[gaiagraphia]

Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world.

It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map.

The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media.

Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.

[senderista]

Try reading about Kafiristan, where primitive Hinduism (think Rig Veda) survived for 3500 years before being wiped out in the 1890s by a British-appointed Islamic despot.

[gaiagraphia]

Always amazed me how the Kalash in Chitral Valley have managed to peacefully get on with things. I guess the terrain helps.

I always like to think how the region would've looked if all these remnants of peoples had thriving nations.

[senderista]

The Kalash are very similar genetically and culturally and are also facing cultural genocide by Islamists. Truly one of the most fascinating ethnic minorities extant.

[throwaway30213]

There is a certain irony in your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of Our Lord (though not mine), according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 03:42:12, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas)

[openuntil3am]

Christianity is no different.

[carlosjobim]

Christianity was very different, and the evidence for that is undeniable and gigantic. The fruits of diversity within christendom is offered in great treasure heaps within science, music, art, philosophy, theology, lifestyles, ways of worship, mysteries of the faith, and culture in general.

Christianity merged with local cultures, removing some aspects and adding some aspects.

[gaiagraphia]

I didn't claim otherwise. Thankfully Enlightenment values cleaned things up a little.

In the current day, I just find it very worrying when you line up a map of global conflicts and where Islam is thriving.

[throwa356262]

What about Ukraine, Venezuela, North Korea, Taiwan, Panama, Greenland, Congo, Mexico, El Salvador, ...

[throwaway30213]

How many of those global conflicts are being fuelled, driven or outright perpetrated by western countries?

[graemep]

Which Enlightenment values? Racism? Sexism? Colonialism?

[KaiserPro]

Translating the arabic texts of science (either copied and expanded from greek, latin and other places, or new research) and claiming that it was widom of the ancients?

[jsemrau]

Please educate yourself more on this. Step out of your bubble. Christian nations have created the cultural and technical achievements over the last thousands of years. There is nothing even remotely comparable.

[sdsdssweew213]

I wouldn't thank Christianity for the scientific advancements of the West, except maybe for protestant work ethic. Science only started to flourish when Catholic church started to lose power, and religion became a bit more separated from law and politics.

Best religion for progress of humanity is the one that embraces work, tells people to treat each other fairly, and otherwise keeps its hands off from irrelevant details of people's lives - things like what consenting adults do in bed, what they eat or drink, what they can or can't say.

Unfortunately Christians have been historically way too focused on the bad parts while ignoring the good parts, leading to madness like wars between Catholics and Protestants and discrimination of minorities. Think of the current conservative elite in America for example - it's hard to find people who are further away from teachings of Jesus Christ than those greedy, hateful idiots.

[throwaway30213]

More like the last 500 years. Before that the cultural and scientific centers of the world were variously in muslim, hindu, chinese, roman and other civilizations.

[disgruntledphd2]

And without the Muslims maintaining the Greek and Roman texts, that would've taken far longer. Even algebra and algorithm come from Muslim names.

[warumdarum]

Mostly enslaved yehudi and persian scholars..

[wqaatwt]

The Roman/Byzantine empire was pretty much destroyed by Muslims, though. Its a but like thanking the Franks/Goths/etc. for preserving Roman cultural identity in Western Europe by preserving some of their texts..

[disgruntledphd2]

> The Roman/Byzantine empire was pretty much destroyed by Muslims, though

This is hilariously untrue, if one is talking about the Western Roman empire. An islamic state did conquer Constantinople, which I presume is what you mean.

The Roman empire (western) basically fell apart due to infighting more than anything else.

[raffraffraff]

I love hearing the guys from The Rest Of History discuss this from their different perspectives!

[defrost]

The subject wasn't the creation of technology, it was the propensity of theocracies to beat the native out of natives.

eg: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/sep/06...

[Chu4eeno]

Isn't Canada a secular state? I think the grandparents point was to separate plain old xenophobia from religiously motivated erasure of culture.

[defrost]

The Vatican is a theocratic state, Catholic churches, schools, etc are effective theocracies.

There's a long list of questionable behaviour, eg. enslavement for Jesus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale

[jsemrau]

There are more people enslaved now than at any point in time in history. Guess the countries.

[conception]

Thousands of years… christian nations… educate yourself… hmm

[wqaatwt]

To be fair for the most part Christianity didn’t spread top down through violent conquest (obviously with some huge exceptions) at least in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Also it’s historically better at integrating local cultural practices and languages.

Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)

[KaiserPro]

I'm Just looking at the rich indigenous culture and languages of the US and how widespread and celebrated it is.

thats why all the signs in downtown Manhattan are in Munsee....

[alfiedotwtf]

Did you just hand wave off the crusades?

And when you say “historically better at integrating local cultural practices”, India, China and Australia, would like a word with you. Holy shit you should just delete your account right now

[wqaatwt]

No, why would you say I did that? Also if everyone ever referencing any historical event ever would have to explicitly list and condemn every single thing they think was wrong it would become rather verbose and boring to read. Overall the crusaders were worse than some violent conquerors and better than others.

[Hikikomori]

Well the crusades, northern crusades and most of imperialism.

For the most part it's enough to conquer a place. People below the timing elite would switch religions as it would be beneficial for them, and eventually trickle down to peasants and such.

[wqaatwt]

> Crusades

Many of the regions they invaded were still (or until quite recently) majority Christian. After all initially it was a defensive relief expedition organized by the pope and the Byzantine emperor to free the territories the empire lost in Anatolia very recently. Of course it was massively more successful than anyone anticipated and they just kept on going and then the whole thing got “slightly” out of hand..

But yes, as I said there were some huge exceptions. However early on the way Christianity spread was fundamentally different to Islam. It was usually not through violent conquest but bottom up.

European imperialism was quite mixed as well. Christianity played a huge part in the Spanish conquests of the Americas. Much less so in British India and other similar places.

[Hikikomori]

Very peaceful when you convienently ignore all the violence.

Northern crusades were extremely bloody and defeated people would accept baptism or be executed.

Charlemange was more of the same deal.

Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?

Christian history is littered with these examples, it has not been a peaceful religion since it merged with Roman society. The only real good examples you could have are missionaries and top down conversion as kings and such voluntarily switched religions.

[wqaatwt]

As I said, in relative terms..

> Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?

It varied, although generally the Catholic church was fairly open at integrating or even occasionally tolerating pagan practices or providing alternative options to people used to more polytheistic religions. Like the whole saint worshipping (“venerating”) thing. Often (with some exceptions) pagans found conversion fairly easy since they could just map their gods to equivalent Christian saints continue worshipping them. Basically every converted pagan society had a multi-generationa transition period.

Then you had stuff lime praying to magical corpses or body parts, so their previous owners could perform miracles. With some exceptions it has generally been a highly flexible religion before the reformation.

Islam is much more rigid about following the rules and stuff like idol worship (as a consequence they brought back visual arts back to the stone ages..)

[tclancy]

Hang on a tick, who made the oil valuable and happily pays for it while turning a blind eye?

[flyinglizard]

It doesn't absolve those who commit the atrocities, even if there are externalities involved. It's not always the White Man's fault - neither in Africa nor the Middle East. We can and should hold the societies in those places to a certain global standard of conduct.

[MomsAVoxell]

Whose standard of conduct should the cultures you deem inferior be held to, exactly?

[flyinglizard]

That's an easy one - to the same standard we hold Israel. No more, no less.

[MomsAVoxell]

Hell no, that's ridiculous. Israel is a wholesale violator of human rights at massive scale, along with its criminal 5-eyes cronies, and it is in the midst of an imperialist genocide, murdering children every single day. If a state cannot defend itself against children, it is failed and should be refactored by its citizens, immediately and with haste.

We also strike the USA off the list, which cannot even take care of its peoples' most basic needs.

Switzerland. The answer you're looking for, is Switzerland. /s

[MomsAVoxell]

>Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world.

So has Christianity and Capitalism.

[fragmede]

And then there's math.

[MomsAVoxell]

Yes, that's definitely done a few numbers.

[miroljub]

Whataboutism

[MomsAVoxell]

No, "so-has'ism". Not whataboutism.