To Hamid - Muslims and Science

Submitted by Casper (United States), Jan 12, 2008 at 19:45

There is so much to say to you. Where do I even begin?

You seem to take exception to my harsh language. You say, "Don't behave like suicide bomber." Is that how desparate Muslims are? Are you so ashamed of all the mass murders committed in the name of Islam that you desparately try to equate anything a non-Muslim does to suicide bombing? When someone makes cogent and powerful ARGUMENTS against Muslims, that humiliate them, Muslims try to equate those attacking with WORDS with those attacking innocents with BOMBS PACKED WITH NAILS? You dishonor the thousands of innocent victims of Islamic mass murder. You bring further shame on the cult that you call your religion.

Hamid, I do not hate you. I am not angry. I use sharp language with you because I believe it is the most effective way to shock you into waking up. If I had a young son who was constantly out of control, who would constantly disobey his mother and me, who could not be reasoned with, I would eventually have to spank him on the backside or lock him in his room for a few minutes and let him cry. This would be very painful for me, but I would hope that he would learn what he needs to learn to succeed in the world.

Now you are not my child and persuasion among adults by threats and violence are forbidden in my wonderful culture (but not in Pakistan and not in Islam -- think about it and be honest to yourself, Hamid). If you and countless other Islamic supremacists are not shocked into recognizing just what nonsense you believe, there will be massive, global wars. And if history is any indication, Hamid, there will be vast destruction, and Islam will lose. For centuries, Islam has been declining on all dimensions save one: because of the continuing subjugation of women and poverty in Islamic nations, Muslims have higher birthrates. And if Islam were to win, it would mean the end of reason and freedom.

In your comment, you go on about some imaginary Arab inventions from 1000 years ago. I've read about the so-called Arab golden age, and I have to say, I am completely unimpressed. I am a fair man. But from my position as a physicist very well trained in mathematics, I honestly don't think there's that much to be proud of in the Arab past. Yes, Arab culture at its BEST, 1000 YEARS AGO, was arguably superior to Western European culture at its WORST, 1000 YEARS AGO. But honestly, this is like comparing the height of an ant and a mosquito, when what the West has achieved in the past 500 years stands as a giraffe.

Take algebra, one of the major branches of abstract mathematics. The English word comes from arabic, so lots of Muslims would say that Arabs or Muslims "invented algebra." I know algebra quite well, and let me tell you, it is a vast, beautiful, difficult subject that bears very little resemblance to what Arabs did 1000 years ago. In my opinion, having studied the history of algebra, there are probably HUNDREDS of nineteenth century GERMAN mathematicians who contributed more to the subject of "Algebra" than all Arabs COMBINED EVER. That is not an exaggeration. And that's just the Germans!

Perhaps something similar could be said for the French. Yes, Arabs contributed some basic notation, but that's nothing more than an arbitrary convention. It's important, but not deep or difficult. Muslims accomplished very little that was deep or difficult.

You seem to think I should be impressed with the prgress of the Arabs once Islam was introduced. I'm not. They were just one of many civilizations that rose and fell, with something but not much to show for all the associated carnage, death, and destruction they forced on their neighbors. As a Pakistani, you yourself can probably trace your ancestry back to a conquering Arab warrior who took POSSESSION of the widow or daughter of one of the killed or enslaved Hindu men defending his homeland to the death from the foreign occupiers. And what of their parents, also your descendents? Also killed or enslaved in the name of Allah. Shameful.

And historically, those atrocities and rapes that gave rise to your own people occured more recently than the Arab "golden age" of which you speak so highly. Western Europeans over the past 500 years, however, now what they have accomplished in science, culture, and art is simply miraculous compared with anything that has come before, except possibly the ancient Greeks, who really laid the foundations for most of modernity.

And what is this about "Pathagoras Theorm"? I imagine you mean Pythagoras' Theorem. Discovered hundreds of years before Muhammed lived, right? What's that have to do with anything? Maybe you mean to say that some scholars believe it was first discovered in ancient Iraq. (That's controversial.) It may have been independently discovered by several different civilizations, including the Chinese. From this, with your paranoid closed little mind, you suggest that we Westerners stole the theorem from those wonderful Arabs? What garbage! I believe it was Euclid who referred to it as Pythagoras' Theorem, and the name stands today. Did Euclid the Greek hate Muslims? Even 2500 years ago, the Greeks already had a conspiracy going against the Muslims? What's the matter with you, man?

Look up the history of "Stokes' Theorem", actually first stated by William Thompson. Or "Zorn's Lemma", first proved by Kuratowski. Or Poincare's Lemma, first proved by Volterra. But who knows, maybe Thompson, Kuratowski, and Volterra were all Muslims.

And who is Cherchal? And what's this about Islam being the "best" religion followed by the "worst" people? Frankly, this is the type of deeply ambiguous, meaningless sentence I learned to avoid writing when I was about six or seven years old. Islam is the best religion at what? Fooling the masses? Subjugating women? Conquering peaceful neighbors? Terrorizing children into lifelong submission? Perhaps you mean Winston Churchill. Here's what that great man had to say about Islam:
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/read_churchill_islam.html
Note particularly the statement, "No stronger retrograde force exists in the world." He was not a fan of your cult, Hamid.

And you write as if the world is full of Muslim convert scientists. Nonsense, Hamid! Utter nonsense! I will tell you honestly what I see at my university, a "top" US school whose name is recognized around the world. I look around in the physics and math communities and what do I see? I see almost all men. I see a lot of Jews. And lots of white American non-Jews. And Chinese. And some Indians, the vast majority of whom are Hindu. I think there must be some Muslims out there, but I honestly don't see many. Way, way more Jews and Chinese. You're living in a fantasy, Hamid.

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