Saturday, February 11, 2006

Religious Consistency

Diana Mertz Hsieh discuses the idea of moderates Muslims.

To the extent that a person is a Muslim, he is intellectually disarmed by the barbaric demands of his own religion, particularly its call to expand the dominion of Islam to the whole world -- by whatever violent means necessary. (Remember, the essence of Islam is submission to God's will as transcribed by Mohammed in the Koran in the form of direct instructions, not ambiguous tales.) So based upon both history and ideology, we have absolutely no reason to hope great mass of moderate Muslims will ever rise up against their fanatical brothers. To do so would require the rejection of Islam itself.

Oh, now I'm depressed.

She is saying that Muslims, because of the nature of the Koran (a product of the dark ages), cannot become inconsistent like modern Christians. Well, that is depressing. I was staking my hopes on the triumph of a prosperous hypocrisy over a suicidal consistency in Islam. If all Muslims are forced by the logic of their premises to place death over life, we're heading for bad times.

The REALLY frightening prospect is that, as philosophy deteriorates in the West, Christians become more consistent and revert to a medieval Augustinian Christianity. That might be the ultimate threat to liberty in the coming century.

UPDATE: Slight revision.

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