The "Rule of Three" makes for good jokes but bad arguments

Submitted by Alan N (United States), Apr 15, 2008 at 00:23

It is convenient to break the problem down to 3 potential outcomes, but the truth is not so tidy, nor are the outcomes presented mutually independent even as they stand.

The first, the idea that this is "Christians versus Muslims" is a medieval construction. It is actually post-Enlightenment Western Civilization vs. the dark ages, You (Dr. Pipes) have made this abundantly clear in previous excellent articles. And the idea that, with the loss of Faith, i.e. Christianity, comes a loss of philosophical moorings, a loss of legitimacy, betrays a lack of understanding of just how far Western civilization (until recently) has come from the dark ages, whether those dark ages are those ushered in by the fall of Rome and the rise of Augustinian self-hatred, or those that Islam entered into on the eve of the Renaissance and Al Gazali. Mysticism and absolutist fundamentalism was the harbinger of and reason for those eclipses of benevolent humanity.

Europe certainly does have an identity crisis, but it started with Emmanuel Kant and Hegel and Marx and ended in Nihilism and self-hatred, as you identify. The Europeans, unless they rediscover the Enlightenment, will destroy themselves, will welcome dhimmitude. When two bad ideologies meet, the more consistent will win.

If the Europeans still had the confidence of the Englightenment, the embrace of Reason as their primary allegiance, the Muslims would come, join civilization, and benefit, or leave with the willful blindness with which they arrived and find somewhere else to park their despotic and benighted beliefs.

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