LOL -- I don't know if I can continue forward in light of this. This looks like you're pretty much an ethnocentric ignoramus.

That's not really how history works.

To be clear, it seems you're now asserting something even stupider than what you had asserted earlier. Are you defining "Enlightenment values" by being the values of Western societies? Because then you're just saying "They're not like us and we're better than they are."

There are lots of things that can be pointed to for the stagnation of China. Trying to blame everything on Confucian values is simply too myopic.

China was advancing all the way through the 14th/15th century, and it really wasn't until the late part of the Ming Dynasty, when the move towards isolationism happened, that China's downward turn really began. (It is not unreasonable to argue that China was technologically advanced beyond Europe during this time period.)

You can argue that at this point, Confucian values did play a role. But that's insufficient as an explanation because it Confucianism had existed for a couple millenia and this was the first really severe isolationist move. It would be like saying that Trump is president of the US because of all the Christians (despite the fact that there are clear segments of Christians that voted against him). It's just too simplistic of a view.

Which is pretty much everything you're doing. Everything you're putting forth is overly simplistic, which leads to overfitting the historical data to your arguments.

The Six Nations:

Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth.

Pure ignorant nonsense.

The list of Chinese inventions, discoveries and societal developments is very long, and many of these were exported to the west. They were extremely advanced when it came to writing, architecture, maths, civil service systems, production, agriculture, metalworking, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, hygiene, monetary systems and banking, to name but a few.

One the most integral developments for European civilizations was the silk road, which connected China to the "west". Your post is so reeking of willful ignorance on this and related issues that it is difficult to fathom.

Really? We're referring to one billion people as an infestation? Reported. Try Stormfront instead, they seem like your crowd.

No. When analyze it, the reason they didn't push through to an enlightenment was Confucianism.
Yes. We completely agree. Let me say it again:
That is complete agreement with your post. You even quoted this bit and made the reply above. It's weird. Like I said, China started with an enormous head start (as did India, by the way), having much of the world's population. Between them, in 0AD they had 60% of the world's population and 80% of its GDP:



Yet, like I said, they went nowhere and produced nothing of enduring worth when compared the mountain of Western achievements.
The idea that isolationism was the cause of China's stagnation is a simplistic myopic view. WHY were they isolationist? Because of Confucianism and their primitive religions.

Confucian principles strongly discourage a mercantile class. Without a profit motive, there is far less reason to explore, to trade, to innovate. Again, China had a ridiculously large head start, the world's largest population, relative political stability/ greater freedom from barbarian conquerors that destroyed many West Asia and European civilizations, and they merely ticked along, despite an organized, advanced society and a large intelligent populace. For 2000 years. Why is that?

Indeed, even last century, it was Confucian view of mercantilism that allowed Mao to sweep to power - the populace was generally against a profit motive because they were so heavily collectivist due to Confucian principles -and start his vicious torture of the "bourgeois rightists" - basically, anyone who ran a business. Did you notice what that did to Chinese society?

On top of that, the Chinese had a religious view that the Emperor was a living God and the supreme power on Earth. Do you think that makes people outward looking, or inward looking? Do you think that creates a flowering of ideas and political systems and alternative philosophies, or does it create a perpetuating system of maintaining and not questioning old "wisdoms" and obeying the social order?

Again, Confucian philosophy is completely inimical to the kind of flowering of ideas and powerful and painful rejection of old ideologies and the old social order, which led to the Enlightenment.. Hence my claim that the Enlightenment could not happen in China - it had a self perpetuating system of rigid adherence to the past, could develop no philosophical mechanism, as in Christianity, for escaping it.

I wasn't even talking about inventions, but I'll add them. Your post is so reeking of wilful silliness it is difficult to fathom.

The list of Chinese inventions is dwarfed by the West.
The list of Chinese intellectual achievements is dwarfed by the West.
The list of Chinese architectural achievements is dwarfed by the West.
The list of Chinese philosophical achievements is dwarfed by the West.
The list of Chinese scientific achievements is dwarfed by the West
The list and variety of Chinese artistic achievements in music, dance, painting, etc is dwarfed by the West.

Do you disagree that the above is true? I would love to see you do that, because it would destroy all your credibility.

Why did it happen like this? That is all I am asking. I point to the fact that China and India started far ahead and had most of the world's population and economy. An intelligent, capable populace. No religions like Catholicism or Islam to keep them down. Yet they stagnated. Why? I contend that it was Confucian ideals, which are the antithesis of a flowering of diverse thought, and the antithesis of turning over the existing social order and socially accepted truths.
Let's just take this as an example. You know who was far closer to China? India. Why did not develop like European civilizations, with better access to Chinese inventions, a larger populace than Europe, and a large head start? They were far closer to Chinese inventions and ideas. And had many of their own. Why did they not advance?



For that matter, why didn't the Islamic word? They were far more beneficiaries of the Silk Road than the West was. The Middle East was the crossroads of all trade. So it seems there are some holes in your thesis.
We're talking about religions, not people, and we're talking about history, not now. Hinduism, like Islam and the centralized Catholicism of the middle ages, are cancers on society. Hinduism in particular is anti progress and pro superstition, yet they had similar "achievements" to China.

The caste system in India in particular is one of the most vile things around (and no, it wasn't created by the British, it's as old as time).
If you support not calling Hinduism a cesspoll, perhaps you belong at Stormfront; it is pure slavery and disdain for other humans that goes far beyond serfdom, and possibility the vilest thing you can do to a person. It infected a whole society for millennia, and very likely held back progress. Perhaps in your next life you will come back as an untouchable for that comment.

Anyway, do you think a society which thinks and acts in this way will produce an Enlightenment? Such is my point.

I notice you and Aaron have given up arguing on Christianity and the Enlightenment, instead going on tangents and offering vile personal attacks ("Stormfront seem like your crowd"). Does that mean you concede the point that Christianity was central to the Enlgihtenment. Specifically by the flowering of philosophies, ant-authority, the primacy of a personal relationship with God, and overturning of old ideas, that Jesus' teachings allowed?

You say that, but it's just a stupid thing to say. All you're really saying here is that Western > Eastern. It's almost like your thesis boils down to this:

"It's impossible for an Eastern country to have a Western-style Enlightenment."

I mean, horray for having a true thesis for the dumbest reasons possible. I feel almost as though you're Rome, and you're saying "This place is so awesome and it's going to be like this forever!"

If it were true that Confucianism was the cause of isolationism, then why would China need to change TO isolationism? Wouldn't it have been isolationism the whole time since Confucius (and the folk religions date back even further)? Confucianism was not suddenly introduced in the 15th century. Why would China have had some pretty vast exploration happening before if Confucianism was there the whole time? Something else clearly had to have happened.

This is true. And here you seem to be arguing against a straw man. I'm not saying that Confucianism played no role whatsoever. But it's just too simplistic to say it is *THE* cause.

China, being a vast country and well-resourced, did not have as much motive in general for the type of imperialization of the rest of the world. It was already large enough to have everything that it needed. It had the economic capacity to be self-sufficient, and it moved in that direction.

I will once again draw my analogy with Christianity. I think it's false to say that the American expansion westward happened because Manifest Destiny is a Christian idea. It's true that Manifest Destiny did "fit" with the prevailing Christian perspective, but to say that it happened *BECAUSE* Christianity is narrow-minded. I mean, it was actually pulled off by a predominantly Christian society, so only Christians could have done it, right?

I never once tried to argue that Christianity was not a factor of the Enlightenment.

I'm just saying you suck at making meaningful arguments because your explanations overfit the data.

I didn't even answer you before because it's completely objectively obvious that the Western world is vastly superior to the Eastern world in cultural achievements. It is so obvious I don't see the need to explain, but we do live in an age where cultural relativism has become the norm, and most academic books, which I'm sure you like to read, are skewed to that polite fiction.

So let's look at a couple of examples. Art is one. Western art has produced copious quantities every style of art imaginable, from impressionism to art nouveau to surrealism to hundreds of other styles, exploring practically every method of expression through all their philosophical and practical differences. It has founded all the major and manifest schools of expression.

Or take philosophy. The Western canon crushes the Eastern cannon in terms of diversity, breadth, depth, and so on. Do you really want to debate this?

How many fields out the thousands you can name where Western achievement, breadth, depth, sophistication, doesn't crush Chinese attempts in that same field? Perhaps martial arts and calligraphy, around 1900?

There's a reason why we talk about Greek genius and Greek achievements in philosophy and literature, and not Egyptian ones. That's because the Greeks crushed the Egyptians. I assume it isn't racist to say that - enough time has passed that we're not insulting people by pointing out that one culture crushed another in cultural and intellectual achievements.
I've explained why collectivism, Confucian ideals, the veneration of the elder and the old ways, make impossible the flowering of ideas and painful breaking down of old notion that was the Enlightenment. The Chinese never changed from within, they were forced to it by Western powers.

Might other things have contributed? Sure. Something as complex and rare as the Enlightenment needs multiple elements to happen. But the Chinese had most of these, for many centuries.
The only thing you're arguing against is a straw man. My thesis is pretty coherent.

In same way that the teaching of Jesus were critical in the Protestant revolution even after centuries of it producing Catholicism.

The Japanese did the same thing you know. Saw Japan as the center of the world, the old ways as the best, and got left behind despite intelligence and talent. Even despite the fact that they were forced to be an outward looking nation due to their geography and resources.

Confucianism abhors change, and it defined China. Confucianism has little interest in trade or anything outside the family and the local ruler. It has a strong disinterest in exactly what Enlightenment was - questioning old ways and examining everything and having no sacred cows. Is it any wonder that China retreated from a changing world?

It was the defining thing that stopped them, yes. But for Confucianism, they had a good chance.

When I look at the reasons why Australian Aborigines never had an Enlightenment, they are manifest. While their culture was backwards and their religion absurd/animist, that wasn't the defining thing that stopped them. It was lack of an economy, a large enough population, a land conducive to settlement.

With the Chinese, what else was there but philosophy? You mention this:
And it is no doubt part of the reason, but it isn't he defining reason. Europe was self sufficient. Most of the trade was for spices and exotic new things, not anything the country *needed* as such. Japan certainly wasn't self-sufficient, yet the were nearly as isolationist as China.

And Christian proselytizing (just like Muslim proselytizing and the desire to establish a global caliphate and put the whole world under Islam) was also part of what drove people out to new worlds - to spread the word of Jesus to the savages, to conquer new lands and bring them under Christ, to save those souls that could be saved. Missionaries led much of the exploration, and they did it in the name of Christianity.

I contend that if China was Christian, it would have been a very different nation, self sufficient or not. Europe and surrounds was as self sufficient as China - they had no need for the new world any more than the Chinese did.
You're oversimplifying my argument.

You have a very limited imagination.

So... The Greeks are responsible for the Enlightenment? That's not really a Christian thing.

Your argument is post-hoc. It's 100% true as a fact of reality that the Enlightenment didn't happen in China. So am I surprised that China's intellectual/cultural stagnation that really started to happen in 14th-15th centuries has led to the Western world catching up to it and surpassing it over the next several centuries? Nope.

But that's different from saying that it could not have happened. That's simply observing that it didn't happen.

Again, an absolutely brilliant insight! I agree that if China were different, it would be different!

At this point, I think your hand has been turned face up. You're conflating "Western" with "Christian" and making a lot of other errors of that type.

It's a good thing that China has completely abandoned everything Confucian. That must be the explanation for their increased contributions to science over the last few years. Collectivist perspectives are definitely anti-science.

https://www.nature.com/nature/journa.../528S170a.html

Please, don't even try to wiggle out. Your phrasing left nothing to the imagination.

For there to be an argument about Christianity being the reason for enlightenment, you have to present one. You have stated that this took place, I argued (historically) for why this was incorrect.

You then spent about a 1000 words jabbering about Islam for no apparent reason and when I pointed it out, you seemed convinced that was the way to go. Since I have no interest in discussions where any argument (including mine) that take place solely in someone else's head, I left it at that.

I don't really have any idea why you at some later felt the need to scream ignorant lies about ancient and medieval China, but I certainly needed to point them out. Ignorance about history bugs me to no end, especially when it is used to affirm some current day view of the world.

If you really feel so strongly about enlightenment, you should give it a try some day.

Of course, Hammurabi was referred to vis a vis Moses and the Decalogue and so cross cultural comprehension is fair game. I believe the difference between the East and west has been clearly expounded . Its not enough to state that "we are all the same" and then pass laws making one a criminal if he does not homage the one and true mantra; we see this today.

"We are all men" is in the heart of the individual but no man or nation has the right to criminalize those who do not follow the abstracted notions of that to which we carry within our hearts. Man has to and will grow but this will not come about by draconian measures.

You men don't really expect to see a law, promulgated by the Pope, which states " OK,everybody will immediately become enlightened"?.

I believe that there are enough modern scholars who no longer look to the middle ages as the "dark ages", which is nothing more than clinical pap for the facile unconsidered.

Science in the 15th century .Do you really think that these beginnings should fit your preconceived notion of "UnChristianity" ?A History is the story of men, single individuals, embossed within their mileiu who brought understanding and comprehension to human souls.

Kepler, Newton,the Scholastics, the great universities all predated the supposed enlightenment. There is so much and the idea that one is separated from the other because of some present day one sided belief is pathetic and troubling.

http://whiteoakhistoricalsociety.org...-15th-century/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...l_universities

And you're passive-aggressive with far less imagination than most people in this thread.

Prove your claim. If you also don't have a limited imagination, describe three styles of art that have artistic value and don't exist anywhere.

You could become a wealthy celebrated artist if you can come up with worthwhile styles of art that don't exist yet, since you claim that people who can't imagine new styles of art have "very limited imagination".

Regardless, this is typical low-rent intellect from you. You ignore the obvious point (that the West's art by any objective measure you could apply - artistic range, depth, expression, variety, philosophy) is far ahead of China's. You ignore other person's point and throw out a personal attack red herring instead. It shows a low level of intellectual curiosity, and a poor upbringing.

Again with the stupidity.

Yes, it absolutely is. Has it gone completely over your head that China's rise of a poverty-ridden craphole has come from the abandonment of core tenets of Confucian philosophy? China embraced mercantilism (rejecting the Confucian disdain of it) and some inward looking Confucian ideals, and flourished. That's not a coincidence.
No, but they're antithetical to the flowering of ideas that overturns old orders, and makes things like the Enlightenment possible.

Yes, post trends rather than absolute values. God you're a dishonest clown. Of course the world's largest population growing into economic strength from a low base is going to produce more and more high quality science. Your graphs say exactly nothing relevant; in fact they make my point.

And then I present you with this, which you completely ignored. Instead you bicker about nonsense. Does it too completely destroy your point for you to want to respond?
Is this a joke or something? Carlo gets it; why don't you? When discussing whether a religion was integral in cultural changes, contrasting it with the world's only other large religion and comparing how it affected that culture is a standard thing to do.

Yeah, it bugs me too.

Most of what I posted are the same views held by the same men who brought about the Enlightenment. You hold fashionable revisionist views that have only existed for maybe the last 50 years, and will not doubt go out of fashion again. You should try considering whether your view is actually enlightened or ignorant.

You should really be less bigoted against ideas that aren't fashionable; truth often lies that way. You're taking a Chinese Confucian approach ("anyone who disagrees with my social conscience and my sacred cows is worth little and must be ostracized") rather than an Enlightenment approach.

LOL -- This just shows your stubbornness more than it shows anything about art. Basically, your claim is that there are literally no other art styles beyond what has already been created. If you imagine yourself moving forward 1000 years into the future, that whatever art is today will be what art is then because there's nothing else to do in art. You must not believe that there will ever be a new media used in art, or a new perspective, or a new style, or a new type of social commentary... it's already all been done.

It's just a laughable claim. But I'm glad you're stubborn enough to go to the mat on this one. It just makes it easier to dismiss you with no further comment.

Right. It's not like Confucianism is actually in vogue right now...

https://theamericanscholar.org/confu.../#.WTF-E-vyuUk

It is true Christianity, as the dominant religion of Europe, had a big impact on the Enlightenment. You can find some of the ideas of the Enlightenment in Christianity as well as outside of it. I even think it is likely that you can draw a causal line from various changes in Christendom and Christianity to the Enlightenment. But this is like saying that WW2 caused the peace in Europe that has followed it. The Enlightenment was (in part) a reaction to the perceived failures of Christianity and its churches. That doesn't mean we should praise Christianity itself for being more enlightened.

This isn't anything; they all belong within Christianity. Even Voltaire , who tweaked the nose of the pope belongs, like it or not.

Very few can appreciate or care for dogma but it came forth from the highest spirituality and became obtunded by a mental approach which demanded only sense bound appreciation.

If Christianity is spoken to and related to by the materialistic ethos then there is no rapprochement in spirit or body for the materialistic ethos will not allow it.

Now, it is true that the power of Rome admixed with the Christian entelechy and by and large the political aspects of the Roman Empire continued on into the 15th century via Rome.

Up until the 4th century and prior the Romans welcomed all spirit beings into their pantheon, those of their conquered peoples. Zeus, Apollo, Mithra,...we've all come across the names of these lesser deities or gods , so to speak.

At that time , we all know the story;the emperor Constantine decreed Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. He converted on his death bed for otherwise he would have not been able to punish opponents via the death sentence. And so we have the amalgam of the Roman Empire with the Christian ethos on an exoteric basis, by decree so to speak.

I liken this act as if a youth wears his Father's overcoat which flows to his feet with a fedora which again covers his ears; a humorous picture if you will. The christian youth has placed upon him the karma of the Roman Empire and has a great deal to "shake off", if I may.

The could be no greater polarity than that of the Roman Empire and the Christian state of being but this exoteric state moved on.

Prior to Constantine there was a rich "attempted" comprehension of the Christ and his aperance on the earth. the Gnostics knew something but even they did not comprehend the Christ. we see Paul executing Christians because of this lack of comprehension until his revelation on the road to Damascus. the Synagogues were merged with Christian followers but still the understanding was not satisfying. They all knew the importance of the event but the mental and aesthetic clarity they desired was lacking.

Augustine chose the Church because he thought it vain to attempt to understand the Christ Being in the manner of the old initiation (mystery) centers. the idea of "faith" arose in that each member of the Church knew someone who witnessed the Event or someone who knew this someone; back to the past.

People changed in body, soul and spirit but the Event on Golgotha stood in their minds as a "picture" of the future of the human soul for all men through the Christ; the Christ who led the Hebrews in the pillars of clouds and fire; the same who spoke to Moses in the mineral kingdom and that same Being the Mystery Centers brought the initiate to perceive in a trance state, known as the Christos.

The Christ Being and Christianity and the work of the human soul will not be totally understood until we have all changed into the highest of beings of a multiplethic spirituality. We work to this understanding or better yet our experience of this Being who has been with us, in our hearts, as a template of our future, the future of the human being. This is Christianity; the Christ who is always with us to the end of times who presents himself to each soul ; this is Christianity.

A man is born out of the spiritual world as a spirit/soul being who enters into the body offered by his ancestors and this body becomes the chariot of the human soul; the body being the paints and palette of the artistic human, the souls of men.

At death the human being brings forth qualities to which he has earned between birth and death, travels through the higher realms, gaining strengths and abilities in that realms(s) and returns with his mission prefigured just prior to his incarnation and adds worth and value to the human realm the realm of spirit/soul human beings.

Reincarnation ends at the time of the complete metamorphosis of human beings into a spiritual being(s) and the earth will likewise be morphed into a new realm of existence.

To look at Christianity as if written on a wall with words and symbols doesn't speak to the active movement of the human state with the Christ within; people take time and not all are the same and all the "isms" in the world will not grasp this the creation of the "new" human being, in freedom as the human being manifests his own destiny, not in coercion but in Love the selfless acts of the human soul.

Too long but I have to speak to the realm after death. There are higher beings who look out and are anxious that the human soul will reach his destiny. these beings work within the earth and are known as these "heathen gods" or the the angelic beings of the Christian and Judaic worship. Mankind, to a lesser or greater extent in varying periods of time is their gracious work to which we , in some manner , appreciate in the realm from death until the next birth.

In that case I'll also include Jews and Muslims within Christianity as well.

Did you read what I wrote ? Absolutely , but I suspect the nuance is lost if met with ill will. Each man incarnates within his nation, tribe, race, gender, clan, for good reason; that which will improve him into the future; hard to believe I know but each of us has incarnated into different cloaks, so to speak, in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

It's not a haphazard entrance but well comprehended between death and new birth and we "demand" this entrance in order to fulfill our worth and and the worth of all human beings; again each to his abilities.

Just in passing, one will find that advanced men of other cultures incarnating into another as an aid to those of the second culture. An example of this is the Hebrew Prophets who incarnated into the Hebrew race as helpers; they were all "initiates" of other cultures who brought their abilities for the improvement and betterment not only of Judaism but of mankind in specifics.

I contend that there are more Enlightenment ideas and examples in the words of Jesus than in the words and actions of Muhammed, the prophet of the other major world religion. Do you disagree?
Yes, it's unquestionable that the flowering of protestant belief, justified religiously in its adherents by the direct words of Jesus, led to a flowering of ideas and a search for ultimate truth within and by one's own eyes, rather than have it handed down by an authority - an anarchism in thought which ultimately led to the Enlightenment. That's one pillar of the claim that Christianity was central - it contained an escape valve from dogma and an exhortation toward deeply individual truth-seeking that neither Islam nor Confucianism contained. That is the seed from which all grew.
Yes, I wrote as much earlier.
I think Christian ideals deserve the credit for the work ethic, the selflessness, the seeking after truth, and the development of very robust, healthy communities and institutions that formed the basis of the Europe's moral and intellectual advancement.

Just like Islam, with its insane dogma and hatred of outsiders, deserves the credit for uniting the barbaric warring tribes of the Middle East in its first few hundred years; Islamic doctrine created a veneration of precision and beauty, united people as a brotherhood with core values, sought a caliphate and hence organized political power and gave direction to to the aimless, and so on. It had other pernicious elements which meant it could never reach Christianity's enlightenment, but you can clearly see the way in which a religion transformed a society. I doubt that would even be controversial. Yet say anything good about Christianity, or contrast it positively with the world's barbaric religions, and people have a fit. It's weird. tame_deuces should read some Enlightenment philosophers and see what they say about other cultures and peoples (such was my point to which you replied).

I did read it, and it's not ill will, I just am generally stopped short when reading you by underlying disagreements and a lack of comprehension. The reason for my response was to point out that your way of dividing up the world isn't useful for ToothSayer's thesis.

I asked a friend of mine (a conservative diplomat and definitely not a cultural relativist) this as a question and here are some of the cultural spheres where he thinks over the span of history the Eastern world has achieved much more than the West: Poetry, architecture, gardening, games, pottery, farming, arms and armor, hygiene. There are more specific things as well, eg best raw food preparation, best use of spices, best food presentation, lots of specific crafts, etc.

I guess you'll have to explain after all.

Presumably by the "words of Jesus" you mean the red lettering in the Bible? Sure, probably, although I'm not familiar enough with the Koran to be confident in this judgement. I also don't think the words of Jesus are nearly as important to Christianity as most people seem to.

One of the causes of the Reformation was a loss of confidence in the Roman Catholic church due to the threat from the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire and the inability of Catholic leaders (eg the Hapsburgs) to stamp out the Protestant heretics because of being distracted by the Turks. Even earlier, we can point to the re-entry of Greek and Roman ideas back to Europe from Muslim civilization. Your method of historiography would lead me to think that Islam should thus be regarded as having caused the Enlightenment as well.

This is like praising Hitler for the founding of Israel.

Okay. I don't understand how ideals work in history nearly well enough to make such a claim. I doubt you do either.

As I've said before, I'm not a cultural relativist - I don't think all religions are equally moral or immoral. Furthermore, I think Islam today, taken as a whole, is worse than Christianity. But your presentation of this viewpoint, by emphasizing only the good in Christianity and not the bad, and only the bad in Islam and not the good, and assuming that what is true of today has always been true, and asserting highly speculative historical claims as fact, demonstrates a demagogic rather than philosophical approach to this topic.

An awful lot of dumb in this thread.

Of course Christianity was central to the Enlightenment. A large portion of it developed as a rebellion against -- church canon. That's a defining feature of the E. -- thought and learning that broke out of the monastery. The Enlightenment also took place within the church, bringing lots of changes. Complex.

Using the Enlightenment to slam Islam and Islamic slavery is a howler. The rediscovery of Greek thought came largely from examining -- Islamic scholarship. That is, the books and bodies of thought stored within Islam. Tracing the west to the Greeks but not Islam is like saying you are related to your grandfather but not your father. Well, maybe like you're related to you mom's cousins but not your dad's -- whatever.

Slavery is not the place to argue the superiority of Europe. The highest volume of enslavement in the whole world was the Atlantic basin. That's where the capitalism was that drove it. And some key Enlightenment figures, like John Locke, were investors in the slave trade. Household slavery of Islam is awful, but plantation slavery in the Americas was industrial scale so shut up. Enlightenment scientific reasoning is later adapted to justify a hierarchy of races, colonialism, and all sorts of horrors. Careful what you wish for -- Arab Enlightened capitalism would mean Algeria slaughtering France instead of vice versa, and West Africa depopulating Anglo Saxon towns.

Islam can give you both al Qaida and the Beirut nightclub scene, just as Christianity can give you both the KKK and Quaker abolitionists. Separating Christianity from Islam, rather than seeing them both as Mediterranean religions of the same root, is neo-Nazi crackpot fairy tales. Be sure to wear Viking horns and cite Thor in response.

So because Islam captured a bunch of libraries as they tried to expand their caliphate in their golden years, we should thank Islam for the effects of Greek thought in the West? That's essentially what you're saying, and it's a howler.

Slavery is certainly the place to argue the moral superiority of Europe; most of Europe opposed it, and indeed, it was Europe and only Europe that stopped it both their own lands and in the Muslim world, where it was a religiously-endorsed part of life. The ignorance here is astounding on this issue. I know a liberal education makes US/Spanish slavery loom large in the mind, while it barely (if at all) mentions the far more widespread and barbaric and long-running and widely culturally accepted slavery in the Islamic world, but even so, you're long out of college; a learned man, as you are, should be expected to put off the prejudices off his education and learn about the world free from the politics of his professors.

This is an absolutely extraordinary statement for a learned man. Islam is as far from Christianity as Christianity is from Buddhism.

Anyway, the only reason I mentioned Islam - and talked about the elements in it antithetical to Enlightenment - is because the contrast shows up the elements of Christianity that did indeed lead to civilized society. Slavery, for example, could never ended under Islam except by force and conquest; it's part of the very fabric of that religion.