Why Are Muslim Countries Poorer?

[Loofydralb]

yes you did.

I'm not here to give a long lecture so I will try to keep it short and simple.

I try and find universal truths. Those which are not affected by factionalism. i.e. those that do not ask me to divide me and others on some arbitrary basis such as race or religion or even species. Those truths that no matter what happens will always remain true because truth is something that is not divisible nor negotiable unless you are making false claims. Truths such as the sun rises from the east and water runs downhill and fire will burn you.

One of these is the golden rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

Another is equitable treatment.

A simple truth is every human has feelings and every human has to live a life until they pass on. Most humans have generally the same feelings. Exceptions will not be covered in this post.

So let's apply this to the following example. Say if you wanted an apple that fell from a tree and your brother saw it at the same time, what would be the best course of action. Keep it for yourself? Fight him for it? What if only he saw it? Should he keep it from me? So on and so forth.

As a starter, if you use the golden rule and balance that with equitable treatment, it progresses onto other things which I am not going to get into.

Abrahamic religions ignore and trample on the golden rule by definition. There is always the loyal believer and the outsider only worthy of death, enslavement and disrespect. The original is in the Torah and how goyim should be treated. Goyim includes all Muslims because they are not born to Jewish mothers. In Christianity's history, this has also been ignored because heathens are animals not worthy of being treated as humans. Now it's kafir the unbeliever. And please don't tell me what books say what because history is full of real-life examples.

Kafir, heathen or goyim, these people all have mothers, fathers, families, feelings and people they love who love them back. Should because they don't subscribe to a certain religion be subjected to all this inhumane treatment? Bombing of the Middle East? Beheading of kafirs? Raids on the West Bank?

As I said, Islam fails this test because like all Abrahamic religions, it relies on the specialness of it's teachings and it's followers. You are the only right teaching and the one's who follow are the only right followers. Everyone else is wrong. That's Jewish religious philosophy for you and precisely what justified them setting up Israel in the 1st place as an example. Change the faction name and the same thinking easily applies to Christianity and Islam. Even piece of shit communism is based on this specialness and rightness.

As a historical fact, it has been used to abuse many people. Many times. And no way will I subscribe to anything that has special treatment for one bunch of people derived solely at the expense of another bunch of people. This is why with this kind of thinking there will never be peace.

And why I always find it funny that you are always fighting johntan. He thinks he's from the right faction as do you. Neither of you are willing to see each other as the same. And if you're sunni, you will be fighting a shia. or a jew. or a kafir. because you are more right, they are wrong.

Can give an example of one morality that you think is the truth and will never change.

 

[syed putra]

I know I'm lucky. Everybody not in the Middle East or Africa is lucky. I don't care which religion you belong to. Those places are hell-holes.

You haven't been to middfle east yet. The climate is luvly. Outside of arabian peninsular. Food is limited to just kebabs, shwarmas, fahsah either eaten with fragrant rice or bread. With salad.
The West does not want a revival of a Arab empire. Hence the many small countries were created when ottomsn empire surrendered. And if they see a recalcitrant leader, that country will be bombed to smithereens for no reason at all. Middle east is the birth of Western civilization. This was where rome and greece got their food from.

Same can be said about Germany. The West does not want a revival of a super strong industrial germany. Hence Russia was targeted to stop import of cheap lng. Let's see how future germans react when their industries shift elsewhere more competitive.

 

[JohnTan]

Could Islam be the cause of it?

Reason: islam.

 

[syed putra]

Reason: islam.

Nope. Geograpy snd location

 

[duluxe]

Can give an example of one morality that you think is the truth and will never change.

You are daft to believe morality originated from a desert religion. Great civilizations exists thousands of year before islam.

 

[Loofydralb]

You are daft to believe morality originated from a desert religion. Great civilizations exists thousands of year before islam.

Why do you conflate morality and civilisations.
There are civilization that are immoral.

 

[duluxe]

Why do you conflate morality and civilisations.
There are civilization that are immoral.

Can you cite an example?

Can you also explain why a prophet who broke his own rules is a moral role model.

 

[Loofydralb]

Can you cite an example?

Can you also explain why a prophet who broke his own rules is a moral role model.

Mongols and Romans are examples.

The rules governing the prophets throughout history are different from us.
Many examples too in the bible.
But Quran the document that will govern us till end of time remains unchanged.

 

[duluxe]

Mongols and Romans are examples.

The rules governing the prophets throughout history are different from us.
Many examples too in the bible.
But Quran the document that will govern us till end of time remains unchanged.

It is interesting you mentioned mongols and romans.

Mongol is not considered as one of the great ancient civilization. These 2 countries are not related to ancient Malay Archipelago. I always say malay kids should go full time madrasah to study islamic history instead of secular history. These 2 histories are off each other.

@syed putra , you think why he mentioned these 2?

 

[syed putra]

It is interesting you mentioned mongols and romans.

Mongol is not considered as one of the great ancient civilization. These 2 countries are not related to ancient Malay Archipelago. I always say malay kids should go full time madrasah to study islamic history instead of secular history. These 2 histories are off each other.

@syed putra , you think why he mentioned these 2?

Which two?

 

[duluxe]

Which two?

mongol and roman empires, these two were not in south east asia. He doesn't study secular history?

 

[syed putra]

South East Asia was a region nobody wanted except indians for some strange reason.
The Arabs and Persians ignored South East Asia on their way to china. Only 700 years later did Malays become Muslims. Around the time of cheng ho visit. Around 1400 AD. But first mosque in guanzhou was built . Malays use sultanate meaning Turkish/ india influence. If Arab, it would be emir, or caliph. Indian, that would be raja.

 

[nightsafari]

Can give an example of one morality that you think is the truth and will never change.

what you ask is actually a trick question. but I believe I can give you an answer you are looking for. please follow till the end. I will do my best to answer your question first, then I will give my personal opinion which I hope you find useful.

Truths cannot be denied and are absolute. As I mentioned earlier examples, here's another to clarify the point. To be typing this as a human, we need a beating heart. Without a beating heart you or I cannot be typing this. Just a lifeless piece of meat. 100% infallible. You can check for yourself right now how many bpm.

Morality by it's very nature is derived from a few elements by their very nature are not absolutes but relatives. The major elements involve life itself, emotions and social relations. Per life itself : When you kill a chicken to eat it, you are valuing your life above the chicken's. How can you absolutely value one life over another? Well you devalue the chicken's life, so your morality now makes it acceptable for you to kill a chicken for chicken rice, KFC or for kari ayam. Tastes delicious but costs a life. Because the reward to us is so tasty and so filling, we make that unconscious choice that the chicken's life is of no consequence. But suppose for a minute that the chicken was larger than us and found us tasty. What then? The chicken would eat us. We would now be really upset now that the tables are turned. So in the first case, most people find it moral to eat a chicken, but allowing a chicken to eat one of us would be unthinkable. How do you get an absolute truth out of this other than for the conclusion that it's all about who has more power and nothing to do with morality?

I don't want to type too much so I'm compressing this example. Per emotions and social relations: You and your child love playing in this stream. After a long time doing so, you learn that someone has come along and bought the land and demanded that you stop doing so and never trespass again. How to give an absolute answer for morality in this case? The land was available for sale. You never bought it and just enjoyed it because the previous owner chose not to bar you from it. It was a lucky privilege. If you demand the right to use that stream, you are denying the guy his right to enjoy his stream in peace bought with who knows how much blood, sweat and tears. If you chose to spend all your time playing in the stream instead of working to own the land it's in how can you now determine who's right? You for your pure joy in this stream or the other guy who worked to own it? And for all you know or don't know, he's enjoying it even more or even less than you.

So short conclusion is that morality is determined based on lots of factors that are not absolute. To use the previous example, if every family had 30 streams to play in, no problem. But what happens when 30 families have 1 to play in? This is when morality comes into play. And because different parts of the world had different environments and different pressures, moralities WILL differ.

I give you an easy example. Moralities between the Chinese and Malays will always differ. Why? Because they come from 2 different environments. One is historically a plain-dwelling farmer and the other is historically a jungle-dwelling hunter-gatherer. Because of the surplus food production of the Chinese, they had time and resources to grow a massive population, technology and social structure where competing against one another was the prime mode of operation. Whereas the Malays with less food and resource surpluses stuck to their lower level of population that stressed co-operation instead of competition for survival. Because of this, the two races can never easily understand each other. So who has the more "truthful" morality? They both are. To their environments.

Once you have too many people as we have now, all these different impulses and moralities will conflict. Let's not forget to to mention that individual humans vary in emotions. Some feel more, some less, some murderous, some protective and so on.


Given all the noise I've just produced above, I will state that for my personal answer generally speaking, the greatest crime against morality is killing. A very close second is violence against another person, whether it's physical or sexual. Then you have your property crimes. I believe these to be to the list that's valid.

Now that I've said that, I will give examples that counter my opinion to show you that it is not an absolute. These are "crimes" against reputation. Most people in this part of the world will sue each other to ruin for defamation. I think it's garbage and an excuse for emptiness and vindictiveness. It should not be against any morality to question another's reputation. You questioned mine earlier, so what? I'm prepared to answer for myself. Another example is that for some parts of the world, physical violence between men is considered normal and theft is worse. For other parts sexual violence against women is nothing compared to theft. These I believe to be wrong.

My basis for this is that what I believe are true crimes are the ones that make people sad, really sad. Whereas everything else that upsets you or angers you is just a primate (monkey) reaction to defending your territory or "rights". Understandable if you're an animal. This is the best I can do to come to an absolute with all these relativities.

So if I have a Bible or a Koran or a Torah, it would read something like this : Don't make people sad for nothing. Make people happy (absence of sadness). To make people happier, you sometimes have to go through and put up with hard times. Other times, just trying to be happy without work involved will lead to sadness. And importantly, don't mistake greed, lust, avarice etc, etc, as happiness, but rather happiness is an absence of sadness-inducing events or conditions. And sometimes, some people just want to make other people sad no matter what. These are your criminals against morality.

This won't be popular because it's too simple and barely even a paragraph, but it is my best answer after all the searching I've done. Hope you find it of use.

 

[Loofydralb]

what you ask is actually a trick question. but I believe I can give you an answer you are looking for. please follow till the end. I will do my best to answer your question first, then I will give my personal opinion which I hope you find useful.

Truths cannot be denied and are absolute. As I mentioned earlier examples, here's another to clarify the point. To be typing this as a human, we need a beating heart. Without a beating heart you or I cannot be typing this. Just a lifeless piece of meat. 100% infallible. You can check for yourself right now how many bpm.

Morality by it's very nature is derived from a few elements by their very nature are not absolutes but relatives. The major elements involve life itself, emotions and social relations. Per life itself : When you kill a chicken to eat it, you are valuing your life above the chicken's. How can you absolutely value one life over another? Well you devalue the chicken's life, so your morality now makes it acceptable for you to kill a chicken for chicken rice, KFC or for kari ayam. Tastes delicious but costs a life. Because the reward to us is so tasty and so filling, we make that unconscious choice that the chicken's life is of no consequence. But suppose for a minute that the chicken was larger than us and found us tasty. What then? The chicken would eat us. We would now be really upset now that the tables are turned. So in the first case, most people find it moral to eat a chicken, but allowing a chicken to eat one of us would be unthinkable. How do you get an absolute truth out of this other than for the conclusion that it's all about who has more power and nothing to do with morality?

I don't want to type too much so I'm compressing this example. Per emotions and social relations: You and your child love playing in this stream. After a long time doing so, you learn that someone has come along and bought the land and demanded that you stop doing so and never trespass again. How to give an absolute answer for morality in this case? The land was available for sale. You never bought it and just enjoyed it because the previous owner chose not to bar you from it. It was a lucky privilege. If you demand the right to use that stream, you are denying the guy his right to enjoy his stream in peace bought with who knows how much blood, sweat and tears. If you chose to spend all your time playing in the stream instead of working to own the land it's in how can you now determine who's right? You for your pure joy in this stream or the other guy who worked to own it? And for all you know or don't know, he's enjoying it even more or even less than you.

So short conclusion is that morality is determined based on lots of factors that are not absolute. To use the previous example, if every family had 30 streams to play in, no problem. But what happens when 30 families have 1 to play in? This is when morality comes into play. And because different parts of the world had different environments and different pressures, moralities WILL differ.

I give you an easy example. Moralities between the Chinese and Malays will always differ. Why? Because they come from 2 different environments. One is historically a plain-dwelling farmer and the other is historically a jungle-dwelling hunter-gatherer. Because of the surplus food production of the Chinese, they had time and resources to grow a massive population, technology and social structure where competing against one another was the prime mode of operation. Whereas the Malays with less food and resource surpluses stuck to their lower level of population that stressed co-operation instead of competition for survival. Because of this, the two races can never easily understand each other. So who has the more "truthful" morality? They both are. To their environments.

Once you have too many people as we have now, all these different impulses and moralities will conflict. Let's not forget to to mention that individual humans vary in emotions. Some feel more, some less, some murderous, some protective and so on.


Given all the noise I've just produced above, I will state that for my personal answer generally speaking, the greatest crime against morality is killing. A very close second is violence against another person, whether it's physical or sexual. Then you have your property crimes. I believe these to be to the list that's valid.

Now that I've said that, I will give examples that counter my opinion to show you that it is not an absolute. These are "crimes" against reputation. Most people in this part of the world will sue each other to ruin for defamation. I think it's garbage and an excuse for emptiness and vindictiveness. It should not be against any morality to question another's reputation. You questioned mine earlier, so what? I'm prepared to answer for myself. Another example is that for some parts of the world, physical violence between men is considered normal and theft is worse. For other parts sexual violence against women is nothing compared to theft. These I believe to be wrong.

My basis for this is that what I believe are true crimes are the ones that make people sad, really sad. Whereas everything else that upsets you or angers you is just a primate (monkey) reaction to defending your territory or "rights". Understandable if you're an animal. This is the best I can do to come to an absolute with all these relativities.

So if I have a Bible or a Koran or a Torah, it would read something like this : Don't make people sad for nothing. Make people happy (absence of sadness). To make people happier, you sometimes have to go through and put up with hard times. Other times, just trying to be happy without work involved will lead to sadness. And importantly, don't mistake greed, lust, avarice etc, etc, as happiness, but rather happiness is an absence of sadness-inducing events or conditions. And sometimes, some people just want to make other people sad no matter what. These are your criminals against morality.

This won't be popular because it's too simple and barely even a paragraph, but it is my best answer after all the searching I've done. Hope you find it of use.

So am I right to say that your morality, at least, has the traits and character to shift like the sand. So again, I get it.

In the Quran the only act we must abide is to worship one. Not to make ourselves or others happy if we should want deviate from that one worship or not.
So in essence Muslims have no morality that we craft on our own. We get it from a book we believe will guide us. Free from any more human defect.

 

[Likemeat]

I know I'm lucky. Everybody not in the Middle East or Africa is lucky. I don't care which religion you belong to. Those places are hell-holes.

Islam means total submission and obedience to Allah swt. We need Allah. Not vice-versa. The time will come when you breathe your last breath, the angel of death will snatch away your soul. It will be too late for repentance. Dont say i didnt warn you.

"And if you could see when the angels take away the souls of those who disbelieve (at death), they smite their faces and their backs, (saying): "Taste the punishment of the blazing Fire. This is because of that which your hands had forwarded. And verily, Allâh is not unjust to His slaves." (Q8:50-51)

 

[Loofydralb]

It is interesting you mentioned mongols and romans.

Mongol is not considered as one of the great ancient civilization. These 2 countries are not related to ancient Malay Archipelago. I always say malay kids should go full time madrasah to study islamic history instead of secular history. These 2 histories are off each other.

@syed putra , you think why he mentioned these 2?

ok. Just mention any civilisation. You will find an immorality in their practise somewhere.

 

[duluxe]

South East Asia was a region nobody wanted except indians for some strange reason.
The Arabs and Persians ignored South East Asia on their way to china. Only 700 years later did Malays become Muslims. Around the time of cheng ho visit. Around 1400 AD. But first mosque in guanzhou was built . Malays use sultanate meaning Turkish/ india influence. If Arab, it would be emir, or caliph. Indian, that would be raja.

You answer is correct, but not what I have in mind. The muuds are more well versed with arabian history than their own ancient Malay Archipelago.

Romans had several bloody conflicts with the ancient arabs.
Genghis Khan's army had mutilated the ancient arabs.

 

[syed putra]

Islam means total submission and obedience to Allah swt. We need Allah. Not vice-versa. The time will come when you breathe your last breath, the angel of death will snatch away your soul. It will be too late for repentance. Dont say i didnt warn you.

"And if you could see when the angels take away the souls of those who disbelieve (at death), they smite their faces and their backs, (saying): "Taste the punishment of the blazing Fire. This is because of that which your hands had forwarded. And verily, Allâh is not unjust to His slaves." (Q8:50-51)

The submission exclude rituals. The order was to be just and righteous. No killing. Tell the truth even if it implicates your loved ones.

 

[glockman]

I chanced upon this video by the brilliant Neil deGrasse Tyson, explaining why and how the middle east fucked up. Hint : Islam.

 

[superpower]

The submission exclude rituals. The order was to be just and righteous. No killing. Tell the truth even if it implicates your loved ones.

Well said.