Many are jumbling things and coming to (wrong) conclusions.
1. Islam and Muslims are different things. Today's muslims are also different than muslims who lived 300 or 500 years ago. The political systems they lived under were completely different than the ones of today, as well as economic system. Judging a religion by its followers and by context of the time is a very misleading thing. Muslim rulers of Moorish Spain is very different than the Taliban of Afghanistan. Former lasted for 781 years and the latter lasted maybe just 30 years and there's a lot of controversy on the latter.
How would you compare Mexican and Danish people. Both overwhelmingly Christian, but is it fair to compare these two nations? Which one would "sample" Christian population best? How about Danish of 400 years ago vs. of today? Unfortunately when I hear Mexico the first thing comes to my minds is Cartel. Anyway you got the point.
2. There's nothing in Islam that prohibits scientific research, only those who interpret it interpret within their own level of understanding and especially according to their interest. In a society there are a lot of interest groups and they twist the reality and truth for their own benefit. For example it took very long for printing machine to be used in Ottoman territories and the people who objected those machines used arguments they fabricated abusing the religious understanding. However the reason behind it was purely economical. At that time there was a huge industry of "copiers" whose sole bread winner was duplicating documents by hand and they had good ties with the Court of Sultan. Of course they could not turn around and say we don't want this because it will take away our monopoly but they fabricated all kinds of excuses to have it banned.
3. For a country to have any progress there has to be (relatively good) rule of law in that country. Most of the Muslim countries of today lack rule of law, most are artificial governments (supported by big boys, take Saudis, a client state of USA). This is a long subject so I just want to give a link. Long story short, if you can not build a strong legitimate political system everything else fails, and this has been the case for Muslim countries for the last 300 years. If the laws for the ordinary citizen is different than the ruling class, don't expect cohesion in the society.)
4. Western people have been brainwashing themselves. For them the only credible source is only theirs. If you hear from FoxNews it must be true. This credibility bias blinds many and unfortunately deprives themselves and gives themselves this Eurocentric worldview. So I'll just give another link, a BBC documentary (to overcome that bias). Teaser: many think that Renaissance has started in Italy. It actually started in Muslim Spain.
> Remember Christianity used to be very hostile to religions in time past (Galileo)
Were the Christians or the Christianity or the Church of that time hostile to Galileo. Are all Christians in the same bucket? Who gives one the right to generalize this much?!
Final word, don't build your opinion on the news you hear on media.
1. Drug Cartels of Mexico do not push a religious regime as I understand Taliban of Afghanistan do.
2. Overall, it just happens that scientific pursuit to be a more difficult task in Muslim world, isn't it? I'm not comparing here Islam with Christianity, I compare Islam with (almost) everything else.
3. You may have a point with Saudi Arabia, but let's take Iran (which is or should be politically more solid). They have a democratic (therefore questionable) president, but they also have an unquestionable "supreme leader" which is incidentally a religious authority. What does this say?
4. I agree with Eurocentric worldview. Our powers in state (in Eastern Europe), including media, is very oriented to western world and often ignores even our own views (not to mention something from elsewhere). This is nevertheless a consequence of what's happening "out there" and how it affects one's life. I guess that if say development is done heavily somewhere in east, it would demand more attention.
5. You are right, not everything is the same. Not even Christianity itself. Not to praise or something, but I never heard of prosecutions for scientific research in Orthodox Christianity.
Point 4. is a bit ranty... who's brainwashing themselves? Western People? Who dey? Western People == FoxNews? You kinda lose the point on that one alone...
It's a simplification to say that the renaissance started in Muslim Spain. The understanding of it being an Italian-led phenomenon is consistent with the fact that its height was certainly in the Italian city-states. But the renaissance was a process of re-discovering learning as Byzantium fell and the knowledge accumulated by the Roman empire drifted back to the West. Much of that knowledge trickled back via Muslim lands because that was the geopolitical reality of the time.
1. Islam and Muslims are different things. Today's muslims are also different than muslims who lived 300 or 500 years ago. The political systems they lived under were completely different than the ones of today, as well as economic system. Judging a religion by its followers and by context of the time is a very misleading thing. Muslim rulers of Moorish Spain is very different than the Taliban of Afghanistan. Former lasted for 781 years and the latter lasted maybe just 30 years and there's a lot of controversy on the latter.
How would you compare Mexican and Danish people. Both overwhelmingly Christian, but is it fair to compare these two nations? Which one would "sample" Christian population best? How about Danish of 400 years ago vs. of today? Unfortunately when I hear Mexico the first thing comes to my minds is Cartel. Anyway you got the point.
2. There's nothing in Islam that prohibits scientific research, only those who interpret it interpret within their own level of understanding and especially according to their interest. In a society there are a lot of interest groups and they twist the reality and truth for their own benefit. For example it took very long for printing machine to be used in Ottoman territories and the people who objected those machines used arguments they fabricated abusing the religious understanding. However the reason behind it was purely economical. At that time there was a huge industry of "copiers" whose sole bread winner was duplicating documents by hand and they had good ties with the Court of Sultan. Of course they could not turn around and say we don't want this because it will take away our monopoly but they fabricated all kinds of excuses to have it banned.
3. For a country to have any progress there has to be (relatively good) rule of law in that country. Most of the Muslim countries of today lack rule of law, most are artificial governments (supported by big boys, take Saudis, a client state of USA). This is a long subject so I just want to give a link. Long story short, if you can not build a strong legitimate political system everything else fails, and this has been the case for Muslim countries for the last 300 years. If the laws for the ordinary citizen is different than the ruling class, don't expect cohesion in the society.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16Shariah-t.html?...
4. Western people have been brainwashing themselves. For them the only credible source is only theirs. If you hear from FoxNews it must be true. This credibility bias blinds many and unfortunately deprives themselves and gives themselves this Eurocentric worldview. So I'll just give another link, a BBC documentary (to overcome that bias). Teaser: many think that Renaissance has started in Italy. It actually started in Muslim Spain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtCj0NvhYyI
5. There's this comment on this page:
> Remember Christianity used to be very hostile to religions in time past (Galileo)
Were the Christians or the Christianity or the Church of that time hostile to Galileo. Are all Christians in the same bucket? Who gives one the right to generalize this much?!
Final word, don't build your opinion on the news you hear on media.