"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
I will say one thing, there was a strain of moderate Islam for a while. Look at pictures of Iran and Lebanon in the 60s. Before the Arafish brought his traveling death show to Lebanon in the 70s, Beirut was Paris of the middle east, after it is one of the more dangerous places for non-Islamic fundamentalists to live. The mad mullahs taking over in Iran put paid to that place. Thank you St Jimmeh, the second worst POTUS.
The Bible has some terrible consequences for things like homosexuality too, we just don't apply them anymore.
Islam needs a 30 Years War to drive home to Islamic leaders how dangerous religious extremism is, that or we really needed to not have Obama, the worst POTUS. Bush was a douche, but he was making Islamic terrorism painful. Obama did his best to reverse that trend.
Ottoman rule in the ME was also comparatively moderate Veeshir. They lost it after being on the wrong side in WW1, and the rise of the Saudis brought a much more fanatic style in beliefs. Maybe in recent decades they are trying to tone that down. But then the rise of air travel in the last 50 years has meant their fanatic teaching has reached a lot more people - ordinary believers around the world almost nevet got to go to Mecca before that, or had any contact with it.
And the thing is, it would not matter how you interpret scripture, Saudis think their ancestry means they are ethnically living representatives of the religion (Unlike the Ottomans).
Indonesians only started going to Mecca in recent decades, but I've heard the Saudis give them a fake ancestry to make them part of the family, so its not just the words but the very language of the scripture becomes 'theirs' - part of their heritage. (So why would they listen to outsiders?) Enough Indonesians get convinced by this snake oil that they become fanatics too.
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I will say one thing, there was a strain of moderate Islam for a while.
Look at pictures of Iran and Lebanon in the 60s.
Before the Arafish brought his traveling death show to Lebanon in the 70s, Beirut was Paris of the middle east, after it is one of the more dangerous places for non-Islamic fundamentalists to live.
The mad mullahs taking over in Iran put paid to that place. Thank you St Jimmeh, the second worst POTUS.
The Bible has some terrible consequences for things like homosexuality too, we just don't apply them anymore.
Islam needs a 30 Years War to drive home to Islamic leaders how dangerous religious extremism is, that or we really needed to not have Obama, the worst POTUS.
Bush was a douche, but he was making Islamic terrorism painful. Obama did his best to reverse that trend.
Spencer was cutting NR some slack at the beginning of his piece, but I won't. When Bill Buckley died, National Review died with him.
Ottoman rule in the ME was also comparatively moderate Veeshir. They lost it after being on the wrong side in WW1, and the rise of the Saudis brought a much more fanatic style in beliefs. Maybe in recent decades they are trying to tone that down. But then the rise of air travel in the last 50 years has meant their fanatic teaching has reached a lot more people - ordinary believers around the world almost nevet got to go to Mecca before that, or had any contact with it.
And the thing is, it would not matter how you interpret scripture, Saudis think their ancestry means they are ethnically living representatives of the religion (Unlike the Ottomans).
Indonesians only started going to Mecca in recent decades, but I've heard the Saudis give them a fake ancestry to make them part of the family, so its not just the words but the very language of the scripture becomes 'theirs' - part of their heritage. (So why would they listen to outsiders?) Enough Indonesians get convinced by this snake oil that they become fanatics too.
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