BorealWhy the Pessimism?61:9 It is He Who sent His Messenger forth with the guidance and the religion of truth, to make it triumph over every religion. Allah's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' Bukhari 52.196 Both extremists and moderates, if they are sincere believers, must seek to make Islam triumphant everywhere, at every opportunity. Many authors have pointed out that it is problematic to speak of Muslim "fundamentalism" because it suggests that there are large doctrinaire differences between fundamentalist Muslims and the mainstream. The truth, however, is that most Muslims appear to be "fundamentalist" in the Western sense of the world—in that even "moderate" approaches to Islam generally consider the Koran to be the literal and inerrant word of the one true God'... The only future devout Muslims can envisage—as Muslims—is one where all infidels have been converted to Islam, subjugated, or killed. The tenets of Islam simply do not admit of anything but a temporary sharing of power with the "enemies of God." Sam Harris author of the New York Times bestseller, End of Faith, W. W. Norton, 2004. We are facing an increasingly bloody and violent future, a future made even bloodier by Islamic rituals and scriptures which condition believers from childhood onward, not only to accept that killing unbelievers is a good thing but teaches them to kill them with just a knife and to enjoy and celebrate their murder. Militants rejoiced as Canadians were beheaded ... Abu Sayyaf extremists rejoiced as they watched two Canadians being beheaded in the jungles of the southern Philippines, said a still-shocked Filipino hostage who was freed Friday. Marites Flor tearfully recalled to reporters the moments when Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall were handcuffed and led away to a nearby jungle clearing to be separately decapitated ... “They were watching it and they were happy,” she said of the militants, Philippines — The Associated Press, June 24, 2016 Can we hope to break this cycle of unending wars and massacres that are endemic to Islam? The End of Faith may be our only salvation. Not about to happen. Expect the worst! It does not seem much of an exaggeration to say that the fate of civilization lies largely in the hands of "moderate" Muslims. Unless Muslims can reshape their religion into an ideology which is basically benign—or outgrow altogether—it is difficult to see how Islam and the West can avoid falling into a continual state of war, and on innumerable fronts. Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons cannot be uninvented… weapons of mass destruction will soon be available to anyone who wants them. Sam Harris Bernard Payeur, June 25, 2016
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