Why they hate us

Devil's Advocate · Post by **Devil's Advocate** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:37 am

Sure. But my argument is for comparing like with like. Compare modern Islam with 14th-century Christendom.

Soup4Rush · Post by **Soup4Rush** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:40 am

what would be the point in that?

awip2062 · Post by **awip2062** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:55 am

I don't understand that either. What does that have to do with the subject we are on?

Soup4Rush · Post by **Soup4Rush** » Thu May 25, 2006 10:01 am

or today's world problems.

Devil's Advocate · Post by **Devil's Advocate** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:03 am

You don't see the point in comparing like with like?

Not much I can do about that, sorry.

Soup4Rush · Post by **Soup4Rush** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:09 am

If I was taking a world history course yes. but for current events, I do not see the point.

awip2062 · Post by **awip2062** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:10 am

I don't see how what you are comparing fits this conversation.

Are you saying that Muslims today hate us because they are just like we were back then? If not, what are you saying? I really want to understand, I just don't get where you are going. Maybe if you elaborated?

ElfDude · Post by **ElfDude** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:21 am

Putting things in historical context is a really good thing. Thomas Sowell (who is so much smarter than me I'm not worthy to shine his shoes) did it in his 2004 column, also entitled "Why Do They Hate Us?".

The idea that what goes around comes around applies not only to individuals but to nations and whole civilizations. It was just a few centuries ago -- not long, as history is measured -- that China had the highest standard of living in the world and the Dutch were the world's largest exporters, while North Africans were enslaving a million Europeans.

Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world. In medieval times, Europe lagged far behind the Islamic world in science, mathematics, scholarship, and military power.

Even such ancient European thinkers as Plato and Aristotle became known to Europeans of the Middle Ages only after their writings, which had been translated into Arabic, were translated back into European languages.

Today that is all reversed. The number of books per person in Europe is more than ten times that in Africa and the Middle East. The number of books translated into Arabic over the past thousand years is about the same as the number translated into Spanish in one year.

There are only 18 computers per thousand persons in the Arab world, compared to 78 per thousand persons worldwide. Fewer than 400 industrial patents were issued to people in the Arab countries during the last two decades of the 20th century, while 15,000 industrial patents were issued to South Koreans alone.

Human beings do not always take reversals of fortune gracefully. Still less can those who were once on top quietly accept seeing others leaving them far behind economically, intellectually, and militarily.

Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the "infidels" of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise. Worse yet, what the whole world sees with their own eyes tells them that the Middle East has made few contributions to human advancement in our times.

Even Middle Eastern oil was largely discovered and processed by people from the West. After oil, the Middle East's most prominent export has been terrorism.

Those who look at the world in rationalistic terms may say that the Middle East can use some of its vast oil wealth to expand its own educated classes and move back to the forefront of human achievement. They did it once, why not do it again?

All sorts of things can be done in the long run, but you have to live through the short run to get there. Moreover, even the short run, as history is measured, can be pretty long in terms of the human lifespan.

Even if the Islamic world set such goals and committed the material resources and individual efforts required, they could not expect to pull abreast of the West for generations, even if the West stood still. More realistically, it would take centuries, as it took the West centuries to catch up to them.

What will happen in the meantime? Are millions of proud human beings supposed to quietly accept inferiority for themselves and their children, and perhaps their children's children?

Or are they more likely to listen to demagogues, whether political or religious, who tell them that their lowly place in the world is due to the evils of others -- the West, the Americans, the Jews?

If the peoples of the Islamic world disregarded such demagogues, they would be the exceptions, rather than the rule, among people who lag painfully far behind others. Even in the West, there have been powerful political movements based on the notion that the rich have gotten rich by keeping others poor -- and that things need to be set right "by all means necessary."

These means seldom include concentration on self-improvement, with 19th-century Japan being one of the rare exceptions. Lashing out at others is far more immediately satisfying -- and modern communications, transportation, and weaponry make it far easier to lash out destructively across great distances.

Against this background, we may want to consider the question asked by hand-wringers in the West: Why do they hate us? Maybe it is because the alternative to hating us is to hate themselves.

Devil's Advocate · Post by **Devil's Advocate** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:30 am

awip2062 wrote:I don't see how what you are comparing fits this conversation.

Are you saying that Muslims today hate us because they are just like we were back then? If not, what are you saying? I really want to understand, I just don't get where you are going. Maybe if you elaborated?

I'm going off what Soupie wrote on page 3: "What other modern day religion states execution as the punishment for switching faiths?"

It's not about "them" hating "us," nor even particularly the other way around. It's about Soup wanting to compare a 1300-year old religion with one that, at the same age, was no less barbaric.

awip2062 · Post by **awip2062** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:35 am

But he was talking about something that was going on just months ago. Not centuries. And why does the age of the religion matter?

Soup4Rush · Post by **Soup4Rush** » Thu May 25, 2006 12:49 pm

Oh *light comes on in Soup's brain* I see what you are driving at. Your comparing Isam at 1300 years where Christianity was at the same time. I was talking about modern day regardless of how old the religion is. No doubt Christianity has been barbaric through the ages. But no one who was alive at the time is now, so maybe it is time for everyone to evolve. It goes back to what I said earlier. I do not think killing in the name of God is OK regardless of who is doing the killing. I do not understand why Islam thinks this is OK in the eyes of God. That is what has me befuddled. I do not think any religion is any better than the other. I think if you believe in God and live a clean life, you should get in.

awip2062 · Post by **awip2062** » Thu May 25, 2006 12:54 pm

That's what I am talking about, faith, that is lived out.

Devil's Advocate · Post by **Devil's Advocate** » Thu May 25, 2006 5:10 pm

Soup4Rush wrote:I do not think killing in the name of God is OK regardless of who is doing the killing.

Agreed!

I do not understand why Islam thinks this is OK in the eyes of God.

I am far from convinced that Islam does think that.

ElfDude · Post by **ElfDude** » Thu May 25, 2006 5:29 pm

Devil's Advocate wrote:
Soup4Rush wrote:I do not think killing in the name of God is OK regardless of who is doing the killing.
Agreed!
I do not understand why Islam thinks this is OK in the eyes of God.
I am far from convinced that Islam does think that.

The last estimates I saw were that just under than 10% say they believe that. But don't quote me on that because I don't remember where I read it...

awip2062 · Post by **awip2062** » Thu May 25, 2006 6:40 pm

Sadly, that 10% seem to have proven that they are ready and willing to prove that they believe it with our lives.