[ExI] Islamic culture (current) was Religions and violence

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 5:00 AM,  Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 29 July 2010 18:23, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>The question is not so much about Muslims being
>> held back but why western culture (Jews included) shot ahead.
>
> I am not aware of any Sephardic Jews's shot ahead.

Which branch of the graph in figure one of Clark's research paper did they take?

Figure 1 World Economic History in One Picture. After
1800 income in some societies rose sharply, while in others it
declined.

The Malthusian Trap – Economic Life to 1800

A spare but powerful economic model, which requires only
three basic assumptions, and can be explained in graphs, explains
why technological advance improved material living conditions
only after 1800.

> As to European culture shot ahead starting with the Renaissance, I
> suspect that the "extremism" of christianism, in comparison with Islam
> and Hebraism, generated with time a stronger reaction from the
> cultural background than, say, Islam did in India, leading to a
> quicker and more radical emancipation of philosophy and science from
> monotheistic darkness.

I am surprised that people on this list put such a large importance on
religions as moving forces in the world.  In my estimation the horse
collar or invention of Watt's steam engine, or the Newcomen engine
that proceeded it was more important than religions.

The EP model classes religions as a derived feature of human behavior
as intermittent predators on other humans.

Keith