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

[Tomasz Rola]

On Sat, 31 Jul 2010, darren shawn greer wrote:

> In China, well, I have a problem to
> 
> > say. They had been very advanced
> already before Christ and were doing
> 
> Peter Watson in "A Terrible Beauty"
> suggests it has something to do with the decline of Confucianism as the central
> organizing principle of their society.

I've never linked those two things, but this sounds very likable.

> I was quite surprised when I have
> learned about advanced social
> > organisms of North American Indians
> and Amazonians. They had cities too,
> > but abandoned them 
> 
> The best book I have read on this
> subject is Ronald White's "Stolen Continents." He estimates that the
> total population of the pre-Columbian Americas, both North and South, was 54
> million. By the end of the 16th century this was reduced by 80 percent due to
> disease and colonial wars. 

Terrible. So much about contacting Aliens... Especially if we have common 
ancestors (which would have been even more terrifying).

> European recorded history as a whole
> makes no mention of the super-nova of 1054, which was visible in the night sky
> for over two years. Practically every other northern hemisphere culture recorded the event,
> including the North American indigenous population and Arab culture
> (albeit briefly.) Current theories suggest that the church suppressed the
> information, for whatever reason. In his novel "Space" James Michener
> says that it is not that the times are dark, but that people aren't looking at
> the light.

Yes, this is intriguing. I myself doubt a little the Church' ability to 
supress information to such extent. I mean, you know, everybody could see 
it. I cannot think of rational reason why not. Books could have been read 
in the night in its light. Even if noone have read books at the time, they 
were expected to observe things like "we don't have to light up the 
candle" or "the freaking light disturbs my sleep" or "animals are 
constantly upset, I wonder why"...

And at that time, not whole Europe was equally put under Churches 
influence. From my perspective, Rome was far, far away. We were, at a 
time, 88 years after christianisation (Baptism of Poland = 966 AD). I 
doubt there was enough strength in Church to tell people here what they 
should or shouldn't talk about (there were still a rebelious pagan 
elements hiding here and there). Especially that conflicts betweem Church 
and secular leaders were not uncommon (and they could be very hard for 
the looser).

And 50 years earlier, SN1006 had been observed and described by some Swiss 
monks (and usual suspects too, like Chinese, Arabs etc)...
 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1006 ]

On the other hand, it is written that "Over a span of about 2,000 years, 
Chinese astronomers recorded a total of twenty such candidate events, 
including later explosions noted by Islamic, European, and possibly Indian 
and other observers."

 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation ]

So this kind of event wasn't anything unheard of. While the mean between 
observations is 100 years, i.e. 5 generations, they were quite frequent 
anyway to enter folklore. Or so I think. I mean, common, a bunch of 
illiterate warlords sails to America and what we have now, a saga with 
names, description of events that comes along archeological findings. It 
would be interesting to investigate myths from other cultures (American 
Indians, seemingly, had something to say).

Comets have been observed and recorded, however. Halley Comet once even 
made it to [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry ]. BTW, did it 
ever made it to Playboy? At least once, in Ray Bradbury's essay in Jan, 
1979 issue (p. 170)... Supernovae were not as lucky, however.

[ 
http://www.wonderclub.com/magazines/adult_magazine_single_page.php?magid=playboy&u=PLBOY197901 
]

Maybe we simply have a real problem with understanding the mindset of 
pre-reneisance Europeans. Or any mindset that is far enough from 
science-and-inquiry-in-theory-at-least-oriented life. On the other hand, 
if we look at history of acceptance of meteors' cosmic origin...

"Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known 
to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the 19th century. Prior to 
that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like 
lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling 
from the sky. Thomas Jefferson wrote "I would more easily believe that (a) 
Yankee professor would lie than that stones would fall from heaven."[28] 
He was referring to Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman' 
investigation of an 1807 meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[28] 
Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not 
attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm 
of November 1833.[29] People all across the eastern United States saw 
thousands of meteors, radiating from a single point in the sky. Astute 
observers noticed that the radiant, as the point is now called, moved with 
the stars, staying in the constellation Leo.[30]"

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid ]

So, maybe we are not so inquiring as we would like to believe, and quite 
the contrary - we are very fixed on what we want to observe.

BTW, from this page [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1054 ], it seems 12 
days after SN1054 went on, Eastern and Western Churches leaders 
excommunicated each other. Perhaps they got irritated... Actually it was 
pope's emissary that went to Constantinople to do it. I wonder how long 
did such travel take in those days. 

BTW2, I wonder if there are any mentions of all this in Vatican archives. 
Alas, I think they are mostly closed and definitely not on google :-). 
Besides, yes indeed there seems to have been a school of thinking in 
Church, saying that heavens were static. And mentioning that stars could 
be like suns with their own planets was no-no. However, Church had many 
problems on its head, disobeying kings, warring heretics. Times were, 
uhuh, "revolutionary" a bit... But I didn't explore them too deeply.

BTW3. From what I've heard, parchment was erasable. So, maybe the records 
have been valued low, erased and pages used to record something better 
(like recipes or maybe illuminated Bible). It was very precious material, 
asking for reuse.

> But I do know that it is a
> mistake to confuse Arabic culture with Islamic culture too much. As has been
> frequently mentioned here, Arabic culture was in full flower for a thousand
> years before Islam arrived on the scene. It is possible that Islam is the main
> reason for the decline of Arab culture and learning, just as the cult of
> Christianity contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire. As far as I'm
> concerned, both Islam and Christianity are personality cults gone viral, and need
> to suppress learning and knowledge, or at least try, in order to enforce the
> dogma that theirs is the one true God and their prophets absolutely correct in
> every particular. 

Very interesting observations, IMHO. As of viral philosophies, I would say 
in a healthy organisms most viruses are kept in check. Only after organism 
is weakened sufficiently, they are able to take over. I think Rome was 
already sliding down - corrupt leaders, coup d'etats and lack of will to do 
anything like significant reforms. From what I have heard, some Romans 
themselves detested their Empire, and opposed (even actively) restoration 
efforts. I am unable to say about pre-Islamic Arab culture...

> Religions that don't have this feature,
> (and that have a blood-bond, or are welded together in their beliefs by some
> ethnic, regional or historic commonality that discourages or is ambivalent to conversion) are less
> violent and fervent. 

I'm sceptic about it. I am afraid, every ethic and law can be bent when 
expectation of reward is high enough.

> The only bright side to Islamic and
> Christian fundamentalism that I can see is that growing extremism seems to
> indicate cultural decline. Another is that no ayatollah has issued a fatwa
> against Jeff Dunham and his hilarious puppet Ahkmed, the dead terrorist,

Seems like decline is linked, indeed. Maybe Dunham is popular there?

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
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**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **