This is a pretty bullshit reading of the comment you replied to, which was about the nature of "rights" as a social agreement rather than something natural.

People are allowed to have different values and opinions. Hubris is believing western morality is self evidently superior to everything else that exists.

For example, what’s Kantian ethics?

> It states that an action can only be moral if (i) it is motivated by a sense of duty and (ii) its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.

If I autopsy a dead body, am I going to find any evidence of those things in there? Can you empirically prove the categorical imperative?

Moreover, “secular morality” in practice is typically just the moral philosophy of the dominant religion with the supernatural elements removed. My dad isn’t a believer, but thinks choosing not to have children is immoral. Why? Maybe it’s because his parents were devout Muslims and having children is an important obligation in Islam. Similarly, it’s amusing to observe how many professed atheists really just believe in the Christian social gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel) without Jesus.

I’m not saying that’s bad. But you have to understand how deeply intertwined even seemingly secular western thought is with Christianity, and doesn’t easily translate to other parts of the world.

But we also can’t underestimate the impact of: 1) abundant energy sources—initially wood and then coal that could power machinery. 2) a scientific tradition with engineering applications in mind. 3) the Black Plague that let people just drop their scythes and move to the city to become tradesmen and earn a better living. 4) the Common Law tradition placing property rights and the right to contract on near-sacred grounds. 5) Access to abundant fishing off the coast of what became North America.

I don't think there's any one thing we can point to explain the rise of West, it's a confluence of factors that I'm very grateful happened before I was born

Joseph Henrich says it’s the medieval church’s prohibition on cousin marriage, which dissolved the strong kinship bonds that dominate the rest of the world. He has a book on the subject called The WEIRDest People In The World which is good.

University level international relations courses generally start on the 30years war, I feel it is appropriate for that to be considered "the rough start" of "honest to god modernity" yeah

The Black Death increased labour’s bargaining power right before the Industrial Revolution. It’s a lucky set of quirks that gave Enlightenment-era ideas fertile soil to land on.

Indonesia and Malaysia, for two.

> Please point me to a democratic, secular islamic nation.

Western style democracy and secularism are contradictory with Islam. To us, it is not a measure of success or prosperity. On a side note, there aren't really any fully Islamic states today - practically all of them have remnants (or more active engagement) of Western colonization and influence. I'm sure you're aware of how things have been after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate.

Honest question, how does Jordan fare in democracy?

And for corruption and unemployment, they are much worse now than before. Then more than half the country are under poverty line, most of middle class became lower class in a couple of years.

There were no particular reason why the uprising happened, of course some people joined because of that. But this wasn't my reason (or majority of people I know).

Islam still grants inalienable rights to people that are almost lost in the West. For example: the inalienable right to privacy. Spying on people in their homes is strictly forbidden in Shari'ah, regardless of whether it's the government doing it or anyone. This concept was unheard of in Western Europe until Islam came.

Also, the idea of war crimes. Western Europeans believed that war justifies any and all cruelty to the enemy. The West still believes that, actually, even if they have signed treaties, you can see it in their actions (Libya Iraq, etc.). They learned the idea of wartime ethics through contact with the Muslims during the Crusades.

Belief in equality of opportunity is also Islamic in nature. The Greeks didn't even believe that. Aristotle and other Greek philosophers held that certain races of people were just born for slavery. This is what inspired the Christians to start the triangular slave trade and establish the race-based caste system in the Americas.

When I study European history, it makes me realize that the Dark Age was not a pause in European history like we thought, but a reset. That's because the population of Europe had been almost completely replaced. And there were many other resets before and after that one. Europe was constantly being overrun and devastated over the centuries. So those new people (Goths, Huns, Norse, etc.) who came in were not literate people, but just going off of their own traditions and whatever they learned by way of contact with their nearest neighbor civilization, who in the Age of Exploration, happened to be Muslim.

One of the cornerstones of Scythian and German civilization was this idea of dual rule, where you have one rule for war and one rule for peace. I believe this transformed into the idea of emergency powers in Western civilization. So all the freedoms you think you have are just conditional on whether or not the rulers deem it necessary to override them.

An Islamic government is severely restricted from doing most of the oppressive acts we take for granted our states will do in the West (like levying high taxes, restricting commerce, etc.), in both war and peace. If a ruler came with an idea like eminent domain, he was challenged and stopped by the scholars of Shari'ah (talking about pre-colonial times). In the West, no one challenges eminent domain.

I was looking at the sibling subthread and can tell it's a morass, but I'll just say this. Emergency powers override all freedoms. And under majority rule, minorities often do not have any way to ensure their rights will be respected by the majority.

I might as well commit suicide if I have to go there. If they find out, I would be stoned probably immediately. Or, I've got a collection of pictures of what they do using knives - "Et tu Brute" style.

I would consider going to a Sufi controlled area. At least they have some semblance of sense.

Parent comment did not use this word

Don't be an asshole

Ask anybody in the streets about their opinions of gays, and you shall get your answer.

It may be fundamental freedom for you, but for them its an outrageous act that deserves punishment.

Don't like it, don't stay there, simple.

Romanian law: Law 107 of 2006. UK: you can even find even lawyer's explanations for that prayer thing, with full details, just look for it.

Please explain how most of European countries, for example, have free speech. Most don't, Australia and Canada don't, who is left ... China or North Korea?