Dancing in the Rain and Honour Killings
Bill Whittle, from PJTV, speaking about Inconvenient Truths:
Not to be pedantic, but I have a bone to pick with what Scott Ott (the first speaker, after Bill Whittle) says in this video. Quote:
…because I know that’s what happened over the years and the centuries in the Christian church, that the extreme elements were preached against, were outcast, were shunned-
This is not an attack on Mr Ott (whom I’m sure I agree with on most things), but rather this sentiment I hear again and again – that Islam is Christianity from 1000 AD, that Islam needs its own Renaissance to civilize, that they’re stuck in the “medieval era”…
Has anybody ever offered you evidence of the so-called medieval barbarity? Certainly there was a great deal of political violence following the fall of Rome, and Justice was far more brutal back in those days, and many of those in power exploited their positions to prey on the peasants – but I challenge anybody to show a connection to the Christian church.
The rapacious Northern Barbarians were at their worst as Pagans – and gradually civilized thanks to Christian proselytizers. In 989, as the warrior caste was rising to dominance, the Church put forth the “Peace of God,” soon superseded by the “Truce of God,” doctrines which emphasized what we now consider chivalrous behaviour – no looting, no warring on Sundays, peace between Lent and Easter, and better treatment of civilians – the modern words “Peace Officer” and “Keep the [King’s] Peace” were likely derived from these movements.
Heck, the growth of the Christian Cult during Roman times was largely due to the practice of rescuing female infants, left outside for exposure. This swelled the ranks of the early Church, turning them into a politically significant group by the time Constantine came into power.
The medieval era was politically disorganized thanks to the fall of Rome, and political disorganization leads to violence – just look at drug dealers who are forced to settle their differences out of court. Rome fell so hard that we needed to start from scratch again, building new legal institutions, law didn’t really start growing in Europe until the Magna Carta. Certainly there was disease, psychopaths rising to power, and endemic violence – but the majority of the problems were the lack of institutions.
Europeans were trying to civilize and establish fair laws, and the Church was one of the driving forces behind it. To suggest that we were “primitive, violent savages,” comparable to present-day Islam, in 1000 AD is ahistorical.
Medieval European violence existed due to a dearth of institutions, necessitating conflict. Modern, Islamic violence is due to the presence of institutions which encourage the basest urges.
When comparing historical fantasy novels to Monty Python, the former are the more realistic depiction.
EDIT: Speaking of the Medieval era, this post from the now-defunct blog “Out of Sleep” offers what I believe to be a fairly accurate depiction of how peasants actually thought back then. It’s only tangentially related to all of this, but it’s one of my favourite pieces I’ve read in the Manosphere, and I seldom get a chance to link it.
ͼ-Ѻ-ͽ
Regine Pernoud debunked the ‘terrible Middle Ages’ in her book long ago; available in English in 2000:
http://www.amazon.com/Those-Terrible-Middle-Ages-Debunking/dp/0898707811
Same as the nonsense brought up all the time about the Inquisition. Old myths die hard.
Ed: Speaking of the Spanish Inquisition, there was a GREAT post on – I think – Alternative Right about them (hint: they weren’t zealotous torture fetishists) but I haven’t been able to find it through google, or in my browser history. If anybody knows the article I’m talking about, I’d really appreciate the link.
Buddhism is the religion of the West now, and it is only increasing.
I suspect the West will become more refined and civilized as we go forward with self-reflection, quieting the mind, meditation and over all mindful living.
We will become less materialistic and shallow and more inward looking, philosophical and self-sufficient.
As a whole, of course there will be a segment of society that just becomes more and more materialistic and shallow, but I have a hunch they will be a minority, or at least not the dominant narrative, as they are now.
OK I’m an idealist and maybe a bit too optimistic? However I do think our future will be better than our present.
Buddhism is the fastest growing (organized) religion in the West right now (despite Muslims claiming its Islam).
Going forward I see the Western world becoming less barbaric, less materialistic, and less shallow.
We will become more philosophical, more meditational, more inward looking, more self-sufficient and more at peace with ourselves.
OK I’m an idealist so maybe I am being a bit too optimistic?
There will probably be a chunk of Western Civ that remains shallow and materialistic but I do not think they will dominate the cultural narrative like they do now.
I see our future more positive than our present.
In Ott’s defense he was highlighting the (very telling) lack of outcry in the Islamic world. But the whole line of indictment is weak and feeds into the progressive narrative where outrage is the measure of civility. Come to think of it, perhaps that’s why progressives and Islamists seem to oddly mirror each-other: they both measure civility in terms of outrage.
Ed: This is precisely what’s so frustrating: that – in his efforts to point out that Mosques aren’t screaming bloody murder about this (a point which should be made every time an Islamist engages in Ultraviolence) – he has to concede a Leftist talking point, otherwise his comment will become long-winded and incoherent.
I’m no fan of Islam (or any Abrahamic faith) so I’m not sticking up for Muslims as a collective here, but I don’t think it is rational to expect normal, law abiding Muslims to demonstrate a collective “outrage” every time an extremist nut commits a heinous crime.
Muslims are individuals. People who commit these atrocious acts are also individuals. Why should one take responsibility for the other?
For example; we don’t see Christians collectively “outraging” every time someone who claims to be a Christian or who was born and raised in a Christian family or culture commits a heinous act, either in the name of the Christian god or not.
They don’t see those people as part of them or reflective of them so why would the entire Christian world collectively outrage against them publicly?
In the UK it has recently come to light that group sex rings predominantly operated by ethnic Pakistani descent men of Muslim background have been operated for years there. Several men were arrested.
The predominantly white non-Muslim police officers and government staff were denying or downplaying the over-representation of British Muslim of Pakistani descent involved in the racket. They did this either due to PC platitudes or fear of riots or whatever.
However, several British Muslims of Pakistani descent have come forward and said, “Don’t hide this info from the public. If we have this problem going on in our communities we need to know about it.” and they are creating awareness groups in their mosques to educate their community and deal with it.
In this case it was not the Muslims who were glossing over Muslim involvement in these crimes, it was non-Muslim police and government officers.
Ed: This wasn’t a case of Muslim extremists – this was mainstream Islam. Christians feel no need to specifically denounce the idiot who protests at soldiers’ funerals, because the contempt for him is so obvious. They denounce him *period*, and his fake church (made up of his family) doesn’t really register as Christian.
As for abortion doctor killings – I’ve heard a number of Christians denounce them as against the Bible, but it would be disingenuous to say that there wasn’t sympathy in some quarters. However – context matters. The doctor killers view themselves as defending little children – not zygotes. Even Atheistkult (if they’re being honest with themselves) can understand and sympathize with the motives, even if they disagree on the objective facts.
Honour killings are a whole other matter; nobody from the West can sympathize with them, and few can even understand them. The motive behind them is selfish and evil. The silence coming from the Mosques is eerie – the Islamic voices who speak out are few and far between.
And even when we do hear Muslims speak out, it almost always seems to be a histrionic “Not all Muslims are like that! Don’t compare *MY* Mosque to that one!” It’s usually an avoidance, rather than a denunciation. While you can interpret this charitably (IE: Driven by fear of retaliation), once again an eerie silence prevades.
Unfortunately, I’m unaware of any statistics on this stuff. SOME Muslims denounce it – SOME Muslims are ardent feminists – SOME actually appreciate European Civilization – but in my experience, they are the vast minority. As for the majority… all I have is their silence. You disagree with me on this, but unfortunately we have no recourse to resolve that, aside agreeing to disagree; all that either of us have are anecdotes, and they’re in insufficient number to become facts.
“This wasn’t a case of Muslim extremists – this was mainstream Islam. ”
Not true. Nowhere in Quran does it say to do these things. Quran, like the Bible, is full of b.s. but the example you gave is not of “mainstream” Islam at all.
I’ve lived in South Asia and the Middle East where there are lots of Muslims and the vast, vast majority are not doing these things.
People who do these things are socio and psychopaths and they are denounced very loudly in the local newspapers and on the local news.
Also note that Pakistan and Afghanistan have been infamous for hundreds of years for having a “wild west” sort of tribal honor system that is separate from Islamic injunction. There are some regions that are straight out of Hatfield and McCoy multi-generational pay-back killings.
“Unfortunately, I’m unaware of any statistics on this stuff. SOME Muslims denounce it – SOME Muslims are ardent feminists – SOME actually appreciate European Civilization – but in my experience, they are the vast minority. ”
I don’t see what “appreciating European Civilizations” has to do with anything.
What Muslims in South Asia need to do, is appreciate their great and advanced pre-Islamic Hindu Civilization that gave rise to great architecture, literature, philosophy, music, metalurgy, science and math in the world at a time when many future “civilizations” were living in caves.
Buddhism is a corrupting influence. It gave us Schopenhauer and his unholy union of Eastern and Western philosophy. If you can call it philosophy. Technically his view of knowledge being equivalent to suffering makes it anti-philosophical.
If Buddhism is growing it is because it flatters progressive atheist sensibilities. Hey, that reminds me of this post:
http://sexdrugsandfinance.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-dali-leftist.html