[Paleopsych] Re: on islam

[HowlBloom at aol.com]

Christian--You have a point.  Islam was conceived as a global,  boundariless 
religion.  That conception was first born in 624 AD when  Allah granted 
Mohammed the right to Jihad.  It expanded in 629, when  Mohammed sent letters to the 
six rulers of the empires of the world that he  knew inviting these emperors 
to Islam and implying that if they didn't  accept the invitation, Allah and 
his forces on earth, the Moslems, would be  forced to destroy them.  Its message 
was emphasized in 632 AD when  Mohammed, on his deathbed, ordered an attack 
on the Byzantine Empire.
 
This attack, by the way, was just one of many.  In ten years Mohammed  
commanded 65 military campaigns, campaigns of conquest that brought the entire  Arab 
Peninsula to Islam.  Mohammed fought in 27 of those campaigns  himself, 
slicing and killing other humans.  Which is why he is called a  prophet of the 
sword.  And why it is said in the Koran that paradise can  only be achieved "in 
the shadow of swords".
 
But the fact remains that this is a rapidly globalizing world, a world that  
cries out both for and against a central order.  Mohammed invented the  creed 
for such an order, and the world of Islam has refined it during 1,290  years 
of operation under a central caliphate.  Now men like Osama want to  revive 
that "new world order", that global caliphate.  As many of Osama's  supporters 
and predecessors have said, the time is ripe for such a thing.  
 
I hope that we Westerners offer a more appealing alternative.   Howard
 
 
In a message dated 7/30/2005 2:20:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
christian.rauh at uconn.edu writes:

Some  argue that the great achievements of the Arab world were really  
pre-islamic and that islam put a break on innovation which was center to  
middle eastern culture before it. Things still were good for a while but  
that was only some inertia from the old times as it took centuries to  
change things in those days. Islamic religion changed the  
characteristics of that culture (or culture groups) from decentralized  
and autonomous to centralized and controlled. The first seemed to be a  
better option for progress. What is striking to me is that the US seems  
to be going the same way - in a counter-"terrorist" movement with  
islamic roots, this country is absorbing the worst features of its  "enemy".

As a disclaimer, I know little about Islam, the above is from  what I've 
heard. Anyone with better knowledge should point erros and  elucidate.





----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global Brain: The Evolution  of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st Century
Recent Visiting  Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; 
Core Faculty  Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of Evolution  Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big Bang Tango  Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American 
Association for the  Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
Academy of Political  Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International 
Society for Human  Ethology; advisory board member: Institute for 
Accelerating Change ; executive  editor -- New Paradigm book series.
For information on The International  Paleopsychology Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from  
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,  
see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The  Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

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