[ExI] are all cultures equivalent?

Dan dan_ust at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 13 19:45:28 UTC 2009


--- On Mon, 4/13/09, John K Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> <painlord2k at libero.it>
> 
> > The "Zero" is a Indian or Indochina invention.
> > They [Islam] are only involved in the transmission of
> the
> > concept to west Europe
> 
> I know but I was trying to be generous; I figured I'd get
> enough flack as it is. And I'm sure that sometime in the
> last 800 years Islam has done something that is worth more
> than a bucket of warm spit, it must have; but I'll be damned
> if I can think of an example at the moment.

Category error in my view: Islam is an abstraction or an aggregate.  It does not act.  What does act is an Islamic person -- or to be accurate what act are individuals, be they Muslims, atheists, or whatever.  Put that way, Muslims have made what some of us might consider positive contributions.  But what's the point of this discussion?  Maybe I missed something...

Also, it seems quite clear that Muslims are able to take up Western technologies and ideas and use them for their ends.  The view that every last Muslim is out to set the calendar back to the Middle Ages (whether an historically accurate Middle Ages or no) seems simplistic to me -- no different, IMO, than that every last Christian wants to live in the time of Bede or Augustine.

Regards,

Dan


      



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