loque Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The only way it's ever going
> to sort itself out is when religion dies out in
> about 300 years, by then there will just be one
> religion and it will be called "humanity".
The death of religion has been predicted since the Age of Enlightment, but as you can see it has not yet happened. At the moment religion actually has much more influence to world politics than it has had for a long time, this can be seen in these conflicts bethween Christian and Islamic world. And religion has also more influence to invidual than it has had 50 years ago.
In Islamic counties Islam has much more influence to people and at least to state than it had about 40 years ago.
Islam has a honorable history. After the death of Muhammad in 7th century it spread to North Africa, Iberian Peninsula, and east. It also rose to very high archievements in science and art, in 11th century Islamic countries were leading countries in both, China being a good, but much lesser, challenger for them.
In 17th century Europe and Islam were about on same level in material development, but then during the next century Europe left Islamic countries behind thanks to industrialisation, which didn't affect the Islamic world. 'Islamic modernism'
not sure if this is correct english term) born then in late 19th century to take back Europes lead in development. It was then replaced by nationalism and arab socialism, which started to control politics after the second world war. Both of those also dismissed Islam. Since 80's those ideologies have had to give room to Islamism, which holds that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. It has then changed the position of Islam in society and its influence.
In America religion also has much effect to politics and people not least in united states. In there religion has kept it's place in the life of people unlike in europe.
Europe being probably the only continent where religion has less influence to invidual than before. Though this could change in future because of growing amout of muslims moving there. Because of that europeans will have to think about their own position to Christianity and Islam much more than before.
An about the crusades, they are quite late and short event in Christianity. As they happened in 12th and 13th centuries, they certainly didn't came with Christianity, though it has to be said Christianity created a "right" athmosphere for them to be possible.
EDIT: Sorry for the errors in grammar, I wrote this in a little hurry.
My photo gallery: [
viltzu86.deviantart.com]
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2008 08:56PM by villej.