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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Khatami: 'Islam Encourages Emulating Others Without Losing Islamic Identity' | |
| 2004-06-06 | |
At the International Conference on the Islamic Republic and Future Outlook, held in Tehran, Iranian President Muhammad Khatamisaid, "Islam encourages people to emulate others without losing their Islamic identity. Thus, we can make use of the achievements of the West, and overcome our shortcomings in various areas
" He added, "We must defend the principle of democracy, which is one of the goals of the Islamic Revolution. This is because defending Islam does not mean rejecting democracy and freedom." Unlike Khatami, who spoke in favor or borrowing Western values and integrating them into Islamic culture, Iranian Culture and Guidance Minister Ahmad Masjid-Jamai said, also at the conference, that "the Islamic Republic regime is a great political phenomenon of the contemporary world, and a living example of the defeat of Western methods and ideas."
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 "Emulate" Pfeh, not likely. "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."-Twain |
| Posted by: .com 2004-06-06 11:24:16 PM |
| #1 Does anyone else think that Islamic speeches and apologists use a lot of logically impossible ideas? I don't think you can use the technology and advances of the West properly without adopting some of their systems. This is not cultural imperialism, but rather a recognition of the fact that something like a computer is the culmination of a thousand different contributions of a thousand different minds in a thousand different fields over thousands of years. Western society produces these kinds of products because we allow for the free thinking and inquiry which leads to discovery, to research, to knowledge. You ain't gonna find anything like that in the Qu'ran. On its own, the Muslim world could never have come up with half of the stuff the West has, because it simply does not have the free thought infrastructure that makes our own civilization possible. And you cannot integrate the technologies without either accepting some of the ideas or perverting them - and with the latter, eventually people are going to notice and not be very happy. |
| Posted by: The Doctor 2004-06-06 10:54:40 PM |