Morocco # English board

another word to make things clear, i'm izatis . ( i used my friend's comp)

chelhman, you may be right on this point. maybe that it's better to give them the freedom to choose their religion. i fully agree with that. it would be sad to spit on them or to attack them for that...

but i wont walk away on one point. this Muslim "dogma" is part of Islam. Christians worship a man... a prophet as god. and this is (in the Muslim point of view) a mistake.
in Islam you dont worship a man... and more, you shouldnt worship a man...

so when someone is moving from Islam to something else... there is a problem.
and Mose and Jesus are part of Islam... so he didnt really leave... he just refused the message of Mohammed... and this is really a misguided choice...

and you explain it very well yourself... they leave for a culture, for different people... because they dont like the Muslims or because they like the Christians (who are rich and educated in this era)...

but dont bring me the superiority complex... i'm not a Nazi or such...
but like you said, they were born Muslims. they had someone to explain to them that they shouldnt worship a man... and today, they betrayed this person's teachings...

deel,

Your religion is the best ? That's exactly that kind of thinking that's got us into trouble. Every civilisation reaches the breaking point, one of the symptoms is arrogance and selfrighteousness. Read a little bit of history, you'll find countless examples.

As for your take on Christianity and others obviously, you need to read more about them, you seem to repeat the same mantra I've heard as a kid : "we're better than them because they worship a human being".
Besides, as I said again and again on this post, this is not a comparative study between religions, faith and dogma are two different things.
As for my business metaphor, it was a "metaphor" not a "comparison".
You can disapprove all you want, but if the root cause is not addressed, the hemorragy will continue.
The only reason the phenomena is not known or measured is because it is hidden. Given your reaction and others here, it's no surprise.

Voici un exemple de ce que je dis
Trois hommes se retrouvent face à un homme pervers.
L'un deux dit : "Moi, je ne salue pas ce pervers, je m'éloigne et m'écarte de lui, et je ne lui parle pas."
(Cette solution serait celle des extremistes)

Quant au second, il dit : "Moi, je marche avec ce pervers, je le salue, je me réjouis de le voir, je l'invite chez moi, je répond à son invitation et je me comporte comme si il était un homme vertueux."
(celle ci serait a priori la tienne)

Quant au troisième, il dit : "Concernant ce pervers, je le déteste pour sa perversion et je l'aime pour sa foi. Je ne m'écarte pas de lui sauf si cet écartement peut être la cause de son retour à la vertu. Si cet écartement ne lui permet pas de se corriger, mais est au contraire la cause de l'augmentation de sa perversion, alors je ne m'écarte pas de lui."
(moi je me situerai ici)

Nous disons : Le premier est un exagérateur extrémiste, le second est un laxiste est le troisième est dans le juste milieu.

Accept someone is accept his defects and acknowledging them. Not be blind and say what he does is righteous.

and about your mataphor or comparison, it's just a word....whatever the word u use, it has to be correct and changing one's job for another doesn' t imply that what we left was wrong, but maybe those who left lost touch with reality and search something more like materials, advantages etc... human beings are full of defects but thinking that christians are freeer than muslims is wrong. maybe you were taught our religion wrongly, maybe you need to believe more, maybe you aren' t a believer but some of us live a proper life among others without feeling threatened by others because they are different.
one has to be sure about his faith and nothing can change that.
I live at peace with myself and my religion. and yet, all my friends are french people either not believing in god or christians. my roommate is a homosexual, many in my family drink alcohol and yet i love them all, and i'm not putting them aside. so stop talking about my "reaction", my "arrogance" and "righteousness". you're the one who seems to be engrossed in your opinion and won' t let the other express himself/herself. you're the one accusing me of controling other people's choice, you're the one accusing but not listening.

acknowledging they're doing a mistake doesn' t mean we don' t respect their choices or who they are. as i said you wouldn' t find someone more respectful than me. believe what you want.

i'm fed up with listening to people saying that all muslims are terrorists, that we muslims are engrossed in what we believe and won' t listen to others, the prophet sws, was the first one to live with christians and jews and he never said to despise them but live in peace with them. i'm fed up with people judging me because i believe in god and that makes me a narrowminded person so they say!! i'm fed up with people believing that they're forcibly right as long as they hold high the banner of freedom of speech and choice, the banner of civilisation....

Do believe what you want chelhman and let me believe in my ideas, that's a first step towards respect and stop calling me names like arrogant and selfrighteous because i disagree with you!!!!!

Tkhol souk rassek

chelhman, you still dont get it.
dont be stuck in the complex of superiority... it's really not the problem.

we are Muslims. we have an aim in this world. and we need faith in god to achieve this goal.
so we are somehow "fighting" (fight is related to violence, but violence is only another tool in a large set of tools to reach an objective) these people who believe in men, objects, nations, populations, clergies and such...

we dont respect someone worshiping a stone, or a cow... he is doing a mistake. but in the same time, we dont disrespect him. because it's not his fault, or because he is an honest person or such...

but there is two special people on this earth we do respect and try to understand... Jews and Christians... those are mentionned in the Coran and are a part of the "Muslim universe" if we look carefully...

we are supposed to be extra nice with them...

i have my fellow Muslim brothers to explain the word of god. and this word says that Jesus is a prophet. not a god... the Christians are mistaking. but we have to be understanding towards them.

but when i see one of my fellow Muslims... turn into that. i have no reason to be happy. in fact, i'm very angry at him.
if he turned into an atheist i would be sad. he is weak (weak faith)...
if he turned into an adept of Rael... i would think that he is some perverted idiot looking for women... or a real dumb moron...

but not... he turned into a Christian... so? my judgement is simple, weakness (look at the situation, being a Christian today is much better than being a Muslim)... and a lack of understanding of Islam... a huge one...

anyway, i see no good reason to support his choice... it's so weak...

and dont be mad at me,i explain my opinion, if you bring me today a dude who turned into a Christian, i wont tell him anything... but deep inside me, i will tell myself "poor guy..."
and i wish i could condemn him or such... because he is a bad influence, people will think that it's a "possible path"...
people sold their souls to flee from poverty (prostitution and other haram stuff)...

anyway...

Dear Chelhman
I think the discussion is taking place at 2 different levels. Deel and Lemask believe Islam is the best religion and any conversion to christianity is a big mistake. One of the argument is chronological, since Islam came after Judaism and christianity and recognize Moses and Jesus as prophetes, Islam can only be better.
You are on another level using another loope. There is no logic in continuing this discussion
I love Ibn Rushd and I hope you can spend more time on reading his work.
Take care
Krim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2007 03:28 by Krim.

correctisssimo! the only problem is that it seems we keep pressing the same key. It's good we have people thinking differently, and with fifferent viewpoints. In this way we have 5 fingers, and they are different. But what I see is that some people here are always portrayed as bad moslems. And I say who has the right to label one as a good a bad moslem?
+ I have christian, and atheist friends (an even a Raelian friend), and they are worthy much more of some so-called moslem friends I used to have.

Quote

deel
Accept someone is accept his defects and acknowledging them. Not be blind and say what he does is righteous.
and about your mataphor or comparison, it's just a word....whatever the word u use, it has to be correct and changing one's job for another doesn' t imply that what we left was wrong, but maybe those who left lost touch with reality and search something more like materials, advantages etc... human beings are full of defects but thinking that christians are freeer than muslims is wrong. maybe you were taught our religion wrongly, maybe you need to believe more, maybe you aren' t a believer but some of us live a proper life among others without feeling threatened by others because they are different. one has to be sure about his faith and nothing can change that. I live at peace with myself and my religion. and yet, all my friends are french people either not believing in god or christians. my roommate is a homosexual, many in my family drink alcohol and yet i love them all, and i'm not putting them aside. so stop talking about my "reaction", my "arrogance" and "righteousness". you're the one who seems to be engrossed in your opinion and won' t let the other express himself/herself. you're the one accusing me of controling other people's choice, you're the one accusing but not listening.

acknowledging they're doing a mistake doesn' t mean we don' t respect their choices or who they are. as i said you wouldn' t find someone more respectful than me. believe what you want.
i'm fed up with listening to people saying that all muslims are terrorists, that we muslims are engrossed in what we believe and won' t listen to others, the prophet sws, was the first one to live with christians and jews and he never said to despise them but live in peace with them. i'm fed up with people judging me because i believe in god and that makes me a narrowminded person so they say!! i'm fed up with people believing that they're forcibly right as long as they hold high the banner of freedom of speech and choice, the banner of civilisation....

Do believe what you want chelhman and let me believe in my ideas, that's a first step towards respect and stop calling me names like arrogant and selfrighteous because i disagree with you!!!!!

Tkhol souk rassek

Let's take this one thing at a time :

First you're equating Christians to a pervert, I know it was a metaphor but it speaks volumes about your opinion of anyone not muslim.

About the metaphor/comparison thing, words have specific meanings, that's how we express nuances or convey an emotion. So a metaphor and a comparison are two different things, a spoon isn't a shovel, the basic design may be the same but they serve a different purpose.
I used a metaphor to simplify the essence of my argument, it was not a comparison.

About those who converted for emigration, read the post from the beginning, their case is simple and does not warrant any further comment, I don't see the point of throwing them again in the mix, their gesture has nothing to do with faith.

Your whole argument is based on the premice that those who convert as an act of faith are making a mistake. I accept your opinion, but you're not giving anything to back your argument, you simply quote the scriptures, which brings me back to the neverending debate about the inability of some to have an original thought, the only thing you seem capable of, is hiding behind the dogma.
And this debate is not about that, it's about faith and how it is not fulfilled in today's muslim environement.
I never said Christians are freer than Muslims, read me again. I'm saying no religion is better than the other, each has a different approach.

About the name calling : read me again, I didn't call you anything, I was talking about the islamic civilisation and how it reached the breaking point. Name calling would be saying you're an intolerant mental midget, which I'm not saying of course.
You've been very courteous towards me, why would I call you names

Finally and this is important, what does upset you so much about people leaving Islam ? It does not affect you directly or harm you in any way, so why ?
And again the question you haven't answered, would you be so agressive had it been about people converting to Islam ?
And why ?

You say one of your friends is a catholic, have you shared your pervert metaphor with her ? Did she enjoy it ?

[www.gurbani.org]

excuse me guys for one second... Ibn Ruchd isnt talking in the name of god. he can do mistakes.
and unless i'm mistaking, Ibn Ruchd is knownd in Europe as "Averoes"...

and if my memory is good, he was related to some liberal dudes in Spain... there is also a link with the birth of the Protestant movement...

anyway, something is fishy about Averoes... i wouldnt take everything he says lightely.

and if Europe loves him that much, it means that there is something weird under the rock... Europe was founded with an anti-Islam culture...

they wouldnt make the difference between our prophet Mohammed and any Barbarian leading a Mongol army...

open your eyes guys...

LeMask, you're on seriously dangerous ground by taking on Ibn Rushd. I've posted a link to his work, read the man before going on one of your wonderful theories.

i just ask you to watch out...

Ibn Rushd is a human being, he can make mistakes... if you believe everything he says, then you are REALLY on a dangerous ground...

even if i can agree with him on some points. i dont like the context... these guys from the renaissance arent so great... and it's fishy to see them get any interest in his work.

[umcc.ais.org]

Ghazali A dit:
Famane manaha Aljihal iilman Adaaho oua man manaa almoustaoujibine faghad Dalama
Donner du savoir á des ignorants est un gâchis etc


Khatibou annasas aala Ghadri oogholihim. Atouridouna an Yakidiba Allaho Rasoulaho

S´dresser aux gens en fonction de leur intellect etc



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2007 09:05 by Krim.

here is an interresting one, let's see who can guess the author...
"if I knew the reason of my ignorance, I would be a wise man"

It sounds like Socrates is talking.!!!!

Krim, let me give you another one...

Allah said "ikrae" he didnt say "go ask Ghazali or Ibn Rushd"... you get knowledge alone, no one gives knowledge... you find it ALONE.

it's from me... what game are you playing here? you think you are going to convince me by quoting some dude in the past? come on... guys! quote god or the Prophet Mohammed for a change. someone i can trust at least...

i have nothing against Ghazali, but i'm not going to take anything from them like pure truth.

what is this guys? the other side? other extremists from the other border?
you are souffis or something? because i dont get it.

LeMaske
I am open to all sources and books.I do not limit myself to any single source. You do not need to swallow everything but you have to learn to think for yourself. By the way the two dude of the past were much advanced in their thinking compared to many dude on this forum. They did not have a computer but great free thinking muslim brains.

here is an interresting one, let's see who can guess the author... "if I knew the reason of my ignorance, I would be a wise man"
Gibran said this once... and maybe if we stop and think about it a bit and respect other people's opinions, and not tend to push our opinions on others, may be we would be discussing topics instead of empaling one another for the sake of who knows more than who or is is more righteous than who!

riffman, i just think that it's dangerous to have faith in men. we have god for that.
and this Krim is really arrogant. they see themselves as comprehensive and open minded people, but they arent...

if you think you can convince me by quoting a celebrity... and by the way, it's stupid and not very clear.
"if I knew the reason of my ignorance, I would be a wise man" ... wow, he thinks he is a genius for finding that? and this works for everyone.

you, me, and even HIM... this is why i would quote him, to say that we shouldnt quote HIM.

he doesnt know everything... and neither do you... so? you agree with me now? we shouldnt listen to men so easily?

What...............what what heu

it's simple:
"if I knew the reason of my ignorance, I would be a wise man"

this is true. a very smart sentence. a general rule, working for everyone, and even for the guy who made it. and the dude who use it.
i will use his quote to tell you that if he knew his ignorance, he would be a wise man. so, stop quoting him like if he was god. thanks.

If we follow your reasoning LeMask, then we should not quote Sahaba, people with knowledge, our Islamic philosophers, Islamic scientics, ulama etc. You cannot just dismiss them all saying they are dodgy because the west quote them as well. You should be proud that people like IbnRushd is known in the west as one of the most outstanding Islamic philosopher of his time and still he is. Of course we should quote from the Quran all times but to kick a side those who have worked hard to explain things to us is ignorance and blindless. You are like one eye king governing a blind populace. Open up and bring as well to this forum quotes from the Quran that might enlighten us all. It seems to me that your knowledge is just flourishing so do give it a good platform to really spark from. We need people like you that are passionate about things but you have to be very carefull not to be over confident!!!!

negative site4everything, you push it too far.
the prophet quotes god, and the Sahhaba quote the prophet.

but it's not really what i mean. i just mean that we shouldnt follow men like if it was PURE truth.

i can ask Chelhman about the death sentence. if he says that the death sentence is retarded... he could be right, like he could be wrong... we cant know for sure what is the right thing to do.

this is the hard thing when it comes to take a decision.

and i'm very proud of some Muslim people in the past. we had our share of great men (of course). but still... let's take Saladin. he was a great Muslim leader and a good general. but he wasnt perfect. and all the positions he took in the past arent perfect. we can discuss them today. and even refuse them and call them stupid.

and thanks friend. but you are right, it's a passion. i love my religion. i see it as a perfect system. and when i see someone critisizing it... i get mad. i really get mad.

i think that it was made by a superior mind (god) and that it's working like a miracle system. you follow it, and it works. you take out just a part of it, and it's broke.

i dont think that it's part of our religion or not, but we shouldnt trust men that much. all this interest in the work of Ibn Rushd or others is DANGEROUS.

just think about the Chiites. it started with something similar. one "important smart dude" got wasted, and today they are worshiping him... or god knows what they have in their minds.

and i could say the same about Jesus. one prophet got killed. and today billions of people think he is god.

we have to be extra cautious... very very cautious. because we are men, and the evolution can turn a little missunderstanding into huge problems in the future.

by the way, Isa ibn Myriam (Jesus) did not get killed but someone else who looks like him..... I don't think other people in this forum criticise Islam but I think they beleive they want to expand the discussion and re-ignite the Ilm (knowledge) that is (was) main source of Ijtihad. Arabic Language, the language of the Quaran, is the cream of the Adab or literature and the achievements of Muslims scholars throughout history is staggering.

so site4everything, what do you think of the Muslims who turn Christians?

On Islam, Secularism, and the Church
by John Mark Reynolds

A Different Sort of Crusade: Islam and the challenge of Global Christianity

It is a commonplace of Internet atheism that all religions are equal. This is because secularists tend to reduce religion to the irrational. They do not understand that real faith is belief in the probable. Religion is a knowledge tradition dealing with those things in heaven and earth that are not captured by matter and energy in mindless motion.

Father Fessio has pointed to several areas of difference between Christianity and Islam. These are important and stimulated the following off the cuff thoughts. Read them as you would a radio transcript as I quickly reflect on the nature of the three-way conflict between Islam, secularism, and Christendom.

It is easy enough to see the weaknesses of contemporary Islam, but in the battle for hearts and minds globally we need to ask a harder question. What are the strengths of Islam? Islam is to be commended for holding the line against the naturalism that so infects much of the modern West. Some religious liberals act as if religion is the frosting on the cake. The cake is made by secularists who allow World Council of Churches Christians to decorate and elaborate on a structure that is fundamentally hostile to religion. Islam has not been foolish enough to fall for that!

Second, Islam has not given into more radical forms of feminism. The West, and Christianity in general, is to be commended for advancing the truth that women and men are equal in substance before the eyes of God and should be equal in the eyes of the law when the relevant fact is being human. However, some Western folk have gone further and attempted to reduce the differences in function between men and women. To pretend that men and women are the same in terms of calling is not sensible and flies in the face of centuries of experience. Men and women do not experience the world the same way and the reasonable man standard (as the law is beginning to recognize) is not the same as the reasonable woman standard. Western society in a post-Christian era seems good at producing lawyers and doctors but bad at making mothers and fathers. However, there exist millions of moms and dads in traditional Christian communities that are defying this trend. Fessio is right to point to homeschool moms as the hope of the future. He will be interested to know that I have been calling home schools the new monasticism since the early nineties!

This new monasticism, which is creating a new Christian counter-culture, cuts across all barriers in Christianity. My family is a good example. I have Catholic and Protestant cousins who are now homeschooling their kids . . . this is movement that unites the Southern Baptist and the Papist wings of my family. Of course, as an evangelical Orthodox Christian who homeschools I represent the third wing of Christendom! This is good news for Christians and very bad news for secularists in particular.

Father Fessio makes some good comments about the difference between Islamic approaches to text and the Christian. Mark Roberts points out that such Christian ideas exist even in (especially in?) Christian communities with a very high view of the inspiration of the Biblical text. Roberts, in fact, improves on Fessio by making it clear that a high view of Scripture, viewing it as inerrant, need not equal a wooden literalism.

It is here that I am concerned about much of modern Catholic theology and some Eastern theologians. They act as if one can easily attribute errors of history, fact, and ethics to the saints who were the human agents of divine inspiration. This smacks more of modernism than of a theology of the incarnation. The text may be fully human, but it is also fully divine. The two work in synergy. Human contributions need not equal “broken” in the saints who were brought to the point of holiness fit to be instruments for the Wind of the Spirit. God worked with their humanity, but that need not lead to a “low” view of Scripture. I fear that some members of my own community are so intent to avoid a fundamentalism that is no real danger that they fall into the much for seductive error of liberalism.

All of this, however, is far removed from the Islamic view and supports Father Fessio’s central point. Whatever, the view of Scripture Christians find a human element in it. It was the gospel that came into the world when Augustus was emperor. It has a setting and a context. The historical context of its message must be understood in order to apply it to today. This seems like a small thing, but it makes all the difference in the world. It allows a flexibility that secularists wish we lacked, but Islam really does not have. The Koran attempts a sense of being without place or time and so is oddly enough more dated than the New Testament.

It is important to note that decaying Western traditional Christianity is not the only game in town. Christianity may in fact be growing much faster than Islam. However, it is growing in its Pentecostal expressions and not in the older denominations. Christianity is a dominant force in China and in sub-Saharan Africa. Today’s church is a church of color. If Western civilization remains the best though out expression of Christianity, which it is, then it will have to find a means to transmit its lessons, good and bad, to the East and to the South. The West, as an idea, may find its geographic expression in Kenya and South Korea more than in Geneva or Rome. The Pentecostal wing of the Church needs the theology and history of the established churches in order to avoid merely repeating old heresies. The Western churches need their enthusiasm, anti-naturalism, and faith.

It is here that study and appreciation for the experience of the Church of the East can help. Arabic Christians, for example, have been force to live as second-class citizens under Islam for centuries. When they are free from government control what could they teach us about relations with Islam? Immediately after 9/11, an Arabic friend of mine commented at his shock at the surprise expressed by most Americans at the outrage of this terrorist act. “They have been killing us for centuries. What do people expect?” We do not have to guess what will happen to the Christian minority in France under an Islamic majority. The Copts of Egypt could explain it all to us.

Nor should we take hope in the secularization of some portions of Moslem leadership in Western countries. Some commentators seem to think that sex and liquor will be the great salvation of the West. They see seeds of decadence in the Moslem youth of Holland or other Western countries and become quite hopeful. Vice is a weak defense for the virtues of the West to say the least. Again the Eastern experience is illuminating. Many Turks and Egyptians drink or fail to live up to their Islamic social beliefs. However, they continue to vote for social repression. You might be able to get a drink in Constantinople pretty easily, but you cannot set up an Orthodox seminary.

At the same time, Israel has complicated Arab Christian reactions to world events. The perception, often quite accurate, of unjust treatment by the state of Israel combined with the very freedom of granted by Israel to protest has led to a one sided tone to Eastern Christian criticisms of Middle East states. Dictatorships like Syria end up receive little official criticism because to do so would endanger the fragile church there. On the other hand, Israel is often officially condemned for its bad actions. Given the toxic anti-Semite dominant Islamic culture in their native lands it is all too easy for opposition to some government actions by Israel to turn into anti-Semitism. In this area, the Eastern churches can learn much from the horrific experiences of their Western brothers to avoid the vile pit and demonic danger of “blaming the Jews” for every social ill.

Christianity has learned from history. We can defend ourselves militarily against an aggressive Islam. We feel no shame for such self-defense. However, the crusading zeal of earlier centuries, Christianity on offense, was a mixed bag at best. Western Christians went off to remove an aggressive Moslem minority from their tyranny in majority Christian lands without thought or knowledge of the Christians of those lands. They helped weaken the Eastern Christian Roman Empire and brought on themselves the invasion of Eastern Europe when Islam destroyed that bulwark. It is a fact that many of our European problems today stem back to that great sin.

That is not our only fault of course. Christians did not always extend the same tolerance to Islam that we desired in Islamic lands. In fact, since Islam had a category to allow for the exploitation of non-Moslem labor without forced conversions Christians were in the short term sometimes better off in Moslem lands than Moslems were in Christendom. Some Christians, like Pat Robertson of late, sound as if they have not learned the lessons of history. Their theology seems crude and undeveloped as if "The City of God" had never been written. The majority of American Christian leaders know better. Statements that we might have accepted seven hundred years ago cause widespread disgust (see the reaction to Robertson's statements) today.

However, unlike Islam we learned our lessons. Folk like Dante, without any taint of secularism, begin to develop the sophisticated notion that Church and State, though both products of divine will, were not reducible to one or the other. Nor is this merely a Western notion. In Eastern Christian iconography the Eagle representing power has one body (representing the unity of the people of God), but with two heads. The role of the Church was to bring souls fit for Paradise to the heavenly City of God. The role of the Emperor, and later of any civil state, was to maximize the good in this life. Both church leader and state leader were ordained of God and could act as a check and balance on each other. All of this allowed for a notion of citizenship in the earthly kingdom that could accommodate non-Christians not merely as second-rate servants, but as full citizens. Though some secular rulers, like Peter the Great of Russia, attempted to make the state dominant, the Eastern tradition also maintained a healthy synergy in its best state between Emperor and Patriarch. Over time, the notion of the two swords, church and state, became the basis for liberty without libertine abuses.

It is secularism, which must place all of its hope for happiness in this life that becomes the least tolerant of deviant faiths (read religion!) since it does not have recourse to this Christian solution of this world and the next. France during the reign of Terror, Russia under Stalin, Albania or China, became less free than even their predecessors (generally Christian states in an incomplete state of development shot through with secularism with inept rulers). Who would not have prefer life under Louis XVI to Robespierre, Nicholas II to Lenin, or Sun Yat-sen to Mao? The slow evolution of those nations toward freedom was cut short by secularists sure that they could bring on the kingdom just as Islamic radicals remain sure of their vision today.

In short, the real fundamentalists who are like the radical Moslems are not your religious Christian neighbor in Finchley or La Mirada, but those secularists who are sure that if your point of view is even mentioned in schools you pay for that the world will come to an end. Evangelicals, traditional Catholics, and Orthodox in the West have a good track record of having developed their own theology to the point that no rational person suspects Billy Graham of plotting to retake Jerusalem by military force, or Benedict XVI of wanting to sack Mecca and take the sacred stone, or the Ecumenical Patriarch of seriously hoping to restore the Byzantine empire. Sadly, secular thinkers are stuck in the worst parts of the Enlightenment and Islamic thinkers have made little progress past the ninth century.

This brilliant Christian solution of tolerance inside a robust Christian worldview is too little appreciated. It was dominantly Christian nation, the United Kingdom, that kept an established Protestant church, and gradually extended full rights first to Catholics and then to Jews. This progress was made under serious Christians such as Gladstone and Disraeli, not under the secularists who would have hastened revolution to the destruction of Britain. Americans do not appreciate their British Christian heritage enough. Whatever our ethnicity the ideas that make our republic possible mostly come from that blessed isle.

Moslem are free to preach in London not because of secularism, but because Christianity developed there. The good ideas of the Middle Ages, became the better polity of the Victorian era. The bad ideas of the Victorians, including their smug colonialism, were slowly giving way to better ideas at the dawn of the twentieth century if secularism had not short circuited their development. The long struggle against Darwin, Marx, and Freud distracted us from being able to make further progress. However, even in that fight we stayed true, for the most part, to the theological lessons learned. Christians did not kill Darwin, but let him live in great comfort. We may not have liked Freud’s views, but did not declare a jihad against psychology. Instead, we (for the most part) listened, learned and argued. We had created a culture that made it possible for Darwin to attack the views of ninety percent of the English world and we stuck to the liberty even when we did not like the result.

Christians were content to compete in the marketplace of ideas and became stronger as a result. You cannot open a church in Mecca today, but you can open a mosque in Rome. As a result Western Christians are genetically more resistant to Moslem ideas. We have heard them for centuries. If a new crusade would ever be launched from Christendom, it would not contain bombs and bullets for we have justly given over the sword to the state, but in the form of books and ballots. Secularists and Islamic radicals are both monists. One reduces everything to this world and the other to the world to come. Christianity is simply more sophisticated, recognizing two great powers in the minds of men: church and state and allowing them to exist in synergy (never alone!) with each other.

This is (in part) the ground for my confidence in our battle against both secularism and radical Islam. We are not afraid to fight for human justice and have grounds for doing so. We do not seek utopia, but the best possible civil society in this fallen world.

However, we know better than to confuse a military fight with any crusade or jihad. We know that this is a power only exercised by the earthly sovereign, God’s appointed minister. We also know that this is not the most important realm. Christians are ultimately citizens of the Kingdom to come. Our religious leaders will argue and plead a case for humanity that is good, true, and beautiful. A crusade for that Kingdom can only be fought with weapons appropriate to it: levity, logic, and love.

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That was an interesting article Krim. Thanks.
LeMask, Let me give you an example that will clarify my position on the question of some Muslim going back to Christianity?
During the Abbasids dynasty (known for their search of Ilm), the Caliphah ordered to be brought to him a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew. He then asked the 3 of them to tell him which one is going or thinks is going to Paradise. The Jew turned to the Christian wanting him to go first. The Christian, in turn asked the Muslim to go first. Each one of them wants to hear first what others had to say before stating anything at all. At last, the Muslim moved forward and said the to Caliphah: 'If the Jew are going to Paradise, we will go too because we beleive in Moses. If the Christians are going to Paradise, we will go aswell as we beleive in Jesus BUT, they are not going to go to Paradise because they don't beleive in the Prophet Mohamed.
However, only Allah knows.

Hi Krim,

The article has a different approach, however I disagree with the main premice which is that a secularism is synonymous with atheïsm. It's a neutral stance from the state not atheïsm.
That's the main fallacious argument pushed by antisecularists and it's not absolutely not true. Religions were able to reform under secular states in Europe because governements did not have them on a leach anymore and did not dictate or use the dogma.
That's also the main problem with Islam, it is still an instrument used to rule and legislate in most countries were the dominant faith is Islam.

Hi everyone,

the big joke is that most people claiming Christianity is the wrong religion are enjoying life in the Christian countries?!…..Who said that the clash is not between religious nor between cevilisations but rather between people from the 21st century and people from the middle age ?…….I can only agree and let you guess who could seem have thoughts from the middle age and who from the 21st century!!!…………