Spinoff from this thread.
Now, I read that and I think, how fortunate we are, to have arrived at a point in history where horrible things done in Christ's name are almost all in the past! Not long past -- as recently as the 1960s some people were using the Bible and the "Curse of Ham" to justify racism -- but all of that has fallen by the wayside. Very infrequent murders of abortion providers are the only Christian atrocities that seem to happen any more.
I think Dar al-Islam is about where Christendom was in the 17th Century, when religious differences appeared to be worth fighting over. Christendom got better. It took a long time, but Christendom got better -- partly by becoming what we might now call more Christian, in the love-thy-neighbor ethical sense, but mainly by becoming less religious and more secular. Islam could get better, by that same route. And the modern age being what it is, it probably will not take another 400 years; all international cultural pressures tend in the direction of secularization. At some point in the future, the world's Muslims are going to look back at today's jihadism, ISIS, etc., the same way Christians look back at the 30 Years' War, wondering what all the fuss was about and why anybody thought this a war worth fighting.
Now, I read that and I think, how fortunate we are, to have arrived at a point in history where horrible things done in Christ's name are almost all in the past! Not long past -- as recently as the 1960s some people were using the Bible and the "Curse of Ham" to justify racism -- but all of that has fallen by the wayside. Very infrequent murders of abortion providers are the only Christian atrocities that seem to happen any more.
I think Dar al-Islam is about where Christendom was in the 17th Century, when religious differences appeared to be worth fighting over. Christendom got better. It took a long time, but Christendom got better -- partly by becoming what we might now call more Christian, in the love-thy-neighbor ethical sense, but mainly by becoming less religious and more secular. Islam could get better, by that same route. And the modern age being what it is, it probably will not take another 400 years; all international cultural pressures tend in the direction of secularization. At some point in the future, the world's Muslims are going to look back at today's jihadism, ISIS, etc., the same way Christians look back at the 30 Years' War, wondering what all the fuss was about and why anybody thought this a war worth fighting.
I meant this for the Politics forum and will re-post it there.
