Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

The proof is always in the pudding. Always.

The Judeo-Christian world civilizes, the Islamic world of today, fanaticizes. The Judeo-Christian world builds, the Islamic world of today tears down.

That hasn’t always been the case, of course, but is true today- and there is no amount of dancing, obfuscation or deceit that can hide that truth.

The Judeo-Christian world, best exemplified by imperfect, but free societies, have far outpaced most of the very dysfunctional Islamic world. When you consider that the Islamic world had an real head start, that reality is even more pronounced. Islam, once home to great thought, discussion and ideas, has become inflexible, giving no quarter to those who want to engage in an kind of exchange.

Islam, as we are told- and as we can see clearly- has become so inflexible as to become brittle. Muslims are told that even the slightest ‘waver’ can cause the whole house to collapse upon itself. Dissent merits fatwas calling for the death of those who dare question, not just the beliefs, but the even those who question the hate. There can be no opposition, anywhere, anytime.

Of course, those kind of singularly stringent beliefs that exclude all others, are artificial.

There are opposites and in every organism and opposites in every man made endeavor. Trees have solid trunks, immovable and resolute and they have branches that sway in the wind, leaves fluttering. Language has defined letters and punctuation, from which poetry and great literature emerges, that causes us to emote and reflect. Music is result of a rigid, mathematical structure from which emerges a passion so deep so as to move people of different backgrounds, together.

What were once Islamic strengths- study, research, art, literature and exploring the human potential, are now forbidden and are under constant threat by fanatical - and not so fanatical, fundamentalists. Mosques that were once monuments to art, passion, beauty and inspiration, are today cold, heartless and devoid of color and character- as if somehow, the builders of today’s mosques are afraid of what may come out of a soul that is somehow inspired by greatness and beauty.

As if the stark coldness of mosques built today weren’t enough, so called ‘religious leaders’ make sure their flock leave services, not feeling elevated or closer to God, but rat rather, they are inspired to kill. This is what passes for Islam today and this is unique among the monotheistic faiths.

Whereas Islam was once at the for of progressive culture and society, Muslims today are exhorted to destroy all that does not conform to predetermined ideologies, answering more to realpolitik than it does to God. Religious leaders that do not ‘tow the line’ would not be tolerated by regimes that are cruelly oppressive. There is no morality or moral choices that emanates from immoral leaders.

There is as much religious tyranny in the Islamic world today as there is political tyranny.

Progress has always been the result of the synthesis of new ideas. If the windows to new ideas is closed or blocked, progress will not be made. The proof is in the pudding. The western world, as imperfect as it may be, is for more advanced than most of the Islamic world. There are few if any functioning economies, there is virtually no education and there is nowhere to be found a free market if ideas, art and expression.

That is why in an ever shrinking world, Jews and Israel are so hated because unlike the dysfunctional regimes that surround her, Israel has tamed and civilized the chaos of her inhospitable surroundings. The Jews have civilized a corner of the Middle East and they have brought freedom, education and art to a region where those things are despised. Despite the hostility and threats of the Arab world, Israel has built a first world economy, thriving educational institutions overflowing with eager students and an a nations that values her vast and influential art community.

Arab world rejectionism does not punish Israel. That rejectionism by design, hurts the Arabs. Israel has strong economic, educational, scientific and cultural ties with almost every free nation on earth. Those ties have benefited all those nations. In rejecting Israel, much of the Islamic and Arab worlds reject themselves.

Israel does not suffer because the dysfunctional Arab world does not recognize her. The proof is in the pudding. Israel civilizes, and most of the Arab world fanaticizes.

We wrote of the changes Christianity has endured. In Progress, Religion and Secularism On A Sunday Morning, we wrote,

In truth, for a long time, religion was used as method of oppression. However, that expression of faith has no foothold here. We founded by those who wished to escape that and other forms of tyranny. It is religion that allowed for and was the original guarantor of freedom in this country.

Is secularism the answer to our future? Secularism, and all it’s derivatives, were understandable reactions to being held underfoot by a Church and faith that cared not a whit for it’s believers. That Church, thankfully, no longer exists, in no small measure due to the reality that human dignity, especially under God’s Dominion, demanded freedom. When a slave broke the chains of his bondage, he didn’t stay long enough to have tea and say good bye to his master. He ran, as far and fast as he could.

Those former slaves to that less than whole and open Church, found a new replacement for God. That new religion, for many, was Science- and Ethics. Nietzsche defiantly and confidently declared that “God is Dead.” He was right. The God that Nietzche and the other starring cast of the Enlightenment understood and knew, was indeed dead. In it’s place a new belief structure arouse. As the Church once oppressed, in extremis, so too did the resulting backlash of secularism, in a hedonistic orgy of self centered obsession.

The Church has changed and Secularism has changed.

Those words and truth are equally applicable to Islam today. What passes for that religion today is an orgy of another kind- one of hate, generated by a self loathing that is of spectacular proportion.

That is something for Muslims to think about. Eteraz has discussed this, and has asked for the sunlight to be admitted into the self imposed darkness. The author of Under Progress, too, deals with reality.

Muslims will choose their own destiny, as did Judeo-Christian Europe. They will go down the road to perdition or they will choose to go down the road to civilization. Those roads do not converge.

Time will tell- and the proof will be in the pudding.

The Pope is perceived to have criticized Islam (he didn’t). The media knows those kinds of perceptions serve their agenda, so they jump on the bandwagon (see The Anchoress, here). Rather than clarify the situation, they continue to misrepresent and obfuscate the truth surrounding the Pope’s remarks. More importantly, they are fanning the flames of much of the Muslim world’s discontent.

Here’s a bit of reality. In portraying that dysfunctional segment of the Muslim world’s unhappiness as being representative of mainstream Islam, the media are complicit in the stereotyping of Muslims as irrational and as having less than a civilized culture, unequal to our own. In fact, it is the media that has brought to the fore images of wild, frenzied and dysfunctional Muslims, expressing contrived and otherwise idiotic outpouring of hysteria.

Here’s a bit of reality: Most Muslims, wherever they are, don’t give a damn what the Pope says or doesn’t say about Islam. Why should they? They don’t give a damn about what their own religious leaders say about the faith of others. It hasn’t been lost on anyone, Muslims least of all, that Arab Muslim ‘religious’ leaders in particular, have uttered some of the most vile and repugnant remarks about other faiths. Nor is it lost that these ‘religious leaders’ have been complicit in the efforts and repression of the flock they claim to care about, as they are serve the agenda of the regimes that pay them.

These ’spontaneous’ outbursts and riots are sanctioned by the dysfunctional leaders of the dysfunctional regimes. These regimes are totalitarian and repressive- there are no ’spontaneous’ demonstrations that are tolerated. If they were, we would see Muslims in some of these third world backwaters the demanding bread, jobs and decent schools. Does anyone really believe that Pope’s remarks are more offensive to Muslims than the poverty, hopelessness and aimlessness of so much of the Muslim world?

We have noted many times that

When nations that are that are led by or are under the influence of tyrants or dictators, attempt to justify those actions, we can rightly assume that justification is false. Tyrants and dictators do not make moral choices, because moral choices can only lead to the demise of the tyranny.

Anyone that comes to the defense of tyrannical regimes and their leaders, have themselves made a conscious choice to defend and stand by what is immoral. They themselves consciously adopt an immoral posture.

In encouraging or turning a blind eye to the contrived ‘Muslim outrage,’ these regimes are aiding and abetting a media that are counting on their dysfunctionality to provide the shocking and outrageous images for the six o’clock news. Predictably, these dysfunctional regimes deliver the goods, day in and day out.

Rather than closing the gap between west and east, the behavior of the dysfunctional Muslims only widens the chasm.

Many have written about the ‘Clash of Civilizations.’ In an ever shrinking world and with the ubiquitous embrace of technology, it is clear that ‘civilizations’ are homogenizing. We are all more aware of different cultures, faiths and societies than ever before and we integrating the best of those into our own reality. What we are witnessing now is a ‘Clash of Behaviors,’ whereby proponents of various dysfunctional expressions of religion, politics and culture, in an attempt to force them upon us. It is as if various gangs were trying to claim their turf.

The nature of the dysfunction is clear. In When Karl Met Sigmund, Dr Sanity explains what we are seeing today and the nature of the dysfunction:

Simply put, totalitarian systems–whether from the left or the right (and that includes Marxism in any of its incarnations, whether religious or secular)– actively promote the most negative, primitive, and immature aspects of human nature. In fact, they give a societal/institutional blessing to such behavior; and thrive on the resulting projection, paranoia, distortion, and denial of reality. [emp-SC&A]

So the relationship between Marx and Freud has not really accomplished what the left’s intellectuals wanted. Instead of diagnosing the pathology of capitalism, real understanding of Freud’s psychological theories actually exposes the inadequacies and fatal flaws of Marxist theory.

Because nowhere is there more violence, naked aggression, envy, greed, oppression, racism, injustice, slavery, poverty, and misery than in the shining examples of socialism and communism in today’s world.

The dysfunction becomes easier to see and understand when it is contained in the ‘frame’ in which it exists. Religious dysfunctions are no different than political dysfunctions. In the end they extract and beat the soul and spirit of the individual. Then, they replace that beaten spirit and soul with an ‘ideology du jour,’ ideas that serve only to strengthen the power and grip of those at the top.

It is only when faith and religion are liberated by the freedom of free will, are great strides made in the elevation of man’s potential and destiny.

The cost of the lack of freedom is enormous and there is no way to hide that. The Arab world offers up rationales and ‘explanations’ for much of the dysfunction, but only adds to the burden shouldered by those under the yoke of tyranny. We wrote,

The Arab League is neither NATO or the Moose Lodge.

Even the name, ‘Arab League,’ is deliberately misleading. In fact, that organization does not represent Arab interests at all- and never has. The Arab League has not sponsored a single educational, economic or real democratic reform and empowerment program in it’s entire existence. The Arab League is an organization dedicated to maintaining the status quo and preserving the leaders of some of the most repressive and dysfunctional regimes in the world. That is it’s entire raison d’etre…

That is the equivalent of a bunch of witch doctors trading in their beads, bones and grass skirts and visions, to don western clothes, attend a convention of neurosurgeons, and then they be considered equivalent medical professionals.

The civilized world is measured by accomplishment and achievement. As we have noted many times, cultures, societies and religions are measured by what they build and not by what they destroy.

The Arab League is complicit in maintaining that status quo in the Arab world. It is after all, a lot easier to hate than it is be productive- and that is just what the sponsors of the Arab League, dysfunctional and corrupt regime leaders, pay for.

All the while, the media have become complicit with the Arab League. They have done their part to keep the repression hidden- not unlike their miserable record during the Cold War.

Societies that are successful do not need to orchestrate the behavior of their citizens. Societies that are successful demand higher standards of behavior from their citizens. Free societies understand that their greatness and ability to progress comes about as the result of each individual free to find his or her own greatness and potential, benefiting that society along the way.

Failed societies need hate and need fear and they need to threaten more stable societies. They are societies that cannot stand and support themselves on their own merits. Instead, they must rely on ever expanding and convoluted fear mongering. It is impossible for societies to succeed if they only things holding those societies together are fear and hate.

The deliberate and concerted effort to vilify the Pope and Christendom as fundamental and basic tenet of Islamic identity is a deliberate attempt by dysfunctional political and religious leaders to create and subjugate a society that cannot function.

Much of the Islamic world has painted itself into a corner. The vicious hate that has been brought to the fore cannot be hidden away at will and pulled out when necessary, to be used as a tool to intimidate, as it was during the cartoon riots.

More later.