Meanwhile while everyone is focused on Trump's ties with Russia, the house just passed the REINS Act. Nothing like having Congress be the final say on clean water, toxic chemicals, etc. I mean really who needs scientist to determine this stuff?
This country is so unbelievably screwed. You know, 'Muricans love to pat themselves on the back about how awesome our western societies are comparison with those countries governed under philosophies of stone age Islamic magical thinking that reject facts.....and now we are racing to join them.
FUCK FACTS! WHO NEEDS THEM?
A small point of contention . . . Islam was at the forefront of scientific research and discovery in the world around the middle ages. In the west we were rushing desperately trying to catch up to them.
A small point of contention of my own.... It was not Islam that was at the forefront of such research, it was scientists living under a tolerant Islamic state, the Ottoman Empire. Mostly under and after Suleiman the Magnificent, who conquered much of Southern Europe. Certainly, they are responsible for a great many of the libraries that led to the Renaissance period, but more than a few of the greatest advancements in science were discovered by Christians living within the Ottoman Empire; In Southern Italy, Sicily, Greece and Belgrade. The Ottoman Empire peaked during this time, but their scientific achievements were not due to their Islamic background, culture or state religion; it was mostly due to their (mostly unprecedented) tolerance for other cultures within the empire, as well as Suleiman's own example of marrying a Christian woman. Of course, their descendants screwed up that historical goodwill during the first world war.
Agreed. This is mostly an example that a society with Islam as a prominent faith can be as open minded and scientific as a christian nation, in spite of the religion not in any way because of it.
Given the way that medieval religious practices permeated all aspects of life, I'm not sure that your point is entirely valid. I don't personally believe that religion of any kind necessarily helps or hinders scientific endeavor . . . it's all up to the interpretation of the adherents at the time. I'd agree that in modern times Islamic states have lost the conditions that gave them intellectual supremacy for so long in the middle ages.
There's a common narrative of Western Christian superiority that often rears up in these sorts of conversations, and all I was trying to do was offer a counterpoint to it.
But if you allow society to be completely ruled by hard line religious zealots driven by faith or a desire to control people that same religion can be used to stifle education, science and tolerance as we see in most if not all current Islamic regimes.
Absolutely. A viewpoint intolerant of change, and an excess of reverence for the past seems to doom intellectual pursuits and reduce creative output through many means.
A hard line christian state could have many of the same repressive anti education, anti science and anti women qualities that we see with Islam. Probably how ever absent the incentive for Jihad and terrorism.
If you truly believe this, you should read up a bit about Christian history. St. Augustine's concept of 'Just War', the Crusades, the French Catholic/Protestant Wars . . . Christians have been involved in an awful lot of holy wars. As far as terrorism, you don't have to look far either. There have been regular terror attacks by Christians against abortion clinics in the US, the murder/rape/torture performed by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, the NLFT's actions in north east India, etc.
Repressive anti-education, anti-science, and anti-woman qualities tend to show up because of quality of life and the subsequent (mis?)interpretation of a religion. The idea that Christianity is somehow less dangerous than any other method of worship is an unsupportable one, but one that people from predominantly Christian places cling to. Religions are liable to change (hence my example of Islam in the middle ages) and how they affect public life depends entirely on popular interpretation and variable ideas of what is acceptable.