From: jawad@ecst.csuchico.edu (Jawad Ali)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: The Origin of Western Thinking Process
Date: 24 Jan 93 05:25:44 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu

In article <AGHA.93Jan22145914@hal.cs.uiuc.edu> agha@cs.uiuc.edu (Gul Agha) writes:
>
>   >                  THE ORIGIN OF WESTERN THINKING PROCESS:

I did not read silatman's orignal article, but I do disagree with
Gul Agha on this subject.

>True.  Let us define religion narrowly and objectively as what people
>generally practice and their priests broadly preach while recognizing
>that none of it is monolithic and there are shades of all kinds of
>thinking in any large body or group.

This is not a particularly useful definition.  It is, in a way, like
defining Mechanical Engineering from the point of view of what the
average car owner knows about it, and what auto-mechanics tell their
clients about it :)  When it comes to Islam, the above is only 
interesting from the point of view of sociology (such as in the works
of Clifford Giertz).  Imagine a discussion of Marxism based on what the
average Chinese or Russian knows about it, and what the party bosses
have to say.  I would suggest the primary literary sources (The Quran
in the case of Islam) as an alternative.

>It may be conversely observed, the bible thumping fundamentalists
>notwithstanding, that Christianity does not have much to do modern
>Western thinking.

This is a very strange, and let me add incorrect, reading of the
roots of Western thinking.  Modern Western thinking has a lot to do
with Christianity, and it is incorrect to suggest that "bible thumping
fundamentalists" are the only ones who feel that way.  Contemporary
Western thought itself acknowledges its debt to Christianity (or 
some version of it).  I'll limit myself to a few quick examples.
- American political and social thought is deeply rooted in the
  world view of the Puritans and their sturggles agaist the Anglican
  Church.
- Even take secularism, the one element of Western thought most celebrated
  (and worshiped :) by desis.  The very separation of church and state
  assumes that there is a church, and that this church must then
  collaborate with the state in this division of power.
- Even at its philosophical extreme, atheiism is a "religion" that
  starts with a god and then sets off to deny his/her existance.

Anyhow, we move on...
 
>
>Indeed it is the repudiation of much of the traditional religious
>doctrine and modes of scholarship that has shaped the scientific
>worldview.


This is true only if one believes that "scholarship" and "scientific"
are words that make sense only when applied to Western man.  It can
just as easily be argued that scientific and scholarly thought in
Islamic societies has always coincided with times when Islam was
flourishing (in drastic contrast to the West's expenience in this
regard).  One quick example:
	Familiarize yourself with the history of West Africa (Mali,
Ghana, and the Songhai empires).  Intellectual enlightenment of the
masses was frequently the primary goal of the leaders (Mansa Musa, 
for example) once they came into contact with Islam.  One cannot simply
dismiss this all with one broad stroke of "sematic religions".  
Timbuktu, believe it or not, had the best medical schools of its
time, and was the intellectual capital of the world at its time 
-- all in the name of Islam.
The above is a patently Euro-centric statement.

>In fact, the geocentric and homosapien-centric view of Semitic
>religions does not even seem very good mythology for our knowledgebase,

Wrong again.  If we are to use your own definition, then Semitic
religions are god-centered and not man-centered.  Infact the main
complaint against them (from the high priesthood of Western thought :)
has always been that they are not man-centered enough!  Hence
secular HUMANism.  

Now that I think of it, all non man-centered frameworks ( animal, 
plant, spirit-centered etc), that Western thought encounters, it
lables as "pagan."  That ought to tell us something.  BTW what-centered
did you have in mind?

>or much of an aid in improving the long term survival chances of our
>species (if not a primary source of damaging ideologies).  

Now we get to the curx of the matter.  If one rejects the Islamic 
framework, then it is a matter of faith, just as it is when 
someone accepts it.  Not a day goes by on scp without someone
taking a back-handed stab at Islam, hiding behind this sort of
pseudo-logical argument.

>
>In fact, the Semitic religions seem to have long passed their role as
>categorical frameworks (to the extent one takes them to static rather
>than living -- i.e., as not platforms which may be freely
>reinterpretated and suitably amended).  For example, none of them
>clearly and categorically abolished slavery (or racism) -- something
>that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights now does and is widely
>accepted.  In fact, some of them were (and perhaps are) actively used
>to promote racist thinking -- just consider the abhorent myth about
>the how one of Noah's children supposedly became the ancestor of black
>people.

This is a good example of the narrow-minded double standards about
Islam (the portion of Semetic religions to which I belong).  There
is a clear double standard in assuming a static model for Islamic
thought and not others.  The only Islamic framework is a living one
-- and this might explain the troubles we are having.  If the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which you have chosen to 
attach your faith, will become equally meaningless (if it has not 
already) if it were taken to be static, for it will fail to address
the problems of the future.

This brings us to narrow-minded double standard # 2.  Why judge
Semitic religion through the atrocities that have been committed
in its name, and not "progress" and "modernism" ?  WW1, for example,
was fought in the name of "peace".  If we were to be consistent
(something clearly lacking here), then we would have to throw out
peace, progress, and modernism as valid options, considering the
unparalled atrocities that have been commited in their names.

>Peace,
Ah, something that we do agree upon.  Peace.

j n a
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan