Turkey's Erdogan orders the conversion of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque

[Silver]

I don’t think I have ever read an explanation as to why or how the Muslim community went from an enlightened, liberal society to the conservative dark alley of despair that we see today.

If it could happen to them, it can happen to America. Especially if these Republicans get their way.

[Deesse23]

Its a dick move to convert a museum into a temple
Its the perogative of Erdogan/Turkey to do it.
Its a dick move to convert a musum into a temple
Its ok to keep it open to anyone interested (aka tourists) in parallel, giving Erdogan the benfit of doubt that he is sincere with this
Its a dick move to convert a museum into a temple
Its ok for everyone to have an opinion about it and, and possibly complain to Erdogan/Turkey
Its the perogative of Erdogan/Turkey to listen and respond to those opinions.
Its a dick move to convert a museum into a temple


The other bullshit i read in this thread about history (or the distortion of which so many seem to cling to) or generalisations about Islam/Muslims, is just that: bullshit


Oh, and fuck you, Masoni. I dont like Atlass or his likes particularly, but seriously: fuck you, sideways, wth a cactus glove, dumped in pepper spray.

[WinterHold]

The Byzantines butchered Prophet Mohammed's ambassador, that was the reason Muslims targeted Constantinople itself for centuries until they conquered it.

Sure, conquering an entire empire because an ambassador was killed. Completely reasonable and believable.  

Do you agree that it was only reasonable that the Mongols conquered Khwarezmia after the mongol ambassador was killed?

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Yes. Harming the ambassador is a war deceleration.

[AniKoferBo]

Oh, and fuck you, Masoni. I dont like Atlass or his likes particularly, but seriously: fuck you, sideways, wth a cactus glove, dumped in pepper spray.

my dick is in ur asshole 

[The Architect Of Fate]

Yes. Harming the ambassador is a war deceleration.

No it's not

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my dick is in ur asshole  

Guess he has not notice as it is microscopic in size 

[AniKoferBo]

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I have to fuck your ass and ur mother asshole too son of a whore 
كسمك يا ابن المرة المتناكة الشرموطة الزانية

You can't. Face it: you're a bigot that uses internet forums to advocate the impaling of people for their religion.

hehe look who is talking to me 
follower of the Arabian asshole who raped the children Aisha 

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Yes. Harming the ambassador is a war deceleration.

No it's not

---

my dick is in ur asshole  

Guess he has not notice as it is microscopic in size 

it is not like yours due 
u need to try it first

[The Architect Of Fate]

it is not like yours due  

u need to try it first

Nah you can tell be all your yapping it's tiny

[WinterHold]

Bigotry can reach high levels; but this type of bigotry is....cold, brutal. I mean what kind of people are these? 

Yeah, the Anglophone propaganda bubble is amazing in its effectiveness. I suppose I should stop being shocked at these things, but there's something new every day. 

At least by speaking up and saying these things they're proving beyond doubt how ignorant they are. I suspect that the percentage of reasonable, literate, sane people stays fairly constant over time. Every culture has its bigots, and probably always will.

Indeed; it's a proof of the type of thought they believe in and advocate, so let them talk it out and expose the Trojan horse they use.

Back to our discussion: I think Christianity inherited the decaying Roman culture for a small while, then sunk into the darkness of the dark ages; which saw little to no advancement in culture. The Christian world only revived when it rejected the bible and overthrew the Church after the French revolution.

This is an interesting subject for me! 

It's certainly true that the Christian culture of Europe adopted and adapted all kinds of things from Greece, from Rome, from the Near East, etc. But that's true of any society. Nothing has ever been pure. 

What you say about the "dark ages," though, is a kind of a trope that is losing support among historians. It is frequently repeated among Western ideologues who want to imagine that Christianity ruined culture, but the truth seems to be different. 

Here's a recent blog post from a very good historian whose main hobby is correcting exactly this kind of misunderstanding:

https://historyforatheists.com/2020/07/s...s-history/

Here he's addressing an Ayn Rand-type college professor who repeats a number of disproved cliches about medieval European history. 

It depends on how we're defining "civilization," but I'm thinking that in history just about every civilization has been based on violence, had a suffering underclass, etc. But there are better times and worse times. 

The Italian Renaissance, for example, is sometimes given as an example of a high point in civilization. It was a violent and chaotic time, but it also reached a peak in other ways, and set a direction for later people. And it was completely soaked in Christianity. You can't imagine the Renaissance without Christianity. The Twelfth Century Renaissance, also, was very Christian. 

The scholars who revived Aristotle, providing the intellectual underpinnings for science, were Christian monks. And the scholars who did experiments and advanced math to prove that Aristotle was wrong about motion were also Christian theologians and clergy. 

So just as I won't accept that Islam is essentially opposed to human advancement, I won't accept similar statements about Christianity. It has contributed at least as much as it has detracted. And imagining a world without it is only idle speculation.

I'm interested in the history of medieval Europe too but for different reasons: the warfare and the knights are my main concern. I find it amusing -though brutal- to picture masses of ironed men clashing into each other; the amount of weight in the single  European army at that time was...just amusing.

I read quickly through that link. But I carry a thought that states: the Church didn't make any progress in terms of science, but the Crusades showed the outside world -which was mainly Muslim- to Europeans. Then -after these expeditions- Europe began to catch up and rise from the dark.

Italy was very touched by Islamic civilization:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of...hern_Italy

The way I picture it like this:
(Greece & Rome & Persia held science--->Islam conquered them and preserved the science and added tons to it---->the later generations of Rome re-discovered what their civilizations lost from science)

It's a cycle as I see it.

[AniKoferBo]

it is not like yours due  

u need to try it first

Nah you can tell be all your yapping it's tiny

U NEED TO TRY IT OR LET YOUR WOMEN TRY IT 

[polymath257]

I don’t think I have ever read an explanation as to why or how the Muslim community went from an enlightened, liberal society to the conservative dark alley of despair that we see today.

If it could happen to them, it can happen to America. Especially if these Republicans get their way.

Well, part of the problem is that Al-Ghazali won the debate concerning whether 'foreign' knowledge was acceptable or not. While some did do good work after that point, the dominant view was that doing anything not deemed acceptable in the Koran was anti-Islamic and reprehensible. This extended into philosophy and even theology.

Because of the position that Allah recreates the universe at every instance according to his will, the whole notion of causality, and thereby of the ability of people to find natural laws, was discredited. One famous position of Ghazali was that a beheaded person would not necessarily die: if God wished otherwise, the person would continue to live. So *all* events were seen as disconnected from previous ones *except* through the will of God to be 'consistent'.