Keep in mind that when the author writes about separation of church and state in the 17th century, it doesn't mean it like the Dims demand it today. Today the Dims means it as an elected leader can't pray in public. But back then it means the church can't decide who's in charge in government or control government in other ways. IMHO, that's how many Muslims see their caliphate empires declining centuries ago -- to them it's when the imams quit having a say on who's in charge. To them it's like: we've tried separation of mosque and state and it doesn't work, we won't keep doing it, we'll go back to what worked centuries before that and we'll do whatever it takes to get there.
Every Jew and every American, well for that matter, every European needs to read a true translation of the Holy Quran or Koran.
Then they might understand why this is happening and why it will never stop happening. IMHO these are probably the most accurate translations, and they are FREE.
There is no misunderstanding of true Islam. Islamic peace requires total submission & disrespect to nonbelievers of humanity. Koran is a perpetual war plan.
For Christianity, nationalism and the separation of church from government in Europe was a success, resurrecting Christian Europe from decline. Three hundred years of world domination followed, marked by the Enlightenment, European colonization of the Americas, and the industrial revolution, as Europe led the world into the era of Modernity. Europe also exported its Western culture and concept of “nationalism” to the entire world. However, nationalism, which evolved from Christianity’s historic trials, would never integrate successfully into the world of Islam where loyalty could only be to God, the sovereign of the world and all mankind.
The above doesn't seem to be correct at all. What the Wars of Reformation and the Thirty Years War did was replace the primacy of the Church with the primacy of the Prince. The Treaty of Westphalia established the principle that the reigning monarch determines the religion of his subjects.
It did not separate church and state. It reversed the relationship. For example, the Anglican church was still the established church in England, just as before the Reformation, but the Bishop of Canterbury reported to the King and not to the Pope.
Concepts of separation of church and state along with religious freedom came later.
I don’t misunderstand Islam. They want to kill or convert every non Muslim in the known world.
I have ZERo interest in being anything other than cautious
A quote from an 1899 book by Winston Churchill, "The River War", in which he describes Muslims he apparently observed during Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Not an easy fact to accept, but a fact nonetheless.
Good comments here and at the source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Anger
“Age of Anger” by Pankaj Mishra is a good treatment of the rejection of the West by Muslim societies.
Note that the same rejection is present to a lesser degree in Hindu and Confucian societies.
The colonialism in the Americas, Africa, Australia and Southeast Asia mostly from 1500 to 1800 did not engender much blowback.
Colonialism in North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia during from 1800 on was much different. These were old and sophisticated societies subjected to prolonged grinding subjugation. The resentment of European and US imperialism began long ago and has been simmering for decades.
However, I believe he gets this wrong: As responsibility for the needy is central in Islam, a society with rich elites and poor masses is unacceptable.
If you look at Islamic society, it is filled with rich elites and poor masses.
There’s no misunderstanding islam when you realize their end goal is for all of us to be dead.
I understand enough about islam to know how to respond to it.
Certainly the current upsurge and unrest in the Muslim world is based on religion, but I have to wonder just how religious rulers were back in the long ago days before the years of decline. Was religion really more dominant India or Persia than it was in the Christian West of that day?
I’m also not sure that Western ideologies dominated the Islamic world in the years of its decline. It seems like Arabs and others in the Muslim world turned to Western ideologies in a way to move forward from colonial subjugation, but eventually Islamism proved more powerful in many countries.
Matthew quotes Jesus on the fruits of Islam:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?
So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.
A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus you will know them by their fruits.
Islam is a very real existential threat to everyone else in this planet.