TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY Birth and spread of Islam
But after 800 years again, another religion came onto the scene and that was due to the birth of Mohammad, and he too talked about another world, and he advocated conquering peoples and establishing his religion. His followers did exactly that, but they also discovered Aristotle’s works and translated them in Arabic. Thus Greek thought was again brought back in the world and paved the way for the Renaissance in the next millennium.
Then the 2 bloodiest wars took place in the world, the world war 1 and the world war 2 . The second world war was rooted in absurd beliefs held by Hitler that no one opposed. As stated the age of reason and enlightenment had ended.
Since then we have witnessed the inevitable fall of Russia as communism is utterly and absurdly impractical. But the modern Philosophy is still entrenched and it is a nihilistic thought, that man cannot hold. So many experts say that slowly religion is going to come again, and there are clear signs and people will accept it because as we have seen for people as such, some philosophy, even religion, is better that NOTHING!
A NEW CYCLE WILL BEGIN, A NEW MORE TERRIBLE DARK AGES ARE FORETOLD, AND IT HAS TO HAPPEN, AS WE HAVE LEARNT OR RATHER NOT LEARNT FROM HISTORY!
TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY Anti Intellectual Ideas and Communism and imperialism
But alas! Man did not fully understand the importance in Philosophical terms what he had achieved. Science had developed. Religion had lost its political power but mysticism, the unknown nature of life and existence, that which haunted man all along his history, still remained in man, and a series of modern philosophers came on the scene and said that if god is not, then nothing is certain.
The world is unknowable, as such, and a thinker, the most influential of the modern philosophers, KANT, said that we can never know reality because we were bound by our senses. The reality was seen with the lenses of our senses and THAT IS WHY we can never know reality. Such a grotesque attack was unchallenged and he did it in the name of enlightenment!
Notice that most of the later philosophers and writers couldn't leave the "otherworldly" beliefs.
It is still true, even today.
Slowly ....in a century or two, in Philosophy this came to be accepted and many other Philosophers too said equally absurd things denying that man had a mind at all and that we were living in a world!!
Philosophy reached a dead end, and during this time, a social, political and economical model came into popularity called communism and socialism.
This was done by Marx. Marx said that the state should rule men, that capitalism was evil, and in fact this was brought into reality in soviet Russia by the Russian revolution.
By this time many countries had formed and the industrial revolution had taken place and the British empire had conquered many lands. Man had not yet understood, that conquest is unnecessary and political power and economic power are different.
Renaissance, Scientific revolution, Reformation and Enlightenment
Christianity ironically produced during this time a thinker who championed ARISTOTLE! His name was Thomas Aquinas. Though he gave arguments for God, he accepted all of Arstotle’s tenets and laid the questioning seeds of his own Religion, Christianity.
The world was witnessing a resurgence, a renaissance.
It started with the great art movements with pioneers like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci and others.
People realised that they are supreme, that man and this world needs to be understood, and then came the scientific revolution and this time with full observations and experimentation. Thus Inductive method took central stage, thanks mainly to Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo but especially due to Newton who made breathtaking and astounding generalizations and proved them and showed what IS proof!
He discovered the laws of motion and gravitation not on earth alone but as applied to the whole world, he made heaven and earth one and obviously weakened the religious fairy tales, in the world at large.
Slowly, as centuries passed, science came up with more and more and more discoveries, in electricity, magnetism, fluids, atomic structure of matter, heat, in the causes of chemical reactions, the classification of all elements in a periodic table,processes in living thins --astounding discoveries were made and man came of age.
Then slowly the kingly rule too was challenged and Christianity too, via Reformation of Church. There were the American and French revolutions. These proclaimed that Man had rights as an individual and right means nobody could take away his right to life, freedom and to work.
This was enshrined in especially the American constitution and a great secular, man centric country came into being. Man had finally learnt how to organise himself, and capitalism was born, rooted in man’s rights and not the collective rights or God.
A master sent his Servant to buy the best-tasting pears. The Servant came to the shop and asked for pears. The dealer gave him some; but the Servant said:
"No, give me the best!"
The dealer said:
"Try one; you will see that they taste good."
"How shall I know," said the Servant, "that they all taste good, if I try one only?"
He bit off a piece from each pear, and brought them to his master. Then his master sent him away.