Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by masonwatcher

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What history has clearly shown is that religion supresses technological development. As longs as the Muslim world continues to take their religion too seriously, they will continue to lag in technology.

Technology is what gives the West and Israel their advantage, and it will continue to do so. Will all of the wealth of oil resources, the Middle East has yet to succeed in developing a tecnological or industrial base. It isn't for lack of intelligence, but due to religious supression.

For this reason, Israel and the West will remain in the advantage until this changes.

What history has clearly shown is that religion supresses technological development

Arithmetic and Algebra — the Islamic scholar Al-Khwarizmi was the author of two books that changed the face of both Islamic and European mathematics. His “De numero indorum” (which only exists in Latin translation; no Arabic original is known) introduced the Hindu decimal place value number system first into the Arab world in the 9th Century and then into Europe in the 12th Century. His “al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala” was a compendium of basic algebra, a word taken from the title of the book, drawn from Babylonian, Greek and Indian sources. In it he demonstrates how to solve linear and quadratic equations but only those with positive solutions. Brahmagupta, one of his main sources, was already dealing with negative solutions in the 7th Century. Later Islamic mathematicians extended Al-Khwarizmi’s results to those polynomials of higher degree that could be reduced to quadratics through substitution. His arithmetic was taught as Algorithmus, a corruption of his name, in mediaeval universities as a part of computus. His arithmetic and algebra were popularised in Europe through the publication of the Liber abbaci by Leonardo of Pisa in the 13th century.

This theory of impetus was modified by Islamic scholars such as Avicenna in the 11th century, who theorized the concept of momentum,[12] as well as by Avempace—who developed the concept of a reaction force[13]— and Abu’l Barakat— who developed the concept that force applied continuously produces acceleration[14]— in the 12th century.

In the 10th Century the Islamic polymath Alhazen became the first thinker to combine all three fields into an integrated science of optics.[17] This was however not just a work of synthesis, as he made original contribution to the field.

The English monk Alcuin of York elaborated a project of scholarly development aimed at resuscitating classical knowledge by establishing programs of study based upon the seven liberal arts: the trivium, or literary education (grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) and the quadrivium, or scientific education (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music)

The Venerable Bede (ca. 672–735), monk of the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow who wrote a work On the Nature of Things, several books on the mathematical / astronomical subject of computus, the most influential entitled On the Reckoning of Time. He made original discoveries concerning the nature of the tides and his works on computus became required elements of the training of clergy, and thus greatly influenced early medieval knowledge of the natural world.

Pope Sylvester II (c. 946–1003), a scholar, teacher, mathematician, and later pope, reintroduced the abacus and armillary sphere to Western Europe after they had been lost for centuries following the Greco-Roman era. He was also responsible in part for the spread of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Western Europe.

Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253), Bishop of Lincoln, was the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of optics, astronomy and geometry. In his commentaries on Aristotle's scientific works, he affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences. Roger Bacon was influenced by his work on optics and astronomy.[57]

Albert the Great (1193–1280), Doctor Universalis, was one of the most prominent representatives of the philosophical tradition emerging from the Dominican Order. He is one of the thirty-three Saints of the Roman Catholic Church honored with the title of Doctor of the Church. He became famous for his vast knowledge and for his defence of the pacific coexistence between science and religion. Albert was an essential figure in introducing Greek and Islamic science into the medieval universities, although not without hesitation with regard to particular Aristotelian theses. In one of his most famous sayings he asserted: "Science does not consist in ratifying what others say, but of searching for the causes of phenomena." Thomas Aquinas was his most famous pupil.

Roger Bacon (1214–94), Doctor Admirabilis, joined the Franciscan Order around 1240 where, influenced by Grosseteste, ibn Firnas and others, he dedicated himself to studies where he implemented the observation of nature and experimentation as the foundation of natural knowledge. Bacon was responsible for making the concept of "laws of nature" widespread, and contributed in such areas as mechanics, geography and, most of all, optics.

The optical research of Grosseteste and Bacon established optics as an area of study at the medieval university and formed the basis for a continuous tradition of research into optics that went all the way up to the beginning of the 17th century and the foundation of modern optics by Kepler.[58]

Thomas Aquinas (1227–74), Doctor Angelicus, was an Italian theologian and friar in the Dominican Order. As his mentor Albert the Great, he is a Catholic Saint and Doctor of the Church. His interests were not only in philosophy; he was also interested in alchemy, having written an important treatise titled Aurora Consurgens. However, his greatest contribution to the scientific development of the period was having been mostly responsible for the incorporation of Aristotelianism into the Scholastic tradition, and in particular his Commentary on Aristotle's Physics was responsible for developing one of the most important innovations in the history of physics, first posited by his mentor Averroes for celestial bodies only, namely the notion of the inertial resistant mass of all bodies universally, subsequently further developed by Kepler and Newton in the 17th century. (See Pierre Duhem's analysis The 12th century birth of the notion of mass which advised modern mechanics. from his Systeme Du Monde at [3])

John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), Doctor Subtilis, was a member of the Franciscan Order, philosopher and theologian. Emerging from the academic environment of the University of Oxford. where the presence of Grosseteste and Bacon was still palpable, he had a different view on the relationship between reason and faith as that of Thomas Aquinas. For Duns Scotus, the truths of faith could not be comprehended through the use of reason. Philosophy, hence, should not be a servant to theology, but act independently. He was the mentor of one of the greatest names of philosophy in the Middle Ages: William of Ockham.

William of Ockham (1285–1350), Doctor Invincibilis, was an English Franciscan friar, philosopher, logician and theologian. Ockham defended the principle of parsimony, which could already be seen in the works of his mentor Duns Scotus. His principle later became known as Occam's Razor and states that if there are various equally valid explanations for a fact, then the simplest one should be chosen. This became a foundation of what would come to be known as the scientific method and one of the pilars of reductionism in science. Ockham probably died of the Black Plague. Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme were his followers.

Jean Buridan (1300–58) was a French philosopher and priest. Although he was one of the most famous and influent philosophers of the late Middle Ages, his work today is not renowned by people other than philosophers and historians. One of his most significant contributions to science was the development of the theory of Impetus, that explained the movement of projectiles and objects in free-fall. This theory gave way to the dynamics of Galileo Galilei and for Isaac Newton's famous principle of Inertia.
Nicole Oresme

Nicole Oresme (c. 1323–82) was an intellectual genius and perhaps the most original thinker of the 14th century. A theologian and bishop of Lisieux, he was one of the principal propagators of the modern sciences. Notwithstanding his strictly scientific contributions, Oresme strongly opposed astrology and speculated about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was the last great European intellectual to live before the Black Plague, an event that had a very negative impact in the intellectual life of the ending period of the Middle Ages.

"The Israeli military has therefore announced that online media and the blogosphere are another warzone for the military to manage."

Before club-footed little Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, he used to say that nothing was so good for a hostile editor as "one litre of castor oil." Lately Minister Goebbels' methods have grown less rudimentary. Last autumn, he "consecrated"' the German Press to Nazi service with a law that made it a crime to practice journalism in Germany except as a member of a nation-wide closed shop. Last week, Nazi control of the Press went one step further when it was announced that Germany's two biggest news services, the Telegraphen-Union and Wolff's Telegraph Bureau, had merged because of ''recent economic developments in the German Press."

Now, now comparing the Persian Empire to the Muslim nation of Iran is disingenous and you know it. Very weak arguement there.