tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post9038405232434126878..comments2024-03-28T09:26:25.931+11:00Comments on Thinking Out Aloud: The House of Wisdom (2)Lorenzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-29730804360372241522010-12-22T16:21:56.326+11:002010-12-22T16:21:56.326+11:00(1) Simplicity is cognitively easy.
(2) Public at...(1) Simplicity is cognitively easy. <br />(2) Public attitudes are used as status/membership markers.<br />(3) Strong views are more likely to be expressed ("the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity" in <a href="http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html" rel="nofollow">Yeats' words</a>).<br /><br />That covers most of it.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-7773014999432027132010-12-22T00:09:05.772+11:002010-12-22T00:09:05.772+11:00The humorous site Cracked had this article:
http:...The humorous site Cracked had this article:<br /><br />http://www.cracked.com/article_18911_5-ridiculous-things-you-probably-believe-about-islam.html<br /><br />At first glance it's positive when someone undertakes to refute and mock some of the stupid negative beliefs people have about Islam. But it quickly becomes discouraging when you realize that the replaced one set of false generalizations with another. Why are the only choices the ignorance and distortion of the extreme right or the ignorance and distortion of political correctness?Michanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-47047696117294161752010-11-21T19:10:24.032+11:002010-11-21T19:10:24.032+11:00Thanks.Thanks.Michanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-78649601173003913902010-11-19T12:33:53.793+11:002010-11-19T12:33:53.793+11:00Also, the Jews were a vulnerable minority; a law b...Also, the Jews were a vulnerable minority; a law bound conception of good rulership would resonate on those grounds as well.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-81559842078651933242010-11-19T09:51:20.357+11:002010-11-19T09:51:20.357+11:00Aren't there similar notions in Germanic and m...<i>Aren't there similar notions in Germanic and medieval chivalric societies?</i> Yes, and it was a genuine debate in Latin Christendom too. But, by the C11th and C12th, they were a landowning elite, as was the Church, and the notion of good rulership as being law-bound resonated more strongly. By contrast, Islam was ruled by a tax-farming warrior elite.<br /><br />Why did the Jews pick rationality? Again, it was a genuine debate but the Jews were very much a commercial people (since they were often not allowed to own land), so the notion of a good ruler being law-bound resonated among them too.<br /><br />And yes, pietism and mysticism resurged in various times. But never enough to overthrow the concept of the natural order as structured one.<br /><br />This is not an absolute division, it is about which perspective became (and stayed) dominant. As I said in my post on <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2010/09/will-versus-rationality.html" rel="nofollow">Will versus Rationality</a>, <i>Nor, in either religion, was the contest ever completely over. Movements emphasizing God's Will continue to erupt – such as the rise of Hasidism or current support among American evangelicals for Creationism. Emphasizing rationality can always be portrayed as lessening God’s glory or as manifesting human arrogance – including giving scope for concerns which are not Godly, for rationality clearly has its own norms.</i><br /><br />But I also pointed out in that same post that the debate in Islam threatened clerical authority in a way it did not in Christianity and Judaism. There was more than one cultural/institutional resonance issue.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-28203116929421535492010-11-18T23:07:31.512+11:002010-11-18T23:07:31.512+11:00"Third, the notion of honour inherited from t..."Third, the notion of honour inherited from tribal-nomadic cultures encouraged the notion that limiting God’s Will insulted His honour."<br /><br />Aren't there similar notions in Germanic and medieval chivalric societies?<br /><br />You contrast the will of god approach with the rationality of god approach. You mention that Islam chose the former and Christianity the latter. Here or elsewhere you suggested that the reason Christianity chose a rational god goes back to Roman culture. But why did the Jews pick rationality over will of god?<br /><br />Moreover, isn't there a fluctuation between the two approaches throughout Western history, both in Christianity and Judaism? Times when religion took a turn toward more mysticism and/or pietism?Michanoreply@blogger.com