Reply #53: Not quite [View All]

Education, learning, the renaissance/enlightenment and science may have helped to get people to stop MISusing religion, but that does not make religion guilty of anything. Science and religion are not two sides of a scale, they can coexist and support one another. For instance, Egyptian physicians were practically priests, but were also extremely advanced (and scientific). Just because frothing lunatics cited a certain book when they burned someone or launched a massive invasion does not make the book guilty, but progress in many areas helped people to more rationally and reasonably use that very book.

I would like to stress that many cultures easily blend the practical with the spiritual with no conflict. Ignorant actions in Europe do not make religion in India or China or Indonesia or Africa or the Americas or Europe, for that matter, guilty of anything. When Europe started getting its act together it became harder to manipulate religion for injustice, and that is why we see those changes.

On Arabia, it wasn't really until Islam spread that it began to be the center of learning, partly due to the fact that Islam made Arabia a center of religion in addition to the trade that was already there. Algebra, triangular sails (a marvel) and other accomplishments were made in the Islamic world. Furthermore, women there had much better treatment than they do now, if you can believe it, and that treatment was quite good for the time period.

Islam took over and started dominating other religions, namely Zoroastrianism and Eastern Christianity. However, Islam didn't persecute the people of the Abrahamic faiths, and for the longest time, it was devoid of the terrible treatment against Jews that was rampant in Europe.

If you want to look at something really cancerous, look at (Christian, for the most part) missionaries (:puke:).