Islamic Values and the USA

Submitted by dennis middlebrooks (United States), Feb 13, 2008 at 09:14

I am no longer concerned about Western Europe, which has cravenly embarked on a course of national and cultural suicide from which there is now no turning back. Pacifism in the face of fanaticism cannot prevail.

Yes, there is still hope for the USA. However, even in this country, secularism, rationalism, pluralism, science and skepticism, the bastions of Western Civilization, are under ferocious attack from the Religious Right and even many secular conservatives (e.g., Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Irving Kristol, william Bennett). Many, if not most, Americans, appear to have more in common with the beliefs of Islamic fundamentalists (monotheistic, judgmental God, belief in heaven and hell, homophopbia, rejection of evolution and modern cosmology, misogyny, hostility to freethinkers, etc) than with the Enlightenment beliefs that form the underpinnings of our government and society.

How can a society that is increasingly hostile to secularism and its fruits effectively respond to what is clearly a religious movement that rejects the very notion of freedom of religion and separation of church and state?

Unless there is a Great Awakening of Enlightement principles, I fear America is doomed as well.

I am not optimistic.

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