I don’t want to pollute this dicussion with my own views much, so I will simply link you to this guy:
As said above, I do know quite a lot about the vid - but will say nothing until a good number of some other views are expressed for the above pollution reason.
(P.S. To actually understand what he is saying you should watch him to the end. Watching him for a minute or two will give a very distorted viewpoint)
I’m an Israeli Jew. I’m atheist. First impression - didn’t like this video. I should have been pleased but I’m not. Can’t say why, there was no factual falsehood. His style was offensive, maybe. I will sleep on this and be back.
“Watch this video, then we’ll discuss it.”
I don’t want to fucking watch a fucking video, just to find out what the discussion should be about. Couldn’t you at least give a fucking summary? You know, to maybe tell me why I should spend the time to watch your fucking video?
ETA: Most fucking videos in OPs like this are not worth the time spent watching them. Why is your fucking video different?
We really need to start banning people who pull this sort of bullshit.
From Wiki:
The video is a six-minute ramble about anti-semitism, starting in Europe, where its recent resurgence is apparently the fault of Muslims, whom he doesn’t like much. He doesn’t like some of the things Israel does, but doesn’t blame them very much. He thinks Jews, as a people, have contributed more to the world than Muslims, to whom he gives no credit at all. He thinks the International Jewish Conspiracy is horseshit, but thinks he’d rather have it be true than have Muslims in charge. He thinks that Israel has a right to exist, and that there needs to be a Jewish state (though he regards this necessity as a result of anti-semitism and a stain on humanity), but that Israel is in the worst possible location, though it’s too late to do anything about that now. He regards any religious motivation as idiocy, including those of Israel’s actions that are so motivated. He asserts that Muslims can’t expect to be treated as equals until they “drag themselves into the 21st century” and give up their obsession with Israel and with Jews in general. And he thinks a lot of people are idiots.
Dar al-Islam was once the world’s highest civilization west of China. It was far in advance of Christian Europe in philosophy, science, mathematics, medicine, art, literature, scholarship, and architecture. (Never in music. Their music was always crap.) Europe did not even start to pull ahead until the Renaissance, fueled at least partly by rediscovery of ancient Greek classics which the Islamic world had preserved long after the West had lost them.
As for the Jews, they gave the world . . . Islam. And Christianity. Not a good track record. 
And Bar Refaeli. That’s got to count in their favor.
I’ve heard that for decades, believed it myself, but is that established fact? Or is their some dispute among historians about that?
Sasha Baron Cohen. How could you miss that ?
I found his rant entertaining - my only objection is I’d’ve like some cites for various claims, i.e. when he talks about a specific incident, show a headline or two about it.
One minor correction I’d make is his claim regarding Hamas. It’s not true that what the fundamentalist Muslim membership of Hamas hates most is Jews. When the fundamentalist Muslim membership of Hamas hates most is Muslims that aren’t fundamentalist enough, or aren’t fundamentalist in the right way. Jews are a close second, but they’re mainly the excuse needed to purge and oppress the population under Hamas control.
I have no intention of watching the video or any other video since my position is that anyone who doesn’t have the mental ability to put their thoughts down in the form of a cogent and written argument doesn’t deserve a single second of my time.
Now if the people who want to use youtube as a means of reaching the illeritate masses are also able to provide something to those of us who CAN read and have some level of critical reasoning, that’s fine. However that never seems to be the case.
Well aren’t we the precious little snowflake? I suppose you wouldn’t dream of watching Lazy Cat on a Treadmill without an 800-page dissertation on feline depression.
Not if it’s trying to make a political, philosophical or other rational argument - which I assume it ISN’T my fellow snowflake.
Yes.
No.
Can we get a Board Rule that posting a video and inviting conversation without a summary or any actual discussion of it in the OP results in an immediate locking of the thread and a possible mod warning?
As others have noted, there’s no dispute about it.
In fact, beyond preserving classics, Renaissance Italian mathematics got a big boost from across the Med.
If you include claiming to have a “secret” opinion to be revealed later, I’ll second the motion.
There is some dispute about aspects of this argument. Mostly on the European side, the idea that Christian Europe had “regressed” and did not socially, philosophically, artistically, or technologically advance after the fall of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance is widely dismissed now, and many historians even now try to avoid common terms for these eras. (For example the Dark Ages is widely disliked as a term, Medieval is considered pseudo-derogatory, and even “Middle Ages” is by some said to imply it was a period in between two more important periods.)
This also ignores the Byzantines who were at least partly European and definitely Christian. Not to mention large swathes of the historical Muslim controlled world actually remained Christian for many years. (For example Egypt was majority Coptic for 600 years after being conquered by Muslims.)
Even during the Roman Empire probably the center of the most learning and progress was more toward the Eastern part of the Empire, Greece, Anatolia and Egypt were always centers of science and learning and were simply much more civilized than much of the Western Roman Empire. So in reality there was never really a “regression” to a degree most assume in the bulk of Christian Europe, instead it should be understood Western Europe under the Romans was always more heavily populated by barbarian tribes versus much more established civilized societies in the Middle East / North Africa / Anatolia. When the Western Empire fell and the Christian rulers that succeeded it took over they weren’t instantly less civilized than the day before when they were subjects of Rome or anything, they just remained less civilized and developed than peoples to the East. Central Europe / Eastern Europe were Christianized later and were even more primitive at the fall.
During the Muslim conquest / expansion they inherited a lot of the technological / educational / etc infrastructure of this region and continued to build on it.
Meanwhile in Western Europe steady progress was seen over time, a few things were genuinely lost like some of the engineering capacities of the Romans, but much of that focused on things that Western Europeans no longer needed in a highly decentralized feudal system. (Massive temples with unsupported domes for example have no place in a small time feudal lord’s demesne.) Throughout this period up until the Renaissance you did have a steady advance in philosophy, agricultural science, military technology etc. It’s undeniable in many artistic fields things didn’t really seem to advance very much for a long time, but I just think this classical view that Europe fell into darkness after the Romans fell and was brought to glory by the Renaissance just isn’t accurate.
Now, it’s wholly accurate that the Islamic world, which started very close to some of the oldest and most established centers of science and learning, was more advanced at this time. But I think the impression that Western Europe did anything but progress during this time is simply incorrect. Western Europe started less progressed than the regions that fell under Muslim rule and in truth the Renaissance, while celebrated both in its own time and later by artists and thinkers, was questionable as a time of progress. There was great economic stagnation, massive wars that destroyed far greater amounts of wealth than anything seen in the “Middle Ages” and general societal instability in many countries. The true rocket ship of advancement for Europe was the enlightenment, because it entirely changed the way humans thought about science and advancement and directly lead to the industrial revolution and a head start on that phase of development that the non-Western world has simply never caught up with since.
Note that the original statement was that Europe didn’t “pull ahead” until the Renaissance. Maybe it took them a little longer than that, but the related posts are substantively true and don’t actually imply any regression.
But your post is well taken all the same.
It’s true, and he left out another important point of comparison between Middle Age Christian and Muslim countries: when Jews were driven out of Christian countries, they often found refuge in Muslim countries.