Religious fanatics was: XBOX 360

wrote, in part:

Actually, plenty of people in the Islamic countries *do* see how idiotic they are. But they're afraid, or unable, to speak out.

Pat Robertson certainly has said some extreme things, but he hasn't quite crossed the line to advocating violence, as well.

So, perhaps instead of the difference between Christian and Muslim fanatics, there is a difference between the predominantly-Christian United States and most predominantly-Muslim nations.

A big difference. The First Amendment.

In Egypt, Indonesia, and even in secular Turkey, the government is unwilling to grant full equality to non-Muslims due to popular pressure. The average Muslim in many majority countries doesn't seem to be prepared for living in a pluralistic society.

Islam is a religion that spread itself by "fire and sword", but it is also called the "religion of peace" because Muslim countries tend to be at peace with each other. The Islamic world has achieved one thing that Christendom did not; the idenbreasty of believers as Muslims has largely supplanted national and ethnic idenbreasty as their primary idenbreasty.

Thus, Indonesia and Pakistan, although not being Arab countries, are unfriendly to Israel. Thus, as Toynbee noted, an Arab can offer his daughter's hand in marriage to a man of African descent without pause, if he is a Muslim.

But that means if you're *not* a Muslim, you can't be an equal citizen, because Islam *is* the law - Shari'a - in a truly Islamic nation.

For Muslims to voluntarily adopt pluralistic government is to violate one of the basic tenets of their religion. This is not the case for Christians, which is why America had religious freedom long before the mainstream churches became secularized and political correctness was invented.

Of course not all Muslims are persons, or even bad people. But even if rising prosperity and education buttist the growth of moderate forces in the Muslim world, there are organic characteristics of Islam that mean that progress towards pluralism will be more difficult there than it was within the Christian world.

On the other hand, they have the advantage that the Western world, which is bigger than they are, is standing over them with a stick during the process - the Western world was on its own, and thus had the opportunity to commit errors such as Negro slavery without correction.

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