Posted on 04/04/2011 8:57:53 AM PDT by reaganaut1
... [P]ervasive negative attitudes toward Islam go far deeper into the American psyche even than these manifestations suggest, for contempt toward the religion of Mohammed is a foundational pillar of Western civilization. That it is unacknowledged only makes it more pernicious.
European Christian imagination jelled as European, as Christian, and as imagination around the mythic 732 triumph of Charles Martel over infidel Muslim forces in a battle near Poitiers, France. That may seem like an eternity ago and a world away, but still-powerful attitudes that show up in suspicions of widespread Muslim radicalization were generated then. In epoch-shaping chansons de geste celebrating Charles Martel, Islam was portrayed as nothing less than the anti-Christ. So resonant was its defeat, that Charles Martel was empowered as the effective founder of cohesive European social structures, with his lineage (through his grandson Charlemagne) extending even to present-day royalty.
Edward Gibbon famously shuddered at the thought that, but for Charles Martel, the Koran would be taught to the circumcised at Oxford instead of the New Testament. (It seems not to have occurred to Gibbon that, had the Poitiers battle gone the other way, Oxford, which dates to 1167, might have been founded years earlier by, say, disciples of the great Muslim scholar Avicenna, who died in 1037.) From early on, Western civilization understood itself positively against the negative foil of Islam, a polarity that was institutionalized during the decisive centuries of the Crusades. That Christendom failed to liberate the Holy Land from infidel control only made permanent the fear and hatred of Islam.
Meanwhile, as is always true of bigotry, Europeans knew very little about actual Muslims.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Christians failed to read the Bible and tried to do the job Jesus will do all by himself.
We Learned all we need to know about Muslims and Islam on 9-11.
Well, I am a little bit down on them for 9/11, beheadings and stonings, but maybe that is just me? LOL
And here I thought the muslims showed their true colors as a result of the Crusades.
All I know is that since the fall of the NAZIs, Islam is the Biggest Crazy on the planet.
The roots, so to speak, are embedded in their civilization destroying past!
Funny, but I was never taught much about Islam. But in later years I observed their vicious treatment of others and the hideous treatment of their own women. So if you call a rational decision to oppose viciousness, cruelty and stone-age ignorance “bigotry” then so be it. I still oppose it.
Survival instinct?
This is an apologists puff-peace and just another chance for a Boston metrosexual to simply cry “Racist!” and “bigot!”
We surveyed Islam in Catholic high school religion class, in 1964. My impression was that is was presented as just another religion, that claimed to complete Christianity. In other words, Islam stood in relation to Christianity approximately were Christianity stood with respect to Judaism. It was not presented as in the least negative, simply another false religion like Hinduism or Lutherans, who needed to become Catholics.
Really, thsi is the best line...
“(The power of such individual dignity can be seen in Arab streets today.)”
To be willfully blind of the type of “civilization” the satanic suicide cult of mad mo has created especially in contrast to that of the civilized world, is impressive in it's very difficulty.
I, and many of us, are unable to ignore reality to this extent. And it's not just some parlor trick either- this takes amazing effort, training (in universities of course), and determination.
Bravo! Jim Carrol, you're a more skilled (self)-illusionist than most of us could ever hope to be!!!
James Carroll is an embittered former Catholic priest who is a radical leftist.
London Bus attack
Spanish train attack
American embassy attack, Beirut
Beslan school attack
American Embassy attack, Tanzania
I could go on, literally with more pictures and events than FR has the bandwidth to include, but there is no need. The point is clear. The roots of Western caution have nothing to do with Charles Martel or with bigotry and everything to do with common sense and direct, personal experience.
Boy, what a load of drek.
The Boston Globe’s readers are doing a pretty fine job of debunking it themselves, in the comments section.
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