[Paleopsych] Re: on islam

[Val Geist]

Dear Howard,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! This and other matters pertaining to the history of Islam needs to become a matter of public gossip! Sincerely, Val Geist
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: HowlBloom at aol.com 
  To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org 
  Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 7:38 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: on islam


  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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