[ExI] Religions and violence

[Adrian Tymes]

--- On Fri, 7/30/10, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2010, John Clark
> wrote:
> > And as I've already stated many times, whenever an
> Islamic apologist 
> > tries to illustrate the glories of that civilization
> they ALWAYS pick 
> > examples from the eleventh or twelfth century, they
> really have no 
> > choice, they certainly couldn't find anything modern
> to brag about. And 
> > by modern I mean the last few centuries.
> 
> John, I think you are awesomly unfair. You do care about
> being fair, don't 
> you? Yet you seem to judge a culture by its last 100 years?
> Maybe 50? This 
> is simply unfair. Unless 100 years is all that culture has.

While I disagree with John's branding of all Muslims for the
actions of some, I see his point here.  A culture is made up
of those people who are alive today - few if any of whom, at
this time, are older than 100 years of age, and most are far
younger than that.

It is entirely fair to judge a living people by their own
accomplishments.  Within the past few decades, there have
been some technological improvements, but there has also
been the mass imposition and acceptance of tyranny with
religious excuses.  Compare, for instance, life under Iran's
shah - a tinpot dictator installed as a byproduct of the
Cold War, but one who was modernizing the country - to what
the current regime has accomplished in its roughly 30 years
of rule.