Islam in the Middle East is currently in the position that Christianity in Europe was four hundred years ago. The most likely scenario is that as affluence and education levels rise in the region it will go the same way as Christianity; a growing number of unbelievers and dissenters making contact in private and escaping official notice; sniping attacks on Islamic beliefs from former insiders who have escaped to a safe distance; an increasing realisation that religious beliefs are not founded on objective evidence; and an increasing dependence on trade and other kinds of communications that bring ordinary Muslims into contact with people who don't share their beliefs.

Much of this is already happening, at an accelerating rate. And we can hope that with the aid of the internet, this will take a lot less than 400 years. We should also recognise that some states and some cultures have other problems which will interact with Islam to halt or sometimes reverse the drive towards modernism. And of course we should intervene to try and block or remove any forces that represent major threats to human life.

But time is on our side. The single most effective driver towards modernity is the desire of parents to get their children into secure, well-paying jobs. Once they recognise that this isn't going to happen in a medieval theocracy, the foundations will start to crumble. We will need patience, though. This is generational change; it won't happen overnight.

Yep the Jihadist just have to wait for the the totallly self centred secularist fundamentalist to destroy themselves with the lack of reason and denial of truth. Killing millions of babies (in mothers womb) a year as we import people who hate the West makes a lot of sense. Secularism has dumbed down a few generations to accept irrational dogmas such as evolution, gw and sexualisation of kids. Then we the history revisionist who are dumb/dishonest enough not to acknowledge that it was the acceptance of the Judeo/Christian ethics that made the West great. Now that the secularist have dumbed down enough people we are seeing the demise of our civilisation. Thankfully God is not surprised by our stupidity. Many millions are still putting faith in their Creator and Saviour.

Talk about overstating the blindingly obvious! And yes ISIS must be defeated! And depriving them of their black market energy market, would go a very long way to achieving that end!

See my previous posts, then validate my claims, by visiting U tube and listening to several highly credentialed thorium energy experts or watch as a model airplane flies, on the alluded to man made from seawater, fuel!
Alan B.

Jon J
The big difference between the reformation of Christianity 400 years ago, and any supposed or hoped-for reformation of Islam today, is that

1. the recourse of reformation Christians to the authority of the scriptures over the authority of the Catholic Church confronted them with the peaceful message of Christ and the illegitimacy of the corrupt claims of the church. By contrast, any civilising reformation of Islam cannot be by way of recourse to the fundamentals of the Koran and hadith, which will only confirm them in the creed of violence and the corrupt intermingling of religion and state power.

2. Therefore the only hope of a Muslim reformation can only be by way of them moving *away* from the teachings of their religion. By definition, such a movement can't expect much help from Muslims.

We can only hope for some sweet oblivion - perhaps a worldwide plague of a generation of kids glued to their virtual reality goggles?

But what are the essential characteristics of the culture of modernism, and by extension postmodernism too?
The culture in which we are now all trapped,, and unconsciously entangled even while we prattle on about freedom and, in the case of Runner and other dreadfully sane Christian, "Jesus"

It is entirely secular, superficial, materialistic, outward-directed, and object-directed. It is founded on a form of propaganda about the nature of existence that has driven humankind to the point of collective self-destruction.

The entire pattern and trend of such culture, including scientific materialism, all modes of false philosophy, and everything relating to the current domain of ego-based consumer politics, social egoity, competitive social system, "tribalistc" national and "religious" systems, un-regulated econominc, and all of conventional "religion" is about death.

The current world-situation thus offers only the entropic end-pattern for the disintegration of the human species, which will inevitably become the catastrophic and complete failure of the human species and the total demise of the human species.

Excellent observations, Daffy!

«The culture in which we are now all trapped... is entirely secular, superficial, materialistic, outward-directed, and object-directed»

But what else can we do? Like it or not (and I certainly don't), we live in the Kali Yuga, wherein the destructive currents are extremely strong.

However, it is said (note the similarity to the Western legend of Pandora's box) that this terrible age is when it is easiest to be liberated and even small efforts to resist the materialistic current produce tremendous results, that while in other ages you may have to perform severe austerities, such as hanging upside-down between 5 fires for 100,000 years, in the Kali Yuga it suffices to remember God and chant His name(s) - http://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-said-that-attaining-moksha-is-much-easier-in-the-Kaliyuga-compared-to-the-other-Yugas

«which will inevitably become the catastrophic and complete failure of the human species and the total demise of the human species»

But we need human bodies to complete our spiritual evolution, right? so while the human species will undoubtedly end one day, rest assured that God will not forsake us and leave us without adequate bodies - it may be on another planet, another galaxy or even another universe, but there will always be enough human or human-equivalent bodies available for those who are spiritually-ready for it.

Jardine, if the Bible can be successfully re-interpreted as a message of peace and love, then I don't see any problem with the Koran.

1 Samuel 15 (New International Version)
The LORD Rejects Saul as King

1 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ”

Luke 14:26
Parallel Verses
New International Version

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple."

No problem at all.

Hi Jon,

Yes, it's fun to cite bits from someone's books from two and three thousand years ago. Piss easy. What bastards they all were then, and aren't I lucky to be so superior, as of course I am to even modern people ?

So who today applies those two and three thousand-year-old ritualised instructions ? Who has been killed at random recently in the application of those instructions ?

On the other hand, if you have the courage, open the Koran at any page and you will see, if you open your eyes, injunctions to kill and torture and exterminate. People are following that book to the letter, now, today. Isn't that so ? So why do you have to go back thousands of years ?

As an atheist, I'm comfortable with the notion that the crucial principles of the Enlightenment have been, against much opposition and over hundreds of years, derived from splits and schisms and conflicts within and in opposition to the various western Christian churches.

Which makes me laugh at Daffy Duck's position, the standard adolescent position, which condemns the very conditions which allow him the luxury and freedoms to criticise the wicked world. Try Aleppo, Daffy, see bow you go. What a warker.

Joe

'Jardine, if the Bible can be successfully re-interpreted as a message of peace and love, then I don't see any problem with the Koran.'

probably the most ignorant statement of 2016.Can't get something so simple right so not much hope of fixing anything a tiny bit complex. You would do well to run for the Greens JonJ. You inability to show any logic would fit well.

//you will see, if you open your eyes//

Yes, that is usually the recommended method for seeing stuff. Or did you mean 'see' as some daft euphemism for 'apply liberal amounts of creative interpretation to vaguely worded tripe'?

//open the Koran at any page//

It says a lot about a man when he can interpret the publishing details & copyright notice page as an exhortation to torture and murder ;)

//People are following that book to the letter, now, today. Isn't that so ?//

I doubt it. I haven't read the whole thing, but then I haven't read the whole Bible either. I know they're self-contradictory. All the great religious texts are. Bugger all consistency, so that people can pick out the bits they like. A church that is not broad is doomed.

It's impossible to follow the Bible to the letter, unless perhaps you suffer from dissociative identity disorder and different personalities handle the self-contradictory bits. Reckon the same is probably true for Muslims. I don't think Sufi mystics and ISIS jihadis are reading the same bits in their Korans, for example.

Yes, there are Muslims who interpret their Koran the wrong way. But honestly, there are f$%k all of them in this country and a good deal fewer in your backyard, so I don't know why you're fretting so much. Why is perspective a commodity in such short supply these days? I reckon the internet probably has a lot to do with it. And people not reading enough good books. And short attention spa... ooh look, new No Such Thing As A Fish.

http://qi.com/podcast/

Hi Toni,

I deeply apologise, I should have realised that the Koran may have a multitude of references to brutality within the body of the work, but not on the title page, or publisher's details. Please forgive me.

As an aside, Jon J. began the comments to this thread " .... Islam in the Middle East is currently in the position that Christianity in Europe was four hundred years ago .... "

I'm puzzled why she chose four hundred years ago - why not fourteen hundred years ago ? I wonder can she understand that the Koran absolutely rules out change, that its words are supposed to be those of a god, never to be modified in any way ? Therefore, believers are stuck with whatever the book says ? So it may be that the only way to escape the fascist grip of Islam is to repudiate it entirely ?

So it's not 'four hundred years' behind Christianity, it's an infinity behind, an unbridgeable gap in time precisely because the Koran cannot be changed.

Yes, you're right, most Muslims have probably never read much of the Koran, certainly not if they don't read Arabic, into which the Koran has been translated from the original. And yes, probably only a tiny fraction of the 1.5 billion Muslims will ever be inclined to go on murderous, random killing rampages in the belief that they will get into Paradise (and into those 72 virgins) that much quicker, and provide pathways for their families to do so as well.

After all, a tiny percentage of 1.5 billion isn't all that much, is it ?

So until some crazy Christian bastards start randomly killing right, left and centre, in one country after another, I respectfully suggest you keep your head firmly rammed up there, where you can safely see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing but apologist rubbish.

Joe

@Loudmouth, Saturday, 8 October 2016 12:17:15 PM
Hi Joe.
Your comment: "So it's not 'four hundred years' behind Christianity, it's an infinity behind, an unbridgeable gap in time precisely because the Koran cannot be changed." is I think correct and there is simply no overcoming that gap.

BTW Joe, I believe your reference to the 72 virgins is an unfortunate mistranslation. I am informed that the correct reference should be to a single, solitary 72 y.o. virgin eagerly awaiting her next hero. :)

Jardine K. Jardine, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 2:57:26 PM faces the matter squarely when he states: "...the only hope of a Muslim reformation can only be by way of them moving *away* from the teachings of their religion. By definition, such a movement can't expect much help from Muslims."

By the same token little practical reliance can be placed upon those courageous souls who publicly abandon their previous allegiance to Islam.

For our part, Australia has a long tradition of ratbags in all walks of life and for the most part we cheerfully tolerate them.

However a religiously minded ratbag intent upon our destruction is something wholly new to us. It seems that in many ways we are still trying to come to grips with this - particularly with the single-mindedness of those who would do us harm.

//After all, a tiny percentage of 1.5 billion isn't all that much, is it ?//

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in your backyard? Well paint me green and call me a cactus. 1.5 billion isn't f%^k all. I can see why you're fretting now.

We don't have that many up Newcastle way. But we do have an unfortunately large number of hippies. Maybe we could arrange some sort of swap?

Hi Toni,

I apologise for my intemperate remarks, it's just that I get a bit frustrated when something as serious as Islamist terrorism seems to be made a little light of. Terrorism doesn't need great numbers, that's the point of it: one person can do awful damage - look at Orlando or the Bataclan.

After all, if you put all the terrorists who have killed Australians end to end, (with a total of maybe three hundred Australians between them ?) there would only be a few dozen, here in Australia, in Bali and in New York and maybe elsewhere.

So 2 % of 2 % of 1.5 billion - the most extreme of the most extreme - amounts to only 60,000 or so, but it's a bit immaterial: the point of terrorism is to terrorise, to do maximum damage and generate maximum fear, with a minimal number of terrorists.

The Bolsheviks understood that too: Stalin (Koba) was quite adept at bank-robbing, but even they didn't deliberately kill, only occasionally and unintentionally, in order to force their views on anybody.

Of course, the point about a living, breathing ideology or religion like Islam is that, almost by definition, it will keep creating zealous adherents, to coin a phrase, and they will interpret the injunctions of their book in a literal way, perhaps more so as they suffer defeat (since defeat will only go to show what evil bastards the entire West is) - doubling down with each knock-back.

The entire 21st century is going to be a bumpy ride.

Cheers,

Joe

Jon J,

You quote Luke 14:26. "To hate" does not refer to enmity but is a Semitic expression that conveys indifference to one and preference for another (David E Garland). Some scholars suggest it fits the Greek philosophical tradition reaching back to Socrates that single-minded devotion to truth superceded family loyalties and concern for one's bodily life and its needs (John Nolland)

Like many people, I've been puzzled by the craven approach of the pseudo-Left to Islamist fascism. But the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner has nailed it for me:

“The Leftist intransigence that refuses any compromise with bourgeois society cannot castigate too severely “little white men” actively collaborates with the most reactionary elements of the Muslim Religion. But if the far Left courts this totalitarian theocracy so assiduously, it is perhaps less a matter of opportunism than a real affinity. The far left has never gotten over Communism and once again demonstrates that its true passion is not freedom, but slavery in the name of justice.”

What is it that devout Muslims and pseudo-Leftists BOTH find offensive in 'modernity': is it democracy, the even-handed rule of law, equality of men and women (all of which are often honoured more in the breach), the pursuit of scientific discovery regardless of ideological or religious pressures to find the 'correct' outcome ?

By definition, all religions tart up their principles: slavery is justified by pointing to the non-human or non-member status of slaves: the book says; women are assumed to be lesser: the book says. On the pseudo-Left, the masses, the working people, the bogans, are assumed to be too dumb to be able to run their own affairs (Lenin's 'five hundred years'), and will always need the class of intellectuals to govern them, like a stern father - and the class of executioners to punish and 'subtract' them.

I suppose, as long as both Islamist fascism and pseudo-Leftism are nowhere within cooee of victory, a bit of mutual support, a bit of oblique cheering from the sidelines at terrorist activity, is no great problem, even if - surely ! - Islamism and leftist principles are clearly incompatible. But it's a funny world.

Joe