Why has been Western Civilization successful?
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Peace.
Furthermore, we all know that no body in Western civilizations has same beliefs as we do.
Who is "we" and who is "Western civilization"? confused
I am born and raised in a Western country, and despite the things I criticize about it, I am grateful for many things. Freedom, a good education, the possibility to develop an inquisitive mind and the possibility to pursue my own beliefs and ideas.
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Peace.
Who is "we" and who is "Western civilization"? confused
Who are we? Self claimed believers calling themselves as Muslims without having a clue, what it means? Who is "Western civilization? ? What is called by these self proclaimed believers as infidels/Kafirs and non-believers; wanting to change them, to their understanding/misunderstanding of belief/Muslim.
Peace,
Badar
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Hm. So according to your definition, there can be no people who feel they belong to both equally? No Muslims who feel they are part of Western civilization?
Sorry, it just doesn't really seem to make sense to me. I know countless European Muslims who are happy to be Muslim, happy to be living in their country of origin, and don't see a contradiction between the two.
peace
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Same here.
This Western/Eastern stuff seems, more or less, just another type of prejudice.
Whatever imaginary line there is blurs more and more each day.The reason the West has been so successful is because the cultural influx is so intensely diverse and so high.
Most foreigners I know of that travel to the US -- especially the central part -- are completely baffled by how incredibly generous and nice people are to them.T.V. is not a good source of news or knowledge.
It's just another go-go club. -
Hm. So according to your definition, there can be no people who feel they belong to both equally? No Muslims who feel they are part of Western civilization?
Sorry, it just doesn't really seem to make sense to me. I know countless European Muslims who are happy to be Muslim, happy to be living in their country of origin, and don't see a contradiction between the two.
peace
Peace, please try to understand that word Allah, does not mean a proper name of god. A god, being a title for a deity/entity in all religions, "for worship and adoration". Allah means "One who is not the deity for worship and adoration". Once this concept is understood rest should start becoming a breeze.
Badar
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No, it doesn't.
And it's two words.
Not one... not six or seven.
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You're telling us that "al lah" is actually three words... and can be translated as
"One who is not the deity for worship and adoration".
Brother, you're entitled to your opinion... but
then, so is the rest of the world.Peace to you as well.
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You're telling us that "al lah" is actually three words... and can be translated as
"One who is not the deity for worship and adoration".
Brother, you're entitled to your opinion... but
then, so is the rest of the world.Peace to you as well.
Peace, please read this.
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9599853.0
Badar, where do you live, if I may ask?
In US.
Peace,
Badar
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I agree with Badar's interpretaton of 103/3 (though not the other verses).
I think the succinct answer to Badar's question is that Western Civilisation has , to some extent, followed values which are positive according to Quran. The development of western civilisation in terms of philosophy and governance itself, is enough proof of this.
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I agree with Badar's interpretaton of 103/3 (though not the other verses).
I think the succinct answer to Badar's question is that Western Civilisation has , to some extent, followed values which are positive according to Quran. The development of western civilisation in terms of philosophy and governance itself, is enough proof of this.
Thanks and peace. Reasons for not agreeing with 1031,2. Linguistic arguments only, please. A corrected version of whole Sura.
Surah 103 1
Most of the time -
Surah 103 2
- surely, those of you pretending to forget us, most certainly end up in diminution or total loss in the buiness of life.
Surah 103 3
Except those who have safeguarded and secured themselves with deeds free of corruption, full of justice, honesty, and by creating a state of order. So remember to enjoin one another in acts suitable for this, requiring wisdom, justice, reality and facts; as well as to continue to enjoin one another to be patient, and to endure in these attributes.
Peace,
Abdun Nur
Badar
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I think the succinct answer to Badar's question is that Western Civilisation has , to some extent, followed values which are positive according to Quran. The development of western civilisation in terms of philosophy and governance itself, is enough proof of this.
I think so too.
peace
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Badar,
...Singh, I bet he's sikh, no wonder the thick understanding, wherever your getting your sources from, Abdun Nur, I guess, who has his own agenda and motivation behind destroying the linguistic truth of the Quran.
Just another form of hadith, if they can attribute lies to the Prophet, I'll go one further and attribute lies to God, says people like Abdun Nur. If people from the lowlands of Pakistan can uphold every false lie concerning the Prophet, then what's stopping us from attributing lies to the Quran, the word of God?
Vile Muhammadans.
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Thanks and peace. Reasons for not agreeing with 1031,2. Linguistic arguments only, please. A corrected version of whole Sura.
Surah 103 2
- surely, those of you pretending to forget us, most certainly end up in diminution or total loss in the buiness of life.
I take the word 'insan' as man. Not 'those of you pretending to forget us'. The written text isn't my basis, the oral recitation is.
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Like it or not it is several factors. Off the top of my head they are
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separation of church and state (protects the church and the state. Something that I don't see Islam believing any time soon as true.)
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human rights (all are equal and no distinction between Muslim/non-Muslim in the law's eyes.)
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will of God vs word of God (is a natural event caused by God or can we trust that it is occurring because God is trustworthy? Depending on how you view an event will depend on the advancement of science in your culture)
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innumerable smaller issues. Diet, weather, surface resources, evangelism (really it is a Christian concept more than), protestant work ethic, colonial sense of destiny, invention, creation of the stock market and modern finance allowing for the pooling of wealth and new ways of funding big projects.
It is, in my opinion, jaw dropping the number of differences. Not all of them are rooted in religion, probably not most of them. I wish I knew more and how to weigh some of them.
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Diet?!
Are you serious?
Americans have the worst eating habits on the face of the globe.In fact, they use more grain to feed animals for meat than they do for food cereal.
The United States spends more money feeding pigs than do third world countries their own citizens.And what is a "surface resource"?
Is that a nice word for "strip mine"? -
Peace,
Qur?anic principles such as The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the basis for the Religion Clauses in the US Constitution?s Bill of Rights. Most of those who founded the US were learned, fluent in languages (Jefferson learned Arabic so he can read Qur?an), and thought themselves as being deists/monotheists.
http//religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html
"Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time...
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Why did the "West" become successful?
1.) Conquering the rest of the world, securing its resources and hence subjugating such territories
2.) The West is not morally successful and that is self-evident. Neither is the "East" for that matter although I would say the monks are doing a pretty good job of keeping the peace.
The explosion in success came about as a direct result of the application of the command of THE God, to obey logic/free thinking and hence things that the quran has commanded us to do for a long time naturally follow (2920, a striking example); Similar explosions in success are observed in the early Arabs who contributed quite nicely to the corpus of science in that period.
The way I see it, islam = success. That is to say, there is a set of principles which applied will result in peace, prosperity and progression. If islam is the way of THE God and THE God tells us in his book that "follow islam and you will ASSUREDLY be of the successful" then that means merely that islam = that set of principles; if your modus operandi does not ASSURE success then it never was "islam" even if it has been called that for the last 1300 years. Of course the success of islamic principles is not merely material success and success in islam does not necessarily translate to phenomenal material success.
Yes, there are an innumerable number of factors but the main one, which applies on the scale of the individual and emergently on the global scale is merely that those in the West did not blind themselves to objective reality but rather submit to the creator and accept the reality chosen by the creator for what it was.
Such acceptance entails that one also fearlessly accepts that one can be incorrect in their belief of something, and I don't see why such a thing is difficult to grasp. People will hold so damn fast to the religion of their choice but they will readily admit that they made a mistake here in a trivial maths puzzle. I mean, on the one hand you have your eternal fate in which there is no room for any error and on the other hand you have trivialities, which is more deserving of an open minded analysis?
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Diet?! Are you serious? Americans have the worst eating habits on the face of the globe. In fact, they use more grain to feed animals for meat than they do for food cereal.
The United States spends more money feeding pigs than do third world countries their own citizens.
We are talking about Western Europe to America and not just the modern American diet. However even then I would argue that junk food is better for society than people pretend. Life is hard and sometimes an ice cream or a hamburger or high sugar/high fat treat is emotionally satisfying. Moderation is the key.And what is a "surface resource"?
Is that a nice word for "strip mine"?I think I mean to say access to forests, coal and other building material. For instance oil in the Middle East (and this is an entirely ignorant assumption) oil was not available as a resource because we didn't have the technology to get to it whereas, yes, coal was relatively easy to get in Europe. Strip mine is quite a loaded word, mining does affect the natural environment and there are better and worse ways to do it.