[Vision2020] Muslim vs. Christian Sectarian Violence

[Pat Kraut]

Ah! Yes! All the good in the world is the fault of Christians and all the good is Muslims.





If we do discover a complete theory..of everything...we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, 
be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe exist if we find the answer to that, 
it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason...for then we would know the mind of God.
Stephen Hawking
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nick Gier 
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 11:01 AM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Muslim vs. Christian Sectarian Violence


  Greetings:

  I would like to support Mo Henrickson's claim that many more Christians have been killed in sectarian violence that Sunnis and Shias killing one another.  Saddam Hussein, hated by Muslim fundamentalists, probably killed more Shias than all historical Sunni persecution put together.  Perhaps our good friend Ghazi could comment on this.

  Prof. Ghazanfar is also the local expert on the contributions of Islamic philosophy and science on European culture. (He just published a huge book on the subject.) The European Dark Ages came to a close primarily because Muslim scholars gave medieval Europe Arabic translations of Greek philosophy and science.  

  Baghdad was the center of the intellectual world for centuries while Europe languished in the backwaters of world culture, and Islamic Spain was the center of interaction between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars.

  The Catholic philosophy/theologian Thomas Aquinas could not have done his famous Summa Theologica without Muslim help. Even evangelical Christian philosopher believe that this is one of the greatest works on theology ever written. Europeans did not get the original Greek texts until Renaissance Italians went to Constantinoble and discovered them.

  My research has shown that Indian Sunni Muslims were especially hospitable to the Shiite minority.  You will recall that my research has also shown that Islam spread in India and Indonesia primarily by peaceful Sufi missionaries.  

  I give a lot of credit to Indian Hindus and Buddhists who lived a life of religious tolerance and moderation that many Muslims modelled.  Hindu and Buddhist fundamentalisms are recent phenomena in which South Asians have modelled colonial behavior and attitudes.  For more on this read parts of my new book project at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/orv.htm.

  Let's speak truth, not ignorance about the world's religions.

  Nick Gier


  "Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to human affairs."
  --Ralph Waldo Emerson

  "Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
   --Mohandas Gandhi

  "Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

  Nicholas F. Gier
  Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
  1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
  http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm
  208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
  President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
  http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm





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