(March 1, 2015 at 1:15 pm)Chuck Wrote: I think the ideals of islam has hewed close to the ethics of patriarchical tribal mob living strained and marginal existences in hostile land, and permanently engaged in vicious internecine conflicts. When stressed, it falls back to the principle that freedom of thought and experimentation that does not contribute to social control and to prevailing in internecine conflicts is an unaffordable luxury. This may be part of the reason why bulk of societies under its sway, when confronted with the superiority of modernity, has adopted so poorly, one might say uniquely poorly, to modernity in commerce, industry, politics, and technology.
I agree. I have no doubt that Muhammed likely tailored his religion in order to appeal to that set of values in order to further secure his own position at its head, not unlike how Rome placed Christian holidays on the same days as pagan holidays in order to ease the transition from the latter to the former.
