Mossad terrorists keep killing civilians.

[dannubis]

As a strict theocracy, shouldn't Iran be killing their own educated class anyway? The lazy Persian bums are letting Israel do their work for them.

Probably they will kill them after they made the bomb.

[Zevico]

A correction on the Haredi issue Felch brought up before which basically teaches me not to make silly assumptions and about what people believe. Made a mistake on it. Here's a post on the Israeli Haredi religious movement:

http://hurryupharry.org/2009/01/19/he-thinks-its-not-kosher/

[onodera]

As a strict theocracy, shouldn't Iran be killing their own educated class anyway? The lazy Persian bums are letting Israel do their work for them.

Iran is actually quite pro-science. Maybe that's because of the external pressure, maybe that's because Islam tells you how to live, not how the world works, unlike mainline Christianity.

[Az]

Iran has a long-standing legacy of science, art and culture.

[onodera]

Iran has a long-standing legacy of science, art and culture.

I actually really want to visit Iran and see Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd. I hope Israelis or Americans will avoid dropping bombs on them.

[Az]

I actually really want to visit Iran and see Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd. I hope they change their ****ing government.

[onodera]

I actually really want to visit Iran and see Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd. I hope they change their ****ing government.

The guy from Zevico's link managed to kiss Ahmadinnerjacket despite being a Jew. Maybe you belong to the wrong denomination?

[Elok]

Iran is actually quite pro-science. Maybe that's because of the external pressure, maybe that's because Islam tells you how to live, not how the world works, unlike mainline Christianity.

Oversimplify much?

Ghazali argues that what we observe as regularity in nature based presumably upon some natural law is actually a kind of constant and continual regularity. There is no independent necessitation of change and becoming, other than what God has ordained. To posit an independent causality outside of God's knowledge and action is to deprive Him of true agency, and diminish his attribute of power. In his famous example, when fire and cotton are placed in contact, the cotton is burned not because of the heat of the fire, but through God's direct intervention, a claim which he defended using logic. In the 12th century, this theory was defended and further strengthened by the Islamic theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, using his expertise in the natural sciences of astronomy, cosmology and physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism#Islamic_theological_schools

[Elok]

Though, to be fair, I did oversimplify first, even if it was a dumb joke...

[onodera]

Though, to be fair, I did oversimplify first, even if it was a dumb joke...

12th century theologian? Doesn't sound like it's a common viewpoint. I'm not going to argue theology with you anyway, I'll just say that even this viewpoint doesn't imply there should be observable differences between effects of divine cause or natural processes.

[Az]

[COMMENT][/COMMENT]

The guy from Zevico's link managed to kiss Ahmadinnerjacket despite being a Jew. Maybe you belong to the wrong denomination?

Not really, no. Everyone who has respect for Iran and it's marvellous history and culture knows that they are treading on a disgusting, dangerous path right now.

[Elok]

12th century theologian? Doesn't sound like it's a common viewpoint. I'm not going to argue theology with you anyway, I'll just say that even this viewpoint doesn't imply there should be observable differences between effects of divine cause or natural processes.

In much the same way that, say, intelligent design/theistic evolution results in few observable differences compared to the scientifically valid view? Species emerged via natural selection or species emerged by God gradually shaping them--eh, what's the difference?

Also, the Ash'ari school was actually fairly prominent in the late medieval Muslim world. I've read arguments that they were at least partially responsible for the decline of science there around the time science took off in the West, but I don't know enough to say one way or another. But to say "Islam doesn't meddle with science like Mainstream Christianity (and by Mainstream Christianity I mean mostly a certain declining subset of American evangelicals, who are something of a minority, albeit a loud one) does" is a painting with broad strokes indeed.

[Zevico]

Iran's leaders speak of spirits as if they were real and decry the Europeans for moving clouds so as to prevent Iran from getting rain. Pro-science indeed.

[Elok]

I'm not trying to say that Islam is all anti-science, or that they do obscurantist rubbish just as much as we do, or anything like that. Both Christianity and Islam are composed of disparate elements and factions, which at diverse times and places have taken on diverse positions, from hardcore fundamentalism to loopy syncretism.

[Zevico]

I'm not trying to say that Islam is all anti-science, or that they do obscurantist rubbish just as much as we do, or anything like that. Both Christianity and Islam are composed of disparate elements and factions, which at diverse times and places have taken on diverse positions, from hardcore fundamentalism to loopy syncretism.

Really, in the abstract discussion of both Christianity and Islam, or religions generally, are not very useful. Specific movements, and how they think of themselves, is what matters. There's a difference, for example between feudal Christianity and modern pro- democratic Christianity; between fundamentalist Muslims like the Saudis who try to retain a pre-existing system (theocratic and traditionalist-fundamentalist monarchists) and, for example, Islamists in a conservative Muslim society who are trying to render their society "holy" (revolutionaries); and so on. And the differences only get more pronounced as you look at specific groups and societies and how they think and write about their faiths.