Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The "islamic" golden age.

The islamic golden age is a farce.

The Arab Muslims (the first Muslims) themselves did not have very advanced civilizations, compared to a lot of other civilizations at the time.  They were nomadic and did not produce any science, technology, or much of anything else. 

Other people, however, were producing science and technology, such as the Persians.  The Arab Muslims were able to conquer many of the nearby non-muslim people who were more advanced than they were.  The people they conquered who were already producing science and technology prior to islam, continued producing science and technology, only now they were muslim, and thus muslims were able to take credit for their advancements.

Muslims act like the islamic golden age was purely the product of islam.  As if islam itself allowed these people to produce science and technology.  Muslims act like these people were primitive savages before islam, but once they became muslim, all of sudden they were civilized and intelligent and were able to produce science and technology and everything else.

The truth is, the islamic golden age had nothing to do with islam.  All of the advancements made during the islamic golden age would have occurred, regardless of islam.

The islamic golden age is often used by muslims as proof that science and religion can coexist, and that, in fact, science would flourish under a highly religious islamic society, but the truth is, science cannot flourish under an islamic theocracy, not in this day and age.  This is evidenced by the fact that there are more muslims today than ever in history, yet muslims produce only about 1% of scientific papers.  Proof:  http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/42134

An islamic theocracy or society dominated by islam would plunge that society into a new dark age, comparable to the middle ages of Europe, where science and innovation were stifled by the church and the church crushed anything they perceived as a threat to their power.

But just like the European age of enlightenment, where the ideas of secularism were born and promoted, and there was a revolt against the church, which ultimately led to a society (modern Europe) that is largely non-religious today.  I believe a similar backlash would be inevitable in an islamic dominated society.  We can already see this happening in Iran.

The most advanced societies today are the societies where religion has the least influence and control.

Christianity and Judaism are no longer a threat like they once were.  Most Christians and Jews have tamed their religions to the point where it has very little influence on their lives.  Most Christians are Christian in name only, they do not really follow the teachings of christianity or concern themselves with it that much.  Most Jews are also secular.  (Of course orthodox jews and evangelical christians are an exception.)

Muslims, however, have not gone through a similar transformation.  Islam has the highest percentage of devout followers of any religion today.  This is dangerous, because devout muslims, for the most part, do not help advance civilization, science, technology, or anything else.  They are only concerned with advancing islam.

If muslims are not able to embrace secularism or modernize their religion, they will remain in the drought that they are currently in, and if muslims are not able to modernize and they end up taking over modern, advanced nations, they will plunge the societies they take over into a new dark age.

Secularism is the only way forward.  Religion only stifles the advancement of civilization and humanity, and unless you want to live in world where you are a servant to a religious institution and the clergy is able to completely control your destiny and society never progresses at all, then you must fight against theocracy and fight for secularism.

This video explains everything I wrote about in this post, in more detail, you must watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAMbugJjWCo

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