| #1050 - Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century | |||
| Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) - 2/21/2006 - 00:05:28 |  |  |  |
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Blog by reformed leftist "Paul Hue", and his friends, including some UnReformed Leftists; the headlines reflect these competing views.
| #1050 - Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century | |||
| Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) - 2/21/2006 - 00:05:28 | | | |
3 comments:
I believe it was a Middle Age mentality that called for the invasion of the Middle East when no real military threat was present. Back then they called it "The Crusades". Now they call it "the war on terror".
Aggressive war is as backward a concept as you can get.
I agree with some of her characterization of Islam, however. In many ways, Islam is just as imperial a religion as Christianity. They both spring from the notion that they are better than everyone else because of what they believe, and the world should be forced to believe what they believe.
I repeat: this is true of Islam AND of Christianity. There is little difference.
Nadir: It seems that you have read half of the history of the Crusades. The Crusades consisted of two awful empires fighting each other over conquest of the same territories. The Muslim Crusade was every bit as bad as the Christian Crusade.
However, Christianity (the New Testiment) includes no instructions for conquering non-believers, or for retaliating against believers who lose their faith. Islam, however, does. Jesus was a man of peace; Muhammad was a man of war. The Christian crusaders violated jesus's teachings; the muslim crusaders followed mohammad's. In practice, the clashing crusades were approximately the same, but today's muslim crusade follows the original one, from the pages of the koran.
I agree that Christians today do not follow the teachings of Jesus. Muslims follow a corrupted version of Islam as well, however, with more emphasis on Shariya law and Hadiths than on the Qu'ran itself. Though both the Bible and Qu'ran focus on God as a wrathful warrior god. But warring peoples will have warrior gods. This is true of most belief systems.
I don't deny that the Crusades were just as bad on the Muslim side as on the Christian side. This Middle Age mentality still pervades both "civilizations". There is nothing civil about war.
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