Find me one place in the article that does so. Anywhere.

You say "that Civil War stuff is tricky." Yeah, prose is tricky, isn't it? Especially when you have to read and comprehend it before criticizing it. Since the whole article was about the Civil War, to say that you were "tricked" by that is to admit that you had no idea what the article was about. Some advice: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

The Reagan/Botha stuff was "disingenuous." Really? What was disingenuous about it? Do you think I didn't mean what I said? Or are you willing to defend the actual excuses that Reagan made for South African apartheid? Tempt me a little bit and I will give you actual verbatim quotes from Ronald Reagan on that subject. Unlike you, I'll be able to find the quotes--because they exist.

You've just accused me of "excusing" terrorism. In your next paragraph you say that the people responsible for terrorism are those who are silent about it. Stop and think for about three seconds and you will realize that that claim constitutes an actual excuse for the perpetrators of terrorism. You have literally said that people who are not responsible for terrorism are more responsible than the people who engage in it. If the "chief evil lies with the good guys," the bad guys should be let off the hook for the chief evil and be held responsible for less. So the good are to blame, not the evil. You said it, not me.  

Now we reach your "explanation." Muslims don't condemn terrorism because they are "slime." What I had said was that they don't condemn it because, they choose to evade reality, engage in rationalization and self-deception, and indulge in "futile pretenses" of various sorts. Could you explain explain why your "slime" explanation is superior to mine?

Now you decide to talk about Islam:

Islam is a very different religion than judaism, christianity, mormonism, and moonyism. The first two, for instance, were created in order to destroy reason and philosophy. As such, they had to incorporate many elements of the hugely civilized, truly virtuous, highly RATIONAL culture of Greece and Rome. Otherwise they wouldn't have been plausible and competitive intellectually.

To repeat what someone else has already said, Judaism precedes the achievements of Greece and Rome by several thousand years, and precedes by several thousand years the rise of philosophy. So the founding of Judaism had nothing to do with "destroying philosophy." There was no philosophy to destroy in those days. 

Second, generally when X is created to destroy Y, it makes no sense to say that X "incorporates elements of Y." Destruction is not incorporation. Destruction is destruction; incorporation is preservation. The two things are antonyms. 

Third, there is no difference between Judaism, Christianity and Islam vis-a-vis Greek philosophy and culture. Islamic philosophy incorporates Greek philosophy just as the others do. Indeed, we wouldn't have very much Greek philosophy to read if it hadn't been for the Arab philosophers who preserved it. 

Fourth, if you compare the Books of Exodus and Leviticus with the Quran, you'll find that they are more violent than the Quran, not less so. So I'm not sure why Islam is so much worse off than Judaism in that respect. 

Fifth, in thinking more concretely about "the hugely civilized, truly virtuous, highly rational culture" of Greece and Rome, you may want to bear in mind such hugely civilized institutions as slavery, the virtual enslavement of women (as in the institution of the kurios), infanticide, the Roman Circus, perpetual political instability (coups, tyrannies, assassinations), and both cultures' predispositions for waging completely senseless but immensely bloody wars, e.g., the Peloponnesian wars, about a thousand years of Roman imperialism, etc. etc. Again, in several respects, the Islamic world was more enlightened or at least on par with Greece and Rome along these dimensions.


Moving on:

Islam, on the other hand, was created out of the Dark Age. It was a product of the horror and terror of church "doctors" Tertullian and Jerome. It was the raw evil of "saint" Augustine raised to a whole new level (heavily aided by fanatical jews).

But it's even worse than this. Moslems never had a Reformation in response to the Reasonist ascent of the Renaisssance and Enlightenment.
Just a few lines ago, you were saying that Christianity was different from Islam because it incorporated elements of Greek culture. Now you are telling us that Islam grew out of the Christianity via the Church Fathers. You need to make up your badly-confused mind. If Islam grew out of the Christian Church Fathers, and Christianity so powerfully influenced Islam, how can Christianity be so radically distinct from Islam? If Islam grew out of Christianity, but Christianity is highly Greek, how did Islam manage not to be Greek? And if Islam was "heavily aided by fanatical Jews," what happened to the thesis that Judaism was different from Islam? The more fanatical the Jew, the more Jewish he is; the more Jewish the Jew, and the more influencing of Islam, the more Jewish Islam was. If Islam was Jewish, and Judaism was Greek, Islam was Greek. So within just a few lines, your vaunted thesis has collapsed into a mess of contradictions. It's Greek, it isn't Greek; it's totally different from and unrelated to Judaism and Christianity, but it was influenced by them; it's more irrational than them, because they are uniquely rational religions (and they are rational because they were created to destroy rationality), and it is irrational because it grew out of Judeo-Christian irrationality. I don't think I could have created a caricature of incoherence better than the one you have offered as a serious argument.

Actually, anyone who has read the Quran would recall Surah Al-Rum--the verse about the Byzantine Romans, who are praised by good old Allah in contrast to the Persians, who are criticized. Wouldn't that indicate a Greco-Roman influence, and a preference for Greco-Roman culture? I'd think so. 

While you're puzzling that through, you say that Muslims never had a Reformation. And you're saying that's a bad thing? That means they didn't have a Counter-Reformation, a Savanorola, a Cromwell, a Genevan Consistory, an English Civil War, a Luther or a Calvin. Are you saying they would have been better off if they had?  

In short, a person who has written as confused a mess as your criticism of my article is not exactly (or at all) in a position to accuse me of "dishonesty" or poverty of argument. Try grasping what I actually wrote before trundling forth these large-scale claims of yours.

(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 9/21, 8:02pm)


Post 15

Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - 5:39amSanction this postReply
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This one particular paragraph is misleading or incomplete:

"Third, there is no difference between Judaism, Christianity and Islam vis-a-vis Greek philosophy and culture. Islamic philosophy incorporates Greek philosophy just as the others do. Indeed, we wouldn't have very much Greek philosophy to read if it hadn't been for the Arab philosophers who preserved it."


Obviously we need to specify at what point in time we are speaking. As you point out, Irfan, Judaism preceded Greek philosophy; thus your statement wasn’t true in the religion's early days. At various points all three religions came to respect Plato and Aristotle. However, with respect to the important influence of Aristotle, Aquinas did what Ibn Rushd couldn’t: he laid a foundation for a broad and deep influence of Aristotelian philosophy in the Western Christian church. The Orthodox Church treated Aristotle in a different manner. (Maimonides, of course, should be included with Aquinas and Ibn Rushd for his influence within the Jewish religion.)

Thus, my question to you is: didn’t Islam marginalize their Aquinas?


Post 16

Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - 6:14amSanction this postReply
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Rick--

Since his statement doesn't specify a time, my response doesn't have to, either. My point is that his statement is false as stated.  If he wants to change his claim so that it reflects temporal differences, I'll re-state my objection to deal with them. But the burden should be on him to modify his thesis, not on me to offer qualifications and distinctions in response to a badly-phrased objection.

Muslims did marginalize Ibn Rushd (etc.), but Protestantism is a form of Christianity, and the Protestants marginalized Aquinas (etc.), too. In fact, "marginalization" is too weak a term in both cases; it was a repudiation.  So there remains a strong parallel between the evolution of an important part of Islamic intellectual history and an important part of Christian intellectual history. The real issue is that intellectual progress, wherever it's been made, owes nothing to either the Christian or Islamic religions (or Judaism qua religion).  I don't consider the intellectual progress of "the West" to be evidence of Christianity's superiority to Islam. The relevant progress was made in defiance of Christianity, not compliance with it.

Actually, if you want to get very nitpicky, today's Muslim scholars are re-discovering the old Aristotelians, just as today's Protestants are re-discovering Aquinas. But again, these are fine tunings that are hardly germane to a conversation where my interlocutor hasn't figured out that the founding of Judaism antedates classical Greek philosophy and civilization by a few millenia, and offers floating abstractions about the "virtues" of Greco-Roman culture while ignoring every obvious vice. My point wasn't to give a lecture on intellectual history but to respond to objections, and no matter how you slice it, his objections are false.


Post 17

Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - 7:30amSanction this postReply
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Actually, Irfan, I was (and am) more interesting your views in and of themselves. Your response to the other guy was overkill and generous.

By the way, I agree that progress was made despite the religions in question. We can at least say that religion is a poor foundation for a stable long-term liberal society and we should want to say something much stronger. There are still some questions I have about the specific challenges each religion faces because of their unique doctrines and history. These are clearly secondary. I’ll put these off for another time.


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Post 18

Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - 9:10amSanction this postReply
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I think the central question is:

Does Islam teach what terrorists are doing?

The answer, without any hesitation, is a round YES:

http://www.prophetofdoom.net

http://www.jihadwatch.org

(Links about the root problem and its consequences.)

The solution is already there for all brave, rational individuals that today are Muslims:

http://www.faithfreedom.org


Post 19

Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - 11:43amSanction this postReply
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I, too, have some worries about Islam above and beyond those I harbor for all religions. Has this subject been beaten to death?


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