French headscarf ban recommended

[SPQR 0]

Do i have to remind you that Arab scientists were the ones who made scientifical progress when the europeans were learning how to fling a rock over a castles wall

If it werent for Arabian advancements in maths specifically european advancements in tech would have been 500 years behind today. We would all probably be riding horses today

Please stop talking nonsense and stereotyps about us, as we do about your cultures (Iran is not Egypt, but they are historically muslims).

If I wanted to speak crudely, I'd say that, Europe didn't wait for the coming of Christianity to become a civilisation, while in Saudia Arabia only lived buncgs of tribes, waging razzia, stealing women and cattle.  

Middle East didn't wait for the coming of the Holy Book to become civilized. Hammurabi didn't wait for the coming of Angels to establish its code of Rules & Laws.

Iraqians are far more than just Muslims, and they are damn right when they currently claiming for their historical inheritance against US politics & historical point of view.

ARCHIMEDES, A GREEK CITIZEN OF THE SYRACUSE CITY DIDN'T WAIT FOR YOUR GOLDEN AGE TO CALCULATE, NEARLY 2000 YEARS AGO, THE VALUE OF PI  

As you can read, I can SHOUT too.

We'll be able to debate openly when each others would know enough about the other culture

And in your analysis, you forgot to speak about the Chinsese civilization, far more advanced than both of us civilizations

(I'd really like to have the point of view and knowledge of asian people)

THE WORLD HAD NEVER TURN EXCLUSIVELY AROUND MONOTHEISTIC RELIGIONS

I've learn far more things speaking peacefully with python3, than arguing about ME, ME, ME, ME with others. ;)

I don't need to wage an intellectual war to feel good about me

 

And I'd like to say, and it can't be contested, that all theses civilisations had advanced thanks to different kinds of exchange (trade, knowledge, political alliances,...), and not while erecting Walls around its culture.

A culture without evolution capacity is a culture doomed to disappear....

[SPQR 0]

Weren't the Islamic scocieties a bit more advanced during the middle ages than the Christian ones? To my understanding "Islamic" doctors or doctors taught in Islamic countries were very sought after during the crusades. And they were fairly peaceful to boot.

thats the point iw as trying to make that islam is compatible with science, and does not prohibit its study

It is thanks to muslims doctors that wound infections could be prevented

[sanctuary 19]

But with most religions, I think that the problem is the people who interpret the religion, not the religion itself.

That are the greatest words of wisdom i read recently there.

Religions are not a problem , they do not put science in jail , they do not make people suffering.

It is people that interpret religion teachings in their own way that can do all of that actually and are really the problem.

But the same can be said about atheist people too.

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]Please stop talking nonsense and stereotyps about us, as we do about your cultures (Iran is not Egypt, but they are historically muslims).

Do you know the meaning of stereo type ? Before you wrote that? Whom have i stereotyped ? You ? I'd probably have to first check where your from by checking your profile (which i havent done yet).

Quote[/b] ]If I wanted to speak crudely, I'd say that, Europe didn't wait for the coming of Christianity to become a civilisation, while in Saudia Arabia only lived buncgs of tribes, waging razzia, stealing women and cattle.

Please make some sense all this nonesiscal talk isnt making any ...

@ m21man:

Once again youre making a mistake , why do you define christainity as the 'RELIGION' why not speak of it directly by its name so we know whom youre talking about , when you speak of the word religion it includes many others.

Hope this time you understand.

[Consigliere 0]

Quote[/b] ] re·li·gion

n.

Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

The life or condition of a person in a religious order.

A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.

A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Religion is religion...

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]@ m21man:

Once again youre making a mistake , why do you define christainity as the 'RELIGION' why not speak of it directly by its name so we know whom youre talking about , when you speak of the word religion it includes many others.

Hope this time you understand.

I was talking about Christianity because that was the example that was used. Read the damn thread ...

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]@ m21man:

Once again youre making a mistake , why do you define christainity as the 'RELIGION' why not speak of it directly by its name so we know whom youre talking about , when you speak of the word religion it includes many others.

Hope this time you understand.

I was talking about Christianity because that was the example that was used. Read the damn thread ...

You were using that argument to base your opinion on why 'religions' arent nice when it comes to science ... if i might remind you.

I would instead advise you to read the thread again

[python3 0]

Quote[/b] ]Creation/Evolution:

The Qur’an states that man as a species was created through a gradual process. It states:

"Seeing that He (Allah) created you in successive stages†(Qur’an 71:14)6

Centuries before Darwin, when the West was in the Dark Ages, the Muslims believed that the appearance of humans was not an instantaneous event but a gradual process in which humans were derived from earlier forms. Ibn Khaldun, a Muslim scholar, wrote 500 years before Darwin that man belongs to the animal kingdom.:

"...[M]an belongs to the genus of animals and that God distinguished from them by ability to think, which He (Allah) gave man and through which man is able to arrange his actions in an orderly manner."7

He further states:

"One should look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner to plants and animals...The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man after the world of monkeys. This is as far as our physical observation extends."8

The last sentence of the above quote shows that Muslims reached these conclusions by observations.

very interesting stuuf about evolution in the Quran. Never knew any of this, thanks a lot acecombat.

[EiZei 0]

Fairly interesting indeed.

[denoir 0]

A multicultural society is only possible if

1) The society focues on the things the different cultures have in common and redirect the rest to the private domain

2) One culture is dominant and forces the other cultures to adapt to their standards

This is about the definition of MONOculturalism I'm afraid.

You know that 1) and 2) are alternatives, right?

And no it's not monoculturalism as it talks about integrating different cultural systems into a common one.

First of all you have to recognize the need of having one unified system in the society. We can't go about and have our personal laws. Any civilization is based on a set of common rules.

Ok, so when we have that, how do we define the rules? There are really just two alternatives.

One is that we sit down and work out the things that we agree on and put that as a law. The things we disagree on we don't make laws about except for laws that guarantee us the rights to have different views. This is modern day western society.

The other way is the old-school "we have more guns than you so you do as we tell you". In short one culture superimposed on the other.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]The secular world is the things we see through direct observation. An apple falls to the ground because of gravity, not divine intervention. Your car drives because it has an engine, regardless if you are a muslim, a christian or a jew. The secular is the universal and denying it is only self-destructive. You can have a religious belief, no problem - but it's not an alternative - it's a complement.

This is a very essentialistic view when applied on social phenomenons, aka positivism; a perspective that has mostly been eliminated from social/cultural sciences during the last decades. Ok, you are probalby quite aware of this denoir, and I dont think it really applies to you in any grater extent after reading most of your other posts here. But I'm still surprised to be reading this from you.

I would call the opposite of essentialistic - 'reflexivistic'. Indeed relativistic if you want. In natural sciences the essentialistic view is quite acceptable (and I recon that you denoir are 'aware' of postmodern-quantum physics; I dont knom much about it, but recon its primary a postmodern experiment to push the limits. On the other hand I think ordinary quantum physics seems all relativistic enough already).

Nah, it comes from the tragic fact that people that deal in social and humanist studies don't have a first clue about physics. It's nothing special. It sounds profound when you say that an observer inevitably affects the process being observed. But you know what? First it's quantum mechanics only, and second it's very trivial. Imagine that you have a small ball rolling on a table and you have a big stick for poking. You are blindfolded and you try to determine the position of the ball by poking it with the stick. Inevitably since the stick is at least as large and heavy as the ball, you will influence the ball's movement when you poke it. And that's Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. In quantum physics, the ball are the particles you are trying to measure and the stick is the energy beam (EM wave) you try to poke it with. Quantum mechanics dictates that energy comes in discreete packets that can't be smaller than a certain energy. So what you have is a really big stick with which you are trying to pinpoint a very small ball. Of course you will influence it. It's very common sense - it's not some brand new philosophical paradigm.

Ok, back on topic:

If you want to have a common system (which we concluded was necessary to have any form of society at all), you have to have a set of common values. Those values can't be based on religion becuase we don't have common values there. It has to be based on something we all share: we are humans, we live in the same world that follows the same laws of physics. And that's the secular world.

[Acecombat 0]

Fairly interesting indeed.

Whats even interesting is that 'WHEN' that was written

Maybe mr. Darwin *cough* was a muslim *cough*

[SPQR 0]

Do you know the meaning of stereo type ? Before you wrote that? Whom have i stereotyped ? You ? I'd probably have to first check where your from by checking your profile    (which i havent done yet).

Quote[/b] ]If I wanted to speak crudely, I'd say that, Europe didn't wait for the coming of Christianity to become a civilisation, while in Saudia Arabia only lived bunchs of tribes, waging razzia, stealing women and cattle.  

Please make some sense all this nonesiscal talk isnt making any ...

You are damn right, the most judicious word is cliché

But :

- ...when the europeans were learning how to fling a rock over a castles wall : that's Poliorcetic

- Occidental civilisation didin't appear on Earth with the settlement of Christianity in Europe. Saying the oposite is a cliché

- Telling that, before the Prophet and the Holy book, that arabian tribes were only bunches of bandits, looting and women&cattle abducting is a cliché

But in both case, Christianity brings some good and bad things and Arabia wasn't a state

Do not think because I can't handle english better than french that my knowledge of civilizations history is peanut

[Acecombat 0]

Thank you for retorting once again uselessly

I never faulted your english spqr i was merely asking why did you said i was stereotyping? when i cleraly wasnt.

Quote[/b] ]Telling that, before the Prophet and the Holy book, that arabian tribes were only bunches of bandits, looting and women&cattle abducting is a cliché

Of course it can be said as a cliche , Islam wasnt the first and last religion on earth there were 124,000 more before it , but at th time of islam's arrival Arabia was fileld with bunch of bandits and gamblers and etc etc tthough not everyone was like that but MOST of them were.

There were plenty of respectful believers everywhere in the world at that time. Like Yemen , even rome and Israel.

Quote[/b] ]Poliorcetic

Can you open the dictionary 'once' again and tell me what this word means

My first language isnt english so my vocabulary isnt as sophisticated as yours.

[SPQR 0]

You said in this topic as many false or incomplete clichés about Occident as we did about Middle-East  

So :

- Or you are using well cool smilies to show your self-confidence, absoluty sure to know the TRUTH, and I can use smilies too

- Or we don't manage to understand each other because of our lack of english mastering and true knowledge, "cliché less" about the other Culture.

I'd prefer the second problem, as it allows the building of a more constructive  understanding process.  

Poliorcetic is the Art of Siege, how to seize a fortified city.. Guess where does it come from ?... but that's not a capital point in the current debate.

Is the word "Retorting" critizising me ?

[Pukko 0]

Quote[/b] ]A multicultural society is only possible if

1) The society focues on the things the different cultures have in common and redirect the rest to the private domain

2) One culture is dominant and forces the other cultures to adapt to their standards

You know that 1) and 2) are alternatives, right?

And no it's not monoculturalism as it talks about integrating different cultural systems into a common one.

This perspectice inplemented in its most 'positive' form still defines monoculturalism. Even if there would be no 'dominant culture' (which is extremely unlikely in the closest centuries, remember Eurocentrism? ) it still means that all different 'cultures' (as in essetially specific and separate) that all cultures are melted together into one monoculture.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]The secular world is the things we see through direct observation. An apple falls to the ground because of gravity, not divine intervention. Your car drives because it has an engine, regardless if you are a muslim, a christian or a jew. The secular is the universal and denying it is only self-destructive. You can have a religious belief, no problem - but it's not an alternative - it's a complement.

This is a very essentialistic view when applied on social phenomenons, aka positivism; a perspective that has mostly been eliminated from social/cultural sciences during the last decades. Ok, you are probalby quite aware of this denoir, and I dont think it really applies to you in any grater extent after reading most of your other posts here. But I'm still surprised to be reading this from you.

I would call the opposite of essentialistic - 'reflexivistic'. Indeed relativistic if you want. In natural sciences the essentialistic view is quite acceptable (and I recon that you denoir are 'aware' of postmodern-quantum physics; I dont knom much about it, but recon its primary a postmodern experiment to push the limits. On the other hand I think ordinary quantum physics seems all relativistic enough already).

Nah, it comes from the tragic fact that people that deal in social and humanist studies don't have a first clue about physics. It's nothing special. It sounds profound when you say that an observer inevitably affects the process being observed. But you know what? First it's quantum mechanics only, and second it's very trivial

Maybe I did not make it clear, but i wrote about the example of postmodern quantum physics to show the possibly pathetic sides of postmodernity; as I felt sure that that is where you have primary experience of the not always so 'successful' postmodern thinking.

With that in mind, what do you think about the rest?

Quote[/b] ]Ok, back on topic:

If you want to have a common system (which we concluded was necessary to have any form of society at all), you have to have a set of common values. Those values can't be based on religion becuase we don't have common values there. It has to be based on something we all share: we are humans, we live in the same world that follows the same laws of physics. And that's the secular world.

But we dont necessarily share half assed essentialistic scientific thruths about these laws of physiucs when they are translated (at least methodologically) into social/cultural sciences either, do we?

Did you get my idea about the problematic distictions between natural science and social/cultural science that I almost focused the entire post around? Natural scientists, like the social scientists writing about quantum mechanics, always seems to have a hard time changing fundamental (methdological) thinking when crossing the line between 'hard and soft' science. And the dying positivism is probably some kind of evidence for that; essentialistic thought dont hold in the long run (and now I'm not talking about paradigm changes).

Sorry if I sound offensive, but this is a very delicate issue, that is hard to communicate. Peace  

[SPQR 0]

Quote[/b] ]Howcome it allows hashis for example? or Khat?

Sorry Acecombat,    but it seems that someone doe'snt know alot about Crusades.

During this Dark Ages, exist the group of Hashishim (or "users of hashish"), drug-using, faithless, profiecient killers lead by "the old man of the Mountain". They were feared by muslims and helped sometimes some christians Lords, threatening men and Califs. Even Saladin had real difficulties with them!

The word Hashishim got transformed by history and become the word Assassin.

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]You were using that argument to base your opinion on why 'religions' arent nice when it comes to science ... if i might remind you.

The problem with all religions is that they lay down a series of postulates, and you're branded a heretic if you challenge them. Islam is more tolerant of religion than Christianity, but I'm sure that there is a line that can't be crossed...

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]Maybe mr. Darwin *cough* was a muslim *cough*

It makes you wonder. What religion did Darwin follow?If he was a Christian, I'd imagine he was a rather independant follower .

[denoir 0]

This perspectice inplemented in its most 'positive' form still defines monoculturalism. Even if there would be no 'dominant culture' (which is extremely unlikely in the closest centuries, remember Eurocentrism? ) it still means that all different 'cultures' (as in essetially specific and separate) that all cultures are melted together into one monoculture.

Well, what's the alternative? Do you think it's possible to maintain any form of social structure without imposing common rules?

Quote[/b] ]Maybe I did not make it clear, but i wrote about the example of postmodern quantum physics to show the possibly pathetic sides of postmodernity; as I felt sure that that is where you have primary experience of the not always so 'successful' postmodern thinking.

Actually I have not heard the term "postmodern" in combination with quantum physics until you mentioned it here. I did some googling and fould that it's used a bit inconsistently to describe quantum chaos theory or the grand unified theories. I wouldn't say that it's a term that physicist use but more humanists that are reflecting over phyiscs.

Quote[/b] ]With that in mind, what do you think about the rest?

I have a difficulty saying what I think as I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Perhaps it's my limited sociological vocabulary that makes me not understand..

Quote[/b] ]But we dont necessarily share half assed essentialistic scientific thruths about these laws of physiucs when they are translated (at least methodologically) into social/cultural sciences either, do we?

I think that it is a fallacy of the social sciences that think that physics is translatable into their domain.

Quote[/b] ]Did you get my idea about the problematic distictions between natural science and social/cultural science that I almost focused the entire post around?

No I did not.

Quote[/b] ]Natural scientists, like the social scientists writing about quantum mechanics, always seems to have a hard time changing fundamental (methdological) thinking when crossing the line between 'hard and soft' science.

You have to define what you mean by "hard and soft" science. Natural scientists don't have much problems with the paradigm shift that comes in the domain of quantum mechanics as physics is always local to some domain. Philosophers on the other hand have big problems with it and they have yet to accept it, although almost a century has passed. Why? I'd say it's simply because they don't understand it due to their lack of knowledge of the math that is required to understand it. Quantum mechanics is no perversion of science. It's not a deconstructive paradigm (as you might for instance say about  such modern art as dadaism etc). It's based on the very same positivistic thinking as the rest of physics.

Quote[/b] ]And the dying positivism is probably some kind of evidence for that; essentialistic thought dont hold in the long run (and now I'm not talking about paradigm changes).

I very much disagree that positvism is dying. As a matter of fact, I'd say that it's never been stronger in the natural sciences as it is now. As for essentialism, it's again a complete misunderstanding of quantum mechanics by the social science people. Nobody is questioning causality. It's determinism on quantum level that is replaced by well-defined stochastic distributions. But do not confuse lack of determinism with lack of causality. And furthermore the social scientist seem to think that the QM non-deterministic world is somehow a new general paradigm in physics: it's not. It's just valid in it's domain. Newton's equations are still just as valid in their domain.

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]You were using that argument to base your opinion on why 'religions' arent nice when it comes to science ... if i might remind you.

The problem with all religions is that they lay down a series of postulates, and you're branded a heretic if you challenge them. Islam is more tolerant of religion than Christianity, but I'm sure that there is a line that can't be crossed...

There is no line when it comes to science and the same applies to Islam .

Muslims scientists are allowed to put up any THEORY they want as long as its proved scientifically even if it contradicts ISLAM , this has been said in the Quran, because we are humans we make mistakes all the time , many theorys which scientists cooked before or are now with fancy words maybe nothing much but crap in the future, therefore in ISLAM THERE IS NO BOUNDARY FOR A MUSLIM SCIENTIST.

Clear

I even quoted this verse in one of my previous posts.

Quote[/b] ]It makes you wonder. What religion did Darwin follow?If he was a Christian, I'd imagine he was a rather independant follower

Really he was a christain? hmmm according to what i know about christainity they claim the earth just popped up at once with life....i wonder how darwin got away with this....

@Spqr i was talking about hashish man whats that got to do with hasishm or a group of bandits anyway , i was talking about the drug , mr turms was suggesting that its allowed in Islam while it isnt.Since anything thats deemed intoxicating to your mind is not allowed in Islam.

Getting back On-topic

About the scarf thing , why is it that they are banning such things in the first place? First it was sectarian violence then it became , a hinderance at school for teachers etc etc , all of these reasons though are useless IMO.

I wonder if taking off a scarf or putting down a cross will help curb violence of any religious sort i dont think so , if someone wants to hurt/kill someone they will surely know who he is whether hes dressed in a underwear or a 3 piece suit.

Failure of the police/law enforcement authority to stop violence resulting in such a act is nothing but an act of desperation i think.

[Pukko 0]

Well, what's the alternative? Do you think it's possible to maintain any form of social structure without imposing common rules?

I never wrote that monoculturalism necessarily must be negative. I have no alternative for when the humans of of planet 'unites'. The main problem lies in what you wrote about 'dominating culture'. Right now in our time, billions of people are (at least more or less) quite pissed of at the 'western world' (in 'essence'   Eurocentric) have defined their reality, and in ways are making sure they continue to be inferior. No questions asked, the European enlightment scientists and philosiphers have probably defined a little to much the universal truth about humanuty, one can say.

The concept of discourses is very important here. Basically you promote an unquestionalble truth, and billions of people are forced to accept it and live after it, in thought and action. Example: The European scientists finds out the 'truth' about the black humans inferiority (categorised in far to many ways to write here), and the black humans are then forced to live 'up' to their inferiority - per definition (a definition that is produced in Europe during the colonisation for example). They (inhabitants of Africa) becomes the definition of them (the black humans), and think of themselves in that way. They are imprisoned in the discourse about the black humans.

And the positive thing about postmodern (relativistic) perspectives is that they can with its help break free from the dicourse, rise up and claim their human value. This is very much happening globally right now, and the G21 at the last WTO meeting is probably very influenced by postmodernism, through postcolonial theory.

Put it like this. We live in a very dangeous time if we Eurocentric westerners continue trying to maintain the old Eurocentric worldorder. This is why I am utterly frightened of the Bush administration (USA is very Eurocentric). More Eurocentric conservatism and WW3 is inevitable. There are billions of peolpe that are 'waking up' and won't tolerate anymore Eurocentrism enforced upon them. The only thing I hope for is that the western world swallow its pride, and meets, welcomes, the rising peolpe of the world to reach to ultimately reach the 'same level' as we are on. As it is has been, the western world very much contains the 'non-westerners' in their inferiority, to big parts through the 'not so very alturistic' Bretton Woods institutions.

EDIT Forgot the most important in my answer. I do think (and hope) that the humans on our planet will live in harmony under quite monocultural conditions ultimately. But it will take centuries to get that close together through mutual understanding (and deconstruction of hte bloody Eurocentrism). In the meantime we better try our best to construct 'cultural borderlands' where we can meet. EDIT III In its most concrete sence, cultural borderlands ike this forum (but the problem is that its quite western-centered (eurocentric) Thanks alot Acecombat and python3 for hangin around).

EDIT II the reason why I brought up monoculturalism at all was that in our Eurocentric times, anything like it have a real bad taste.

Pheew, there's no limit of all the shite that could be written about this, but I will have to continue in this post.. Can just hope it makes any sense  

Quote[/b] ]Actually I have not heard the term "postmodern" in combination with quantum physics until you mentioned it here. I did some googling and fould that it's used a bit inconsistently to describe quantum chaos theory or the grand unified theories. I wouldn't say that it's a term that physicist use but more humanists that are reflecting over phyiscs.

Its probalby very much so (that its the social scientists that try to make some point).

I'm not to well into Quantum physics as you might remember from my thread about it over a year ago. But I have nothing agaist it, its rather very faschinating - understaning that its impossible to really understand (and thats also a view held by you physicists yourself I have read on several occations; the really deep essential understanding just is'nt there, like it was with the good old concrete particle physics)

Quote[/b] ]I think that it is a fallacy of the social sciences that think that physics is translatable into their domain.

I VERY much is indeed. And it has been a problem for 100's of years of social science (even if it has not been concieved as a probelm on a grand scale until the last decades). Most of our social sciencies are deeply 'corrupted' by this positivism, and thats the whole fundament of the still (populary considered as) quite extreme and taboo postmodernism.

Therefore the shite I really write about in these posts is that the 'scientific truths' that these centuries of positivistic social/cultural sciencies have produced - our social reality - is VERY problematic. Look, I'm not extremely extreme in these ways of thinking, but there are many problems (read scientific truths) to deal with/deconstruct (something that is generally best kept within the academic world, to avoid general peoples 'sense of reality' to be even more of an acute, and real, problem than it already is).

Quote[/b] ]You have to define what you mean by "hard and soft" science. Natural scientists don't have much problems with the paradigm shift that comes in the domain of quantum mechanics as physics is always local to some domain. Philosophers on the other hand have big problems with it and they have yet to accept it, although almost a century has passed. Why? I'd say it's simply because they don't understand it due to their lack of knowledge of the math that is required to understand it. Quantum mechanics is no perversion of science. It's not a deconstructive paradigm (as you might for instance say about  such modern art as dadaism etc). It's based on the very same positivistic thinking as the rest of physics.

I hope that I have already answered this to some extent above (and below).

Quote[/b] ]I very much disagree that positvism is dying

Once again I failed to make something clear. I primary meant that positivism is dying within social sciencies, like I wrote above. But there do IS a BIG problem in exactly defining where the line goes between natural science (hard) and social science (soft). Its rahter comletely impossible. But as you might remeber, do consider the bloody amoeba (a quite natyral oriented positivistic social science) psychology as deeply problematic. But one can't generalise psychology as a whole, I know; there really are some positive things around there too

But put it like this: Quantum physics really do is about as far from social science as one can get, and as I said - I have no problem with it (well, exept for 'understaning' it that is )  

[denoir 0]

Put it like this. We live in a very dangeous time if we Eurocentric westerners continue trying to maintain the old Eurocentric worldorder. This is why I am utterly frightened of the Bush administration (USA is very Eurocentric). More Eurocentric conservatism and WW3 is inevitable. There are billions of peolpe that are 'waking up' and won't tolerate anymore Eurocentrism enforced upon them. The only thing I hope for is that the western world swallow its pride, and meets, welcomes, the rising peolpe of the world to reach to ultimately reach the 'same level' as we are on. As it is has been, the western world very much contains the 'non-westerners' in their inferiority, to big parts through the 'not so very alturistic' Bretton Woods institutions.

I don't think so. First of all we have nukes, they don't. And those that are trying to get them share our intolerant agressive expansionistic ways. And the fact is that most of the world is trying to become like us in most ways. If this is due to our continuing colonialistic ways or not doesn't really matter. As you said, the ultimate goal is that we get a common monocultural system which we all can live peacefully in.

Secondly, I'd like to think that we've become much more tolerant. Even if we still impose our world views, we do it only in the economic/political arena. We're for instance not forcing people to adopt certain religions. On the contrary, we insist on (at least in theory) of equality between the religions. Also we're not racists and white supremacists as we were a couple of centuries back. On the contrary, global capitalism postulates that anybody you can trade with is your friend.

And third, the concept of the west vs the rest is very artificial. More or less the whole world has been westernized. Those that havn't we have very little contact with (say African bushmen). The thing is that the western style has to offer is huge industrial production and other technological benefits. So far very few have refused. And to get a technological and industrial infrastructure, you need standards and conventions. And if you don't want to re-invent the weel, you'll use European standards that have been around for a very long time. And by that building of industrial infrastructure you transform your country into a nice little copy of the Eurocentric model.

Yeah, acecombat and python3 may represent a slightly different culture than ours, but very slightly. In the end they're using a typically western global communication system and they write things in English. Not to mention that python3 lives in the US. The borders of "western" and "non-western" are very very fuzzy, if they exist at all. What's the most opposite of "West"? - "The Far East"?

Well, China is making it's transition from communism (Eurocentric ideology) to market economy (eurocentric ideology). Whatever. The "Eurocentric" term is not relevant. Today it's global. You can call them "globalization trends". They just happen to have an origin in Europe, but they're not ours any more.

And why are our ways so popular? Because they give a good materialistic quality of life - something that has been sought by man since we discovered that caves could protect us against cold and nasty rain. Humans are by biological construction hedonists, and that is what the "western" lifestyle can offer. To maintain that style requires a highly-organized efficient society and that's what we have.

There are of course practical politics which we (Europe and USA) handle in a less-than-fair way. We do capitalize on our domination, but it has nothing to do with culture. It's just politics and is truly cross-cultural.

[Pipski 0]

[quote name=m21man,Dec. 13 2003,20:21There is no line when it comes to science and the same applies to Islam .

Muslims scientists are allowed to put up any THEORY they want as long as its proved scientifically even if it contradicts ISLAM , this has been said in the Quran, because we are humans we make mistakes all the time , many theorys which scientists cooked before or are now with fancy words maybe nothing much but crap in the future, therefore in ISLAM THERE IS NO BOUNDARY FOR A MUSLIM SCIENTIST.[/quote]

Absolutely true but (speaking as a scientist) there is a problem in strict Islamic countries. The problem derives not from Islam but from the nature of religious regimes. Although no subject is taboo for research there is an absolute dearth of funding, particularly for subjects that are likely to be unpopular with the ruling regime. This is a great shame when you consider that for many, many centuries the great Islamic civilizations contained the best scientists on the planet.

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]Really he was a christain? hmmm according to what i know about christainity they claim the earth just popped up at once with life....i wonder how darwin got away with this....

Right, I was saying that if he was a Christian, then he followed the church leaders rather loosely.

[sanctuary 19]

Quote[/b] ]It makes you wonder. What religion did Darwin follow?If he was a Christian, I'd imagine he was a rather independant follower

Really he was a christain? hmmm according to what i know about christainity they claim the earth just popped up at once with life....i wonder how darwin got away with this....

In your previous posts you said to people that they when they know nothing about islam they should learn about it before making a point on your religion . And i agree with that , one should talk when he know what he is talking about. That is the best thing for an unbiaised debate.

But now, here, you just do the same with making a point about something so wrong and false that it is ridiculous.

Earth pop up in one day ?

Really, (without counting some of the human-made dogmas that i very strongly disagree with) i never heard anything so enormous like that about my religion.

Genesis book that you are +/- refering to without knowing anything is not a chronological "How God created anything in a day or 7 "

when the word "Day" is mentionned , the meaning is not our 24 hours days but it is like "Era" . In the Genesis book , we can learn with trying to understand more than just the 1st degree of reading that nothing has "poped up" from nowhere in no time. And that is why evolution theory is an acceptable theory from a "christian like me" view.

So please before commenting about people lack of knowledge about your religion, think about your own knowledge of their religion/atheism/sciences etc... , and the debate will not be biaised anymore ;)

Thanks