أشهد أن لا إله إلاَّ الله و أشهد أن محمدا رسو

[Alex Libman 15]

This thread is clearly flying light-years above someone's head...  

Anyways, back to the pragmatic analysis of Islam, which was a darn good idea in the 600s and remains highly competitive today.  What other social system is as successful at curing the biggest problems currently facing the world - environmentalist hysteria, collapsing fertility rates, and assault on property rights?

[...]  Verse of the Sword aka Surah 9:5 explicitly tells people to kill someone if they don't believe what you believe, and this verse supersedes any writings he had about peace when he was a small-time ruffian in Medina, since the verse of the sword was written very late in his life.  [...]

The idea that a "social contract" can be made entirely optional is ridiculous!  Even an axiomic NAP'er hippie like Ian acknowledges the need for self-defense when a bunch of commies come to "liberate" his property.  The history of America in the 20th century is a great example of what happens when you give people who oppose your social contract (i.e. socialists) total freedom of speech.  There'd be ten billion people living in space by now if only infidels like Karl Marx had their heads chopped off!


TL;DR version:  People are st0000pid.  Pragmatism FTW!

[sinceredagreat]

I doubt that we would be in space if Muslims ran everything considering the refuse to believe that they are praying to an asteroid. So...something tells me science isn't their strong suit.

[Alex Libman 15]

You seem to be completely lost here...

What does religion have to do with science? 

[sinceredagreat]

You seem to be completely lost here...

What does religion have to do with science? 

The fact that Muslims refuse to believe an asteroid is an asteroid is a pretty big fucking deal when it comes to science, considering that would put them a couple hundred years behind the curve of things...

and what does religion have to do with science? Nothing at all, because science trumps religion EVERY time. Religion was the precursor to science. Modern science came along when some people decided that "Hey, this stupid book may not know everything, I might need to do some critical thinking and independent observation instead of taking a dead book's word for it..." and hence science was born...but some people will not let religion die....

[Alex Libman 15]

You are confused.  You are comparing subjective cultural attributes (like religion, language, and clothing) with objective pursuits (like science and capitalism).  That is equivalent to saying that the English-speaking people will never accomplish anything because spelling in the English language isn't phonetic, or that people who wear neckties, which serve no rational purpose, are somehow mentally handicapped by them.

[sinceredagreat]

That's nothing like I'm saying and you know it. If you refuse to believe what you pray to is an asteroid, and will not let anyone do a scientific study on it, that pretty much proves you won't be getting into space anytime soon...name a Middle Eastern country with a actual space program.

[Alex Libman 15]

A lot of secret scientific studies have been done, most recently on Prophet Muhammad's DNA - there was no special propaganda value in the results, so those studies remained a secret.  Sorry, there's just no such thing as open source imperialism.  The Chinese ruling classes could kill and replace an emperor with even most people in the imperial palace not knowing about it!  The Vatican, the Kremlin, and Washington are / were just as secretive about their founding myths - cultures that aren't don't last very long. 

[Riddler]

I doubt that we would be in space if Muslims ran everything considering the refuse to believe that they are praying to an asteroid. So...something tells me science isn't their strong suit.

yeah, but they figgered out how to set bombs off wif a cell phone.....

[Alex Libman 15]

All things being equal, people in the Middle East actually have the highest IQ's in the world.  This is because they are descendants of the world's first civilizations (i.e. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia), which means more generations of natural selection based on intellectual rather than physical endowment.


Once I asked in a Muslim chat-room what's the fastest way to download a Quran on MP3 with English translation, and someone immediately said:

Code: [Select] perl -e 'for("001".."114"){`wget -c http://download.quran.islamway.com/quran3/206/$_.mp3`}';

[Riddler]

All things being equal, people in the Middle East actually have the highest IQ's in the world.  

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (sound of loud ''so-fucking-wrong buzzer going off)
you, my little twat-ish friend, are under the same delusion as so many others, that assume, wrongly, that because ancient arabs gave birth to certain mathematics & artworks (they did), that todays middle-eastern sand-dwellers can still ride the coat-tails of their ancestors (they can't)
the gooks got it all over everyone else.....oh, by the way, do they include females in your polling?  ...i doubt it.

[anarchir]

All things being equal, everything is equal...duh.

[AL the Inconspicuous]

Once again, the reason why the Arab / North African civilization declined 500 years ago has nothing to do with Islam, and much to do with plagues, crop failures in North Africa, etc.  This allowed Christians to succeed in the Iberian reconquista, thereby taking over the Muslim-initiated conquest of the Americas in 1492, writing the Muslim role out of the history books.  (China too benefited from Muslim hegemony on high seas, Zheng He being the most famous example, but they have chosen the path of isolation instead.) Wealth from the New World has been the engine of the Western Civilization's progress ever since, allowing them to hold back the growth of the Ottoman Empire, and reverse it several centuries later, eventually leading to fragmentation, stagnation, and colonization.

One theory on why the Europeans have been able to succeed compares them to the rats that carried the bubonic plague - their strong immune systems made them carriers of infectious bacterial diseases that are lethal to others.  Europe's cold climate, low urbanization, and technological backwardness discouraged regular bathing, while a diet that's high in animal products (especially pigs) exposed them to all sorts of germs.  This, combined with natural selection from many centuries in the cold climate, has made them immune to diseases with which they were able to wipe out their enemies in their millions, both in the old world and the new.

[Andy]

taking over the Muslim-initiated conquest of the Americas in 1492, writing the Muslim role out of the history books

I know you don't like this, but ah, source?

[AL the Inconspicuous]

I know you don't like this, but ah, source?

If a conspiracy theory had a legitimate "source", then it would be taught in 7th grade history class instead.

All I have is speculation, deductive reasoning, and divine revelation. 

Holy successfull trolling batman.

I am but in larval stages of trollhood.  They say you need to practice an art for at least 40,000 hours to have a chance of becoming a true master, which someday I shall! 

[AL the Inconspicuous]

From The Guardian (UK) -- Matrix producer plans Muhammad biopic --

Producer Barrie Osborne [IMDB] cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad.

Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad's life and examine his teachings.  Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as "an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures.  The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam".

Osborne's production will reportedly feature English-speaking Muslim actors.  It is backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, who have installed the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to oversee all aspects of the shoot.  In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen.

"The film will shed light on the Prophet's life since before his birth to his death," Ahmed Abdullah Al-Mustafa, Alnoor's chairman, told al-Jazeera.  "It will highlight the humanity of Prophet Muhammad."

The as-yet-untitled picture is due to go before the cameras in 2011. It remains to be seen, however, whether it will be beaten to cinemas by another Muhammad-themed drama. Late last year, producer Oscar Zoghbi announced plans to remake The Message [2], his controversial 1976 drama [BT] [IMDB] that sparked a fatal siege by protesters in Washington DC.  The new version, entitled The Messenger of Peace, is currently still in development.