XPost: alt.religion.islam, alt.religion.christian, alt.religion.christianity   
   XPost: soc.culture.israel   
   From: noone1@everywhere.com   
      
   Here are some great thinkers who have advanced human intellectual evolution   
   and thought.   
      
   Abundantly, Western and Judeo-Christian society have been the benefactors.   
      
   It's high time Muslims started thinking again.   
      
   Chronologically:   
      
   DAVID   
   c.1035 - 972 BC   
   King of Israel   
   David was the second king of Israel and the successor of Saul. He united   
   Judah and Israel, formerly a tribal confederacy, and he made Jerusalem his   
   capital. In Jewish tradition David became the symbol of the ideal king, and   
   among Christians he is the ancestor of Jesus.  A famous warrior he defeated   
   the Philistines, Moabites, Aramaens, Ammonites and Edomites. His son,   
   Absalom, rebelled against him and was killed. After David's death, his son   
   Solomon became king, and founded a famous line of kings   
      
   DRACO   
   c.659 - c.601 BC   
   Greek Legislator   
   Draco introduced the first written legislation in Athens. The Draconian   
   punishment outlawed vendetta. His harsh code punished both trivial and   
   serious crimes with death - hence the use of the word draconian to describe   
   tough legal measures. But his was the first code do distinguish between   
   homicide and murder.   
      
   NEBUCHADNESSAR II   
   624 - 562 BC   
   King of Babylon   
   Nebuchadnessar II was the king of Babylonia who captured Jerusalem in 586   
   BC, and destroyed the city. This ended the Judean kingdom, and was the   
   beginning of the 'Babylonian Captivity' of many Jews. During   
   Nebuchadnessar's reign the Neo-Babylonian empire attained its peak and the   
   city of Babylon its greatest glory. Among many other building projects he   
   built the 'Hanging Gardens' one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.   
      
   ZOROASTER   
   c.630 - c.550 BC   
   Persian Prophet   
   Zoroaster, also called Zarathustra, was an ancient Persian prophet who   
   founded the first world religion - Zoroastrianism.  According to the 'Zend   
   Avesta', the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, he was born in Azerbaijan, in   
   northern Persia. He is said to have received a vision from Ahura Mazda, the   
   Wise Lord, who appointed him to preach the truth. Zoroaster began preaching   
   his message of cosmic strife between Ahura Mazda, the God of Light, and   
   Ahriman, the principle of evil. According to the prophet, man had been given   
   the power to choose between good and evil. The end of the world would come   
   when the forces of light would triumph and the saved souls rejoice in its   
   victory. This dualism was part of an evolution towards monotheism in the   
   Middle East. Zoroaster's teaching became the guiding light of Persian   
   civilization. After Alexander the Great conquered Persia Zoroastrianism   
   began to die out in Persia, but it survived in India where it became the   
   basis of the Parsi religion.   
      
   JINA   
   c.580 - c.527 BC   
   Prophet in India   
   Jina Mahavira Vardhamana was the founder of the Jain religion, which teaches   
   salvation through ascetic living. Mahavira (great Hero) is the honorific   
   title of Vardhamana. Jina is the name given to saviours in the Jain   
   religion. Mahavira was an ascetic monk who reformed the religious order of   
   Jaina. He advocated nonviolence, vegetarianism, and acceptance of the 'Five   
   Great Vows' which are abstinence from violence, from falsehood, from   
   stealing; contentment with one's own wife, and lack of possessions   
      
   CONFUCIUS   
   c.551- 479 BC   
   Chinese Philosopher   
   Confucius became famous as a sage, or wise man, of China during the   
   so-called 'Age of Philosophers'. His 'Five Classics' which record his   
   teachings, have influenced the civilizations of all of eastern Asia.   
   Confucius was born in the state of Lu at a time when local rulers failed to   
   pay homage to the emperor of a declining Chou dynasty. Confucius deplored   
   the disorder and looked back with nostalgia to earlier times. He studied the   
   teachings of the sages whose influence had made China a united nation in the   
   past. Confucius decided that he must restore the faith and practices of the   
   emperors and sages of old. Unable to obtain an official position to   
   implement his ideas of reform, he spent his life educating a group of   
   disciples. Confucius sought to provide sound rules for every occasion in   
   life. Profoundly concerned by the miseries of the world, he wanted to make   
   men noble in order to bring about a noble world. His concepts of   
   benevolence, ritual and propriety became state ideology during the Han   
   times.   
      
   DEMOCRITOS   
   c.455 - 370 BC   
   Greek Philosopher   
   Democritos was born in Thrace in northern Greece. He traveled widely, and he   
   learned from his teacher, Leucippus, that everything is made of tiny   
   particles. Refining and elaborating Leucippus' ideas Democritos advanced the   
   atomic theory, which asserted that the universe is composed of two   
   indivisible elements, called the atom and the void. An infinite number of   
   eternal and uncaused atoms differing from each other only in shape,   
   arrangement, and magnitude, move through infintite space. In theology   
   Democritos attributed popular belief in the gods to a desire to explain   
   extraordinary things (thunder or earthquakes) to superhuman entities.   
      
   SOCRATES   
   469 - 399 BC   
   Greek Philosopher   
   Socrates was the first of the three great ancient Greeks - Socrates, Plato,   
   Aristotle - who laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture.   
   Socrates lived during the chaos of the Peloponnesian War, served briefly as   
   a soldier, but spent most of his life on the streets, on the marketplace,   
   and the gymnasia, engaging young and old people in dialogues. Teachers of   
   wisdom, or sophists, had been training young Athenians in the art of   
   arguing. Mastery of the rules of logic prepared them to show how to argue   
   for or against any opinion, regardless of moral considerations. Socrates was   
   more interested wether an arguments conclusion was true than wether it was   
   convincing and he used the sophists tools of logical analysis to investigate   
   the nature of virtue. He thought the search for knowledge of the utmost   
   importance because he maintained that no man sins wittingly - from which   
   follows, that whoever knows what is good does what is right.  Socrates'   
   inductive method to investigate the nature of virtue and to expose fallacies   
   and ignorance had a profound influence on Plato and the ancient world. Socra   
   tes wrote nothing and our knowledge of him comes chiefly from the dialogues   
   of Plato and the writings of Xenophon (not Xenophanes). In 399 BC he was   
   accused of corrupting youth and neglecting the gods. He was convicted and   
   sentenced to death. He spent his last days patiently discussing philosophy   
   with his friends, then he drank the poison cup of hemlock that the jailer   
   brought him and died in peace.   
      
   ARISTOTLE   
   384 - 322 BC   
   Greek Philosopher   
   Aristotle is considered one of the greatest thinkers the world has known. He   
   influenced the orientation and content of all that is termed Western   
   civilization.  Aristotle was born in Stagira, to the north of Greece. He   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)