Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Submitted by john w mcginley (United States), Nov 2, 2013 at 13:11

Christianity and Islam share a similar patrimony: World Dominion. For about a half-millennium or so, Christianity has radically titrated down its aspirations in this vein. Will It happen to Islam? There are two faces to Islam: those who peacefully wish to bring Islam to the whole world but without force, constraint, and military conquest; the other face of Islam actually thinks it is God's Will ((Allah's Will)) to bring the whole world under the banner of of Islam by force of arms. It reminds me of the Papal "marching orders" at the time of the Crusades: DEUS VULT. Thank-God that Christianity no longer aspires such military "victories" to validate Its perception of the greatness of Christianity. I sense that in the long run the peacefully-oriented Muslims will prevail over the adolescent aspriations of militant Islam. But in the meantime vigilance must remain the order of the day for some time to come. In this vein I kinda like what I sense is the Jewish take on this: Just let us be Jews, with most of us living in our ancestral Homeland. If you sincerely want to take on the burden of being Jewish, that's fine. Be we are not going to proseltyze (we made that mistake in the Hasmonean Period before there even was a Christianity).

As for Egypt: I believe that the Military in Egypt must put strong and uncompromising limits on the Muslim Brotherhood. Absent such a program then the minority will end up governing the majority. Egypt is lucky that it has a strong and independent Military. Democracy -- where and when it can function as such -- is a wonderful ideal and for various lengths of time it can be sustained. But Tyranny is the worst possible outcome. Sometimes Tyranny comes forth AS "The Military." That is not the usual situation and it is certainly not the situation in Egypt.

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