[Savage Beast]

Westerners, especially Western Leftists, assume that once Muslims understand liberty they will abandon their faith in Islam in favor of reason; freedom of speech, inquiry, individual conscience, the press, etc.; and the scientific method.

They assume that Muslims, if only educated, will inevitably follow the path of Western Civilization through the Renaissance, the the Reformation, and the Enlightenment.

They also assume that the excesses of fundamentalism will inevitably defeat it, as the excesses of Cromwellian Puritanism brought about a backlash in England and the merriment of the Restoration.

This is a mistake.

[AustinBill]

Actually, what they forget is that this process in the West took centuries and involved wholesale slaughter on a scale almost beyond belief. Enlightenment grew in soil soaked in the blood of dead fanatics.

Fortunately there were no nuclear weapons in 1500 or Christian civilization would have annihilated itself.