(December 12, 2017 at 12:36 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:(December 12, 2017 at 12:18 am)AtlasS33 Wrote: Historically, Muslims took down Spain and Constantinople when they were more religious.
Defeat and disasters came during during the illumination period in Europe, when many Muslims wanted to replace the religious model with a European one.
You might as well argue that just because stone axes carried you to victory when everyone you faced also only had stone axes, so in the age when everyone else had machine guns and aeroplanes the key to your freedom from conquest and further victory remains more stone axes.
Religion is an effective force when everyone are equally ignorant about reality and mere brutish unquestioning fanaticism religion promotes confers an formidable advantage. Religion is becames an inveterate source of uncompensarable ignorance and therefore fatal weakness when the other side possesses knowledge about reality sufficient to translate into hard power capable of overwhelming any mere fanaticism.
Islam use to be a source of strength when everyone else were just as ignorant. Now Islam is but a source of ignorance when everyone else are so knowledgeable as to be able to flick off any faith and Ferber Islam can promote in a struggle.
But such is the rot promoted by Islam upon muslims for the sake of islam that muslims are blinded to the fact that it is Islam that made them slaves to other actual man while they imagine they are slaves to a nonexistent god.
Equipment differ a lot in warfare.
I can so argue, that the Spanish Conquistadors had the upper hand in every fight with native Americans. That upper hands wasn't due to bravery or even cause; it was due to equipment. An army with stone axes, will face total destruction against rifles and cannons.
It is wrong to accuse all the religious of being ignorant; there is a portion that isn't; and that portion is usually the one responsible for calling and stressing on the advantages of being a follower of the right religion, over the disadvantages caused by following other paths.
Fanaticism is a state of mind; it's a behavior even video game players display, and scientists display; all alike; and each have their own specific danger, some fanatics are a threat to your life, others are a threat to your freedom,..., etc.
What makes a warfare enthusiast, a better reality-understanding philosopher than me? He gained his rank by the power of the gun; if he haven't had scientists capable of inventing an atomic weapons; probably I wouldn't even be here to talk about him/her. The only thing that gave Europe any kind of dominion in the world today, is the mastery of warfare, crowned by the invention of the atomic weapon.
Back in the time of Rome; nobody cared about western Europe; it was "the outland of the Barbarians".
It's not Islam that brought Muslims down. It's the art of war, turning to the art of "ISIS" in their lands.
