Africa in the 5th through 8th century was animist, Christian, or a derivative on animist/pagan. Palestine and the surrounding area was until the 7th century under Christian, Jewish, or pagan control.
Jerusalem was under Jewish / Roman, and later Christian control.
That was the world before and then Islam.
Today, Islam has spread across North Africa, down the east coast and along the west coast and in to the inner areas of Africa. Islam has spread to Indonesia and Malaysia, in to China and throughout India. In Russia and throughout Europe, across the sea to Canada and the United States, and has recently made small inroads into South and Central America.
Islam was not native to any of these areas. If it was native to anywhere, it existed in Mecca or Medina. Unless we take the originalist view that all people were believers at one time and lost their way, in which case, all humans are Muslim, they just don't know it yet (or rather, forgot and were led astray).
When children are led astray through behavioral issues or due to a poor choice of friends, parents discipline their wayward child. This approach has worked for thousands of years and worked quite well, until recently (the last 40 years). The West decided that disciplining was not appropriate for children and in the last 20 years, laws have been enacted to limit parental disciplining. After all, what can't be accomplished through talking.
We in the West have been proud of our traditions - we value church and state and the separation between these powers; we have become enlightened and no longer believe in Satan or evil as a function of Satan or the demons sent by and as functionaries of Satan, rather we look at the whole Christian issue as a metaphor that precludes hate and violence and values dialogue and compassion. We have moved beyond the values of the past and have become much more enlightened - that nation states are obstacles on the road to perfection of humanity. We loathe war and violence, we champion the child and the victim - and if ever we need to know who the victim is, we look for the loser and they necessarily are the victim for we see that within the West. The victim is always the weaker - women, homosexuals, children. They are always the marginalized and disenfranchised - minorities and they must be cared for and taken care of whether they know what is best or not, we all know what is best for all human beings are the same - we all value compassion and hugs, dialogue, food, shelter, and most especially love. Love after all is the message of Jesus. Love one another, care for each other, love the undeserving, listen to the poor, feed the hungry, embrace those who have been tossed out and marginalized. We are doing God's work and we know it.
When men do bad things it is because they are ill, misinformed, unchallenged, and basically, unloved. We believe that reason and science prevail and will always provide us with hope and light whereas religion has only obstructed human development as it has been practiced. Today we are so much more enlightened, viewing religion as a metaphor and always practicing love and tolerance for all. When people do wrong, they should be tried according to the laws of the righteous and punished until they learn that their behavior was inappropriate and change their ways. That is the hope and dream of the West today, to raise children in an environment free of violence and hate - where we are all one large family, caring for and aiding each other when the need arises. Where we trust and communicate, negotiate and compromise and always love and show compassion for others, but for our geographic position, we too might have followed the wrong path. We believe that we have been commanded to always show compassion, believe that we are all the same, and all cultures are equally beautiful and we can learn from each other if we would only open our hearts.
The West today sits upon a threshold – we can follow the path that leads us to an era of glorious developments in the arts and culture, that brings us into communion with the brotherhood of man and demonstrates to the world that we have learned what it means to be truly egalitarian and compassionate. We have reached the perfection of human development with the brotherhood of man and love for all of God’s creatures. Respect for the animals of earth, the environment, the children – we are learning and realizing we are so dangerous to the creatures of earth, to children, and to the very earth itself that we must work diligently to create a more wholesome and nurturing environment for man and beast to live. Where children will be able to grow up with many different families – from the school family to friends, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers, neighbors, and others who care and nurture our development and expose us to the greatness of diversity. The truth is so clear after centuries of being bogged down by racist politics and a political party that divides rather than unites, we can finally achieve a more perfect relationship with each other where politics is set aside and we act for all our benefit and not just for the benefit of one political party clearly tainted by racist and elitist ideologies.
Who could argue that civil liberties for all, free from oppression and restriction, free of government tyranny – who could argue that is a bad thing. No one, and that is where we will head if we but join together to make the changes necessary in this country until we join once again with the brotherhood of nations and champion the poor as the rich, the white as the black, the immigrant as the citizen, and the Christian as the Muslim. When that day comes we will truly know heaven on earth and man will be responsible for bringing the change necessary to bestow upon mankind the heaven that was spoken of Biblically. That is the world we deserve. That is the world we should strive to achieve.
If only we got along. Sit down, converse, reach an agreement, show compassion and understanding, appreciation and tolerance - embrace those who hate you. Isn't that a Gandhi rule, or a Jesus rule, for Jesus did not judge lest he be judged, he did not condemn lest he be condemned - he wanted us to love each other and understand our common humanity.
Unfortunately, no one has a monopoly on what He wants, but we can get one thing pretty clear - LOVE. We miss the other parts - justice, punishment, and fear. We prefer metaphors. We are so advanced.
Every morning at least 100,000 people wake up and think of nothing but the destruction of the United States and the immediate aftermath - the collapse of the West. These men, mainly, think of nothing but how to destroy the West - the US. They think, dream, plot, connive, plan, and conspire to bring about the downfall of the United States and the deaths of millions of Americans.
These men (mainly) have been planning this event for decades. Before George Bush, before Bill Clinton - they were in preparation and planning - if only to justify and rationalize their actions they see nothing wrong with the deaths of millions of Americans. This group will never rest, tire, or cease in their planning and plotting to bring about the downfall of the United States and the end of all that we have just agreed was so great about the US.
Gone will be the liberal education, reliance on civil liberties, the simple little pleasures we derive from talking to our children without force or violence, gone will be the advances made by minorities (namely homosexuals and women). Gone in one flash of a nuclear weapon in an American city.
According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, if a nuclear weapon (dirty bomb) were detonated in Manhattan, given wind conditions and other arrangements, we could see 800,000 people dead in a flash. Hundreds of trillions in property destruction. Thousands dying over several weeks. Millions homeless. Tens of thousands would starve over several months time, hundreds would freeze to death or bake from the heat in summer without shelter. Our GNP would lose at the very least 1-2 trillion over night. And that would be the start.
The federal government would implement martial law. As soon as it was determined that the mass murderers were Muslim, tens of thousands of Muslims would be arrested and incarcerated. Hundreds of Muslims across the country would be killed by vigilante hate groups. Thousands of young people protesting martial law would be arrested and or beaten back by police. The court systems would not accept complaints against police brutality, but would uphold with great latitude the actions by the government. After all, a large piece of the justice system would have been vaporized with Manhattan and with it, much of the tolerance Americans have for hugs and kisses. Immediate passage of new laws permitting government interception of all phone calls and all methods of communication to apprehend all those who assisted or escaped after the attack on Manhattan. While many legal scholars around the globe would decry our domestic actions, their governments would be very quickly (and perhaps secretly) doing the same things.
When the 2nd nuclear suitcase (dirty bomb) goes off on an opposite coast, everything you imagined of heaven on earth went out the window for another 1800 years, and that assumes you are still alive. Assuming it is a city on the West coast and 250,000 are killed immediately, it would be unlikely that every American living did not lose someone in one or another of the attacks. You will find anyone who was not a passionate opponent of anything, would suddenly lose interest in tolerance, compassion, dialogue, and would demand our government blow the shit out of someone and to hell with who is killed. It will be a select few Americans who will argue that at this moment more than any other we must refrain, we must seek the world's help, but the sad thing will be, their voices will be hollow as they sit with the heads bowed down staring at images of lost friends or family members.
The 2nd attack will cause trillions in property damage, knock off another trillion or two from the GNP, send the stock market spiraling from the rock bottom after the first attack into the hole with the 2nd attack. Tens of thousands wounded, hundreds of thousands incinerated, freeways obliterated, harbors destroyed, a city leveled, millions homeless, and again hundreds of Muslims will be killed in the streets or burned with their homes, and no one will raise a finger to stop them.
Those men who wake up every day and plot the destruction of the United States will have won, for the foreseeable future, but the worst was yet to come. Our military is stretched around the globe and cannot be destroyed in one swoop or attack anywhere - we would strike back and it would not be measured. For all the damn fools who believe the US rolled in to Iraq and bombed everything and everyone, you have no idea what bombing everything looks like, or rather, you will find out. The full might of the US will respond and with it, the loss of so many more innocent lives - but we will not care, for we will still be counting the millions dead in the US from the attacks, let alone from the aftermath.
All of the above assumes the attacks occur only in the US. Should an attack occur outside of the US after or before the attacks on the US, a great deal more will change in European countries.
The world will wish it had acted sooner. Americans will grieve with the guilt we did not take action sooner. We will never again think dialogue or compassion is our heaven on earth, for it will be a quarter century before the US rebuilds itself to the point it was at before the first attack. Bin Laden and his compatriots [Note: Bin Laden is used as symbol of an ideology, not only as the man for he will be killed by or before, but the hte he spews will live on] will not imagine that we could rebuild, but we will. He will not understand how we could muster the ability to rise up again, let alone the money and strength necessary to rebuild, and wage war upon those who only wish to die and meet their maker in hell, but we will. The voices of tolerance will be quiet and silenced. The governments of the West will implement their own versions of martial law, restrict immigration, restrict travel, expel illegal immigrants, and hunt down all those who speak hate or opposition to their governments. The West will finally wake up and realize that it is engaged in World War IV, and it will respond, and it will prevail, but at what cost.
Prevail it must for the alternative is oblivion for the West. Prevail it will. There are 1 1/4 billion Muslims on this planet and the majority will, at that time, recognize the danger that awaits us all if the minority are not silenced, and it will happen - or the West will ensure it happens with great loss for all. The brightest and most respected in the Islamic world will see the writing on the wall, and change will occur, subsequent to the months after the two attacks.
That may well be the brightest moment in Christian and Muslim relations in the last thousand years - and it will only take over a million lives to reach that point. We could stop it. It can be stopped before it is too late for the millions in the US, and for those who live their lives today not realizing, that their futures are inextricably linked to the nearly one million Americans who will perish in the attacks.
Let us prevent this now before it is too late.
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