Posted on 02/06/2006 4:55:38 AM PST by mal
Religious humor has become commonplace in the secular West, but it came with a price.
More than any people on Earth, the Danes should know the terrible price of religious humor, for the first great Christian humorist arose from their dour midst as if by immaculate conception. "Humor is intrinsic to Christianity," wrote Soren Kierkegaard, because "truth is hidden in mystery". But Kierkegaard the humorist was sent to the Danes after the Enlightenment had laid waste to Christianity, that is, after the French revolutionary army had conquered traditional Europe. He wielded humor out of desperation, after Denmark already had started down its long slide toward secularism.
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
"(The American media) won’t publish (the Danish) cartoons, but they will run anything they can get out of Abu Ghraib. Both sets of images provoke Islamic anger; note how the media behaves when that anger is directed at them." -- Tim Blair
Not for long, but it did happen. (Western) Europe in 1000 had very little in the way of technology, having backslid tremendously since the days of Rome. At this time the Muslims were as advanced as any people on the planet. To be fair, they stole a lot of their technology from those they conquered, but they're hardly unique in that.
What almost no Americans realize is that for roughly 150 years (850 to 1000), (Western, Latin) Europe was shrinking. It was being invaded from three directions simultaneously, the Vikings from the North, the Magyars from the East, and the Muslims from the South.
A logical observer might have concluded that this was one civilization that was going down. What happened in reality is just about without parallel in history. A culture on its last legs somehow got the strength to revitalize its defenses and begin an expansion that has lasted till today, although we may be in at the death of that expansion.
By 1100 you would be correct. Western Europe had caught up to Islam in technology, to a considerable extent by borrowing Muslim technology, and has been forging ahead ever since. Meanwhile, Muslim innovation pretty much ceased and hasn't started up again in almost a millenium.
I'll ask you the question I have asked others: what technology did the Muslims possess between 850-1000 that Europeans did not?
Certain Muslims in Persia had access to better mathematical theory than Europeans during that period - but no practical technological innovations were created by Muslims with that theoretical advantage. Only Europeans demonctrated the ability to transform algebra into technological innovation.
I mean, what concrete devices or processes did the Muslims have that Europeans did not know of?
Muslims certainly had more of everything and easier access to things like silk and spice than Europeans did - but Muslims did not develop a single technological process or machine for use that Europeans did not already know.
This author in another article said Iran's oil exports will shrink to zero in 20 years. Is that true? Does anyone know? If so, it would explain why they are looking at nuclear power.
I agree, the Muslim world was not more technologically advanced. Also, it was not the Muslim world alone that saved the classical works. The Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453 and was responsible for extending Orthodox Christianity into Russia and saving much of classical learning.
has been a good thread bump
Because a joke on a joke is a joked joker and they go ballistic.
Don't forget the Irish.
Certain groups of people, including radical Muslims, feminists, progressive-liberals, and malignant narcissists do not have the ability to laugh at the absurd. Do any humorous books or films exist in the Arabic language? Can you imagine Hillary Clinton having a good belly laugh?
"Humor is intrinsic to Christianity," wrote Soren Kierkegaard.
That's crap. Some of the best comedians I ever heard were Jews.
Humor, it is often says, comes from hardship and pain.
Given that, the muzzies ought to be the funniest folks on the planet.
OMG, that is funny.
"Humor is intrinsic to Christianity," wrote Soren Kierkegaard.
That's crap. Some of the best comedians I ever heard were Jews.
That's the problem with misusing Kierkegaard the way Spengler seems to do here. Kierkegaard just wasn't a wildly funny guy. :-)
Does anybody know where I can find these cartoons online? My husband missed out on their appearance on tv, and now it seems that everyone is scared out of his wits to reprint them. Needless to say, he's curious as to what the fuss is all about.
Oops, he's not Canadian. He's American/Egyptian. I misunderstood a line in his routine.
Banging your forehead on the floor five times a day has an adverse effect on the frontal lobe where cognitive powers and the sense of humor reside.
Because a sense of humor is hard to have when you live in a repressive, theocratic state ruled by aging clerics of dubious sanity, all the while trying to live whatever life you're allowed while dodging the rocks of religious orthodoxy on one hand and the shoals of the secret police or Revolutionary-Islamic-Guard-of-the-moment on the other.
Then again, any people capable of ramming airliners into office buildings, blowing up pizzerias, weddings and shopping malls because of the patronage (i.e Jews), machine-gunning children in schools, stoning their daughters for perceived slights, who wrap their women up tighter than King Tut, who make sexual overtures to certain humpbacked quadrapedial mammals, and who exhibit an unbelievable talent for talking out of both sides of their collective face AND rectum simultaneously while demanding that sane people take them seriously, by definition, are incapable of having anything approaching humor or a sense of satire.
Then again, if I lived in a world where suffering is not only God's gift but the Almighty's actual PLAN for his "chosen people", I doubt I could chuckle, either. In a society that hasn't made any forward progress in 14 centuries, I doubt I could find the humor in anything either. Unless, of course, it was in the dramic and hopefully gruesome death of an infidel (i.e. someone who is fortunate to live someplace where he can be reasonably sure of having access to food, water, air conditioning, Led Zepplin, pizza delivery, Doritos and a fly-free home that doesn't require relocation because the local puddle has dried out in the heat).
Then again, if I had to share my living space with multiple wives, most of whom wouldn't know what the words "dental plan" were if you drew it for them on a chalkboard (assumeing there is a chalkboard available), and had to count my wealth in terms of sheep, goats and the occasional bloody pelt found on the desert floor, I too, I guess, would be reluctant to engage in anything that would provoke laughter.
Of course, I don't live in a place or under a system of theocratic government that would make the KGB green with envy, so I might actually have time to smile or perhaps expend a nanosecond of thought on the more subtle aspects of this strange (to a Muslim) concept called "humor". Therefoeew, I know funny when I see it, and because I have been blessed to be an American, and educated in the finest schools the Catholic Church can provide, I know the difference between satire and insult.
And while I might, because I'm a reasonable human being with full control of my faculties, consider a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed offensive (in the same way I might find such a caricature of the Virgin Mary offensive) I have sufficient control over my more barbaric nature, so I doubt whether I would burn down an embassy or call to have the cartoonist's hand severed.
But then again, since I don't live in a cuture where it's considered the highest duty to make a pilgrimage deeper into the desert in order to throw rocks at a pillar or walk in a circle seven times around a big black rock which my religion has appropriated for it's own purposes, but which was in existance for 1,000 years before my personal savior walked the earth, I don't have to engage in such obnoxious behavior vis-a-vis embassy fires and mutilation of a cartoonist.
Boy, am I glad I'm an American.
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