“A Complete Collapse of Reason”

Last November Pope Francis issued an exhortation entitled Evangelii Gaudium in which he made the following assertions about Islam:

253.   In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.
 

As has been reported here at length over the past couple of weeks (see the list of links at the bottom of this post), a Muslim imam was invited to participate in the “prayer for peace” event at the Vatican on June 8. The esteemed alumnus of Al-Azhar University went off-script, however, and asked Allah to help him gain victory over the unbelievers.

The Vatican at first denied that any such thing had happened, and an edited video of the event was released that supported their denial. However, as we reported last week, the end of Sura 2 Verse 286 from the Koran that the imam quoted — which had been judiciously removed from the publicized version — was most assuredly included in the cleric’s Arabic-language prayer.

To provide context for this momentous event, the following information is instructive. Regular readers should bear with me; I know you’ve seen this all before.

’Umdat al-salik wa ’uddat al-nasik, or The reliance of the traveller and tools of the worshipper is commonly referred to as Reliance of the Traveller when cited in English.

The Revised Edition (published 1991, revised 1994) is “The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law ’Umdat al-Salik by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 769/1368) in Arabic with Facing English Text, Commentary, and Appendices”, edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. The publisher is listed as amana publications in Beltsville, Maryland.

This an authoritative source on Sunni Islamic law, because it is certified as such by Al-Azhar University in Cairo. There is no higher authority on Sunni Islamic doctrine than Al-Azhar; it is the closest equivalent to the Vatican that can be found in Islam.

Consider this passage from Reliance of the Traveller, chapter O, o9.0:

Jihad means to wage war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad.

[…]

The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus is such Koranic verses as:

  • Fighting is prescribed for you (Koran 2:216)
  • Slay them wherever you find them (Koran 4:89)
  • Fight the idolators utterly (Koran 9:36)

In o9.8, Reliance of the Traveller describes the objectives of jihad:

The caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4)… and the war continues until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax…

We should also bear in mind what Islamic law says about lying. In Book R “Holding One’s Tongue,” §r8.0 “Lying” at r8.2 “Permissible Lying,” Reliance of the Traveller cites the iconic Islamic legal jurist Imam Abu Hamid Ghazali:

This is an explicit statement that lying is sometimes permissible for a given interest… When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible (N: i.e., when the purpose of lying is to circumvent someone who is preventing one from doing something permissible) and obligatory to lie if the goal is obligatory.

Keep all these sources in mind when you watch the following video.

Vlad Tepes has conducted a comprehensive interview with Maj. (ret.) Stephen Coughlin, who is one of the foremost non-Muslim American experts on Islamic law. Maj. Coughlin examines the context of what the imam’s prayer at the Vatican as it relates to Islamic law. He uses his explanatory material — from authoritative sources of Islamic law — to expose the strategy behind Muslim participation in the prayer event at the Vatican, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s exploitation of the “interfaith” movement to accomplish its own ends.

Many thanks to Vlad for recording, editing, and uploading this video (if you’re not familiar with it, see this subtitled version of the Arabic recitation referred to in Maj. Coughlin’s briefing):

Previous posts about Imamgate — The Arabic prayer at the Vatican, June 8 2014:

2014   Jun   11   The Vatican and Islamic Prayer
        12   Taqiyya, Vatican-Style
        12   What Did the Imam Really Say at the Vatican?
        13   Who Edited the Tape?
        14   Multiculturalism in Religious Garb
        15   Make us Victorious Over the Tribe of Unbelievers
 

44 thoughts on ““A Complete Collapse of Reason”

    • The issue is this – why does the Pope restrict his comments that only those who say Islam sanctions and requires violence are making unacceptable generalizations and does not say that Muslims who support violence are making unacceptable generalizations?

      The Pope has fallen into error and this needs to be pointed out.

  1. Quote:
    In order to sustain dialogue with Islam …
    end

    This should not be the Vatican’s objective.
    We should be resisting Islam and telling the truth about it.
    Period.

  2. Christians should engage Muslims and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Islam believes it should subdue Christians and force them to either convert or pay the Jizya.

    The Pope should send 100 missionaries to Saudi, Syria, Iran etc. and attempt to spread the Gospel.

    • Ottomans had a policy of slaughtering Christians and Jews once every 30 years, even if they paid Jizya. It was called Ferman of Jews and Christians. It would last for three days. They left a few to work the fields and supply food for the Janissary. They were not stupid like non-muslims are: They did not allow the kuffar population to rise above 1%. They did not destroy their own culture like the western (“daring liars = politicians) are doing today. And the voters sleepwalk to electing their own deadly enemies.

    • Christian proselytising is illegal in Saudi- as are religions other than islam; do you not know this?? You’d be sending 100 people to their deaths. Likewise in other muslim countries…

      • The apostles were also sent to their deaths. Christianity is spread by people willing to be martyrs.
        But, the Pope seems to believe that “authentic Islam” is something very different from what the false prophet Mohammed practiced.

        The misunderstanders of Islam need a wake up call.

  3. Pope Francis should take a leaf from Pope Urban II’s book and wage a crusade against Islam, instead he reacts to this violent, ignorant and destructive cult in the most grovelingly politically correct manner.
    Personally I have no use for Christian nonsense either but it is apparent to me and millions of others that Islam understands only violence. Any attempt to reconcile their beliefs to ours will be perceived as weakness, which it is.

    • Roger, my words exactly. This apparent inability to see the obvious MUST be cowardice, surely? Modern popes have never had moral rectitude, even Hitler had their sympathy and the vatican assisted many Nazis to escape to South America.

      Islam needs [specific suggestion redacted], IMO. What else will make the islamists rethink their ambitions?

  4. Christianity in all its denomination was a positive cultural force as long as two other foundation pillars of our civilization were prominent and strong: classical Greece and Rome. That was most prominent in 18th-19th centuries , including the apotheosis of Great Britain in the Victorian age and the great WASP stewardship of America that entailed, among others, Greek and Latin examinations (plus math, geography, history etc.) for entry, repeat, entry, into the great Ivy League Universities.

    Greece and Rome are gone from our consciousness now. Too elitist, too cultured, too caring about territorial integrity, too “racist,” too masculine. Instead we have the mushy reduction of Judeo-Christianity that has had masculinity, Greece, Rome, the survival instinct and common sense itself stripped out of it entirely. It’s a lunatic reduction of our culture that our civilization cannot possibly survive.

    ( and I read its profuse praise even in an essay by a guest writer on these pages)

  5. To Rogers:
    “Pope Francis should take a leaf from Pope Urban II’s book and wage a crusade against Islam, . . . ”
    If he does are you going to enlist? Crusades, and defeating Hitlers, . . . need honorable men with faith. No faith ..no principles . . .no honor … If you ” have no use for Christian nonsense either” then why do you wince at Islam. That’s the problem in the west. Our elected politicians come from 3 generations who have rejected the “Christian nonsense”. And they came up with this nonsense of multiculti. And they found an ally to their intense hatred to Christianity, Islam. Now they are sure that their hatred towards Christianity was justified because 1.5 billion others support. They 1.5 b can’t be wrong especially if allah has given them so much oil as to let the western countries kiss the muslim feet.
    Does the Vatican care that lying is a deadly sin. By removing the embarrassing verses the Imam recited, and by skewing the truth and reshaping it how could they preach to others not to lie.
    From what we see in Evangelii Gaudium article 253, we can sense that the vatican knows the violent, aggressive, looting, jizya imposing, murderous, uncompromising nature of the cult of Islam. What they are doing is to show that they are not bigots, fundamentalists. The vatican has taken its cue from the western politicians of the last 60 years. The vatican wants to endear itself to islam to be called “democratic, liberal and progressive. Democracy is not perfect unless it forces you to lie prostrate and let muslims tread on you. If you resist that’s islamophobia and you lose your job.

    • I resent the notion that to have honor, or morality, or courage, or any other quality, a man has to have Christian faith. This is an outrageous conceit on the part of the sky pilots. Let me explain something to you: There never was a virgin birth and nobody was ever raised from the dead. Whatever philosophical house of cards you built on those fallacies is your business, but to claim that such philosophy is the foundation of western Civilization is nonsense, rather it is the struggle to be free of religious ignorance and bigotry that is our defining characteristic. Islam is an evil force, it needs to be fought and defeated, just as the bigots who ran Christianity had to be fought and defeated.

      • Quote:
        I resent the notion that to have honor, or morality, or courage, or any other quality, a man has to have Christian faith.
        end

        So you resent it.
        I have yet to see in my lifetime or in history, one Western atheist or agnostic worthy of any commendation for courage and integrity, and I have yet to see one work for the benefit of others above the benefit of himself.
        The secularists, anti-religionists, are in control in the West now, and they have absolutely no spine against terror at all.
        Show me courage and I’ll acknowledge it.

          • Oh, and add Aldo Sterone to the list. And were all the people who fought against fascism, in Spain & WW2, many of whom would have volunteered if not conscripted, believers? I doubt it.

            Your attitude is arrogant and superior, and fortunately not shared by all Christians.

          • Good, Mark. You made me think. Technically, Pat Condell is working for his own benefit since, if the West awakes, it will help Pat Condell to survive and thrive (and his genes reproduce if he has children).

          • Hi Mark, There MAY have been atheists going into war, but were there atheists coming out?!

            “To empirically examine the question, ‘Are there atheists in foxholes?’ Cornell University behavioral economist, Brian Wansink examined 949 post-combat surveys of World War II American infantrymen and observed that these soldiers’ reliance on prayer rose from 32% to 74% as the battle intensified. To test the lasting impact of combat on religious behavior, a follow-up survey was conducted 50 years later with a different sample of veterans from all branches of service. The second study showed that 50 years later, many soldiers still exhibited religious behavior, but it varied by their war experience. Soldiers who faced heavy combat (vs. no combat) attended church 21% more often if they claimed their war experience was negative, but those who claimed their experience was positive attended 26% less often. The more a combat veteran disliked the war, the more religious they were 50 years later.”

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_no_atheists_in_foxholes

      • He’s talking HISTORICALLY. Christianity built the moral codes you practice. Atheists act like “Oh, I would have thought this way anyway.” No you wouldn’t.

        Christianity was the sole voice fighting incest in the celtic tribes. Now that Christianity falling, the Brits are morphing right back into what they were: pedophiles. (Jimmy Savile is one thread that will unravel a very ugly sweater.)

        Atheism had its say in the 20th Century and it was revolting.

        Now we have a culture that is constantly – CONSTANTLY! – moving the line to see what sort of perversion we can excuse and legalize.

        Perhaps a PERSON can be moral without Christianity, but a CIVILIZATION can’t.

        • RKae,
          “Christianity built the moral codes you practice”.
          They did not. The Church, whether Catholic or Protestant, or any other of the fringe movements [extensive intervening invective redacted] that has gone on for millennia in the Catholic church.

          [Note from the Baron: there will be no more of nasty, hateful, and insulting name-calling here. Your rants are now done.]

          • You know what Ned, you [display the characteristics of a coward]. Your attitude is what is allowing Islam to make the inroads it has achieved. I may send another $50.00 but your politically correct attitude is making me a bit sick.

          • OK, I let you have the last word. There will be no further insulting of your fellow commenters.

            Sending money to us doesn’t buy you the right to be vile to other people here. You may as well keep it.

          • Religion shapes policies. Or do you doubt that Islam shapes the politics of nations where it is practiced by the majority?

        • Yep Atheism had it’s say in the 20th Century and all it brought forth two horrific ideologies that caused death and destruction on a scale that surpassed the last 2000 years of war in the world.

          Not a track record to brag about by any means.

          However I thought after the carnage of WWII, the RCC would have been bright enough to kick these secularists into the nearest cesspit when they offered their views on anything. Tragically they didn’t and crippled the church.

          And now with a rabid secularism on the ascent, it’s fostered a ‘anything goes, if it feels good do it’ mentality that has replaced morality in the West for many people.

          We are now IMO almost at the point were there is no there, there anymore in terms of a cultural core in the West or in terms of ethics/morals. Many can no longer recognize good from evil, even when it’s right in front of them.

          So now Islam marches on with our secular elites welcoming and aiding them as they slowly digest the West.

          And all our people can do is watch Dancing with the Stars and Honey Boo Boo.

          • Well said anon. Some insightful, logical thoughts at last that taught us something. Wish you good luck. And wish our western countries to awake, recognize the danger and change course and tenor of their deadly, jelly fish thinking.

          • Well, I’m only slightly rabid, but if I have no difficulty in joining believers in the struggle, you should be able to overcome your distaste for we heathens.

        • RKae: your assertion in para 2 is extremely offensive, and ridiculously inaccurate; some men (mostly) have been sexually attracted to children for millenia, in many cultures; we’re fortunate to live in one where it’s mostly no longer tolerated.

          Egghead: Not disputing your statistics- “no atheists in foxholes” used to be a cliche- but I suspect that if there is a hierarchy in Heaven (in which case I don’t want to go!), people who find faith when in danger are near the bottom, like deathbed converts; I’ve more time for those who keep their integrity, and suspect that God (if he existed) might feel the same.

          I recommend “The Last Enemy” (1942) by Richard Hillary. Long story short: he was an Oxford graduate and RAF fighter pilot, whose friends were concerned over his increasing callousness and cynicism. Even after being shot down and badly burned (receiving treatment from the pioneering plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McInroe), his attitude was unchanged until he was in London for r & r, and went to help when a bomb landed nearby. He cleared the wreckage of a house, covering the occupant. She, seeing his scarred face, said “I see they got you too”, and died.

          This expression of empathy was evidently an epiphany for Hillary; he didn’t find God, but regained his humanity. (He also resumed flying, as an instructor, and was killed in an accident not long after the book was published).

          I read the book in 1999, when my parents were both quite ill; a few hours after I broke down while relating the above story to my brother, we got the call to say our father was dying. Our mother followed three weeks later. I don’t know how much was the book, and how much my own emotional shock, and I’m not comparing myself with such a hero as Hillary, but I became a kinder, less arrogant person thereafter, and I still haven’t found God either.

          Goethechosemercy, if you’re still following, may I suggest a little understanding and humility?

          • Hi Mark, Remember the prodigal son? The father throws a huge celebration when his profligate son returns home to him. 🙂

            “…I became a kinder, less arrogant person thereafter, and I still haven’t found God either.”

            That’s what YOU think. 🙂 God reaches us through whatever door that we leave open for him to enter. If the doors are closed and locked, God will use a window.

            Hat tip: The Sound of Music.

          • Non-theists have serious disadvantages against Islam. They will submit more easily because they have no religious platform on which to stand, and no point from which they can call Islam profane, unholy, destructive, and uncivilized.
            They can attack Islam through its culture and law, through what the Ummah does.
            But they have no means of attacking just what the Ummah is, or what Islam is. Monotheistic religion legitimizes itself by way of a claim to holiness, separation from the world and corruption. Christians and Jews both assert that their religions are holy, and by their scriptures, the revealed word of God, they are.
            Both question the Muslim claim to holiness based on the revelations of Mohammed, the behavior of the Ummah, and this is why Christians and Jews can attack Islam at its roots, not just at its branches.
            The non-theist can question the fairness of Sharia, the Christian or Jew can question its holiness, and its holiness is what legitimates it in the eyes of Muslims. In my eyes, the Sharia is not God’s law.
            No non-theist can say the same thing.

          • Yes, as one example, I personally know an educated female American atheist who contends that Muslim women should be free to wear burqas in the West as an ‘expression’ of their feminist rights that we in the West must NOT deny them….

            With friends like that, who needs enemies?

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa

      • Do you think you can fight Islam without faith? Remember the west fought against Christianity: against itself. That fighting is very easy. It’s like suicide. A suicidal person can be prevented from killing her-/himself once or twice. But at last he/she will succeed because it is directed against oneself. But to deal with formidable , awesome, imposing, impressive; fearful, terrifying, alarming, dreadful, portentous, menacing, threatening, forbidding; overwhelming, terrific, overpowering; difficult, demanding, dangerous; taxing, onerous, mammoth . . . is completely a different case. The Earth has seen many evils but islam exceeds them all.
        I can’t say there was a virgin birth . . . etc. But when Christianity promotes love of everything on earth, love among neighbors, love of one’s country, trees, crops, forests, animals, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t covet, avoid greediness, . . . etc.
        In other words there must be some boundaries for human horrible behaviour. What do you think the western politicians are? No morals. No conscience. eternal daring Liars. No guidance to differentiate between right and wrong. The result : Islam is equal to any other religion, certainly equal and better than Christianity. Westerner minds are empty of any faith. Therefore they don’t resist. They see no evil. They can’t imagine that there are people somewhere else and are flooding us who have faith. The Cold War is being fought in the west. For now it is cultural, lawfare, building military training and command centres also called mosques. Sometimes it is hot war. And our faithless politicians quickly lull us back to sleep. We forget and sleep in 5 seconds. The next day we vote them into office. Hey the west: you are free to party until 5 am.

  6. The pope’s statement exemplifies the moral arrogance that drives the leftist and Christian-leftist approach to Islam. The idea is something like this:
    “We are so morally elevated that we don’t need to bother learning what Muslims really believe and what their actual agenda is, and we are appalled that some people have such little charity and faith as to say bluntly that we must be wary of Muslim purposes. That is wrong! If we keep telling Muslims we’re sorry to have offended them and keep trying harder to understand their reasonable ‘demands,’ we’ll be rewarded for our Christlike humility — or at least we’ll be able to feel very good about ourselves.”

    • To learn the truth about the other and to act honestly before him is Christian integrity.
      Something this pope knows nothing about.
      To partake in the lies of Islam is to further Satan, the world’s bloated prince.

  7. Cardinal George Pell appointed in Sydney, NSW, is now part of the Pope’s circle of Cardinals. I have read some of Cardinal Pell’s lengthy defences of the Church when being attacked as ‘paedophile haunts’ by some Australian newspapers. They even went so far as to accuse Pell of being complicit within the Church in downgrading the traumatic impact that some Priests, many since brought to justice, have had on their ‘flock’.

    Pell has always struck me as being a very sympathetic/religious person who cares more for the soul than the deed done by the soul. In his ‘editorials’ he would choose to deflect the accusations tossed his way, rather than counter them with any hard argument that could have quelled the many from the ‘collective’ who, and IMO, were obviously out to bring him down.

    Even when mentioning Islam, or what the latest Muslim protest was up to in Sydney, he would dodge the obvious about Islam while arguing for the soul of the Muslim. At least that is how his writings came across to me.

    Now, I have pointed Pell out because I believe Pell’s thinking falls into line with the current Pope’s thinking , that is, the soul of the individual is what matters to God and the deeds of the individual can be left to the authorities, even in matters where it is obvious to those with eyes and ears in and on their heads that Islam is a force that needs to be dealt with physically first while the individual Muslim’s soul can sort itself out in front of God later.

    I may be wrong with my diagnosis, but we will only really know as time goes on.

    • Cardinal Pell gave an address in the USA in which he exhorted Catholics to read the Quran for the purpose of seeing how violent it is. In Australia at the time a couple of Christian pastors were being given the runaround in the legal system because of a talk of similar content that had ‘offended’ (etc.) Muslims who attended it (knowing full well what it would contain). I’m no great fan of Pell, but on the Islam point he’s actually pretty solid–a lot more so than that trendy Jesuit boss of his.

      • Salome, those two pastors were eventually let off the hook after an appeal – I can’t remember Pell ever telling his ‘audience’ in this country at least, of the violence inherent in Quranic teachings. I can remember though after reading one of his ‘rants’ that he should really be brushing up on Islamic history.

    • Some Christian leaders appear to be mainly concerned about their own souls. They appear to believe that their preening outreach demonstrates the depth of their faith, while the temporal consequences of their outreach are of secondary (if any) importance.

    • Please consider this edited comment:

      Hi Nemesis, If you look at the RCC as being expansionary with the goal to save as many souls as possible, then it would stand to reason that the RCC believes that Christians are ALREADY saved – and thus ‘safe’ in the grand scheme of things – whereas Muslim souls require saving – and ‘dialogue’ gives the RCC access to Muslims – a window into Muslim souls as it were. A conciliatory approach provides the RCC the ability to ask for Muslims to rise to their ‘best’ – or at least ‘better’ – selves when living with and ruling over Christians – most especially Christians under persecution by Muslims in many hot spots in the world – which may soon be the Vatican itself surrounded by Muslim immigrants in Italy. Where Muslims feign that Islam is the religion of peace, the RCC is vainly trying to convince Muslims to act on that pretense – rather than the evil jihadist reality.

      American war strategists have used the same tactic – which is to actually give power to Islamist groups with the goal that Muslims will hold these Islamist groups accountable for providing Muslims with the comforts of civilization. The videos by Algerian Muslim Aldo Sterone are an example of a Muslim exhorting other Muslims to hold Islamists accountable for their impact on other Muslims.

      • Hello Egghead – before I get into a reply to your very thoughtful comment, please allow me to congratulate your mother in regard to your college days – she is a very perceptive woman!

        Your comment reflects the thinking of what I once toyed with when trying to fathom why the West would court such a destructive culture as Islam and actively promote it as something it is not to the infidel- a religion of peace.

        Western strategic thinkers, or what passes today for those who actively plan our future, have a marked disadvantage that even they do not realize, and that is the world of materialism where possessions matter and the after life does not.

        It is a huge disadvantage when fighting an ideology that is akin to a religion!

        The West is slowly slipping into its death throes because a simple and very basic understanding of what drives Islam cannot be grasped – it is an ideology akin to Nazism for which we fought a world war over and it makes religious fanatics of its followers.

        And down through history there has ever only been one lesson to learn against fanatics – they must be killed if one wishes their civilization to survive!

        It is that simple, but it eludes our current crop of ‘thinkers’ who believe material wealth or the perceived benefits of the West must at some point trump fanatical religious ideology.

        As history proves to those who know it – no it won’t!

        And now we have the Church and a new Pope heading it who has surrounded himself with like minded thinkers, and who believes Islam can be ‘re-directed’ as you have touched on, while disregarding the ramifications for that kind of thinking as being detrimental to the preservation of civilization itself. So if that is correct, we now have a double edged sword in the shape of the Vatican as one edge and Western strategic thinkers as the other edge being swung in Islam’s favor against the West.

        No wonder I lay awake at nights thinking!

        • Hi Nemesis,

          Great to hear from you. I really enjoyed reading your response.

          To me, the problem is that Christians and practitioners of other world religions (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists) have vastly different – and opposing – ideas of what builds and what constitutes a successful civilization. One of the best essays that I ever read essentially said that you can tell everything that you need to know about a religion by how that religion views the afterlife – and how – and if – and which – people will get there.

          The RCC wants to ‘save’ as many souls as possible – using conciliatory methods.

          Islam wants to ‘subdue’ as many people as possible – using coercive methods.

          Looked at in that framework, Islam is a very material religion with wanting to conquer and rule the whole world and impose jizya tax on non-Muslims. Individual Muslims are willing to sacrifice their lives and comfort for the good of Islam.

          The question is – if and when – Christians will be willing to sacrifice their lives and comfort for the good of Christianity.

          If we approach atheism (and its offspring Marxism) as a competing religion to Christianity, then Christians MUST be very careful to avoid alliances with atheists that benefit atheism at the direct expense of Christianity (i.e., further weakening Christianity where atheists refuse to allow Christian symbols in the public square, Christian values in Western society, and Christian churches and businesses to operate according to Biblical principles).

          In other words, Christians should be willing and able to ask for meaningful legal and social concessions from atheists that strengthen Christianity in the West.

          • Hi Egghead,

            I could debate further with you on some of the issues you raise here, but it’s now an old post; another time, I expect!

            One important distinction, in my opinion; I suspect that there have been atheists at least since the dawn of civilisation, even if they’ve often had to keep their heads down to avoid persecution. I’ve seen a convincing case made that Shakespeare was the first major writer in English who was not a believer.

            Thanks to the Enlightenment, ours was probably the first culture in which disbelief became “respectable”, at least in urban centres. Marx was a century or more later; he gets enough flak, including on GoV, without blaming him retrospectively!

          • You make some good points especially about Christians being compromised by Atheists, who in general, are like Communists in that they cannot tolerate religion or competition, of any kind – and I say generally, because there are many Atheists who are actively supporting Islam while rejecting the religious aspects to Islam as allies in the Fourth Great Jihad against the West.

            When one studies the goals of Islam one is generally struck by how parasitic Islam really is, and for all the wishful thinking of the Collective that falsely hails Islam for its scientific, artistic and social achievements and standing, Islam is really a backwater of human civilization that has survived into the 21st Century due to its previous conquests and parasitic nature which has allowed the Ummah to subsist by riding the backs of those conquered.

            I do not believe Islam is a materialistic ideology otherwise we would be witness today to its material wealth and not that we now see today which has largely been created through oil and not through normal civilizational progress. Islam desires material wealth because Islam needs it to survive – without oil, Islam would go back to being nothing.

          • Hi Nemesis,

            Thanks for the response. I like to discuss ideas. 🙂

            I think that Islam is a material religion that exhorts Muslims to steal material from others. Mohammed was a raider, and raiders steal stuff. Unfortunately, Mohammed murdered competing infidel men to make it easier for him to steal their stuff – including their women and children who were called property.

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