Y’know, people might stop laughing behind their sleeves at you if you A) knew what you were talking about, and B) stopped assuming Muslims were the boogeyman.

you’ve proven you don’t know what you’re talking about. and B just enforces the truth that you are a dhimmi. and a fool.

Your supporting evidence consists of a blog and a non-peer reviewed paper that reads like 19th century pseudo-science

and your supporting evidence is more dhimmi history.

to anyone who has an open mind on this, and you do not obviously, just google ‘islamic golden age a myth’

there is plenty to read about.

It was Muslim scholars who developed algebra

another lie, like everything else, they stole it and claimed it as their own…

ArThe origins of algebra can thus be traced back to ancient Babylonian mathematicians roughly four thousand years ago

The method known as “Modus Indorum” or the method of the Indians have become our algebra today. This algebra came along with the Hindu Number system to Arabia and then migrated to Europe. The earliest known Indian mathematical documents are dated to around the middle of the first millennium B.C.E (around the sixth century B.C.E.).[38]

The recurring themes in Indian mathematics are, among others, determinate and indeterminate linear and quadratic equations, simple mensuration, and Pythagorean triples

link

more proof of your dhimmitude

as far as the muslims saving greek and roman knowledg…

It is true that some Greek and other classics were translated to Arabic, but it is equally true that Muslims could be highly particular about which texts to exclude. As Iranian intellectual Amir Taheri explains: “It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle’s Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle’s Politics in Persian until 1963.”

Moreover, one of the reasons why he did this was because the translations that were available in Arabic were incomplete and sometimes of poor linguistic quality. The Arabic translations, although they did serve as an early reintroduction for some Western Europeans to Greek thought, didn’t “save” Greek knowledge as it had never been lost. It had been preserved in an unbroken line since Classical times by Greek, Byzantine Christians, who still considered themselves Romans, and it could be recovered there. There was extensive contact between Eastern and Western Christians at this time; sometimes amiable, sometimes less so and occasionally downright hostile, but contact nonetheless. The permanent recovery of Greek and Classical learning was undertaken as a direct transmission from Greek, Orthodox Christians to Western, Latin Christians. There were no Muslim middlemen involved.

link

you really are a piece of work

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 2:23 PM

I dismissed nothing. I pointed out quite correctly that the serious Muslim invasions of Europe were effective over before 800 AD,

you were incorrect. all those battles I posted, taking siciliy etc…were not ’serious’ to you…uh ok…

was 9/11 serious to you? after all they didn’t take any land.

The crusades were the expansionist jihad in reverse, and that’s the cold, hard truth of it.

more dhimmitude….there is a difference between re-taking back what was yours, and conquering new lands…and if you can’t see the difference, then there is no hope for your dhimmitude.

Which leaves the truly important question I must ask: Is your head up your ass for the warmth?

E1701 on June 30, 2008 at 1:14 PM

rather that than up the ass of the local imam’s like yours is.

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 2:29 PM

but he admitted that ID can be tested, and falsified, so its science.

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 2:36 PM

Behe’s observations are a worthwhile ad hoc criticism of evolution but he doesn’t advance a theory of his own that can be tested. If he could offer a theory of how intelligence works within biological systems to effect changes, that would be scientifically exciting.

dedalus on June 30, 2008 at 3:05 PM

you have posted zero zip nada as usual to back up your assertion about the lifespan in the middle ages. you make a moronic statement, and expect it to be taken as God’s word because you said it. give me a break. do you have any idea of how arrogant and moronic you sound?

Excuse me, I guess I could go the lazy and disregarded method of posting links to questionable web sources. Oh look, here’s one I found by googling that exact phrase. http://www.nylicsocialworkeramazonas.com/id4.html

It reeks of the noble savage myth and provides no documentary sources, but that’s about par for the course for the crap you’ve provided as your sources. Or we could try the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/241864.stm Of course, that’s for the wrong time period, but that hasn’t stopped you yet.

and this number of 40 includes the black plague…so your thesis that the medieval period was the dark ages becasue of the short lifespan is incorrect. you could say the 19th century was the ‘dark ages’ becasue of the short lifespan.

Once again, no accounting for time. The Black Plague struck Europe in the 1340’s, which is the Late Middle Ages… about three hundred years after the Dark Ages. By that time, life expectancy was *up* to around 40 even with massive infant mortality rates… circa 700-1000 AD, 32 is closer to the mark.

so first you say that abortion, infanticide tapered off, and now your quote says it didn’t. so which is it?

Ignoring the part about abortion, which I haven’t even really discussed, however much you like to toss that particular red herring in… These are only mutually exclusive statements when you frame them as a strawman. *Both* are true.

Infanticide, as per your article and mine, and a half dozen other articles I’ve read on the social aspects of that period was an adaptive social trait. In Greece and Rome it was generally considered not merely acceptable, but necessary… it weeded out the malformed, the crippled, the diseased, and the unwanted. Roman children who *were* chosen to live were as a general rule treated with close attention and firm, even extremely harsh, discipline. In barbarian societies, children were instead part of a values system: for example, in some gothic societies, people were rated by their wergeld (the price assigned to them in the event they were killed or injured). The wergeld of a newborn boy was 60 solidi, and up to the age of 9, his value increased at about 3.75 solidi a year, making a ten year old boy worth 90 solidi… or a third again as valuable as a newborn. But from 10 to 15, his value went up by ten solidi a year, as he learned new skills to help around the camps. From 15 to 20, it went to 30 solidi a year. From age 20 on, he was a man full grown with all of the required skills and the ability to support his own family or clan, and his worth of 300 solidi (five times that of a newborn) remained until he was 50 barring disabling injury, whereupon his age and infertility dropped his value to 200 solidi, and eventually 100 solid from age 65 to death. So the way the barbarians reckoned it, while a full grown male was five times the value of a newborn male, an old man was only worth as much as an eleven-year old boy. But children in this society were treated with a form of affectionate neglect… not beaten or disciplined to the extent of Roman children, but not given the same degree of attention either. This continued for some time *after* conversion to Christianity… such customs are slow to change.

The Dark Ages, as already covered, was the period where Roman authority disappeared, and Roman culture began to meld with the new barbarian cultures settling the region. During this time, a mix of the two approaches to children. Infanticide occurred in both societies to begin with as a form of early eugenics - the crippled, weak, or unwanted represented a burden on thin resources and dynastic ambitions, and were dispensed with. The growing power of Christianity began to change the attitudes gradually, but the first laws against infanticide did not appear until the High Middle Ages following the rise of states. Throughout the Dark Ages, infanticide was predominantly the result of the same factors as they were in Roman and Greek times. But by 1000 AD, this attitude was changing, and within two hundred years most states had laws against the practice, and the growing power of the Church began to turn a common practice into a taboo.

But laws are not absolute in practice… the US outlaws drunk driving, but one can hardly call that uncommon. Likewise, with the eugenics issue being sidelined by sin in the High Middle Ages, new issues associated with the Church began to crop up. Infanticide now went from a regular part of life based on survival and the dimly understood concept of eugenics, to a way to evade punishment for *other* sins. By 1200 and onward, infanticide was still common, though far less so than in the Dark Ages of the Early Middle Age, and was now heavily the last resort for women who became pregnant out of wedlock, or for even nobles in cases of illegitimacy where a noble did not have the power to “make the problem go away” as royals commonly did by giving them a minor lordship somewhere far from the capital. The other factor was poverty… if a family risked starvation by trying to support a new child (bearing in mind that a new baby represents at least ten years of constant support before any return, to look at it coldly, or fourteen or fifteen years in the case of girls, before they could be married off), the baby would be abandoned.

This should not be in the slightest bit surprising to any realist - the same goes on today in our own society, and we have a *huge* public focus on children (not touching the abortion debate here - irrelevant), the raising of children, and massive private and government support mechanisms to deal with and raise abandoned babies and those given up for adoption by too young unwed mothers. These have been common problems in *any* age… but until the 1200’s, there was no effort to provide this kind of backstop… and none outside of cities for centuries after that except monasteries.

It is interesting to note that the criminal codes of Medieval Europe regarded infanticide as a particularly heinous form of murder because of the vulnerable nature of the victim

And for the umpteenth time:
1) These laws are *post* Dark Ages… generally the product of the High and Late Middle Ages, if not the Renaissance in some cases. I realize you can’t seem to distinguish this factoid, but to those still reading this: The Dark Age, generally known as the Early Middle Age, is often factored as the period between the effective end of Roman rule in Europe (practically, about 450 AD, legally 475 with the deposing of Augustus Romulus), and either 800 AD and the rise of the Carolingians, or 1000/1066 AD with the organization of the modern “states”, France, Holy Roman Empire, England, Hungary, the Italian city-states, etc.

2) Once again: there is a distinction between law and action. The law came about *after* the Dark Ages through the influence of the Catholic Church and Christian morals, but the practice continued illegally until (and in some areas and in cases of poverty, even after) the Black Death in the 1340’s, when the population shortage was so severe it threatened to plunge Europe *back* into the Dark Age.

E1701 on June 30, 2008 at 4:18 PM

, but the first laws against infanticide did not appear until the High Middle Ages following the rise of states

are you sure?

Legal sanctions against infanticide were introduced in the fourth century as Christianity infused secular laws.

link

as far as all those words, are you pliagarizing? why would you write all of that, most of it off the subject? are you just trying to prove your ‘wisdom’ with an abundance of words, or are you just trying to divert attention from your dhimmi view of history?

please try to be concise.

But laws are not absolute in practice… the US outlaws drunk driving, but one can hardly call that uncommon.

oh ok, so who cares when the laws were passed then? and if its gonna happen anyway, then why claim those ages were ‘dark’ because of it?

same goes on today in our own society

ok, then we live in the dark ages.

the whole point being you indict a culture, and a people for these supposed ’sins’ when other cultures have done it, and yet you refuse to condemn them, or call their time ‘dark’

These laws are *post* Dark Ages

even if they were, who cares, since the laws were violated, by your own admission anyway?

Once again: there is a distinction between law and action. The law came about *after* the Dark Ages

ok then why did you make a point about the laws not being passed until the ‘high’ middle ages?

but the practice continued illegally until (and in some areas and in cases of poverty, even after) the Black Death in the 1340’s, when the population shortage was so severe it threatened to plunge Europe *back* into the Dark Age.

the practice continues today, so? are we in the dark age?? and if not, why not?

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 4:43 PM

Behe’s observations are a worthwhile ad hoc criticism of evolution but he doesn’t advance a theory of his own that can be tested. If he could offer a theory of how intelligence works within biological systems to effect changes, that would be scientifically exciting.

obviously as I have shown, irreducable complexity can be tested

and what do you think evolution gives you, even if it was true??

as coyne says:

To some extent these excesses are not Mindell’s fault, for, if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of `like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.

link

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 4:48 PM

you sir are a liar this is what you said:

As opposed to the Dark Ages, where the average life span was so short that you were dead long before you got to be what we would consider “old”, and where those who *did* survive to become old, unless clergy or royals, would at times be driven into the forests for the wolves, or starved to death if the family couldn’t support them without starving themselves.

patricide is the killing of one’s father….I didn’t see you mention ‘father’ in this quote.

you really are confused.

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 1:54 PM

You really do have problems parsing English sentences longer than three words. I might disagree with him on some points regarding Islamic influence but L1701 has shown you to be a consummate dishonest fool.

Annar on June 30, 2008 at 4:55 PM

Annar on June 30, 2008 at 4:55 PM

and I’ve shown you to be a consummate liar and fool

so where does that get us?

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 4:57 PM

Calling someone a dhimmi is such an original and mature way to end an argument.

RoPa4life on June 30, 2008 at 5:51 PM

When us whiteboys went to Africa back in the day to get us some slaves, how did 30 or so “sailors” grab up a 100 or so black warriors who knew how to fight?

Well, the religion of peace was there first and had already enslaved (with the help with dhimmi tribal leaders) these fierce fighters.

And black people become Black Muslims because of the white man’s evil God?

davidk on June 30, 2008 at 7:18 PM

The history of slavery is a bit more complicated than that, davidk.

In that period, slavery was pretty much a standard in all but the most primitive barbarian cultures. Much of the Islamic golden age was built upon a massive base of slavery (it was part of the “loot” in their assorted conquests and piratical raids against Europe, and some of their treatises on African slaves read like something out of the South in the 1850’s). In Europe, during the Carolingian period, slaves may have made up to 20% of the population, and included large numbers of slavs (which is where the word “slave” is derived from in Europe). St. Patrick was taken by Irish vikings as a slave from England, spent seven years in servitude in Ireland, escaped, joined the clergy, and returned to Ireland as a free missionary. By the end of the Dark Ages though, most European states had outlawed the taking of slaves from among their people. The Byzantine Empire also relied on a slave base, just as Rome before it had. The Mongols made slaves out of all those they permitted to survive, and sub-Saharan Africa saw every major kingdom and tribe making slaves of their foes.

Taking defeated enemies as slaves remained common in most societies until recently - even by the time of Agincourt in 1415, French prisoners captured on the field were effectively the legal slaves of the men that captured them (they would rarely be used that way, but that legal standing supported the ransom concept), which caused a small uproar when Henry V ordered them to be put to death during the battle. Indeed, when Cromwell “pacified” Ireland, large numbers of native Irish living in areas Cromwell had deemed suitable for plantation were enslaved and shipped to the West Indies.

When you get to the European-African slave trade, race became a real factor - skin color was less a factor in earlier cases, because it was the same or nearly so between master and slave… Europeans enslaved other Europeans and Muslims, Muslims enslaved other Arabs, Africans, and Europeans, Mongols were equal opportunity slavers, etc. That trade originated on the Barbary Coast, with Muslim slavetraders selling African slaves to Europeans from places like Tripoli, while Zanzibar served as a slavetrading hub to Arabia right through the nineteenth century.

Upon arrival in the New World, the Spanish and Portuguese quickly enslaved natives, but this soured when most of them began dropping dead of smallpox and the like. African slaves were purchased from Muslim slavetraders in North Africa initially to make up the shortfall in labor, but the Portuguese, Spaniards, and soon the English and French realized that it was much cheaper to simply sail to West Africa, and negotiate without the Muslim middleman. There was no “white sailors abducting large numbers of African warriors”… European ships merely had to show up on the coast and offer a decent price, and coastal tribes and kingdoms would sell them as many slaves as they could use. They took slaves from enemy tribes defeated in battle the same way Europeans, Muslims, Mongols, and Mesoamericans did. The sheer value of the direct trade turned it into lucrative business for a tribe… simply continually war with your neighborhors, take as many slaves as you can handle, and sell them off. In the process of this orgiastic rush for slaves, the African kingdoms essentially annihilated each other.

E1701 on June 30, 2008 at 8:28 PM

and as ronsfi (pbuh) would say:

I live to serve my manly muslim masters!

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 8:46 PM

E1701 on June 30, 2008 at 8:28 PM

Wow!

Where the cheeseburger come from?

And while you’re at it, could you explain the Internet?

davidk on June 30, 2008 at 9:31 PM

obviously as I have shown, irreducable complexity can be tested

right4life on June 30, 2008 at 4:48 PM

I’m not aware of any experiments done to test the mechanisms of design. Research has shown that the flagellum can be reduced, but that isn’t the same as Behe laying out a series of empirical tests to demonstrate design. I don’t know that Behe’s Irreducible Complexity can be falsified since there is an inexhaustible series of phenomena that he can point to and say “well how about that one–it’s really complex ergo must be designed”.

I’m also not sure how ID handles the parsimony principle. It seems that positing a designer is adding an assumption that hasn’t been measured by any of the tools that science currently has, and is inconsistent with Occam’s Razor.

dedalus on June 30, 2008 at 10:59 PM

Enough is too much.
Is this thread going to stay on the front page forever?

corona on July 1, 2008 at 9:08 PM

What’s the source of the intense preference for having been designed by a designer?

Kralizec on July 2, 2008 at 2:12 AM

Kralizec on July 2, 2008 at 2:21 AM

*head asplode*

Nonfactor on July 2, 2008 at 8:25 AM