Why Islam So Viciously Hates the West
(the following originated as a response to a post of polaris93 (http://polaris93.livejournal.com/1385947.html?view=832987#t832987) which was in return a response to one of my posts. How intellectually incestuous of me!)
The basic reason for the viciousness of Muslim hatred of the West is that the West has so obviously triumphed over Islam despite the religion's assurance to Muslims that God has destined Muslims to utterly dominate the peoples of all other faiths. This creates cognitive dissonance, which is especially bad given that Muslim philosophy considers the requirement for even local causality to be literally heretical (since Allah recreates the Universe from instant to instant, and thus directly decides what happens next).
This creates a constant temptation for Muslims to hope that this time Allah will decide that the West will fall and Islam triumph, no matter how improbably hopeless the situation looks. A poorly-equipped mass militia will somehow manage to overcome a modern airmobile army -- Allah will make the helicopters and jets fall from the sky, and each mujehadeen will have the courage of lions and the strength of elephants! A few terrorist bombings will force the Western leaders to cringe and yield vast territories. Improbable, yes, but if Allah wants it to happen it is inevitable!
During the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century, when the West still sanely defended her own interests, such hopes crashed quickly into hard realities, and those carrying the hopes removed themselves from the gene and meme pools in a direct Darwinian sense. Armies were shattered when they charged into quick-firing weapons, leaders humiliated when Western artillery battered down their fortresses, modern warships swept the seas clean of piratical dhows, and so forth.
But starting with the domestic leftist push for decolonialism and then anti-imperialism, the West has been acting in such a manner as to fulfill the Muslim fantasies, and in the process lending credibility to the fanatics. The French actually defeated the Algierian Revolution -- and promptly withdrew and yielded the ground to the bloodthirsty and barbaric rebels, forcing over a million Frenchmen from their homes, for no good reason. Israel defeated the Arab armies time and time again -- and then didn't annex any of the territories she won in battle. America smashed Iraq twice -- and now is talking as if she should apologize for doing so.
That looks a lot like Allah intervening to reverse Muslim defeats. And the sad thing is that more and more Muslims believe it.
Which means that when Western public opinion turns, and the potent armies of the West are once again unleashed, unbound by restrictive rules of engagement, the slaughter will be most terrible. Those in the West who imagine that they are protecting the interests of the Muslim Third World are only priming the situation for the deaths of tens of millions.
And to some extent the truth must be already grasped to some extent by the Muslims -- deliberate cognitive dissonance only works for so long. So when they gain a temporary advantage, catching a Jewish boy alone in a Muslim French apartment building, or capturing an American soldier, they wreak sadistic revenge -- because what they are really avenging is the unfairness of the world for failing to live up to the Koran's promises.
The basic reason for the viciousness of Muslim hatred of the West is that the West has so obviously triumphed over Islam despite the religion's assurance to Muslims that God has destined Muslims to utterly dominate the peoples of all other faiths. This creates cognitive dissonance, which is especially bad given that Muslim philosophy considers the requirement for even local causality to be literally heretical (since Allah recreates the Universe from instant to instant, and thus directly decides what happens next).
This creates a constant temptation for Muslims to hope that this time Allah will decide that the West will fall and Islam triumph, no matter how improbably hopeless the situation looks. A poorly-equipped mass militia will somehow manage to overcome a modern airmobile army -- Allah will make the helicopters and jets fall from the sky, and each mujehadeen will have the courage of lions and the strength of elephants! A few terrorist bombings will force the Western leaders to cringe and yield vast territories. Improbable, yes, but if Allah wants it to happen it is inevitable!
During the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century, when the West still sanely defended her own interests, such hopes crashed quickly into hard realities, and those carrying the hopes removed themselves from the gene and meme pools in a direct Darwinian sense. Armies were shattered when they charged into quick-firing weapons, leaders humiliated when Western artillery battered down their fortresses, modern warships swept the seas clean of piratical dhows, and so forth.
But starting with the domestic leftist push for decolonialism and then anti-imperialism, the West has been acting in such a manner as to fulfill the Muslim fantasies, and in the process lending credibility to the fanatics. The French actually defeated the Algierian Revolution -- and promptly withdrew and yielded the ground to the bloodthirsty and barbaric rebels, forcing over a million Frenchmen from their homes, for no good reason. Israel defeated the Arab armies time and time again -- and then didn't annex any of the territories she won in battle. America smashed Iraq twice -- and now is talking as if she should apologize for doing so.
That looks a lot like Allah intervening to reverse Muslim defeats. And the sad thing is that more and more Muslims believe it.
Which means that when Western public opinion turns, and the potent armies of the West are once again unleashed, unbound by restrictive rules of engagement, the slaughter will be most terrible. Those in the West who imagine that they are protecting the interests of the Muslim Third World are only priming the situation for the deaths of tens of millions.
And to some extent the truth must be already grasped to some extent by the Muslims -- deliberate cognitive dissonance only works for so long. So when they gain a temporary advantage, catching a Jewish boy alone in a Muslim French apartment building, or capturing an American soldier, they wreak sadistic revenge -- because what they are really avenging is the unfairness of the world for failing to live up to the Koran's promises.