Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 August 15

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August 15

Islamization in Ancient Mongolia

Why the arabs and other muslims didn't islamize ancient Mongolia, but islamize Central Asia and islamize some people in China? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 01:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

This is an interesting question and one for which I don't have an authoritative answer. However, if you take a look at our articles Islam in Mongolia and Buddhism in Mongolia, you will find pieces of the answer. I would suggest that Islam has always been primarily an urban religion, and that until recent times, the Mongols were a people without cities. (China and Central Asia, by contrast, have a strong urban tradition dating back to pre-Islamic times.) Certainly, nomadic Arabs and Berbers embraced Islam, but the centers of Islamic learning and religious culture were always cities: first Medina and Mecca, then Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, and others across the Islamic world. Buddhism took root in a number of regions with little urbanization, such as Tibet, in part because of its monastic culture, which created centers of religious learning and culture in dispersed rural locations. I think that it is no accident that Mongolia adopted the very monastic Tibetan version of Buddhism. I suspect that Islam might have caught on among the Mongols if the Mongols had remained in control of the cities of northern China, which could have become centers of a Mongolian Muslim culture. However, they were driven out of those cities in the 14th century and returned to nomadism and shamanism. Mongolian tribal leaders later introduced Tibetan Buddhism, which they used to legitimize their rule. They set up monasteries around Mongolia, and Buddhism became an integral part of Mongolian culture. Marco polo (talk) 02:18, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

There was some Islamization in the general greater Mongolia area, but this was followed by spread of Buddhism. According to The Rise of the West by William H. McNeill:

"These Russian successes in the western steppe and in the Siberian forests, together with the progress of Lamaism in the central and eastern steppe, combined to roll back the northern frontier of Islam very substantially in the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries. The great Moslem powers made no serious efforts to check this trend of events. Persia, the natural guardian of the gate upon the central steppe, was heavily engaged against the Ottoman empire and had no energy to spare; while the Uzbek empire of Bokhara, by espousing a rigid and narrow Sunni orthodoxy, effectively repressed the Sufi missonary spirit which in previous centuries had won for Islam its main successes among the steppe peoples. ... The cultural and religious vacuum thus created was duly filled by Tibetan Lamaism."

-- AnonMoos (talk) 02:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible that they just weren't very interested in monotheism? I mean, I know some of them were Christians and (at least Nestorian) Christianity was generally tolerated, but there is that story that when the pope tried to proselytize to them, Kublai (or whoever it was) said he didn't want to worship their god, and instead the pope should worship him. Maybe something similar happened with Islam. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Church use of popular music

A copyrighted piece of music cannot be freely used for commercial purposes, but what about non-commercial purposes? Would it be legal for a church, for instance, to set hymns to popular copyrighted tunes of the day? My feeling is that this would be illegal, but I'm not positive. I am not requesting legal advice. I am merely curious. LANTZY^TALK 02:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Lincoln Brewster wrote alternate lyrics to Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah; (his version is called Another Hallelujah). The music I have seen for it always gives joint credit to the two. Presumably, Brewster pays royalties to Cohen and obtained legal permission to use his tune first. In general, you are always required to get permission to record OR publicly perform music whose copyright is owned by someone else; this includes music in alternate settings, cover versions, alternate lyrics, song samples, etc. etc. See Performing rights for more info.

In order to ease the use of copyright christian music in church services, most Contemporary Christian music is liscenced by Christian Copyright Licensing International to allow non-profit performance in worship services. It is somewhat akin to the Copyleft liscences used by Wikipedia such as GFDL and CC-BY-SA, in that it allows material to be used in a limited setting as long as proper credit is given. Churches and congregations pay a fee to have access to CCLI liscenced music for use in worship services. CCLI then pays a portion of this money to the copyright holders. However, this liscence must be specifically applied by the copyright holders, and does not generally apply to music to which it is not specifically applied, so it is usually limited to Contemporary Chirstian music; popular music which is not covered by CCLI would be ineligible. --Jayron32 04:43, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the comparison to copyleft licenses is particularly apt. If I understand your explanaition and the article correctly, the CCLI is a licensing body and you do have to pay a fee (small that it may be) and they do pay royalties, even for non commercial religious use to get a license (without paying you have nothing). If they did allow non commercial only use without a fee, a better comparison BTW would be CC-BY-NC-SA Nil Einne (talk) 09:12, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Genuinely speaking non-commercial usage doesn't make a great difference as to legality of using copyrighted material without the owners permission. As mentioned in a number of places in fair use in relation to US law but I think this also applies to many other jurisdictions, while whether or not something is used commercially can make a difference, often it does not. More likely the big effect would be on the sanctions. (Of course a copyright owner is also often less likely to take action if it's non commercial, but that doesn't mean your legally allowed to do it.) Some people may specifically allow their material to be used non commercially, but that's a copyright owner granting permission rather then something explicitly allowed in law. Nil Einne (talk) 09:12, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You could ask these people. Dismas|^(talk) 17:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Most definitely they must get permission — for example, my church's psalter includes copyright notices on all copyrighted tunes. One example is a recently-reharmonised version of the mediæval tune "This Entris Nyght" (click here to hear a slightly different version of the tune), which includes a comment: "By permission of Oxford University Press". Nyttend (talk) 01:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I should note — the first time I saw a tune used through CCLI (in a college chapel program), I wondered if it were a Creative Commons license; a pity that the acronyms are the same. Nyttend (talk) 01:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Nil Einne is right about the CCLI - and there are equivalents in other countries. You should check for your situation - things vary by country. In the UK I believe there are exemptions for works used solely as part of a 'service of worship', but I can't give you the details. If you are associated with your church there is probably someone who has done research into it - or failing that someone in your denomination's central office. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm eagerly awaiting a Hymn written to the tune of "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah an example I've just read about (came across it for unrelated reasons) is [1] which includes some details on the fees. This isn't for Christian music but it does illustrate that this sort of licensing is actually the way this thing usually works. (It makes a lot of sense, a bar, gym, supermarket etc doesn't of course need to negotiate with each artist to be able to play songs.) On the subject of exemptions our article on the CCLI says "It is important to note that the performance of works in copyright (for example, playing music) as part of an act of worship is specifically exempted from copyright laws in several countries[5][6]" and links to references on Canadian and US law. In the US case at least, the exemption appears to cover the performance, but may not cover things like printing booklets with the lyrics, displaying them on screen etc which is part of the stuff the CCLI does Nil Einne (talk) 15:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Abdoulaye Wade's famous shaven head

Since when have Abdoulaye Wade became hairless. have he once have a hair, or when his hair starts to gray or white he shaves it completely, so he won't look his age or he was bald when he was in his 20s?--69.229.39.33 (talk) 03:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, he had hair at the back of his head in 2007. See this site for pictures from an EU conference in Portugal. (Click on the photo at the top left to enlarge it.) // BL \\ (talk) 03:42, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow he had full black hair in 2007 in Europe, but a year ago at Hu Jintao's FOCAC he is completely egg baldy.[2] [3]--69.229.39.33 (talk) 17:23, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

What is the difference between empiricism and mechanistic materialism?

What is the difference between empiricism and mechanistic materialism? The both seem similar derived from Francis Bacon and Newtonian mechanics. I suppose French materialism was more atheist. Who were some mechanistic materialists? --Gary123 (talk) 04:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Too sleepy to say anything about the first question, but the first names which leapt to my mind were Baron d'Holbach and Julien Offray de La Mettrie - and see the others in French materialism.John Z (talk) 10:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

A difference of the focus. Empiricism states that our knowledge is conveyed through the senses, sensual experience. Materialism supposes that all is based on the existence of a material world and that there is nothing beyond. One might say that empiricism presupposes materialism - if we suppose that sensual experience comes with material organs such as eyes - subject mater that does something with waves of light and nerves. If you want to be an empiricist without the materialist bias you have to chose Empiriocriticism as proposed by Ernst Mach around 1900. Mach assumes that we do indeed create our knowledge on the basis of sensations, experiences we have to interpret. How we get these sensations and what creates them, Mach says, is a matter of models we have to create. Empiricists, so Mach, work on the model that they get these sensations through such material objects as eyes. (One might just as well dream and have the same sensations). Empiricism and Empiriocriticism are closely related since Mach continues to state that the model solution Empiricists have developed (material world gets in contact with senses, creates experiences), is indeed extremely useful - more useful than any other. If our sensations were just a dream we would still use the same model to interpret them.

Materialist criticism of Empiriocriticism as formulated by Lenin in 1908 states that one has to start with supposing matter. Empiricism is already a step towards individualism with all its theorising about how the individual perceives the world. Materialism is the foundation to explain why we have a collective experience of the same reality. Empiricism, by contrast, is (so Lenin) doomed to lead to Empiriocriticism and Solipsism, the theory that there is a single conscience imagining it all. Natural scientists tend to work with Mach's Empiriocriticism, whenever they assume that they create models, theories rather than the truth - models that stand certain tests. The idea is useful as it allows a pluralism of models to evaluate different fields of data. --Olaf Simons (talk) 11:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

A simple way to think about it might be as such: Empiricism is an epistemological philosophy—an answer to the question of how do you know what is true about the world? Mechanistic materialism is an ontological standpoint—a statement about how the world is. The answers they give are somewhat similar but not necessarily—you can be an empiricist (and believe knowledge can be made tangible only through experiment) without being a materialist (believing all of nature is but matter and motion). You could, hypothetically, also be a materialist who is not an empiricist—that is, you believe all of the world is but matter and motion, but feel that only abstract philosophical analysis can get to true truth, or something like that, I imagine. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Bangladesh student wing

Is Bangladesh the only nation whose political parties have student wings? What about India, Pakistan, Canada and U.S.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.208.18.71 (talk) 13:24, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Political parties in the UK have groups in most universities, I think they are linked through some kind of junior party or something. --Tango (talk) 13:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Political parties have student wings in many countries. Certainly, the system is identical to Bangladesh in say India and Nepal. In Sweden national political parties generally have student wings. --Soman (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

While not specifically for university students, in the United States there are the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats of America. -- 128.104.112.102 (talk) 18:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

And, of course, there are university-level versions: College Democrats of America, College Republicans, and College Libertarians. Joe (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Youth wings of political parties by country should be of use to you; thence one can access our articles about the individual youth/student wings of parties in Canada, India, and the United States (we haven't a category for groups associated with Pakistani parties, but they do, I know, exist). Joe (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

See List of Indian student organizations and its related category. --Soman (talk) 10:21, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

And, in China, the Communist Youth League. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Christ killers

Why are Jews most often blamed for being "christ-killers" and yet Italians - are they whose left from the roman empire? - go blame free. I understand that Jews played apart in Jesus' arrest but they never actually hung him up, yet people justify Jews being christ-killers as a reason for anti-Semitism. Any thoughts on why? Thanks, Thanks, Hadseys 19:24, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I might be overreacting, but I can see this question becoming a debate.86.5.193.207 (talk) 19:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Lenny Bruce had a schtick built around this.

"Hey, why did you Jews kill Christ?..."

"Eh, you know how it is, one of those parties got out of hand..."

Rhinoracer (talk) 19:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The proper response to "You killed Christ!" is "So thank me, already." —Tamfang (talk) 01:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Because the Roman Empire eventually converted to Christianity, in part. But you can't expect a whole lot of rationality when it comes to hating entire groups of people for alleged grievances perpetuated by a few of them a thousand years ago. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The rationalization is that Romans didn't want to crucify Jesus but the Jews forced him to do so. So, the Jews get the blame. In reality, those who call the Jews "Christ-killers" do not actually care about Jesus (who taught forgiveness and love). They only care about finding some reason to justify their irrational fears and hatred. -- kainaw™ 21:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

See Matthew 27:11-25 [4]. The answer to your question is right in the New Testament. The irony is that Christ himself was a jew, as was Matthew, the man who wrote that passage. Wrad (talk) 21:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It's actually very simple - some Jews turned out to be fantastic bankers and got very rich, some Christians were jealous of said Jews and came up with any excuse they could think of to persecute them. It has nothing to do with religion. (Ok, I'm grossly over-simplifying the causes of anti-Semitism, but you get the idea.) --Tango (talk) 21:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You are oversimplifying it by giving it a rational reason. Some Christians met some Jews and said "Hey - they are different!" Then, they hated them. Similarly, some Jews met some Christians and said "Hey - they are different!" Then, they hated them. -- kainaw™ 21:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You get simple prejudice from just being different. The kind of persecution seen of Jews in the 20th century was on a different scale altogether, though. There is normally a rational reason behind such large scale persecution since it needs to be centrally organised and politicians rarely do something without a reason. --Tango (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

What the passage from Matthew is describing is that the Jews, who were under Roman rule, were given a choice as to who would be freed from being punished. The crowd was given the choice of either Jesus or Barabbas. The crowd asked for Barabas to be set free and when asked what should become of Jesus, they responded by saying that he should be crucified. That's the boiled down version of what I remember of what I learned in my Catholic grade school. Dismas|^(talk) 00:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Jesus was Jewish, and he thought of himself as a Jewish prophet. His first supporters were Jewish, and did not think of themselves as non Jewish, "Christians". But, during the end of the first century, the small community who believed in the resurrection of Jesus progressively became more and more estranged from its Jewish background -especially as a growing part of it was made up of non Jewish people, thanks to the "mission" of Paul. On the other hand, the Jews were more and more hostile to this small community, which was a potential contestant on the resources that gave the non Jewish people who wanted to convert to Judaism (who were numerous at the time), and no longer respected some of the basic laws of Judaism. The Gospels were written precisely at that time: they are the testimony of this estrangement and of the tensions that were growing at the time between the no more Jewish Christians and the Jews. Gede (talk) 00:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I second Gede. The early proto-Christian movement contained several competing and diverging factions, most prominently the "for Jews and converts to Judaism only" one led by Jesus's relations and closest followers, and the "for Gentiles too, you don't have to be circumcised and follow the dietary (etc) laws" one led by Saul/Paul. The latter won out and in order to avoid offending potential Roman converts, spin-doctored the accounts of Jesus's trial(s) and crucifixion to shift the blame onto "the Jews", although in fact only a minority Saduccean faction within the Sanhedrin had been opposed to Jesus, and the execution had necessarily been carried out by the occupying Roman authorities for an offence (sedition) against them. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 03:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

It could be argued that the Greeks have the best claim to be "who's left from the Roman Empire". —Tamfang (talk) 20:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Credit card merchant fees

I have a credit card... unfortunately for the bank, I actually pay my balance in full on time. My question is: is there a reliable way to check on credit card fees for merchants? I know it changes depending on the service (e.g., restaurant, car repair, etc.). Basically: what I'm trying to figure out is:

1. is my bank or whoever they outservice it to making any money off me having a credit card that's paid off every month (no fees are thus applied),
2. do companies generally make money off these customers who pay off their balances? I'm speaking mostly of VISA, though Mastercard or Discover are big in the US too. I actually work on the personal checking/savings side, and I can tell you that banks do not make money on these accounts unless the customer is overdrawing (it is, of course, contingent on VISA debit card use, per above).
3. how badly am I screwing over the merchants if I use my card for a small charge? I go and buy an energy drink for $2.40. Is there a minor fee charged per transaction for the merchant? Etc.

68.32.4.156 (talk) 20:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I have set up many credit card processing sites. There are two fees involved. One is a flat-rate fee per "swipe". You can think of it as a transaction fee. I say "swipe" because they get charged if you debit or credit the card. I've seen this swipe fee as low as 15 cents and as high at $1.50. Then, there is the percentage of all charges. This can be very low (half a percent) or very high (I've seen 6.5%). Sometimes there is a cap for extremely large purchases. So, you can figure that when you purchase something with a credit card, the merchant is paying out about 25 cents plus 1% of the charge. On a $2.40 charge, that will be 27 or 28 cents (depending on rounding rules). The charges for running an ATM card are completely different. Also, Discover and American Express charge an extra percentage on top of the standard fees. So, if you make your purchase with one of those you will be costing the merchant even more. -- kainaw™ 21:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Processing fees can vary widely depending on the merchant. Larger retailers have more bargaining power and can negotiate lower fees and the credit cards charge on a sliding scale depending on the volume of business the retailers do. I'd be surprised if Wal-Mart, for example, was paying 1% of each credit card transaction. —D. Monack ^talk 21:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if WalMart was not operating as their own credit card processing company. They are currently moving towards creating their own bank by inviting local banks to set up shop inside WalMart. It won't be long before all those local banks suddenly become WalMart bank. -- kainaw™ 21:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

However you pay for your energy drink, the merchant is going to end up paying a fee. There are fees for paying in cash for businesses (at least, there are in the UK, I imagine there are in the US - in fact, does the US have free personal banking?). --Tango (talk) 02:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

In the US, banks are charged for holding customers' deposits.DOR (HK) (talk) 06:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, but I have seen many small-time merchants strongly urge customers to pay in cash for small purchases (under $5, usually), because the credit fees on such transactions, they say, make it unprofitable. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no charge unique to cash purchases in the US. Also, free personal checking is very common. Most banks offer it. They make a lot of money off charging poor people for not having money. -- kainaw™ 19:48, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Dhabihah and hunting

Is it possible for a Muslim to hunt in accordance with Islamic law? I would imagine that following Ḏabīḥah would make it quite difficult. Even aside from the practical requirements of using a knife, the animal might be frightened to hear the human voice pronouncing the name of God. Conversely, I'd be quite surprised if a world religion effectively prohibited hunting yet permitted the slaughtering of animals. Nyttend (talk) 23:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

What if you only captured the animals (alive) in the field? It seems that that would open up a lot of options. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

These [5] [6] [7] all suggest hunting wild animals is fine, although you may have to pronounce the name of God before throwing the spear (or whatever) and also have to slit the throat as soon as you can. The later two I think are just a translation of the Islamic Laws, not sure about the first. This obviously doesn't tell us what the Quran says (my guess is you could come up with enough to support many different positions) nor what earlier Islamic scholars opinions on this were. Nil Einne (talk) 16:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the book to hand, but I believe it was in the 1937 memoir of Kenya, Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, that I read of a safari in which the Muslim servants would not eat the game. Dinensen discussed this with an iman, and he issued a fatwa that the meat shot would be halal if she uttered a prayer to Allah when she pulled the trigger. Her employees accepted this ruling. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)