The Answer is Secularism

From:  "Sam Ghandchi" <ghandchi@yahoo.com>

Date:  Sat Mar 30, 2002  2:49 pm

Subject:  The Answer is Secularism

Of course the goal is not to insult Islam to the benefit of any other religion or ideology. Although I am glad to learn of some elements that are *specific* to Islam in the works of people like Ibn Warraq and Anwar Shaikh, but frankly Islam is not basically much different from Christianity or many other religions and ideologies. The difference is basically the success of secularism in the West and its defeat in the Islamic countries and this has a myriad of reasons. Please see below some notes of St. Augustine's ideas which are not much different from many Islamic theologians. As you may know, St. Augustine was a follower of Persian prophet Mani before becoming a major Christian theologian. I quoted these a while back in my following article on a related subject:

http://www.ghandchi.com/12-Islamic_Heritage.htm

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Notes on Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church, the ecclesiastical reform of the Eleventh Century, and formation of the General Councils, paved the way for scholars such as St.Thomas Aquinas and William of Occam (do you remember Occam's razor in logic?) to grow.  Before then, the occupation of the Catholic fathers was issues of chastity of virgins and the prohibitions of married couples' intercourse before Sunday mass, or the sin of suicide.

For example, six centuries before the reforms, St.Augustine in his "City of God" (410-412 AD) has a hard time to prove why suicide is a sin, when he is reminded of Samson's suicide.

He finally says that Samson was an exception. When the virgins in Rome, were raped by the Goths, St. Augustine did not know what to say about the guilt of the women who lost virginity, so he solved it by saying virginity is in your mind and if you did not feel pleasure when raped then you are OK.

St. Augustine also states that if you have had intercourse the previous night, you cannot enter the church.

At any rate, the works of the people like St. Thomas Aquinas and William of Occam put an end to all these nonsensical occupations of the Catholic Church and the Church started to become more interested in more interesting issues of natural and social sciences.

Of course their work was not easy and for example Occam was summoned by the Church for charges of heresy, etc.

Actually there are Catholic fathers today who follow the tradition of St Thomas Aquinas and they are great contributors to human thought.  For example, see Father Frederick Copleston's "A History of Philosophy" which is one of the best works in the field and Copleston is a Jesuit father.

My sources have been mostly Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" and Frederick Copleston's "A History of Philosophy" that are in a way written from two opposite viewpoints.

Sincerely,

- Sam