No one calls these attacks "blowback"

[Marr]

53. There's a reason the Islamic world hasn't gone through an Enlightment period.

Every year, Spain translates more books into Spanish than the entire Muslim world has translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years. Think about that. Think about how insular and oppressive a system has to be to maintain a record like that, right into the modern age. We're talking about a nearly airtight system of cognitive repression.

I don't defend Christianity, because I consider it just as irrational as any other faith. However, there are fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam that made it much easier for the western world to put it's prevailing faith in a sort of box, and pull its tentacles from the levers of power.

There are fundamental differences that make Islam easier to leverage as a tool for aggression as well. Christianity, for instance, may encourage it's followers to spread the faith, but it provides no directions for how this is to be accomplished. That left the door open for plenty of abuses in the past, it's true-- but it also left the faith pliable enough to be massaged into a more or less benign, missionary sort of proselytizing.

Islam, on the other hand, has detailed directions on how the faithful should treat infidels, and how the faith should be spread-- and it is not gentle. I really feel that, in a nuclear world, we simply can't afford to keep on promoting comforting delusions on this issue. We need to have as honest and frank a view of the world as possible if we're to take responsible positions.