It is far, far easier to lecture and reassure Western liberals that Islam specifically teaches peace than it is to convince some prominent Islamic scholars and a significant percentage of Muslims that Islam sanctions war.
In fact, Islam like Judaism is a complicated legal system with no central authority. I think Tariq Ramadan is most articulate (and honest) on this subject when he says Islam deals with humans and humans can be violent and peaceful.
When I was a kid in the late seventies I told my friends that my aunt could type on a keyboard in her laboratory at Princeton and it would appear on her friend's computer at UCLA. None of my friends believed me.
This is still a brilliant extrapolation, and perhaps still new to a general audience at the time he spoke, but it is not a prediction.
It is far, far easier to lecture and reassure Western liberals that Islam specifically teaches peace than it is to convince some prominent Islamic scholars and a significant percentage of Muslims that Islam sanctions war.
In fact, Islam like Judaism is a complicated legal system with no central authority. I think Tariq Ramadan is most articulate (and honest) on this subject when he says Islam deals with humans and humans can be violent and peaceful.
When I was a kid in the late seventies I told my friends that my aunt could type on a keyboard in her laboratory at Princeton and it would appear on her friend's computer at UCLA. None of my friends believed me.
This is still a brilliant extrapolation, and perhaps still new to a general audience at the time he spoke, but it is not a prediction.
This is denial and it too (after the loss itself) bodes terrifyingly for November.
Political parties that become cultish echo chambers are always on their way to defeat.