Muslims In Europe: Maybe Good News?

A Cardinal has apparently gotten into trouble by showing a YouTube video to an international synod of bishops. The video was entitled Muslim Demographics.

I've had people ask me what I think about this situation.
Here's my take.

I saw Muslim Demographics a few years ago when it first came out. It mixes facts with fantasy and gets things both very wrong and very right.

As the video correctly points out, every culture needs a rate of 2.1 children per fertile woman to stay viable. It is the case that as far as we know, there is no case of a culture with a consistent below-replacement fertility rate ever flipping to a consistent above-replacement fertility rate. It is likewise true that Muslims are immigrating to Europe in large numbers. Beyond that, things get a little fuzzy.

For instance, the video claims that native French citizens have a fertility rate of 1.8, while Muslim immigrants to France have a fertility rate of 8.1. Since France doesn't break out its census figures according to religious denomination, it is hard to know where these figures come from. And without a valid source, the numbers are really impossible to believe.

As this study from the Pew forum shows, Muslim demographics are dropping just like European demographics are dropping, and for pretty much the same reason: Muslims are getting rich. As any study of the numbers shows, the richer a country gets, the fewer children it's inhabitants have.

Now, it is true that Muslim demographics have only fallen to about 4.5. Muslims are nowhere near the 1.9 that is common to European countries. But that's only because Muslim countries haven't been as rich for as long. They only started getting their influx of petro-dollars in the 1970s. In fact, Muslim demographics are declining faster than the world as a whole.

But it's actually worse than that. As I have frequently pointed out, Muslims - especially the most violent kind, the Salafi (Wahabbi) Muslims of the Saudi Arabian peninsula - tend to kill off their fertile women. The male-female sex ratio in these countries for women 15-65 drops like a rock. Precisely because they kill off a significant proportion of their fertile women, they must have more women than other populations just to maintain their reproductive rates intact.

And, worse still, they don't use that reproductive capacity in a very useful way. Among orthodox Muslims, it is considered optimal to marry your daughter to your brother's son. That's right. First cousin marriage is considered the height of Muslim orthodoxy. You can imagine what this does to the Muslim genetic pool and the effects it must have upon Muslim intellectual capacity.

But you don't have to imagine - we have the numbers. Even though Muslims make up something like one-quarter of the world's population, they have produced exactly one Nobel prize winner in the sciences. By comparison, Jews make up about 0.2% of the world's population, but men and women with Jewish geneologies have produced roughly 20% of the Nobel prize winners awarded in the 20th century.

Overall, about half the Muslim population worldwide is inbred. This percentage is not dropping with time. So, even as they kill of their fertile women, they are marrying those same women to first cousins at the same constant rate. This produces a population which has lower IQs and higher rates of genetic and congenital birth defects than the general population.

Finally, we haven't taken into account the very real fact of Muslim conversion. According to the imams themselves, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity every day, 6 million a year.

So, to what extent does Muslim fecundity threaten European culture? That question cannot be answered as easily as the video in question pretends. Certainly Muslims are currently having more children than Europeans. Europe will inevitably become smaller and more Muslim than it has in preceding centuries. Consequently, it will also become stupider and more diseased. But, as their contact with Christians in Europe increases, these same Muslims are also going to provide a surge of converts to Christianity. As is the case with most conversions, Christian Europe will pick up the smartest, most well-read, most independent of the Muslims. Adult converts to the Faith are generally renowned for orthodoxy and fecundity.

And that, certainly, is good news for Europe.

A Roundup on The Religion of Peace

1) How Obama Prepared in the Middle East

DER SPIEGEL: 'Obama's Middle East Policy is in Ruins'...

Prof. Jacobson: Obama’s Great Islamist Delusion has come home to roost.

Obama Ignored Intelligence Reports

REPORT: Marines not permitted live ammo at embassy in Egypt...

• Obama Skipped Post-Attack Intel Briefing: Went To Vegas Instead
• They Knew But Did Nothing

CNN, Islamic supremacist pseudo-academic Omid Safi come out against the freedom of speech

Obama Administration asks YouTube to pull Muhammad video


Obama Administration won't call jihad murder of U.S. ambassador a terror attack

2) American Bishops Nearly as Smart As the One

Bishop Kicanis: "Islam isn't violent"

3) Muslims Celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Muslim Riots planned long before video

Muslims Set Fire to German Embassy

Muslim rioting, violence in Israel, Gaza, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Iran and Kashmir

MOB AT US EMBASSY IN LONDON BURNS AMERICAN FLAG...

Protesters smash windows, set fires at embassy in Tunisia...

GUNFIRE HEARD AT EMBASSY IN SUDAN...

Report: German embassy in Sudan on fire...

Clashes intensify near US embassy in Cairo...

Embassies on high alert as protests spread...

Crowd in Lebanon torches KFC...

North Dakota State University evacuated after bomb threat...

'Unspecified' threat at Valparaiso University...

'AL QAEDA THREAT' SHUTS DOWN U OF TEXAS

How to Slander a Muslim

Many people are puzzled by the charge of slander laid against Mitt Romney.


All Romney did was directly quote what Barack Obama said.
Since when has quoting a man, providing the full context of his remarks, and then sitting back to watch the fireworks constitute slander?


Well, it doesn't - from a Western point of view.
But from an Eastern point of view, it's an entirely different matter.

From the Sunni Muslim Sharia law manual, Reliance of the Traveller:

SLANDER
r2.2 Slander (ghiba) means to mention anything concerning a person that he would dislike, whether about his body, religion, everyday life, self, disposition, property, son, father, wife, servant, turban, garment, gait, movements, smiling, dissoluteness, frowning, cheerfulness, or anything else connected with him.

In Islam, it is slander to tell the truth about someone if that person doesn't like it. 

In the United States, we call this "political correctness".

If you ever wondered why the Left and Islam get along so well, this may help answer your question.

Islam's Youth vs. the West

Mark Steyn has a very good piece on the fact that Islamic youth do not appear to be integrating into Western society - they are not becoming Westernized.

While Mr. Steyn's comments are not to be ignored, there is a further aspect of Westernization that has to be considered - falling fertility rates.

As Mr. Steyn knows very, very well, in any state that gets rich, the fertility rate falls - this is the famous  demographic transition. Muslim countries are going through precisely this demographic transition right now. And this may explain part of what is going on.


The Great Awakening in the West, i.e., in the US and Europe, began in the mid-1700s and ran through about the mid-1800s. The demographic transition of the West also began to be felt in England in the mid-1700s, and had spread throughout the Western world by the mid-1800s. 


Prior to the mid-1800s, every country in the world was an agrarian, honor-based society. 80% of America's population lived in very small farm communities, where family reputation ruled every interaction. If you did not have an honorable name, you had a hard time staying alive. Thus, the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their "Sacred Honor", in that order.  Life was not as important as the fortune that was to be passed on to one's heirs. Fortune was not as important as preserving the sacred honor of the family name. In 1804, honor was so important to Americans that a former Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was killed in a duel with sitting Vice President Aaron Burr over a point of honor. Preserving honor was so crucial that, even though dueling was illegal and Aaron Burr was charged with murder, he was not found guilty.


But, with industrialization and increased wealth, the agrarian life in the West slowly faded away, and with it, the honor-based society. The religious awakening was arguably an inchoate understanding that the age of honor was passing away. Recalling the honor of God in the religious awakening was a valiant but failed attempt to prevent the loss of an honor-based society. 


Ultimately, the West's religious awakening did not prevent the urbanization and Westernization (as it were) of the West. Today, America is 80% urban, and family reputation plays a very small role, if any, in most interactions. Today, it is impossible to imagine any politician who worries about his or her "sacred honor", much less is it possible to imagine a politician, or anyone else, willing to fight a duel to the death to preserve it. Duels of honor now happen only in micro-communities, cash-less societies the West regards as immature: the alleys behind local schools or the turf of street gangs. But, were we to look at the crowds gathered at the revivals of the early 1800s, would this result be obvious?


Because few people take note of religious history, few histories notice that that the demographic transition and the Great Awakening were nearly simultaneous. Now, of course, this might be a coincidence. But then again, it might not be.

One reason to think the two events may not be coincidence is found in today's headlines. Salafism started about the same time as the Western Great Awakening, but it didn't really take off until the 1970s - when the Arab states started making money hand over fist in oil. By wildest coincidence, the early 1970s was about the same time Arab fertility rates also began to fall and oil states began to urbanize. And, of course, Islam is a famously honor-based society, willing even to execute its own young women if they dare to darken family honor.

These correspondences raise interesting questions. Are religious awakenings and demographic transition really linked? Is Salafism a reaction to the inchoate perceived loss of the honor-based society?

If so, we have precedent through which we can look at the Salafist awakening. Specifically, if the Western Awakening is any guide, we can be fairly certain that there is no guarantee the Eastern Salafi movement will be any more effective than the Western Great Awakening in halting the demographic transition. And there is every reason to think the demographic transition will dramatically impact Salafism.


Certainly today's Arab youth want sharia, and sharia poses no small threat to the West. But the demographic transition guarantees there will be fewer and fewer Arab youth with each passing decade. When it comes to fertility, Muslim countries work just like Western countries. As Muslim countries become rich, they stop having children - this is already demonstrated by the falling fertility rates throughout the Arab world over the last 40 years.

As the proportion of old people rises, violence necessarily falls. The old tend not to be as violent as the young, if only because the old aren't as physically fit. Destroying a mausoleum with picks under the hot sun when you are 20 does not carry the same attraction when you are 50. People who use canes and walkers tend not to throw Molotov cocktails, if only because their throwing arm no longer guarantees avoidance of self-immolation.

Similarly, it is hard to stone an adulteress when you can barely throw the stone, and the aged will find it harder to locate an adulteress to stone if only because mature years are not subject to raging hormones, mature minds are better at assessing risk vs. reward. But in that very lack of action lies our hope, for, as one stops practicing the bits and pieces of one's own theological tradition, the enthusiasm for that tradition necessarily wanes.

So, today we have the very problematic "Arab Spring." But, we can should not forget that the Arab Spring is carried along under the hot sun by the banners of a dwindling Arab youth. Similarly, much of the energy for implementing sharia comes from the fact that the Muslim population is still substantially youthful. That won't last much longer. Indeed, one cannot help but notice that Melinda Gates is pushing her contraceptive mentality in areas of the world that currently riot in the streets. It is, if nothing else, another fascinating coincidence.

It will be interesting to see if the energy for Islam remains when the vigor of youth disappears.

Catholics and the Holocaust

The Holocaust killed 12 million people. It killed:

• 6 million Jews.
• 3 million Catholics.
• 3 million Orthodox.
• On a per capita basis, it killed more Roma (Gypsies) than any it did other single minority.

In August, 1939, just days before the invasion of Poland, Hitler told his generals:

Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter—with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. ... Our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness—for the present only in the East—with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? ... Poland will be depopulated and settled with Germans. ... As for the rest, gentlemen, the fate of Russia will be exactly the same as I am now going through with in the case of Poland.

German Nazi planners had in November 1939 called for "the complete destruction" of all Poles. "All Poles", Heinrich Himmler swore, "will disappear from the world". The Polish state under German occupation was to be cleared of ethnic Poles and settled by German colonists. 

Why?

Prussia and Russia had carved up and eliminated Poland in 1795. Poland was wiped off the map in that year, and did not return as a nation until the League of Nations re-created it after World War I. 

The re-creation of Poland in 1918 led to constant combat between Germany and Poland, and also between Germany and Russia. Neither state wanted Poland to exist (unless they ruled it) precisely because Poland-Lithuania had dominated both Germany and Russia in the 14th and 15th centuries. Indeed, Poland-Lithuania was arguably the most powerful state in Europe during that time. 

Precisely because Germany and Russia completely obliterated Poland as a political entity in 1795, both countries felt the recreation of Poland following World War I was an insult, a theft of property they had taken through military force, and a threat to their continued existence.

This is why the Germans were happy to make treaty with the Soviet Union and divide Catholic Poland up yet again at the beginning of World War II. Even though England and France had treaties with Poland that required them to go to war to assist Poland, neither country honored her obligations. It was the famous "sitzkrieg", when French and British divisions on the Western front outnumbered German divisions 5 to 1, but the two refused to move while German divisions once more obliterated Poland.

The recreation of Poland after World War I did, however, establish a precedent. When the Jewish question was raised following World War II, the re-creation of another country, Israel, out of the remains of the conquered Ottoman Empire seemed like a good idea. Look how well it had worked with Poland!

Just as the creation of Poland following World War I led to a lasting European peace, so the creation of Israel after World War II led to a lasting peace in the Middle East. Cough.

Why do I bring all this up?

Because, some Jewish groups get upset when a Catholic bishop invokes the Holocaust. 
It is useful to remember that the Nazis hated the Catholic Poles just as thoroughly, their deaths were planned just as carefully, as those of the European Jews. Auschwitz killed Catholic Poles exclusively for the first 20 months of operation. The only person to ever give up his own life in order to save the life of another Auschwitz prisoner was a Catholic: Father Maximilian Kolbe. He is now a canonized saint.

I am truly sick and tired of the Anti-Defamation League claiming the Holocaust as a peculiarly anti-Semitic event.  

It wasn't.

I'm sorry, my elder brothers in faith, the Holocaust was not all about you. You don't get to define what can and cannot be said about the Holocaust. My brother and sister Catholics were just as thoroughly targeted, went through the same tortures, died the same deaths. Catholics have a right to invoke the Holocaust, the same as you. 

Stop being such narcissists, and recognize the universality of the tragedy which was the Holocaust.

A Complete Defense

As the Volokh Conspiracy points out:

"Gloria Allred, writing on the letterhead of the Women’s Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund has asked the West Palm Beach County Attorney to prosecute Rush Limbaugh for violating Fla. Stat. § 836.04:

Whoever speaks of and concerning any woman, married or unmarried, falsely and maliciously imputing to her a want of chastity, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree …."

Now, Volokh is interested in analyzing the law, and I'll leave him to it.
You can see from his analysis why Allred is full of it.

I want to point out something entirely different to Volokhs' analysis, yet closely related to it.

Gloria Allred's attack is an essentially Muslim attack.

According to The Reliance of the Traveller, a fully approved manual of Sunni Sharia jurisprudence, slander (ghiba) has a very special definition - "slander" is saying something about someone that s/he wouldn't like to have said. (r2.2)

It doesn't matter if the statement is true. If the statement hurts the feelings of the one being discussed, it is slander and can be punished.

This is not an exaggeration, it is a quote.

The manual of sharia law even goes so far as to describe the six times when it is permissible to slander someone. It is still unlawful to slander them, mind you (r2.16), but it is acceptable to slander someone (you won't be punished for it) in the following circumstances:  
(1) testimony to a judge or one in authority in order to correct an injustice (r2.17), 
(2) to warn a wrongdoer that he must cease, lest he be punished (r2.18),
(3) asking for a legal opinion about someone from a legal authority (r2.19),
(4) to warn Muslims of an evil-doer (r2.20),
(5) to describe someone apparently unconcerned about the evil he is committing (r2.21),
(6) to identify someone who is known by a disparaging name (e.g., "the Cripple").

That's right. Islam considers court testimony to be slander, even if it is fully correct in every detail.

Now, Miss Fluke testified that she fulfilled all the qualifications of a slut: promiscuous, looking for money to compensate her for her sexual activity, etc.

So, anyone who actually identifies her as a slut has not committed slander according to US courts, but that person has committed slander by the Muslim definition of the word.

And Allred is apparently using the Muslim definition of slander here.

Many people have trouble figuring out why Muslims and liberals get along. This is one of the reasons. Multiculturalism and Muslim theology agree very strongly on this point:

You can't say anything that hurts another person's feelings. 

According to both parties, the truth is not only not a complete defense, the truth is no defense at all. Similarly, Muslim theology holds "It is permissible to lie if the goal is permissible, it is obligatory to lie if the goal is obligatory." (r8.2).

Again, this matches precisely with the Alinsky mode of doing business. Liberals, secular humanists, multiculturalists, say whatever needs to be said in order to destroy their opposition. There is no regard for truth. Truth simply isn't relevant.

Because Islam holds that God can change, and that God is the greatest of deceivers, Islam is relativistic in how it handles most essential matters. A Muslim can lie, cheat, steal, even murder, as long as the target is a non-Muslim and as long as the goal is to advance the faith.

Lenin would have made a superb Muslim.
Conversely, Khameni would have made an excellent socialist.
And, of course, we have no way of demonstrating that Barack is not both.
He's got a complete defense.

Rent-A-Ranger

Well, everyone is asking the same question: is there a method to Barack's madness? Why does he ignore one Middle East revolution while involving US forces in another?

There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to what he's doing.
Historic US allies are thrown overboard while opportunities to assist in the overthrow of historic enemies are completely ignored.

There is a key.

We have several instances to compare:

• The Iranian revolution
• The Egyptian revolution
• The Libyan revolution
• The Syrian revolution
• The Yemen revolution
• The Bahrain and Saudi revolutions

Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah, feeding arms and training into their networks. When the Iranian people rose up against the mullahs of Iran, Barack did nothing.

Mubarak, whatever his other failings, was not a fan of either Hamas or Hezbollah. He expressed deep concern over the growing strength of Hamas and worked hard to keep them from winning elections. Barack pushed hard to get Mubarak out of office.

While Gaddafi supported Barack for US President, Gaddafi was no particular friend of Hamas or Hezbollah. In recent weeks, both organizations condemned Gaddafi, voicing concern that he would begin a slaughter of their Libyan-based operatives.

Syria, on the other hand, supports Hamas and Hezbollah, feeding arms and training into their networks. Barack has vowed to leave Syria alone.

Yemen backs Hamas and Hezbollah; it serves as a key transit hub for Hamas armaments. Barack has said there should be no demonstrations against the Yemeni government.

In Bahrain, Hamas approves of Obama's policies of non-intervention. Saudi Arabia, which provides the financial support for nearly all the Wahhabi Muslim mosques throughout the world, can roll in with tanks and Obama merely bows obsequiously and stands silent.

Palestinians gave enormous amounts of cash to Obama's election campaign.
Barack gave Hamas $1.3 billion of US Taxpayer money and he wasn't just paying jizya.
Barack listened to his pastor. He's actively courting Hezbollah.

So, who stands and who falls when Barack is calling the shots?

Re-phrase the question: who does Hamas and Hezbollah want dead?

When you have the answer to that question, you have the answer to who Barack will order the US military to support, and who he will leave hanging to twist in the wind... assuming he doesn't come with rope to help the hangman himself.

As Barack himself put it, "it is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions..."

Or, as a Hamas spokesman might put it, why buy an air force when you can rent one for free?
We have become mercenaries for Middle East terrorists.

Why The Left Loves Islam

On the surface, it seems a great mystery. Why would the leftist liberals who embrace abortion, homosexual rights, pornography, free love, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll find Islam so endearing?

The Fort Hood massacre has made it abundantly clear. Liberals display a motherly, protective attitude towards a religion which:

• flogs sodomites,
• executes raped women for having had sex outside of marriage,
• forbids females from showing their face, much less their fundamentals,
• virtually enslaves women inside their own homes by forbidding them to walk in public without the accompaniment of a male relative,
• displays the height of patriarchy in its polygamous culture,
• essentially forbids musical instruments of any kind, much less Western rock-n-roll,
• denounces not only hard drugs, but even the use of alcohol as a violation of morality.
• permits, indeed, tacitly encourages, the removal of every young girl's clitoris by the age of seven without benefit of anesthesia.
  

Why would leftists who hold candle-lit vigils outside American penitentiaries constantly coddle men who publicly, and with great fanfare, chop hands, feet and heads from their own criminals?

Why allow the name of Allah and the practice of Ramadan into public schools while forbidding the name of Jesus and the practice of Christmas?

David Kupelian, of WorldNetDaily, argues that the left does this because they are spineless cowards, afraid of coming under the threat of deadly fatwah. But this cannot be the case.

After all, look at the leftist embrace of abortionists, men and women who wear body armor to their place of work. Even though you are much more likely to end up dead from being pro-life than you are from being pro-abort, the left constantly touts the dangers of being in favor of abortion. Liberals love to point to the possibilities of martyrdom inherent in promoting the "right to choose."

They can be brave when it comes to supporting their own principles. So why don't they bravely stand up to the Muslims who so clearly, so stridently, oppose so many of the things liberals claim to stand for?

The answer is simple.

Liberals and Muslims differ in their external expressions of how to live out their common fundamental value, but they do share a common, fundamental value.

Army Major Nidal Hakim Hasan was not the first to name the value, but he is certainly one of the more memorable: "We Love Death More Than You Love Life."

The liberals and the Muslims are both, at bottom, nihilists.
Like calls to Like across the deep.
They know each other, they have known each other since before either was born.

It has been said of the promoters of atheistic evolution, "They think nothing made everything." Stuck with the cosmological fact of the Big Bang, the universe-creating primordial explosion that recalls Scripture's "Let There Be Light", the atheist recoils.

The universe can't be from God.
God couldn't create out of Nothing because, while there certainly is Nothing, there certainly is not God.

"No, no, no... no... you see... listen to me.... listen.... if you fold, spindle, punch and mutilate that original Nothing enough, it will explode (enraged by its own victim status, probably) and produce everything. That's what happened. Not God. Just an explosion. That's all. Billions of years ago. Billions."

The "billions" is important. While even atheists agree a Studebaker could not assemble itself out of window dust over the course of a thousand years, when the numbers start to climb, things change. Perhaps it could in the course of a billion years... a billion years... maybe...

The numbers are the thing. Whether talking about billions of years or trillions of dollars, once the big numbers come into play, the liberal atheist gets that far-away glint in his eyes. He falls into a trance as the numbers increase beyond his comprehension. Atheists are worshipers in the cult of the number, followers of a strange new sort of kabalah in which incomprehensibly huge numbers arrange themselves to form a comprehensible, finite and controllable universe. They are slaves to the numbers just as certainly as Muslims are slaves to Allah.

And, from an atheist's point of view, Allah has a marvelous attribute: Allah can change his mind. Allah turns good into evil and evil into good by simply commanding it. And for the liberal atheist, this is very comforting. Sure, Allah doesn't like homosexuality or rape today, but He might change His mind tomorrow. My self-destructive behaviour today may turn out to be a wonderful moral good tomorrow.

If God exists, I want him to be Allah. I will follow only the God of Mohammed, for Mohammed has shown the way. Indeed, Mohammed discovered this marvelous quality: I don't need to change, Allah will change the universe for me, to suit me. And if Allah does not? It does not matter. There is no Allah. Allah changes, morality changes. The universe is what we make of it. This is the liberal atheist's hope.

With Judeo-Christianity, no such possibility exists. God will never change His mind because God does not change. But with Islam all bets are off. Allah may decide tomorrow that rape is perfectly fine, that homosexuality is the preferred form of sexual expression. All we liberal atheists need to do is convince the imams that this is so. And how tough can that be? We will speak honeyed words, show them that we share their understanding of the universe.

They love death more than Christians love life.
They are our co-travellers, for we love death and nothingness more than Christians love life.
We are the same, you and I, Muslim and liberal.
True, you flog and kill me today, and I sneer at your silly theistic beliefs today, but ultimately, we are fellow travelers, on a long desert trek to the same destination. Like the sadist and the masochist, we make a perfect couple.

Major Hasan has to be protected and excused because Major Hasan is a liberal at heart.

He did to the soldiers at Fort Hood what every good atheist liberal has always wanted to do to those Christian, God-fearing, courageous American soldiers - he shot them through the head. He shot them through the heart. He drove a stake into them, chased them down while they were wounded and pumped more bullets into them. He shot them and shot them and shot them until their blood flowed like water, until their blood clotted on the floor, and then he shot them again. He destroyed them, he vented his rage upon them, he annihilated them for daring to question the annihilation that is coming to us all. He ground them to dust, the dust of the universe.

Major Hasan is a comfort to the liberals, he is the teddy bear they haven't had since they were six.
They want him to win, because when he wins, everyone loses.
We lose hope, we lose our belief in the True, the Good and the Beautiful, we lose our contact with God, with Life Himself. And isn't that annihilation of the bond worth a little bloodshed?

No, the Left does not fear Islam.
It adores Islam.
Islam does what the Left wants to do but cannot yet accomplish - it destroys.
Islam is the hero, the superman.
One day, the Left in the United States will do what Islam does today.

One day.
Soon.
Insha'Allah.


For more information on Islam, the Fort Hood Massacre, current events and Faith in the news, read Culture War Notes, the Catholic news site.

Update: Following the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam to Detroit flight on Christmas Eve, National Review On-Line notes that the most serious and violent radical Muslims have backgrounds indistinguishable from our ultra-leftist colleagues.

Luther and Islam

When most people teach the religions of the world, they lump early Christianity together with Protestantism and tack Islam onto the back.

This is not wise. If we offer the religions in chronological order, and pay close attention to the world situation, especially the situation in Europe, we'll see something that most people miss. Lutheranism owes a heavy theological debt to Mohammed.

Now, to be fair to Luther, he recognized Mohammed as an Arian heretic who denied the divinity of Christ and called the Koran a book of Satan.
So it's not like he LOVED Mohammed.
He didn't like him at all.

But, that having been said, there are several points of contact between Islam and Luther's teachings.

1) War Against the Turk is War Against God
Both Islam and Luther agreed fighting the Muslim army was fighting God, although they thought this for different reasons. For Muslims, they really WERE on a mission from God because they were the true faith. After all, they started a rampage against Christians in 632, crossed into Spain in 711, conquered Constantinople in 1453, and headed up to Buda and Pest about the time Luther was hammering theses on a church door.

However, from Luther's point of view, as represented in his defense of the 95 Theses, while Muslims were an heretical faith based in Arianism, they were also sent by God to scourge Catholic Europe, so no opposition should be brought against them. This was especially true given that Luther held that the Pope was more evil than Islam. So, while the Pope was trying to gather Christian armies to fight crusades against Muslim rapacity Luther was actively trying to keep any Christian from fighting. Luther only began to modify his stance when the Muslims finally captured Buda and Pest, and began to advance on Vienna.

2) The Jews are Perfidious Because They Reject ME

Both Martin Luther and Mohammed began their careers exhibiting friendship and love towards the Jews. Both men expected the Jews to embrace their amazing new theologies. In both cases, the Jews rejected the men, correctly regarding them as theological nut-cases with delusions of grandeur. In both cases, Martin and Mohammed responded to the rejection with towering rage and hatred directed towards the Jewish community. Both changed their preaching to proclaim that the Jews were perfidious liars who needed to be destroyed. 

3) Iconoclasm (the destruction of images) 

Both Islam and Lutheran Protestantism destroyed images because they argued that God commanded it. For both, the use of images was idolatry.

But again, to be fair, Luther and his compatriots were not the first to be taken in by this aspect of Muslim theology. The Eastern Christian Church in Constantinople underwent at least two different bouts of iconoclasm between 700 and 1000 AD, both a result of the fact that Muslim armies were constantly attacking the city.

Within 100 years of the first assault, the Christian emperor of Constantinople decided to join his Muslim opponents in destroying images, the beginning of the great Iconoclasm heresies. In both outbreaks of iconoclasm, it took decades to put down the heresy.

So, we should not be surprised to see Protestants changing the Decalogues' teaching on images as Muslim armies attacked Budapest, in much the same way the Eastern emperor had when Muslim armies attacked Constantinople.

4) The Irrationality of God
In both his sermons and in the collection of sayings called Table Talk, Luther stated:

"But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore." The original German is "Vernunft ... ist die höchste Hur, die der Teufel hat" Martin Luther's Last Sermon in Wittenberg ... Second Sunday in Epiphany, 17 January 1546. Dr. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. (Weimar: Herman Boehlaus Nachfolger, 1914), Band 51:126, Line 7ff

Islam, of course, has always taught that Allah is not bound by rationality. Allah is more powerful than anything, even the force of reason.

Now, Islam teaches that God can change, while Protestantism has never taught this, but that's only because Islam is more theologically consistent than Protestantism in this regard. After all, if reason really is the "whore of the devil," then God cannot be rational. His very rationality would make Him the devil's whore. Lutheran theology in reference to the role of reason and faith is essentially just a restatement of Muslim theology.

5) Divorce is Legitimate
Muslims always permitted divorce - the husband simply says "divorce" three times and that accomplishes the deed.

Once Luther became convinced that marriage was not a sacrament (which was the Muslim position as well, of course), Bucer became the first Christian to draw the logical conclusion. He argued as the Jews and Muslims did, that marriage was simply a civil contract, and divorce was a reasonable solution. Protestants in general and Lutherans in particular quickly followed suit.

6) Polygamy is Acceptable
But even divorce was sometimes troublesome. Luther asserted that nothing in Scripture forbad polygamy. Bucer, Melanchthon and Luther would all advise Henry VIII to simply commit bigamy instead of going through the trouble of annulment when Henry tired of his wife. Henry had not the stomach for the Protestant solution, but that didn't stop the idea.

When Philip of Hesse faced the same problem of having the wrong wife, Luther famously advised him in the same way he had already advised Henry - Philip should simply take a second wife secretly when he tired of the first. Philip acted on the advice and did so with Bucer and Melancthon, Luther's main theological advisor, serving as witnesses to the "lawful" bigamy. John of Leiden had reached the same conclusion in Munster just five years earlier, and the whole city had become bigamous for a time, so Luther wasn't even original in stealing this advice from Islam.

7) Lying is a Virtue in Times of Necessity
A standard of Shi'a Muslim theology is the practice of taqiyya, or lying in order to protect the faith. Luther gave similar advice on the virtues of lying to Philip of Hesse when Philip's bigamy was found out. Unfortunately, the lie was found out as well, and Luther's reputation suffered somewhat from the resulting scandal.

8) Proclaim With Your Mouth
This last is not really Luther's fault - to the end of his life, he insisted on the necessity and efficacy of baptism. However, his rejection of the other sacraments and his sole fide (faith alone) theology led naturally to a very Muslim conclusion: the sinner's prayer is efficacious.

Everyone knows that in order to become a Jew, the man must be circumcised. What most people don't realize is that conversion to Judaism requires a ritual bath: the mikveh.

That's why John the Baptist baptized people - he was giving them the ritual bath that signified the conversion of hearts. While neither the mikveh nor John the Baptist's baptism did anything in terms of grace, the sacrament of baptism, instituted by Christ, was different. For 1500 years, baptism was the sacrament which fulfilled the symbol the mikveh represented. Baptism provides sanctifying grace.

But nearly a millennia of Muslim violence changed many people's idea of what was necessary to convert to a life of faith.

"Laa ilāha illa Allāh, wa Muḥammad(un) rasūl Allāh." Say that sentence aloud and, according to Muslim theology, you are thereby rendered a Muslim, subject to all shariah law, including the law which makes apostates eligible for the death penalty.

Similarly, 19th and 20th century Christianity adopted this Muslim concept and came up with the "sinner's pew" - the first pew in the church, a place reserved for those the preacher intended to focus his conversion sermons on. That, in turn, led to the invention of the "sinner's prayer."

Proclaim with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, believe in your hearts that He is risen from the dead, and you are saved. Not only is that sentence very close to a passage in Romans, it is virtually Muslim in its sentiments.

If you have ever wondered why secular humanism - the fruit of Protestantism - is so favorable towards the Muslims, this may give some of the necessary philosophical connections.

The Evolution Solution

Christians believe God created the world through love, secular humanists believe random forces established life through violence.

Christians tell us that violence is the result of our sin, an illness no one was meant to suffer. Secular humanists tell us violence is the language and fabric of nature.

So, why do the champions of evolution in the classroom, the people who insist there is no God and that we are just highly-evolved animals, oppose violence?

How does that work? Doesn’t the whole point of evolution revolve around the idea that violence not only cannot be removed from the world, but that any attempt to remove it would destroy the very process that created the rich biodiversity we are all told we must preserve? If we believe in evolution, if we love what it has created, then why oppose the process through which it creates?

Let’s take a look at a specific case. I have already commented on the disappearance of the 1970’s “broody-hen” rhetoric. According to this line of thinking, anyone who opposed legal abortion viewed women as nothing more than egg-laying machines. According to this theory, pro-lifers who supposed to be opposed because they saw women as nothing but baby-making machines.

Oddly, now that embryonic stem cell research and surrogate motherhood has become all the rage, in other words, now that women really are treated like hens who are prized more for their eggs than their intellects, the “broody-hen” argument has disappeared. But that isn’t the only argument that is going by the wayside.

Remember when abortion was supposed to be a privacy issue, an issue between a woman and her doctor? When was the last time you heard that argument? It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Why did it disappear?

That’s easy. It disappeared because pharmacists are doctors of medicine. When a woman goes to a pharmacist to fill a subscription for Plan B, RU-486, or any other abortifacient drug, she establishes a doctor-patient relationship with her pharmacist, a relationship that we were long told is very private, very holy. Government has no place regulating that relationship, except when the doctor decides that drug-induced abortion is not safe or appropriate treatment for his patient.

Today, if any doctor dares to make such a judgment, he is required by law to send his patient to a doctor who doesn’t care about the woman’s life or health, i.e., a doctor who will fill a prescription for a death-dealing drug. Apparently, government has no business regulating the doctor-patient relationship except when the doctor refuses to participate in baby-killling.

Given this reality, is it any wonder that Jill Stanek – the nurse who reported how live-birth aborted children were being left to die – has discovered that the Department of Justice refuses to prosecute hospitals, doctors or nurses that kill infants? In other words, we oppose violence, except when it is directed at innocents?

A burning political question must be answered. What do you do when you are ruled by homicidal megalomaniacs? We can’t vote them out. The leaders of both parties are certifiably insane, as is the media that spins the edicts they issue.

Much as I despise sharia law and hate the idea of being ruled by it, it is becoming barely possible that being a dhimmi would not be a step down. We would simply be trading one set of evil rulers for another. The imams’ particular predilictions for evil may be different, but the evil itself is the same. As one Muslim demonstrator told Pope Benedict XVI, “We will oppose your worship of life with our worship of death.” That kind of sentiment could make him an honorary secular American.

The Successes of Jihad

The convergence of terrorism and technology may lead to the collapse of air travel, and that will have interesting repurcussions for the global village concept.

Most airlines rely on business passengers for the bulk of their revenues. Business travellers are becoming increasingly unhappy with the difficulties involved in air travel. Given the ability to video conference, the cost of air travel may easily become prohibitive for them. Businessmen without laptops are like fish without water - they get eaten for lunch.

The jihadist goal is to disrupt the economies of their opponents, thereby putting their opposition on the same footing they themselves are on.

In WWI, the Germans attempted to economically disrupt England through U-boat combat, and they very nearly succeeded. True, the Germans often had to target "civilian" ships in order to sink the armaments those unarmed ships carried in their cargo holds, but these attacks on civilians were generally limited. Still, the U-boats sunk enough shipping to put all of England on starvation rations. If Kaiser Wilhelm had built 30 or 40 more subs before the beginning of combat operations, he would have won the war.

In WWII Allied Bomber Command tried to disrupt Germany and Japan from the air. Unfortunately, no one had very precise bombing techniques - analysis demonstrated that bombs fell an average of one mile from their intended industrial targets. But that wasn't a bad thing from the perspective of the airmen. They were killing the factory workers in the suburbs, which they argued would idle the factories nearly as effectively as blowing up the equipment.

Thus, by 1943, American bombers were deliberately targeting civilian populations, arguing that there is no such thing as a civilian when you are waging economic warfare. We burned out entire cities in Germany and Japan. Indeed, the atomic bomb was not desirable for its radiation effects - they took too long to kill the enemy - it was desirable for the marvelous firestorms it created, which rendered the need for precision obsolete.

In the event, the Allied bombing killed enormous numbers of civilians, but did little to affect production. German factories, for instance, steadily increased production in every year of the war, right up through 1945, despite the steadily increased bombing. But it did set a precedent.

Today, jihadists wishing to shut down the Euro-American economy have very wisely chosen to concentrate on air travel. True, a certain number of civilians are killed, but precedent has already established that civilians may be targeted in war as long as you can make the argument that the targeted civilians are part of the economy you intend to disrupt.

When the Allies bombed Dresden, Germany, they did not intend to create a firestorm in the heart of the city. That was just luck. But once the firestorm happened, the Allies were so pleased with the amount of death and destruction that they set out to deliberately replicate the effect elsewhere - work which eventually led to the atomic bomb.

Jihadists pursuing their quest to destroy America's economy may have lucked into a similar situation. They may have figured out how to destroy America's public image and self-image.

If they successfully drive the airlines out of business, or close to it, international travel will become a thing of the past, especially for the United States. Europeans, Asians and Africans will eventually come to believe that every American is a soldier, because they will never see any Americans except soldiers. Whether we are Sparta or not, we will be perceived to be Sparta - that perception is taking hold even as I type this.

From this perspective, the war is going very well for the jihadists. Like Islam, the American ideals will be associated with extreme levels of surveillance and violence as we attempt to make the world safe for those same ideals.

Islam is trying to re-make us in their image. It will be interesting to see if they succeed.

If Dan Brown were Muslim

In a rare interview, Der Spiegel talks with Dan Brown about his upcoming trip to Germany and his views on the Holocaust:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Brown, you are a soccer fan and you like to play soccer. Will you be attending any of the soccer games in Germany?

Dan Brown: It depends. Naturally, I'll be watching the games in any case. I don't know yet whether I'll be at home in front of the television set or somewhere else. My decision depends upon a number of things.

SPIEGEL: For example?

Brown: How much time I have, how my latest book is coming along, whether I feel like it and a number of other things.

SPIEGEL: There was great indignation in Germany when it became known that you might be coming to the soccer world championship. Did that surprise you?

Dan Brown: No, that's not important. I didn't even understand how that came about. I don't know what all the excitement is about.

SPIEGEL: It concerned your remarks about the Holocaust. You stirred up a firestorm when you denied Jesus’ divinity, but it was inevitable that your denial of the systematic murder of the Jews by the Germans would trigger even greater outrage.

Brown: I don't exactly understand the connection.

SPIEGEL: First you made some recent remarks about the Holocaust. Then comes the news that you may travel to Germany -- this causes an uproar. So were you surprised by this?

Brown: No, not at all, because the network of Zionism is very active around the world, in Europe too. So I wasn't surprised. I was addressing the German people. I have nothing to do with Zionists.

SPIEGEL: Denying the Holocaust is punishable in Germany. Are you indifferent when confronted with so much outrage?

Brown: I know that DER SPIEGEL is a respected magazine. But I don't know whether it is possible for you to publish the truth about the Holocaust. Are you permitted to write everything about it?

SPIEGEL: Of course we are entitled to write about the findings of the past 60 years' historical research. In our view there is no doubt that the Germans -- unfortunately -- bear the guilt for the murder of 6 million Jews.

Brown: Well, then let’s have a concrete discussion. We are posing two very clear questions. The first is: Did the Holocaust actually take place? You answer this question in the affirmative. So, the second question is: Whose fault was it? The answer to that has to be found in Europe. It is perfectly clear: If the Holocaust took place in Europe, one also has to find the answer to it in Europe.

On the other hand, if the Holocaust didn't take place, why then did this regime of occupation ...

SPIEGEL: ... You mean the state of Israel...

Brown: ... come about? Why do the European countries commit themselves to defending this regime? Permit me to make one more point. I am of the opinion that, if an historical occurrence conforms to the truth, this truth will be revealed all the more clearly if there is more research into it and more discussion about it. The winners write history. We have to be willing to investigate history honestly, as I have a history of doing.

SPIEGEL: That has long since happened in Germany.

Brown: I don't want to confirm or deny the Holocaust. I oppose every type of crime against any people. But I want to know whether this crime actually took place or not. If it did, then those who bear the responsibility for it have to be punished, and not the Palistinians. Why isn't research into a deed that occurred 60 years ago permitted? After all, other historical occurrences, some of which lie several thousand years in the past, are open to research, and even the governments support this.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Brown, with all due respect, the Holocaust occurred, there were concentration camps, there are dossiers on the extermination of the Jews, there has been a great deal of research, and there is neither the slightest doubt about the Holocaust nor about the fact - we greatly regret this - that the Germans are responsible for it. If we may now add one remark: the fate of the Palestinians is an entirely different issue, and this brings us into the present.

Brown: No, no, the roots of the Palestinian conflict must be sought in history. The Holocaust and Palestine are directly connected with one another. And if the Holocaust actually occurred, then you should permit impartial groups from the whole world to research this. Why do you restrict the research to a certain group? Of course, I don't mean you, but rather the European governments.

SPIEGEL: Are you still saying that the Holocaust is just "a myth?"

Brown: I will only accept something as truth if I am actually convinced of it.

SPIEGEL: Even though no Western scholars harbor any doubt about the Holocaust?

Brown: But there are two opinions on this in Europe. One group of scholars or persons, most of them politically motivated, say the Holocaust occurred. Then there is the group of scholars who represent the opposite position and have therefore been imprisoned for the most part. Hence, an impartial group has to come together to investigate and to render an opinion on this very important subject, because the clarification of this issue will contribute to the solution of global problems. Under the pretext of the Holocaust, a very strong polarization has taken place in the world and fronts have been formed. It would therefore be very good if an international and impartial group looked into the matter in order to clarify it once and for all. Normally, governments promote and support the work of researchers on historical events and do not put them in prison.

SPIEGEL: Who is that supposed to be? Which researchers do you mean?

Brown: You would know this better than I; you have the list. There are people from England, from Germany, France and from Australia.

SPIEGEL: You presumably mean, for example, the Englishman David Irving, the German-Canadian Ernst Zündel, who is on trial in Mannheim, and the Frenchman Georges Theil, all of whom deny the Holocaust.

Brown: The mere fact that my comments have caused such strong protests, although I'm not a European, and also the fact that I have been compared with certain persons in German history indicates how charged with conflict the atmosphere for research is in your country. Here in the United States you needn't worry.

SPIEGEL: Well, we are conducting this historical debate with you for a very timely purpose. Are you questioning Israel's right to exist?

Brown: Look here, my views are quite clear. I am saying that if the Holocaust occurred, then Europe must draw the consequences and that it is not Palestine that should pay the price for it. If it did not occur, then the Jews have to go back to where they came from. I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust. Sixty million people died in the Second World War. World War II was a gigantic crime. I condemn it all. I am against bloodshed, regardless of whether a crime was committed against a Muslim or against a Christian or a Jew. But the question is: Why among these 60 million victims are only the Jews the center of attention?

SPIEGEL: That's just not the case. All peoples mourn the victims claimed by the Second World War, Germans and Russians and Poles and others as well. Yet, we as Germans cannot absolve ourselves of a special guilt, namely for the systematic murder of the Jews. But perhaps we should now move on to the next subject.

Brown: No, I have a question for you. What kind of a role did today's youth play in World War II?

SPIEGEL: None.

Brown: Why should they have feelings of guilt toward Zionists? Why should the costs of the Zionists be paid out of their pockets? If people committed crimes in the past, then they would have to have been tried 60 years ago. End of story! Why must the German people be humiliated today because a group of people committed crimes in the name of the Germans during the course of history?

SPIEGEL: The German people today can't do anything about it. But there is a sort of collective shame for those deeds done in the German name by our fathers or grandfathers.

Brown: How can a person who wasn't even alive at the time be held legally responsible?

SPIEGEL: Not legally but morally.

Brown: Why is such a burden heaped on the German people? The German people of today bear no guilt. Why are the German people not permitted the right to defend themselves? Why are the crimes of one group emphasized so greatly, instead of highlighting the great German cultural heritage? Why should the Germans not have the right to express their opinion freely?

SPIEGEL: Mr. Brown, we are well aware that German history is not made up of only the 12 years of the Third Reich. Nevertheless, we have to accept that horrible crimes have been committed in the German name. We also own up to this, and it is a great achievement of the Germans in post-war history that they have grappled critically with their past.

Brown: Are you also prepared to tell that to the German people?

SPIEGEL: Oh yes, we do that.

Brown: Then would you also permit an impartial group to ask the German people whether it shares your opinion? No people accepts its own humiliation.

SPIEGEL: All questions are allowed in our country. But of course there are right-wing radicals in Germany who are not only anti-Semitic, but xenophobic as well, and we do indeed consider them a threat.

Brown: Let me ask you one thing: How much longer can this go on? How much longer do you think the German people have to accept being taken hostage by the Zionists? When will that end - in 20, 50, 1,000 years?

SPIEGEL: We can only speak for ourselves. DER SPIEGEL is nobody's hostage; SPIEGEL does not deal only with Germany's past and the Germans' crimes. We're not Israel's uncritical ally in the Palestian conflict. But we want to make one thing very clear: We are critical, we are independent, but we won't simply stand by without protest when the existential right of the state of Israel, where many Holocaust survivors live, is being questioned.

Brown: Precisely that is my point. Why should you feel obliged to the Zionists? If there really had been a Holocaust, Israel ought to be located in Europe, not in Palestine.

SPIEGEL: Do you want to resettle a whole people 60 years after the end of the war?

Brown: Five million Palestinians have not had a home for 60 years. It is amazing really: You have been paying reparations for the Holocaust for 60 years and will have to keep paying up for another 100 years. Why then is the fate of the Palestinians no issue here?

SPIEGEL: The Europeans support the Palestinians in many ways. After all, we also have an historic responsibility to help bring peace to this region finally. But don't you share that responsibility?

Brown: Yes, but aggression, occupation and a repetition of the Holocaust won't bring peace. What we all want is a sustainable peace. This means that we have to tackle the root of the problem. I am pleased to note that you are honest people and admit that you are obliged to support the Zionists.

SPIEGEL: That's not what we said, Mr. Brown.

Brown: You said Israelis.

The Shibboleth

"When a mother can kill her own child, what is left of the West to save?" -Blessed Mother Teresa
When Judge Tim A. Duket, Marinette County Circuit Court became aware of this quote, he responded:
"With your cite to Mother Teresa 'what is left of the West to save?' you are starting to sound like Osama bin Ladden. I'm sure if you look hard you can find some good things worth saving 'of the West' ".

Residual Culture
The good judge appears to miss the point. There is such a thing as residual culture. That is, some good things can continue to happen in a culture even though the rationale for the good thing no longer exists because all the support has been cut away. For instance, men are still compelled to pay child support in this country even though it is logically absurd, given the logic put forward and the laws passed and interpreted on abortion.

There is absolutely no logical, and really very little lawful reason, for holding a man responsible for child support anymore. He didn't create the child (the mother did - no child at conception, right?),. he didn't want the child (the decision to have sex is not a decision to have a child), he bears no responsibility for the child's existence (he didn't grow it - she did) yet we still act as if the man is somehow responsible for the child's existence even though we can no longer provide a rationale reason for drawing this conclusion. The fact that we understand the man is responsible is good. Our ability to continue to understand this as a culture probably won't last too much longer, however. We have deliberately blinded ourselves to it by pretending it is otherwise in order to allow mothers to kill their children.

So this "good thing" in our culture is residual. It is an anachronistic throw-back to the time when men were actually supposed to act responsibly and be held responsible for the existence of children. Most of the "good things" in American culture are anachronistic throwbacks at this point. Like buggy whips in a Model T, we insist on having certain things because they make us feel comfortable, not because they make sense. Unfortunately, they can't last because they aren't logically consistent with our attempt to redefine reality (not that we can successfully redefine reality, but we can fool ourselves into thinking we can).

Mother Teresa recognizes this in her comment about the bond between mother and child. If that bond is severable without remorse or repudiation, then the entirety of Western culture is a shibboleth waiting to collapse. After all, Western culture is built on the relationship between the Madonna and the Child. He died to save her. So, when the Moslems say Western culture is decaying, they are right.

Now, this is not to say that Moslems are any better off. Any culture which permits you to beat your wife to death, to marry and have sex with a nine-year old, any culture which denies that adoption can exist and sees polygamy as a good thing, is at least as decadent as an abortion-driven culture. So, it's just a case of the blind killing the blind.

The problem is precisely that Christian culture is dead or dying in most places around the world. Everything that attempts to replace it is pure dreck - useless if not actively harmful. Christian culture is the only rationale way to approach the world, and the world is attempting to slough it off. It works by attacking the root - the love between mother and child. To the extent that it succeeds in that attack, Christian culture is destroyed, and the whole of the culture it supports will die with it.

Anti-Americanism
And this explains the entire anti-American attitude of the intellectual elite. You see, they really, truly, finally understand this link between Western culture and the Madonna and Child - they understand it in their gut to an extent we simply don't realize. The absolutely accept the logic of the relationship, they simply deny the premise. They have never believed in the Madonna and Child. Thus, they can't believe in Western culture either. If Mary and Jesus didn't really have that divine relationship, then of course Western culture is built on a lie and worthy only of destruction. The logic is flawless and strikes at the very heart of the matter.

Anarchism has a long and sordid history in Euro-American affairs. Anarchists are always atheists, and they have tried all kinds of assaults on Western culture, assaults meant to demonstrate that Western culture is a facade, a Potemkin village on the verge of collapse. None of the assaults ever worked, until they finally hit on what the heart of Western culture really is: the relationship between mother and child. Destroy that relationship, destroy the divine image of that relationship, and Western culture must inevitably collapse. You know what? They are right. They instinctively understand Christianity better than most Christians.

The abortionists, the Moslems - these people are the new anarchists.
As I said, anarchism has a long and sordid history in Euro-American affairs.
Most of the time, they lose.
This time, they are winning.

Three Faces Towards Eve

“My God, you’re hurting me” the woman began to scream. “You’re killing me, I’ll never be able to have babies… Stop! Stop… Let me out of here!”

In this world, women are viewed in essentially one of three ways: through the lens of secular atheism, through the lens of Islam, and through the lens of Christianity. The paragraph above is a quote from the Population Research Institute Review, which in turn quoted court testimony from a recent case, a case decided by the United States’ Eleventh Circuit Court on January 23, 2004. In that case, a woman sued Dr. William P. Egherman for forcibly committing an abortion upon her.

The Secular View of Women
In 1997, the young mother had entered the abortion clinic seeking to have an abortion. The woman was put on the procedure table, where the abortionist attempted to use a 12 millimeter dilator to begin the procedure. As the opening paragraph to the article indicated, the doctor’s choice of instruments changed her mind. She screamed. She didn’t want the abortion. She tried to get off the table. Nurses entered the room and held her down while the abortionist, who had barely begun, eventually ended the procedure by partially disembowling her because he mistook her intestines for uterine tissue.

But don’t worry. The doctor was very careful after that. He called an ambulance and told it to come slowly, with lights and siren off. Her screams had already disturbed the other patients. No sense adding this “lights and siren” nonsense to their day.

The woman sued the abortionist for violating her reproductive rights. The Eleventh Circuit Court disagreed with her. The abortionist had every right to forcibly abort her child, said the court. It was his medical decision to make, not hers.

In the secular world, women are objects to be used, cleaned out and re-used. Entire women’s magazines are devoted to how to become a more pleasing object. Women, especially young women, read the thirty-seven tricks they must know in order to please him. Today, we see the spectacle: young women are taught how to be objects by older women.

That’s why eleven-year old girls are given birth control pills, for instance. Everyone who has studied the issue knows that the younger the girl, the older her partner. Young teens and pre-teens are generally being exploited by twenty and thirty year old men, such as their public school teachers. But the secular world insists on providing birth control to such young girls without parental notification. If the girls suffer bad effects from the drugs or the surgeries, well… the girls are replaceable. The key here is the men. The men must be protected from negative consequences.

Islam’s View of Women
And that view, the idea that men must be protected from women, is not unique to the secular world. Women are the source of evil in Islamic theology. According to Mohammed’s visions, hell is populated primarily by women. Apparently, most deserve that fate. Heaven, of course, is also populated by women, but not human women. The perpetually virgin houris of song and story are spirits who occupy heaven solely for the pleasure of heaven-bound men.

As Daniel Pipes points out, the entirety of Islamic custom and belief is ordered around the idea that women are inherently dangerous. The female is the hunter, and the man her passive victim. That is why she must be muzzled and chained: bound by law, dress and custom so that her wiles and appetites are not unleashed to the detriment of society.

Pretty much everyone agrees the West is becoming more decadent. That’s why Western society is so dangerous. From the Muslim viewpoint, it has none of the controls necessary to keep women from destroying civilization. The lack of these controls is precisely why Western culture is decaying. Western cultural icons like Sex and the City are, in this sense, very Muslim in character. As far as Muslims are concerned, such displays merely prove their point.

The Catholic View of Women
The decay of Western culture is precisely what Christian thinkers in the West have been trying to combat. While many, though certainly not all, evangelical and fundamentalist preachers blame Eve exclusively for being the origin of this decay, Catholicism has always denied this.

As is pointed out in Fact and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code, the New Testament is the first place we see the tendency to blame women stridently rejected. While Paul twice states that Eve was deceived by the serpent (2 Corinthians 11:3 and Titus 2:13), he blames Adam exclusively for both the trespass itself and for being the cause of death (Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:22). Even Genesis insists that “the eyes of both were opened” only after Adam ate of the apple.

In Dante’s Inferno, most of the occupants of hell are men, not women. John Paul II famously said that the Marian profile of the Church is more fundamental than the Petrine. Why? Because Christ entered the world through Mary and reserved the greatest gifts for her. Peter is merely the steward of God. Mary is the Mother of God. Peter would not be the Rock if Mary had not shown him the way. After all, she was the rock from which the Living Water emerged into the world.

Catholics know Western society is decaying because it has stripped God out of its life. With God gone, original sin rules. Original sin is that which takes away our humanity, a tendency in ourselves that each one of us cooperates with, not unique to man or woman, but common to all.

But, Catholic Faith is also the only faith to understand how to solve the problem. Salvation comes to us through a man born of a woman. Though woman may have begun the work of the Fall with her refusal to obey, the man is the primary cause of the Fall. Likewise, the Man is the sole cause of our salvation, but that salvation depended upon a woman’s “fiat.” Both sides get the blame, and both sides get the glory.

For Catholics, we’re all in this together. It’s a better way to live.