re: The Bible and other religious literature

quote:

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Look to the Middle East and why it's so screwed up, and to what religious literature those populations look for guidance.

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I think it's less about Islam in particular, and more about the fact that their governments developed into virtual theocracies. Theocracies by nature are anti-intellectual and will stifle social development. There was a time when the Arab world was extremely developed and well ahead of Europe in most respects, pretty much all through the Medieval period. A lot of the foundations of our modern science and math were laid by Muslim intellectuals in the Islamic Golden Age. Once Baghdad was sacked in the 13th century most of that went out the window.

Now you have theocracies which follow Islam as the letter of the law. Being war-ravaged on top of that.. well what you can expect to develop is a politically unstable wasteland. A turn toward theocracy can be the death knell for a developed society.