Home Islam The Appeal of Islam - Islamism is a Reaction to Multiculturalism
Home Islam The Appeal of Islam - Islamism is a Reaction to Multiculturalism

The Appeal of Islam - Islamism is a Reaction to Multiculturalism

To understand the danger posed by Islam, one must first understand its Islam. And I don't mean its spiritual appeal, because Islam is not a particularly spiritual belief system. It is not really much of a belief system at all, so much as it is a tool of social organization. Because Islam is far less concerned with what people believe, than with what they do. It is not so much of a religion, as a means of ordering behavior within a society along particular lines.

But let's look beyond technical language like that, to see what the appeal of Islam is for the "Muslim World". Islam was born out of the Arab Middle East, but not just any part of it. Not out of the parts of it heavily influenced by the Greek presence, such as Egypt or Syria, places whose histories of intellectual syncretism would have surprised no one by giving birth to a new religion. Instead Islam came out of a more backward part of the region, and its appeal was certainly not philosophical or intellectual or spiritual, for it had nothing new to offer in any of these departments.

The contents of the Koran and the Hadiths are for the most part wholly unoriginal, a clumsy melding of regional myths and customs, with bits of Judaism and Christianity mortared into the whole mess to give it some sense of history and order. Islam's obsessive focus on Mohammed above all else, betrays the bankruptcy of a religion that had no other prophets that they hadn't "borrowed" from pre-existing faiths, and after rolling them in, proclaimed that Mohammed was the absolutely last prophet, and no others need apply on pain of being beheaded. But none of that is the point, because Islam's purpose was not religious, it was social. Islam may have had nothing new to offer religiously, but it had something very important to offer socially, unity. And that one compelling idea dominates Muslim thinking to this day, and exemplifies Islam's appeal to the Muslim world.

The Mecca and Medina both of Mohammed's day and of the present day, was a world dominated by tribal clans and families. There was no larger principle besides working for the benefit of your own family. No trust was possible even between neighbors except premised on the threat of retaliation from one's own kin. To advance required family backing. The clan was everything. The individual was nothing. Justice was meaningless. Law was a means of settling disputes between families in order to avoid vendettas and conflict.

Mohammed's Islam by contrast promised a supreme unity above tribe and clan. The unity of the true believers. This of course is a universally common promise made by cult leaders, and has a timeless appeal to the disenchanted looking for a higher principle and a new identity. So Mohammed was certainly not the first or last "prophet" promising a new order for the believers in which the old social order would become meaningless, and they would be the ones to end up on top regardless of rank or birth. That has always been actually a major recruiting tool, particularly for apocalyptic cults. But Mohammed's version had the largest wingspread, as a billion Muslims today still wait for the entire world to be transformed into a "perfectly just: Islamic society under Islamic law.

What Mohammed offered with Islam was a new identity for Arabs, as Muslims. As tribes and clans they would always be divided and quarrelsome, but as Muslims they were supposed to form into a perfect unity through their submission to Allah, by way of old Mo himself. And while the power of that appeal may often be lost on Westerners, one only need look at the average present day Arab nation, whose governments are familial, where the bureaucracy and military hierarchies are composed of the sons of families who have relationships with the families who run the entire system.

Beneath modern sounding titles such as President or Prime Minister, the old tribe and clan relations still dominate the region. To rule one must have their support. To get their support, one must trade favors. And so under the aping of Western manners, titles, military uniforms and office buildings-- the Middle East of today is not so different from that of Mohammed's time. Except the Christians and Jews are mostly gone. In their place is country after country full of Muslims, which are ruled by governments that are as nepotistic, corrupt and dysfunctional as you would expect from people who have no higher loyalty than to the clan.

And to that region, the Islamists come again with Mohammed's old message, that they can overturn all that corruption and replace it with a higher identity, that of Islam. The Islamists promise divine justice through Islamic law, corruption-free government as run by true believers and societies run by Islamic values that will no longer be playthings of the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. And if you happen to be living in an overcrowded Middle Eastern slum like Cairo, run by a corrupt and brutal family and its associated lieutenants in a style virtually indistinguishable from the Mob, the appeal is an undeniably powerful one.

The Islamists of course can never deliver on their perfect "Islamic society", because their own leadership is just as corrupted as the rest of the Middle East. But by constantly holding out that promise of a perfect society and the brotherhood of all Muslims-- they capitalize on the existing discontent much as Mohammed himself did. And if they ever succeed in taking over, the same sort of thugs that Mohammed himself employed and reward with the loot of his murdered victims, will suppress dissent far more ruthlessly than the previous authorities their "revolution" over threw-- as the Ayatollah's Iran and the Taliban's Afghanistan has aptly shown.

This then represents the problem with trying to apply democracy to the Muslim world. Democracy on top of the clan system results only in representation for the clan leaders, which is perhaps a step forward, but not that much of one. Since the clan leader is already the system and the clan is the process, democracy cannot displace him, just as democracy could not displace the DMV or the post office. But it can and will elevate the Islamists, because it is a useful tool for those propounding Muslim unity, who are naturally the only point of unity in countries where there is no other unifying idea except xenophobia and intolerance for the smallest divergences from the norm.

While a few Arab and Muslim countries have experimented with nationalism, theirs is a recent and thin innovation with no real history behind it. The borders of much of the Muslim world are the product of either European colonial mapmakers or, as in the case of Pakistan, enforced separations. They may have flags and anthems, and their leaders may dress in suits or military uniforms borrowed from Westerners, but these are poor facades, and their own people know it. Nasser's Arab Socialism and Baathism were poor copies of European ideas implemented by professional elites and virtually meaningless to the ordinary Arab. They did not bring unity, only more war. (Islamism will of course do the same, something that the prolonged bout of Al Queda atrocities in Iraq and Jordan have communicated to a small percentage of the region's inhabitants.)

But among all this violence and injustice, Islam continues to hold out the golden promise of a unified Ummah, on terms espoused by a cult leader on the primitive terms of a millennium and a half ago. Because it represents magical thinking, it will always remain more appealing than real progress and reform. While progress and reform take work, the magical solution of Sharia promises to make everything just and right as soon as it is imposed. It is also why Muslims in the region will continue to see democracy as a means for imposing Islam, rather than as an end in and of itself. Because simply injecting democracy into a region that lacks an understanding of a theory of government based on popular representation, turns into a tool for imposing the magical solution of Islam.

Turning to Western Muslims though, one might ask why they embrace Islamism even more aggressively than they do in their own home countries. But the answer is rather obvious. The multicultural societies they are asked to be part of are even more fractured and divided than at home, but without the relative structure of tribe and clan. Studies have shown that in multicultural societies there is less trust between neighbors, which is an inevitable outcome of weakening the natural human bases for connections within a neighborhood or community. Islamism is even more in demand in such a fractured system because it promises absolute unity, where now there is only a multitude of divisions.

The idea of Islam co-existing with a diversity of religions and beliefs is a bit of paradoxical stupidity. Islam was created precisely to supplant a diversity of religions and beliefs by people who wanted to find unity through one supreme system. The rise of Islamism in the West cannot be negated by multiculturalism-- ITS POPULARITY IS A REACTION TO MULTICULTURALISM. The Muslim who finds himself having to deal with Christians, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus on a daily basis, who has to navigate a complex and often contradictory system of social rules and codes naturally longs for stability and simplicity, and he finds it in the most radical interpretations of Islam.

The Islamists have a simple set of rules for how Muslims and non-Muslims must behave, for how women must act and how men should act. The Muslim professional in the West who must deal with clashing and contrasting obligations, who must try to understand what it is to be a Doctor and a Briton, who must choose between political parties and interact with people whose ideas repel him in a professional context will inevitably be drawn to Islam as the solution and the unifying principle in all these conflicts. This great diverse society so beloved by the left is exactly what drives him to the mosque and to the bomb, in the name of simplifying all this mad cacophony until all the damned infidels bow their heads to the infinite justice and wisdom of Islam.

The final benefit of Islam of course is that it makes the Muslim in the West immediately superior to the Westerners. The Muslim Doctor is not only immediately better than his Western colleagues for being a Muslim, but even the lowest doletaker is better than all the infidels. And better than his Muslim brothers who have compromised their religion by becoming too British. He finds a new solidarity and self-esteem by plotting to overthrow and conquer this nation of infidels. And meanwhile back in Saudi Arabia or Iran, the same chaotic cluster of families and clans finances the Islamists, in order to keep their dangerous ideas away from their own throats while using them as a weapon against the West, watch and laugh.

Comments

  1. Its a mess. A complete mess.

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  2. Anonymous22/2/10

    Outstanding analysis. As someone who lived most of his adult life in an Arab country, I can attest that this is a most accurate description, sad to say.

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  3. Dhimmi Never Again22/2/10

    I don't know if it's just the immigrants as Knish says, that are the problem, it looks like the Western world is embracing this death cult more ardently than the Moslems themselves, ad the Jerusalem Post report shows, and it ain't just in Europe, in America and Australia, there are more converting than there are immigrants,

    Blacks in prisons, Hispanics, WASPS, and Jews, How the heck can Evangelicals who are Pro Israeli become Moslem? It's a growing trend all over the US,

    and how the hell can those who claim to be Israel lovers, then embrace the enemy? How to stop it?

    Another worrying aspect is that Evangelical support for Israel is falling, even as they embrace the enemy.

    A couple of years ago, this Texas documentary speculated whether it's a passing phase or a trend, that of Evangelical Texans becoming Moslem. I didn't think anything of it, sure it was a fluke, now I ain's so convinced, Evangelicas who were once anti-Islam are converting themselves. Debbie Schlussel had a rant on Suhaib Webb, one ex Evangelical being groomed for Islamism, in the US, he is a prominent Imam,

    More truthtellers are needed, instead of praising and repeating the fabricated history of this cult.


    Are evangelicals abandoning Israel?
    Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 12/15/2009 5:45:00 AM
    http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=814058
    A Christian columnist is lamenting what he calls a "steady erosion" of support for Israel among evangelical leaders.

    Fox News: Youth Christian Americans Turning To ISLAM
    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2420950/fox_news_youth_christian_americans_turning_to_islam/---------------

    Turning Muslim in Texas
    http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/texas1.html
    George W Bush may be backed by Christian fundamentalists but in his home state of Texas, Islam is the latest big draw. The Bible belt is transferring its allegiance to the Qur’an because, for many erstwhile Christians, believe it or not, the church is too liberal.
    There are 400,000 Muslims in Texas alone and Islam is the fastest growing religion in the USA. Since 9/11 there have been more converts to Islam than ever. Eric believes that people are trying to understand Muslims and want to learn about their religion. Yasmine says: ‘America should not be afraid. If it would be better Muslims were the majority


    True believers
    By KSENIA SVETLOVA November 28, 2005
    "numerous studies indicate that the rapid growth of Islam in the United
    States, Canada, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa is, in fact, due to conversion."
    www.jpost.com:80/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1132475618729&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

    NBC NEWS: 20000 AMERICANS CONVERT TO ISLAM EACH YEAR
    http://www.dailymotion.com/related/x2gjjj/video/x2tys8_nbc-news-20000-americans-convert-to_news?hmz=74616272656c61746564

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  4. Dhimmi Never Again22/2/10

    Of course, remember there is no census figure of how many Moslems in the US, so it may be just repeated propoganda and lies.

    Does anyone have any actual census figures? Fox News is being infiltrated by Islamists, so it may just be propoganda, planted to make us believe.

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  5. Anonymous22/2/10

    The cure is to abandon Multiculturalism. But what to replace it with? The normal idea of a nation defined by language, religion and ethnicity?

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  6. the problem is not the reality of multiculturalism, but the ideology of multiculturalism

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  7. The conversion efforts are funded aggressively out of the Gulf. They are likely dramatically overstated, but considering that just about every one of our cultural outlets is promoting Islam while devaluing Christianity and Judaism, the results are none too surprising

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  8. Merkel22/2/10

    Sultan I gotta disagree with some parts of what you said, I have a Kuwaiti, a Pakistani and several other Muslim friends, and they're likeable enough, they're keen to be one of us. None are what you could term "Islamists" nor Anti-Semitic in the traditional sense, though some are anti Israel cuz they think it's Israel that is stopping the Palestinians achieving Statehood.

    I don't think it's the immigrants who are so much the problem as the ones who are not and then choose it. Al Qeda, said that they prefer new converts to born Muslims. I suspect it's cuz they can then feed them what they like, and know they won't know any better.

    That said, we gotta remember Major Hassan was a born one, so it's not a given either way, but I still think the new Muslims are more dangerous cuz they to "prove" themselves.

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  9. Shemon22/2/10

    "but considering that just about every one of our cultural outlets is promoting Islam while devaluing Christianity and Judaism, the results are none too surprising"

    Evangelicals and Xtians actually promote their religion more than the Muslims do, even the Gulf States don't spend as much on conversion efforts the world over as do Evangelicals in one state, yet they get the most conversions.
    There must be something about the faith itself, that knocks on their inner self.

    Whole satellite stations and radio stations in America fail to convert, Evangelism is dying in the US, and it only grows in Africa and China because of poverty. As they get wealthier, they then abandon the religion. It's happening in the USA before our very eyes.

    Case in point: In Israel Xtianity and expecially Evangelicals spend enormous amounts on conversion efforts, through Messianic and Southern Baptist Church's, and get little for their effots. More Israeli's convert to Islam though the Israeli Muslims do nothing to convert them. No active conversion. Traditionally Jews have found Islam attractive, where they were repulsed by Xtianity.

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  10. Kudos to you for yet another outstanding piece of educational writing. Your work continues to help me lift the veil behind this murky "religion" and I think it ought to be mandatory reading for all Americans caught up in the PC-ness of it all. It appears to me that what it really is is boot-camp for lost souls and the hook IS the multi-culturalism. People seem, ESPECIALLY the left, unable to grasp the difference between a religion and an ideology and I'm amazed at how you're able to present complex and fundamental ideas that makes your readers feel as if they've just consumed a glass of the finest of factual and literary wine. Thank you. literary

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  11. Thank you for your kind words. I mainly try to get across how and why these things work the way they do. Because understanding the way something works is the key to understanding how to take it apart.

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  12. Very interesting! You're right. Knowing how something works is key to taking it apart.

    Merkel--I don't entirely agree with your theory that new converts to Islam are more dangerous than those born into the religion. Most Imams in the US are from Arab Muslim nations so new converts in the US for example are learning at the feet of radical Muslims from the Middle East.

    There are very few western-born Imams preaching in mosques.

    Why people in the West are converting to Islam? Myriad reasons, including a desire for unity; a desire to be a rebel; focusing on the softer aspects of Islam.

    I'm sure that when some Muslims refer to Mohammed tenderly as they're "beloved prophet" they believe what they're saying. They believe it as much as those who consider their "merciful" Allah a god who taught this very same prophet to murder xtians and Jews and Hindus.


    In any event, it's interesting that there's a rise in people converting to Islam with its sense of universiality and the rise in the secular world for multiculturalism.

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  13. Anonymous23/2/10

    Multiculturalism is a welcome mat in the free West for Islam.

    I'm convinced that Islam has been used as a cultural weapon against the West by our enemies, delivered by useful Western idiots and communist agents within crucial departments of government, especially those departments concerning immigration policy, and the media.

    Yes, Lemon, what a mess, indeed.

    It is all working towards a head with Iran gaining nuclear weapons.

    Iran will NOT use these nuclear weapons against Israel immediately, imo; Israel's nuclear armed subs guarantee it.
    Ahmadinejad is crazy but he's not suicidal.

    There are a few Mohammedan prophecies that must be fulfilled before the attempted destruction of Israel.
    One of these prophecies concerns Islam conquering Rome.

    Iran will use the nukes as leverage against the rest of the Islamic ME to build a new Islamic caliphate with Shi'ite leadership.

    Watch Islamic countries in the ME topple before Iran like so many dominoes, when Iran gets nukes.
    Chinese and Russian backing will make international interference to Iran's agenda all but impossible, imo.

    Of course, Obama will be attending soirees in the White House while this is going on.
    So, America will be a spectator as WW3 unfolds.

    Mike_W

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  14. Merkel23/2/10

    Kelia

    You're right in a way, I am not saying that ALL new Muslims are dangerous, but why do you think Suhaib Webb is popular? Unlike the immigrant Muslim he didn't have to learn the system, that is why he is more influential, than say your immigrant Imam. Even those that are extremist who are immigrants, have little influence. In the end that is what counts.

    The founder of CAIR (Ibrahim Hooper) is an ex WASP convert to Islam.

    These two men already knew the American system, and how to put it to use to propogate Islam but the immigrant has yet to learn. My Muslim friends don't like and reject the extremist Imams. Most of followers are New Muslims (converts)

    The preacher called Hook in England, was rejected by Brit Muslims, seems like most of his followers were converts to Islam. He was already wanted in his own country, before he fled to England and abused the system. Even there, the born Muslims kept away from him. He was a favourite of Al Qeda because he had so many converts to mislead. The shoe bomber for example.

    I am not denying that there are extremist preachers in the Arab and Muslim world, what I am saying is their followers (mainly) are oddball Muslims and new Muslims and don't have much influence.

    Again, not ALL new Muslims are moderate, and not ALL immigrants are extremist, I guess that's what I was saying. We don't want to alienate Muslims who are on our side, that would give more ammunition to the extremist ones.

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  15. Mikec23/2/10

    Whilst the left is itself a secular religion, Islam is something more. Islam does not require its adherents to take responsibility for their actions. Since allah controls all things, then there is no individual responsibility.

    And in the 'house of war' all things are permissible anyway (as long as the victims are mainly kuffir).

    It is not permissible however to do nothing, Jihad is not optional, whether it be a spiritual struggle (so called 'moderates') or a physical struggle (the correct usage)jihad is compulsory and must be seen to be done.......

    Islam is a continuous circular expression, I believe therefore I struggle (Jihad), I struggle therefore I exist (as part of the Uhmah), I exist therefore I believe.

    To break the cycle is to die in ignominy and to be with the (evil) women in the lowest level of hell...

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  16. Anonymous23/2/10

    I disagree that more people are converting to Islam. It seems like the same old propoganda. Name one mosque in the US which is staffed by native white americans. Not one. The same is the case in all of Europe. The odd convert here and there does not make for entire mosques for the converts popping up. No. The odd convert goes to the local Pakistani etc mosque and then is held up as an example of the fast growth of Islam. We should not believe such claims so easily. The Pakistanis have bee promoting their religion in the UK for over seventy years and there is not a single English or Welsh or Scottish mosque in the country staffed by the indigenous people

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  17. Dhimmi Never Again23/2/10

    Anonymous I too think that it's propoganda, and exaggerated, but then again don't forget that they used to say that in Russia too, 40/50yrs ago, and today Russia is a Muslim country, it's a member of the OIC, with it's population 40% Moslem, they thought it safe to be an Islamic country rather than risk being "dar al kufr" with it's 40% Moslems. President Oblunder just appointed a rep to the OIC, a Hamas linked Islamist. How much do you want to bet, this is only a first step?

    As for the UK, I heard that they introduced Islamist legislation in their laws, just because you don't see "white staffed" mosques doesn't mean anything if they're mainly secular Moslims which they are, I think. Besides, as in Russian, in 30/50 yrs there probably will be. Europe is what? 20% Moslem already, and you don't even have to be a majority to influence.

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  18. Daniel Greenfield is spot on. I researched Islam for several years for a historical novel, "Barbarians". The ideology was the connection for tribes, often manipulated by warlords to be the Caliph.

    Winston Churchill was fully aware of the culture, and as he said, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."

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  19. Anonymous25/2/10

    Edmund, Winston Churchill was no role model, the British were trying to conquer the Middle East at that time and failed, so of course he'd say negative things about Islam, but he was an anti-semite too, like most British, and his support for Zionism was only in that it would get rid of the Jewish problem from Europe. He blamed European Jews for bringing the Holocaust upon themselves. Have you not read the Sunday Herald garbage he wrote?
    --------------

    http://www.hschamberlain.net/timeline/timeline.html
    August 29: Jewish World Congress in Basel. The infamous book The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, allegedly a record of the proceedings of this congress, was published a few years later. Both Henry Ford and Winston Churchill were convinced of the authenticity of this document.

    ---------------
    The Jewish Conspiracy has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth Century.' (Winston Churchill, Illustrated Sunday Herald Feb 8th 1920)


    http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/siteinfo/newsround/zvb/zvb1.html

    Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920. Page 5.
    ZIONISM versus BOLSHEVISM.
    A STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
    By the Rt. Hon. WINSTON S. CHURCHILL.

    same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; .


    International Jews.
    In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews.

    This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.

    Terrorist Jews.

    There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people.

    "Protector of the Jews."
    Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people.

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  20. OzarkChristian10/11/10

    The info on evangelicals converting in great numbers to islam is a joke. It's the same ol' psy ops that tells us there are 8 million muslims in the America and more of the propaganda that this is no longer a Christian nation.

    I live in the heart of the Bible belt. There are billboards galore saying "Jesus Saves" and a church on every corner. Most people attend church 3 times a week.

    The disgust for muslims is palpable here. I know that anecdote is not data, but we're talking about people who read "Left Behind" about Christians dying for their faith. They hate Obama and know he is no Christian. There is no widespread conversion of evangelicals to islam.

    Evangelicals have a personal relationship with their saviour. They are not falling for tales of
    Jesus being just another prophet, one who was not the Son of God and not resurrected for their sins. With their morals, they are definitely not about to follow a pedophile rapist. They don't even have respect for Presbyterians (who ARE pushing islam).

    The military is largely made up of guys from areas like this. Soldiers' funerals in the region are huge, attending by hundreds and guarded by patrols of bikers with American flags on the back.

    This is propaganda by the muslim brotherhood and crew, and it is naueating.

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  21. Anonymous, so back to Churchill's insights on Islam after that excursus through the USSR, was he or was he not aware of Islamic culture?

    ReplyDelete

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