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To my seemingly inferior knowledge I've always believed the aspiration for power was the unifying and potent factor of Scientific progress. I've aswell always presumed the speed of technological development of various civilizations could be clarified by certain abstract "amount" of their struggle for survival over time. I can't deny I believed the faith and the knowledge are (if) only in correlational relation, so I foolishly depicted any mythological interpretations of world and its order as the essential onthological padding constructed by human's knowledge and
only on the grounds of the then accessible knowledge to explain fundamental questions beyond that knowledge. I shamelessly applauded when I read about all the mythological (and thus religion) systems in the past and found how they had been overcomed over time by new findings and changes and thus by more sophisticated and accurate mythological systems. Frankly for my poor soul I never came to such a splendid revelation, that this holy teachings of shepherd is as flexible and still relevant as an newborn infant. When I read Quran for the first time, I already knew the background of its birth and necessity of social reformation, so I blindly read the proposed order by Quran as an former piece of laws for early Arab culture. I just saw the reason of Quran as what is Old Testament to Jews rather an continuation to such an nobless and revolutional innovantion as was New Testament to the known world. Perhaps I was somehow irritated by intense and continual threats of everlasting barbecue and fire and other sort of punishment for being just not choosen to have "right" ears as Quran described. Even though the start is somewhat slimy and quileful in way of its argumentation and reasurment (ITS GONNA HURT YA! BARBECUE AND STUFF) I was quite sure its role
was right in situation where it was written and it was for me a very nice reading after all, but a bit ecclectical to be honest.
However it amazes me, no matter what religion or stuff is propagated, how the actual facts are nowadays often twisted or interpretated (to describe a comet as an spaceship etc.) just for the sake of justifying the desired dogma or a "like to be fact". With books and language itself its really easy to find a plenty of ambiguous meanings. I once heard about someone who claimed that Harry Potter series is hidden liberal advertisement and someone another claimed that Empire in Star Wars is some abstract scheme for islamic "threat". Those who are talking about the Prophet Muhammad foretelling the use of Laptops are to me a very same jesters as those I mentioned
Comparing greek
paideia to Zoro-Astrian concept of universe of oriental mythology and even declaring that Islam put the greek ideas in the real progressive place or even bonds them together with others really offended me. By your unsubstantial staments about "byzantium" and "religion proves Science as in Christianity", I presume you have no idea about Early Christianity, Orthodox doctrine nor about greek cultural lineage and that you dont have even a slightest clue about philosophical aproach to Dogmas of Christianity (Dum Scotus, St. Thomas of Acquitaine, Bacon) and how much the certain types of Christianity differs.
Your most pathetic stament "If it was not for Islam, there would be no advanced civilization in Europe or the USA." lacks only the equal translation to " If it was not for apples there would be no blackberry bushes and cherry trees"
United States are created out of the two great principles of western culture : 1. Protestantism and its relativism in way of God's will(God talks to you through your coincidence, not from the mouth of priest.. that is revolutionary and old as Antique Greece is *coughs*) 2. Competitive market. Now, I am at least relieved you let the most prosperous civilization of China out of your mockery
So I fixed it for you
"if it was not for Middle East, there would be no advanced civilization in Europe"
"When the Islamic world was the America of it's time, Europe lived in the Amazon Jungle."
When the Islamic world was the America, as you say, the great Empire of beauty and knowledge were at the Bospor. Slavs, Vizigoths,Franks no matter who they were, but they were amazed and astonished by the civilization level of Basileia Rhōmaiōn, almost everybody at that time was determined to be prepared for Judgement Day and for the return of Our Saviour or at least thought about that as about imminent event. The problem of western civilization from V.century to XII.century is far more complex than to be advertised as MUSLEM SOO STRONG AND WEALTHY = WEST STONES AND STICKS and it counts even now in switched positions but I will not bother myself to explain the ideals of ascetism and christian determination together with a problematic social the then order as you seem to lack even adequate knowledge of all of this, but I will at least try to briefly explain economical situation of Europe and Middle East in early medieval timeframe.
Europe lost most of its old cities and its population have moved back to countryside to do agriculture. With lost of most of old roman cities, trade got crippled. Trade was even more crippled by devalvation of technological skill. Trade started again from the scratch, from local trade between villages and tribes to later river and sea trade. Middle East did not had such an migration from city to countryside, its technological skill remained mostly intact and trade routes were even richer bussiness to do. Here you have it: an economical reason and its behind any growth, stagnation or fall of civilizations
