Why Arabs suffer

National Post ^ | January 11, 2008 | Philip Carl Salzman

[polymuser]

Ah, amber fur...

[SatinDoll]

Ping for later.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“If we left them alone, they would all get nukes.”

I agree — oil wealth enables them to buy weapons technology that never would have emerged from their own culture.

[agere_contra]

“Balanced Opposition” in the Islamic sense means that the body of Islamic truth contains mutually contradictory truths. Which is supposed to be terribly profound, as if Allah was somehow above the need to make sense.

Islam isn’t profound, and especially not because of this balanced opposition idea. Its internal contradictions simply means that Islam is a poorly thought out set of ideas. A comprehensive body of truth must not contain self-contradicting statements. For instance: in the body of truths we call Mathematics we don’t have 1+1=2 in one place, and 1+1=5 in another.

What are the self-contradictory truths in Islam? Well, search me! The Koran and ahadith are too dull, or too bloodthirsty and hateful, to get into in a casual way. I recommend “the Truth about Muhammed” as a primer on the problems with making sense of the Muslim body of thought.

[blam]

bfl

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Thanks for explaining that.

[Mach5]

It all started when the West STOLE THEIR ZERO!

Hasn't been the same since.

[navyguy]

Excellent article. Thanks!

[RightWhale]

They suffer because 400 billion barrels of oil in the ground is still in the ground.

[bruinbirdman]

"“If we left them alone, they would all get nukes.”

I agree — oil wealth enables them to buy weapons technology that never would have emerged from their own culture."

Axis of evil: Iran, Syria, North Korea commies.

GW took care of Libya's nukes. NKorea's nukes are almost taken care of but we must be vigilant. Syria's been given a pretty good warning about nuke ambitions.

That leaves Iran. GW might take care of that problem before he leaves office next year.

yitbos

[the_devils_advocate_666]

If we left them alone, they would kill each other off and be of no threat to this part of the world.

A Ron Paul voter?

[navyguy]

Actually, if I recall correctly, I think it was the Indians that invented zero. I did a little search and found this...

http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/biozero.htm

[Veto!]

In his terrific book, Istanbul, Nobel prizewinning Turkish writer Pamuk Orphan describes the state of melancholy and sense of futility that pervade his city and culture. In Turkish it's called huzun, in other Muslim languages it's known by other names. It's mentioned in the Koran seven times, he says.

Billions of people, apparently, feel hopeless and really do not have the can-do spirit we have in the West. And we cannot understand that kind of fatalism. Fascinating.

I look forward to reading other of Orhan's books. He was placed under house arrest at one point when Turkish authorities felt he was going to far in criticizing Islam, but not for long. After all, how many Nobel laureates can Turkey boast?

[Cronos]

It all started when the West STOLE THEIR ZERO!

The concept of a zero and a decimal system, the so-called "Arabic" numerals etc are all Indian/Hindu inventions which the muslimes portrayed as their own.

[bvw]

Ancient Freeper password: “BTTT”.

[SIRTRIS]

I recall reading this article from National Post back in 2008. Today, & since the “Golden Age of Islam” came to an end (about 850 A.D.) nothing has come out of islam for humanity. Factually, its regressed & some say its needs 700yrs just to catch up.

[9YearLurker]

Islam, Arab culture, inbreeding, oil economics, and Western appeasement.