[DB]

They need to move out of their own dark ages. They're stuck in time... Hopefully this is the beginning of the own enlightenment period. One can only hope...

[F.J. Mitchell]

Bump!

[Petronius]

They need to move out of their own dark ages. They're stuck in time... Hopefully this is the beginning of the own enlightenment period. One can only hope...

Yeah, that's about where I'm at. I'm not exactly a scholar of Islam: Can that religion even have a Reformation? Or are we banking on a miracle?

It might be that the "stuck in time" factor you allude to plays as much a role as their religion. Imagine a country of 16th-century Europeans suddenly confronted with a culture that tolerates MTV, pornography, abortion, and you can fill in the next fifty-thousand examples yourself. The 16th-century Europeans, assuming they survived the initial shock, would be mortified, enraged, repulsed, etc. And they would actively resist any assimilation.

This isn't a hymn to cultural relativism. I like the wild n' crazy freedoms we enjoy. But to expect ALL others to do so bespeaks a willful ignorance of human nature, a dangerous one.