[JasonC]

"I don't know of a more severe proof of conviction than sumitting to torture and execution" Men do not submit to torture and execution to prove their beliefs, but to defy torturers and executioners. The test of conviction is whether one lives that way oneself. These people have no belief in a just judge who searches hearts. It is all about worldly power to them. The worldly power of a movement or a group, not of themselves as isolated individuals, no doubt. That is still entirely worldly and has nothing "holy" about it.

And I know what you are saying, and is it what the article writer is also saying, and it is what has been tried for a century in the Islamic world, and it is never going to work. They are not going to drop Islam and forget about it and become secular and develop warm fuzzy feelings about westerners because we are so much more fun that religion and morality.

If you make it a contest in which they either give up their faith entirely or fight you to the death, they will fight you to the death until the end of the world. And they will think it righteousness, and you and I and the entire west corruptors whose sole motive is to detach them from their religion.

They are perfectly willing to learn from your example to only care about this worldly effects and this worldly power. That to them counsels only fighting. You can't cure cynicism with a double dose of it plus a bare belly button. The only thing that will convince them not to act immorally is -morality-.

[secretagent]

Well, that certainly gives me a lot to consider. Thanks.