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| 2013-01-28 | |
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| Posted by:tipper |
| #4 Most western politicians, if they know this, try as hard as possible to ignore it. lord garth, Seneca said: Religion is regarded by the common people as true, the wise as false and the rulers as useful. As long as the politicians find it useful to ignore the obvious, they will keep using it. |
| Posted by: tipper 2013-01-28 17:55 |
| #3 " All agree that Islam was born in conquest (after finding that the missionary approach took far too long compared to military conquest) and has never discarded its mandate to convert the world, using force if necessary." Most western politicians, if they know this, try as hard as possible to ignore it. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2013-01-28 17:22 |
| #2 The term rice Christian might be instructive in this respect. A number of Christians signed up to the religion in exchange for the benefits offered by Christian charities. Over time they became genuine Christians. A lot of Muslims came to Islam the same way - they signed up to be eligible to join Muhammad's all-conquering war bands to engage in large-scale raids against the infidels - to loot, enslave or kill those who refused to pay tribute. As time passed, they became genuine Muslims. Think of it as a Darwinian clash of the deities. Those whose gods are powerful help their religious adherents win wars. The more battles Muslim armies won, the more kingdoms converted to Islam in order to propitiate the Muslim deity. Islam's crisis today comes from the fact that it hasn't won a war against infidels for a long, long time. A victory against Assad the infidel will strengthen Muslims in their faith, whereas a defeat will make Allah look like a powerless deity. Wouldn't surprise me if jihadists were going through the same process. The first ones join for pay, opportunities for rampant graft and death benefits, whereas their children grow up convinced of the rightness of the its world-conquering quest. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2013-01-28 17:18 |
| #1 These days, that includes the young population in most Arab states that are run by dictators or monarchs. The dictators and kings don't want democracy, and Islamic radicals consider democracy un-Islamic. So the only way to vote is to set off a bomb somewhere. That somewhere, it turned out, was not at home. Democracy is orthogonal to the discussion. In the neocon lexicon, the word "democracy" plays the same role as the word "Vietnam" (e.g. This is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.) in Walter Sobchak's vocabulary every time Walter sees something he considers outrageous. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2013-01-28 15:13 |