Melanie Phillips's 'Dying to submit' mentioned in post 222:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->That is why the cultural cringe of the Church of England before the advance of both secularism and Islamism is such unmitigated disaster, and why the Popeâs recent intervention was so significant. That is why those who sneer at President Bushâs strong Christian faith are cultural lemmings. And that is why I, a British Jew, argue that it is vital that Britain and Europe re-Christianise if they are to have any chance of defending western values.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Disagree. Fighting the sale of heroine by selling cocaine isn't the solution. Phillips has not lived in continental Europe probably. Their problem is not secularism. It's apathy due to their prolonged safety from Islam - a sense of security which has lulled them to sleep.
In the past, the secularists of the mainland fought one major, long drawn-out war consisting of numerous battles, and have been winning ever since: that against Christianity. They thought they could rest on their laurels and forget about the horrors of their past. They thought it was all over, having defeated the ignorance, violence and intolerance that is Christianity. The new generations, especially the young, don't think about the freedom they enjoy, which their recent ancestors finally achieved for them. They don't know what they have to lose, because this freedom is several generations old by now. Freedom is not something to take for granted. Although in theory it is a right of all people, and not a privilege, it is one that needs to be fought for every time something encroaches on it. Just because they doused the fires of Christianity and are extinguishing the remaining embers, doesn't mean that there are no other fires now or in the future. Islam is one of them.
The price of maintaining freedom is eternal vigilance. (It is the same as the price for Dharma.)
The choice Phillips gives Europe is to either Christianise or Islamise. Have to ask: what's the difference? They've tried Christianity, nearly two millennia long they have tried - it was hell. So any European not suffering from amnesia would then opt for Islamicisation. They might if they were ignorant about Islam.
But Europe's choice is not limited to the idiocy of Bush, the Pope or the other daft loonies hoping the threat of Islam might lead to re-Christianisation of the continent. They merely need to wake up from their leisurely sleep of contentment and realise that if they want a life worth living, it has to be one worth fighting for, even dying for. Islam and Christianity will fight to the death, as they always have in the past. Life is cheap to these terrorist ideologies. If the west's new way of life and their freedom are something worth fighting for, they will rouse themselves like other greats of their past did.
A Christian Europe or an Islamic Europe of the 21st century is one and the same. Should make no difference at all.
Some other choices open to them: Deism for instance. Or they ought to go back to their old religions. Greeks and Romans died in huge numbers before their nations gave up their beliefs to the terrorism of Christianity. So did the old western-Europeans and eastern-Europeans. This new secularism of theirs might not be all that their Old Religions were, but it is infinitely better than the heel of ChristoIslamic terrorism that marred them for 2 millennia.
Their future lies in their determining what they want to be: go back to the Dark Ages under Christianity/become an Islamic pardees like our neighbour or something else entirely.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->That is why the cultural cringe of the Church of England before the advance of both secularism and Islamism is such unmitigated disaster, and why the Popeâs recent intervention was so significant. That is why those who sneer at President Bushâs strong Christian faith are cultural lemmings. And that is why I, a British Jew, argue that it is vital that Britain and Europe re-Christianise if they are to have any chance of defending western values.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Disagree. Fighting the sale of heroine by selling cocaine isn't the solution. Phillips has not lived in continental Europe probably. Their problem is not secularism. It's apathy due to their prolonged safety from Islam - a sense of security which has lulled them to sleep.
In the past, the secularists of the mainland fought one major, long drawn-out war consisting of numerous battles, and have been winning ever since: that against Christianity. They thought they could rest on their laurels and forget about the horrors of their past. They thought it was all over, having defeated the ignorance, violence and intolerance that is Christianity. The new generations, especially the young, don't think about the freedom they enjoy, which their recent ancestors finally achieved for them. They don't know what they have to lose, because this freedom is several generations old by now. Freedom is not something to take for granted. Although in theory it is a right of all people, and not a privilege, it is one that needs to be fought for every time something encroaches on it. Just because they doused the fires of Christianity and are extinguishing the remaining embers, doesn't mean that there are no other fires now or in the future. Islam is one of them.
The price of maintaining freedom is eternal vigilance. (It is the same as the price for Dharma.)
The choice Phillips gives Europe is to either Christianise or Islamise. Have to ask: what's the difference? They've tried Christianity, nearly two millennia long they have tried - it was hell. So any European not suffering from amnesia would then opt for Islamicisation. They might if they were ignorant about Islam.
But Europe's choice is not limited to the idiocy of Bush, the Pope or the other daft loonies hoping the threat of Islam might lead to re-Christianisation of the continent. They merely need to wake up from their leisurely sleep of contentment and realise that if they want a life worth living, it has to be one worth fighting for, even dying for. Islam and Christianity will fight to the death, as they always have in the past. Life is cheap to these terrorist ideologies. If the west's new way of life and their freedom are something worth fighting for, they will rouse themselves like other greats of their past did.
A Christian Europe or an Islamic Europe of the 21st century is one and the same. Should make no difference at all.
Some other choices open to them: Deism for instance. Or they ought to go back to their old religions. Greeks and Romans died in huge numbers before their nations gave up their beliefs to the terrorism of Christianity. So did the old western-Europeans and eastern-Europeans. This new secularism of theirs might not be all that their Old Religions were, but it is infinitely better than the heel of ChristoIslamic terrorism that marred them for 2 millennia.
Their future lies in their determining what they want to be: go back to the Dark Ages under Christianity/become an Islamic pardees like our neighbour or something else entirely.