Hi Jonathan
you said: (after I had said)
> > Right. I wonder if Islam will have a Renaissance of their own soon?
> > It's due as this religion is 700 years younger than Christianity,
> > but then Judaism is much older than both without reaching
> > Enlightenment.
> That's an unbelievably self-centered worl view, Bo. The "rebirth" of
> the Christian world was to make up for centuries during which the
> church actively suppressed any artistic or intellectual activity of
> which it disapproved. The renaissance allowed many Greek values to
> reappear, though to much of the Christian world, e.g. Northern Europe,
> these values were totally new. Maybe the Renaissance was not so much a
> rebirth but a Hellenization of Europe.
Exceedingly fascinating stuff this."Enlightenment" has nothing to
do with knowledge, but stands for a historical period when religion
and science changed place. I agree with you that this was
concentrated in Southern Europe (Renaissance, Italy and
Enlightenment, France) and foreign to the northern part. How to
evaluate the Lutheran Reformation in this overall picture ...? Maybe
Luke Markve has some opinion?
> To claim that the same sort of renaissance would be applicable to the
> Islamic world is totally inappropriate. It is only recently that one
> or two fundamentalist Islamic regimes have appeared that behave like
> the Church of the dark ages. For the most part, while Europe wallowed
> in the dark ages, science and medicine flourished in the East.
This may be just correct and something I have recently started to
think about. You see I am keen to learn to know what is the
difference between these three religions and their cultural
ramifications. Maybe the culprit is the Church (that I understand
has no counterpart in Islam and Judaism) and that the Europeans
got the impression that IT was Christendom and when its "immune
apparatus" tried to suppress science (the discoveries that
undermined its dogma) the divide between science and religion was
a fact, and as science ever since has proved the deliverer of "truth",
religion lost ground accordingly.
But what intrigues me most is how this science/religion
relationship is treated in Judaism -- or Islam if you happen to know -
don't the Rabbis or Imams oppose any infringement upon the
innermost tenets of religion ... of creation and destiny for instance?
If the scientist say that it is all chance and workings of material
forces, doesn't it counter the God idea? If my memory serves me
Baruch Spinoza was ostracized from the Jewish community in the
Netherlands because his ideas clashed with the holy scriptures.
Another thing. You say that science and medicine flourished in the
East, but the Arabic scholars weren't Mohammedans when the
Dark Age descended over Europe, anyway the "science" of that
day hardly challenged any religious world order, it didn't do that in
Europe until the said period. Kepler, Copernicus, Gallileo was
merely out to find God's plans.
> As for Judaism, the Jewish people were too dispersed to suppress
> anything. However, Jewish knowldege survived the longs years of
> dispersal, as evident in the very rich Jewish literature. Furthermore,
> and not surprisingly, although dispersed thoughout the Christian and
> Islamic worlds, Jews have always been prominent players in science,
> medicine, art and philosophy.
No doubt about this ...except for the Spinoza "incident, but back to
my enigma. Are Jewish philosophers and scientists 'believers'
when at work? Maybe it's part of my northern European mindset.
And yet, I'm reading a book by the famous physicist Richard
Feynman -who is a Jew (I believe) and he is very much concerned
with this religion/science schism and defends science's superiority
over religion.
> Even worse, to consider Islam and Judamism as somehow >
> unenlightened is
> patronizing and bigoted. Maybe they don't need the Christian-style
> "renaissance" that Bo expects of them.
OK, but please enlighten regarding the above, as an Israeli you
seem to be capable of seeing both sides. However it's time to
apply the MoQ. According to it the Greek experience was the birth
of the SOM and the essence of it (the Intellects value before
Society) did not catch with the Arabs, but was revived during the
said process and thus my thesis stands.
Bo
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