Culture War – Islam and the West

The cultural differences between the systems of thought, induced by the ideologies of Islam and those which comprise Western society are worlds apart. Islam has little if anything in common with Christian ideals, Western culture, or modern, Christian and even secular rationalism – irrational and obtuse as much secular ‘logic’ is today (cosmology, globaloneywarming, tulips to teachers etc, which are philosophies not science). Contrary to revisionist literature and pathetic Muslim apologia Western scientific, artistic, religious, societal and historically development has little connection with and imported scant material from Islam. Islam is a complete system of 'being' and this cultural fact – mass communalism and subservience to an abstract and never explained moon deity from Mecca called 'Allah' or ‘The Lord’ (Baal of course); makes conflict at every level domestically, and internationally, inevitable. 

When cultures collide, conflict erupts. When modernity runs into pagan pre-modern cultures, modernity will triumph provided that it does not compromise its own culture. Our current post modern Marxist obsession with relativity and the dismantling of Western ideals is an obvious display of suicide premised on ignorance. Once you destroy what you are and who you are, there is little left to defend, and little energy remaining to improve. Islam does not suffer from post-modern communal loathing. 

Islam is not a religion in the Christian sense. The book of Matthew which houses the sermon on the mount; the golden rule; and the basic ethos of Jewish-Christian and indeed near eastern ideals on life, family, society, responsibility and spiritual health; has no equal or counterpart in the Koran. Christian thought is not replicated in Muslim-Quranic thought. 

Christianity is concerned with seeking truth, the obvious existence of the immaterial, mental and spiritual health; the consequences of actions; the need to reflect, tolerate, learn, embrace and be hospitable to strangers; as well as aid the poor and sick and build a better world for all. Islamic doctrine supplied by the Koran, the Hadiths and Sharia Law do not share these concerns.  The Koran splits the world into two, Moslems against the Rest; with lurid, violent calls to dominate, convert, war, commit jihad, and to rule. Islam is a cult in which the few – male Muslims – dominate the rest. 

Islam has never been based on reason, the interstation of faith and logic or universal morality. Christianity is suffused with all of these.  By its very nature, the faith of Christ is open to inquiry, socio-economic and technological change, invention, and fluidity.  It is malleable yet concrete, and this is the reason it was able to dominate the world.  Even the poorly named Christian reformation did in some sense aid in a liberation of spirit, economy and self-confidence which inspired European world domination. This ‘reformation’ was in many ways a deformation, calling for sola scriptura, the putting aside of good works with salvation through faith alone; and of course the violent destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives; art, treasure, irreplaceable artefacts and architecture.  The ‘reformation’ of the 16^th century in Europe was more about power and absolutism than anything else.  Having said the obvious, it is also clear that the egregious conduct at times of the Church, had necessitated a response.  There are no corollaries within the Arab cult named Submission. 

Christian spiritual reformation has always been on-going.  Bishop and ascetic Chrysostom in the 4^th century ridiculed the hypocrisy of contemporary Christians and especially the plutocratic elite; a series of charges which would be quite appropriate today.  Every era saw reformers of various bents and hues advocating change and usually a return to the simplicity of Christ’s doctrine.  In many areas of Christendom by the 15^th century, taken over by secular and monied interests, the Christian church had grown rotted and fat, greased with money, wealth, corruption and venality. It was as far removed from the book of Matthew as Islamic doctrine is removed from reason. The Christian church by the 16th century was no longer a spiritual force, but just another kingdom on earth with popes playing the role of emperor, the church elders engaged in legal issues and lawsuits, to expand their money, power and make states subservient to Rome, and tax money often flowing to a centralised and unaccountable church bureaucracy and city.  Yet, despite this, science, medicine, art, trade and capitalism, funded, supported and developed by the Church flourished.

Contrary to modern propaganda, the medieval Christian church had many positives. The monkish orders were the main providers of capital, agricultural technology and farming improvements. The church housed the most literate and learned of men. Roger Bacon one of the earliest exponents of the scientific method and other rationalists were monks and supported by church money to improve technology and daily life.  Hundreds of inventions including optics, eye glasses, modern math and astronomy, issued from the Church and its endeavours.  The Church was the only stable benefactor in a world of shifting kingdoms, neglect of the poor, denigration of women, and the persecution of the weak. 

It was the Church which saved civilization both from Rome, and post-Rome.  The Christian message of true spirituality released society from the burdens and regulations of dogma, superstition and irrational rule making. These were all prevalent in the violent Roman-pagan era, in which 90% of the population was poor, enslaved, illiterate and without hope.  Christianity refocused society on the true meanings of liberation, namely equality, faith and hope. It generated energy, dynamism and ideas. The Church made the call to individual freedom and the striking down of an unaccountable cultish mentality which had rotted pagan society into obsolescence. 

By contrast Islam has never a comparable base for its development, nor alignment with reason and faith.  It is totalitarian.  Islam though riven by sects and different interpretations is monolithic in the sense that the Koran rules and that subservience to the Koranic-Mohammed ideal the most important element in a Muslim's life. It is thus the communal over the individual. This ethos of communal universalism negates what the Christian Church has always taught. Invention, progress, self-reliance, democratic governance, rational scientism, these and other derivatives of Western greatness have no corollary in Islamic history. 

Islam was a squatter's empire. It has self-generated very little to aid human kind. Its purpose is communal domination. Its expansion was propelled by war, lust, gold, women and slaves. This is not to say that Western expansionism was benign or morally correct. But it is obvious that Western settled and developed areas are far better off than those which are not. 

The West is not some utopia of moral perfection but its original culture of individuality and Christian ethos regardless of what the chattering Marxists or Muslims say today, was and is far superior to anything that Islam has or can offer. Without a Muslim reinvention, a conflict at all levels between the pagan cult of Islam and the modern world is inevitable. It is a conflict that Islam will of course lose – as long as the West decides that it should win.