“We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh, we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on those faces there is no smile.” – Hilaire Belloc
On June 26, 2015, ISIS severed the head of a businessman in France, and displayed the head on a stake. In the U.S., we compared the Instagram charts of Kendall Jenner and Kim Kardashian. A gunman associated with ISIS opened fire on a Tunisian beach, leaving at least 27 dead, and many others wounded. We studiously discussed Ariana Grande’s makeup techniques. ISIS sent a suicide bomber to wreck havoc in a Kuwatian mosque. The United States of America legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, and ISIS threw four homosexual men to their deaths from a roof in Syria, then made the footage public with the hashtag – #lovewins.
Our Misguided Logic
Misguided notions of fulfillment engulf most of the world in confusion. The West obsesses over the superficial, determined to find happiness by turning inward and satisfying every selfish and petty desire. We are the casualties of Modernism, regarding which John Senior speaks in The Death of Christian Culture: “Cut off from reality by ‘four hundred years of criticism and doubt,’ the Modernist, insisting on the new, very quickly exhausts the contents of his memory and proceeds to invent an artificial one.” Currently, the “new” thing is pretending that the world revolves around self. Watch television for just half an hour, observing only commercials. Are you a teeny bit uncomfortable at night? What you need is a sleep number bed, with both temperature and firmness control. Are you tired of the clothes you bought six months ago? Come on into Target, Old Navy, Mens’ Warehouse-you name the store, and give yourself a complete new wardrobe. Immediately. Are you slightly bored? Dissatisfied with life? What you need is a new phone, a new car, a new relationship, a sex change? The cause of your dissatisfaction in life cannot possibly come from within, it must be caused by you not getting exactly what you want, when you want, from whomever you want. At present it seems that a large percentage of this country seeks to satisfy the deepest desires of their hearts by claiming the title “marriage” for sexual actions between members of the same gender. This is the selfishness, the consumerism to which Pope Francis responds in Laudato Si. Islam responds less charitably to the same observations.
While the West ignores reality, Islam wages a holy war. Assuredly, a large percentage of the Muslim population assimilates peacefully with other religions and other nations. Yet since the time of Mohammed, Islam has always carried a radical presence, a militant arm. And judging by the number of atrocities committed recently, over the last couple decades-in truth over the last 1,400 years-that arm doesn’t rest much. Their violence repels us, their intolerance sickens us. Clearly, this aggressive form of Islam suffers at least as much confusion regarding how to find fulfillment. Until all infidel lands swear allegiance to Mohammed’s god, militant Islam will live, fight and die for Allah. Insatiable thirst for victory drives them ever onward. Perhaps the Islamic quest for happiness is more distorted than our own self centered methods. And yet, in one way they beat us. At least they desire greatness. At least they willingly put self aside and make sacrifices for their goals, for their religion. Their focus lies outward, beyond self. Impelled by religion, they fast, train, and fight. And, unfortunately, it often appeals to those who recognize that the world around them glories in superficialities and watered down religion. In May of this year, a 26 year old mother from Australia abandoned her two children to fight with ISIS, joining a growing number of Westerners who seek fulfillment in Islamic extremism. This should be more than a little frightening.
Longing For Fulfillment
Simply, our hearts long for fulfillment. Every single human being desires perfect happiness. St. Augustine observes, “Indeed, man wishes to be happy, even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.” The ordinary person desires to be loved and accepted, yes, but I think even more than that we long for Someone to love, something to believe in so deeply that we would die for it–be that death ever so violent. Even as we of the West flip through People Magazine, there is something deep down in every human being that arcs toward greatness. Even if that person be afraid, incompetent, or lazy. Even if that person has a twisted idea of happiness. Even if it’s just a mustard seed that wishes to desire the longing for greatness.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI boldly maintains “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” We are all called to look beyond ourselves to God first, then to our fellow man and his needs. We are called to magnanimity, greatness of soul–to accomplish great things for the glory of God. Think of Roland. Think of the missions of St. Francis Xavier, the death of St. Jean de Brebeuf. Think of St. Therese of Lisieux transforming the small labors of every day into veritable treasure hordes of grace for herself and generations to come. Magnanimity not only can but should be discovered in every age, vocation, gender, place and time, if only we look beyond ourselves! In God, only in Him, shall we find happiness and great happiness at that. He is our Creator, and we are teleological beings, meaning we have a specific end goal–to return of our own will to the Creator. Turn to Augustine again, who puts it so eloquently, “Thou has made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”
With God Alone
It’s no wonder militant Islam looks upon the West in disgust. While the West turns a blind eye to Islam’s true nature, patronizingly wishing them all that the West values, Islam looks to the West and sees pampered idolaters mired in a culture that fawns over selfishness and pettiness to a minutia of detail which is, frankly, embarrassing. While refugees in Syria wonder where their missing children are, this nation pats itself on the back for finally enacting a law entirely out of gibberish. It is absurdity taken to tragic extremes. By this meaningless redefinition of marriage, we congratulate ourselves on inventing a square circle. The thing does not exist. But flatter the emperor enough on his new robes, and he will begin to believe you.
The world has gone mad. Our logic consists in repeating absurdities ad nauseam until they begin to seem rational. Neither will the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage bring happiness to the LGBT community; rather, they will begin frenetically seeking another source of satisfaction.
God alone can fulfill the deepest longings of our hearts. We face a battle to the death for our eternal souls, and it seems that in this temporal war, our enemies are the only ones fighting.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Anderson Guest Columnist
Elizabeth Anderson is a stay-at-home mother and independent writer. A graduate of Christendom College, she also worked for several years for Population Research Institute. Her work as appeared on Crisis Magazine. She resides in Michigan with her husband, Matthew, and their three small children.
49 thoughts on “This Is Precisely Why Islam Hates Us”
Elijah fan
Go here for the self sacrifice of militant Islam..lol…..the top ISIS leader sexually abused US hostage Kayla Mueller at another leader’s house.
We know that from the captured wife of the second leader and from two Yezidi women who were there at that time but freed by us.
What a dilemma. The problem is that, for a man, when we have a cause we want to fight for it. A man is made impotent in this fight from the get-go because In the United States the intellectual high ground is inhabited by neo-marxists, neo-freudians and political Progressives. These people are (heavily) funded by secret societies of every stripe, the tax base of the American people, every kind of special interest lobbyist, and employ just about every political opportunist in the US if not on earth. American tax money is being lavishly spent to fund the intellectual war against Christianity and to virtually turn the United States into a mercenary army, an army clearly in service of an atheistic “New World Order”. I am not an advocate of salvation through politics but, am becoming terribly discouraged by the Catholic Church’s naivete in voting indiscriminately for any politician who says he (or she) wants to help the poor while demonstrating that they are the most Marxist pro-death candidate in American history. I don’t mean to sound negative (and I know I must) but, if we do not wrest the power of the state from the God-Haters we are going to lose this battle. It is NOT evil to be a godly Catholic who believes in Christian civic duty.
Anyone who thinks Islam is against Christianity has absolutely no understanding of moderate Islamic teaching . Moderate Muslims are the the majority of the Muslim world and understand the teaching of the prophet Mohammed in its truest sense .
It is unfortunate however that the leaders of many Islamic nations have used their positions to enforce a much more hostile and burdensome interpretation of the Quran . Moderate Islamic people are a peace loving people and many of them immigrate to western countries to escape their oppressive rulers .
Catholics should be cautious about those who claim Islam is anything other than a peaceful religion.
The atrocities that are committed in some Islamist nations by militant Islamists are not representative of of Islam as a whole .
If any person wants to garnish a true understanding of Islam then asking a moderate Muslim may be a step in the right direction. .
I have no issue with the helping refugees .. but what next.. who can give guarantee that these people will not turn over the west… We the Christians should be kind and helpful but here the fact we are missing This Muslims will not do any good do the west instead of gratitude they will kill innocent people for sake of Their prophet .. Those killings will be on the people too who cannot thinking this right now ….
I am RC and Islam calls Christians the ones who love them most in the world. This is why Islam does not hate Christians and why they do not hate me. BTW, those professing to be of Islam who are terrorist mercenaries like ISIS are not following it and they are harming the people of Islam. Do you not see the Syrians in the refugee camps ever since our US and UK governments were involved in trying to create another, yes, yet another, regime change? Do you not see how our governments are cosying upto terrorists again like we did in Libya? Where is the truth? The Truth is that the Muslim people are being persecuted by the terrorists, by our governments and by those professing to be Christians. I can see it because I bothered to actually seek for the truth about it instead of believing false witnesses in our media.
I am RC and I can say to my own, who profess to be RC, that their attitude towards Muslims actually stinks of pride and contempt and hatred, just like our governments’ attitude.
Your choice of the quote by Belloc is spot on. God has been so patient with us since Original Sin. He waited through all the centuries when we had no notion of anything beyond the next piece of meat or berry, through the time when we felt the need for gods and so made up very scary ones that called for human sacrifice, through the time when He saw that we were finally ready for Moses to give us His Commandments (before we killed one another off completely), through the time when we were sufficiently spread across the globe and connected by the Roman Empire to send His Son to go beyond the Don’ts of the Ten Commandments to the Do’s of the Two Greatest Commandments that summed up all the other Ten and to suffer and die for our sins. Now, we are so complacent that we have slipped back into that idolatry that celebrates the human sacrifice of our own children to satisfy our lusts including sodomy. The angels in Heaven watch us and ask is now the time when our evil is complete? Will ISIS be allowed to join with Lucifer to scourge the Earth, and, finally, to receive into Hell all who have ignored their Savior and God in favor of their own Narcissism?
I
tried placing this comment on an article on National Cathol;ic
Register about Islam, but they didn’t print it. Perhaps this site
will.
The
fact is, there are a number of crucial points about Islam and about
“terrorism” that no one, defenders or condemners of Islam even
want to touch!
Among
them, why is all this happening now?: Before September 11, there
were absolutely no high profile, massive, civilian “terrorist”
acts. Since September 11, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Nairobi, the
anthrax scares, the “shoe bomber”, the “underwear bomber”,
the Times Square bomber”; Rafik Hariri, Benazir Bhutto, the Sears
Tower plot”, the “Ft. Dix plot”, the Ft. Hood shootings, the
Washington shipyard shootings. More than a century’s worth of
“terrorist” incidents in less than a decade and a half! The
technology used was the same as that before September 11, Islam was
presumably the same and the “hatred” of America was presumably
the same, but there was nothing before September 11, but a flood
afterward. Why?
Another
point to be considered is that, frankly, there isn’t a single Muslim
on the planet who doesn’t have a relative no more than three levels
out, great grandparents or great grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces
or nephews no more than three times removed, third cousins, who
wasn’t butchered by depredations by The West to try to steal Middle
East lands and resources! Expand the view and the number of
relatives slaughtered by Western greed skyrockets. France invading
Algeria because a sheik struck an ambassador with a fly whisk; the
British expeditionary forces and militarism throughout the Victorian
times; colonization by other nations throughout Europe; the
contemptuous divvying up of the Middle East by Europe after World War
I, Mossad/CIA/MI-5 Special Forces operations to destabilize
legitimate governments, foment inter tribal warfare, create inter
clan agitation; establishing corporate friendly dictators, like
General Suharto, who killed more Indonesians than all the “terrorist”
events throughout the world put together; Reza Pahlavi, who oversaw
the murderous SAVAK secret police. And, then, ion the face of the
abominations visited upon their families, so many Westerners snicker
malignantly at hate filled depictions of Mohammed deceitfully termed
“cartoons, and churned out by malingering forces intent on seeing
Westerners killed by Muslims so they could have an excuse for
unleashing the Final Solution to the Arab Problem.
Islam, from the little I’ve read, has had various militant factions. They have fought against and killed each other. When militant Islamists fight against the West, it seems rarely motivated by love for God initially but more as an afterthought. Their violence seems motivated far more by vengeance, hatred, frustration, fear, envy… at least what I’ve read about. Most of their vengeance and hatred is focused against Israel, of course. If they have “greatness” as a goal, it is by using what Christians would say are very evil means.
I love that the author is honest even when her honesty might shock, but doesn’t shock at the expensive of honesty. Does anyone know if Elizabeth Anderson had a regular column or blog somewhere?
The problem with this analysis is that Islam has hated the Christian West (and East) since Muhammad first claimed his revelations–long before same-sex “marriage” or the Kardashians. Ms. Anderson is certainly correct that the Qur’anic literalist/Jihadist wing of Islam views the West largely with contempt–but that is secondary to the animus directed at us as “worshippers of the cross.” See my forthcoming books “Ten Years’ Captivation with the Mahdi’s Camps” and “Sects, Lies and the Caliphate.”
I don’t think that Americans are as vapid as we are portrayed. We have tried to push back against the propaganda, the lies and cultural rot. We have tried to use the chain of command to change the immoral laws that we are served almost daily and have been betrayed EVERY time. The game is rigged so that a tiny minority holds all of the political power. The problem is that we are up against people hell bent on our destruction. You can’t watch a home improvement show or a cooking show without a progressive message being inserted. You can’t go the store without being exposed to indoctrination; the magazines stare you down at the check out. Schools and even churches are equally under attack. Moral standards are mocked and treated with hostility and scorn. This year military recruits were required to wear pink heels, these were men by the way, to support the LGBT cause. We are being force fed pop culture against our will. I don’t know how people who don’t have access to the sacraments survive the onslaught. We are treading water against a tsunami. Islam is the hand that will hold our heads under water because our fight or flight response has been exhausted from all of the other invasions. I honestly think that we are numb because of the constant attacks and not because we are decedent.
No, but we will likely be spinning our wheels if we think that we can fight the mainstream culture with its own weapons, or expect certain readings of American history to provide solutions when, in the words of Ross Douthat, we are “a nation of heretics.” Heresy is always less than the fullness of the Truth. Americans hold “freedom,” “liberty,” and “independence” at a premium. And they have also differed on what those things mean from the very beginning.
To have the fullness of the Truth is to think bigger. To think more magnanimously, capaciously, and charitably without compromise of the Highest Things. That’s what an authentic, dynamic orthodoxy is about: to become small and humble and pure of heart, so that we may see and think big.
I honestly think that we are numb because of the constant attacks and not because we are decedent.
We’re only going to be numb because of the constant attacks if we think with the culture for presuming that we’ve got nothing, whereby we’re always playing defense– that somehow, being a Christian is about what we’re against than what we’re for.
I’ve noticed, for example, Catholic parents complaining endlessly about the popular culture while not realizing that the Catholic faith offers viable alternative– they don’t realize that they need not get bogged down, because certain things about the culture are good as far as they go, but they don’t go far enough. We spend way too much time being outraged at the lack of decency, and not enough time cultivating an attitude of cultured boredom where the culture is concerned: a person who doesn’t like Taylor Swift, but who has not heard of Palestrina, will spend way too much time and energy complaining about Taylor Swift and what she’s wearing or not wearing than listening to Palestrina– much like many of us assume that being holy consists mostly of “not sinning” rather than wanting and loving God more than anything. Catholicism is way more profound, and the “thou shalt nots” only make sense in light of what the Church says an emphatic and enthusiastic “YES” to.
There is a difference between so many approaches that assume that Catholicism needs to chase and ape the larger culture in order to speak to it, and the likes of a Fr. (soon to be Bishop) Robert Barron, who can take certain aspects of pop culture– be it Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, etc.– and use them to talk about St. Thomas Aquinas or Benedict XVI. It’s because he knows his own Catholic tradition first,knows that it thinks bigger, and therefore knows where to point its audience in telling them that the Catholic tradition has so much more to offer them. Only then is he able to tap more effectively into how people try to fill themselves with something other than what they were made for: to be with God, and to love and serve Him in this life and the next. There’s a difference between chasing after the culture on the one hand, and being fully rooted, if not anchored, and throwing it a lifeline on the other. The aim of the evangelist isn’t to flee from the culture, but to transform it; to win it over for Christ. And for that, the evangelist must first know and accept Who Christ really is– not Jesus the hippie, Jesus the Marshmallow, or Jesus, my personal sock-puppet, or a myriad fond and familiar caricatures. Notice that over and over, Barron pushes back against our culture’s tendency to domesticate Christ, when Jesus, in Barron’s words, is “strange.” Christ is Mysterious.
Catholics need to start with the Eucharist, because it is what keeps us rooted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith, as we’re supposed to be. It renews, empowers, and enables us to live what the culture says is “too hard” (by the way, how many of us hear a “no” from the pulpit, but next to nothing about what enables us to live this “more excellent way”?): it may make us stick out like a sore thumb in this culture of ours, but it gives us a distinct advantage if we are prepared to see it that way: this it the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the ultimate in True Love, right here, right now, under the auspices of a tiny host. This is what the Catholic Church has on offer– and the Good News is that you don’t have to be married to have access to it; you just have to be willing and humble enough to want to receive it on its own terms. And yes, that will “offend”– if not truly offend– people, no matter what we do; it did in Jesus’s own time. What we have in common with everybody else is that the Real Presence offends even us, since there are many, many times when we prefer to have a “close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ” without being challenged by Him. While we’re not going to go out of our way to offend anyone, what we’re about will offend people, anyway, and not just ISIS. At the very least, being yelled at, criticized, and ridiculed are facts of life. If we’re going to get yelled at, criticized, ridiculed, and much, much worse, anyway, it may as well be for something worthwhile.
Consider that Ms. Anderson’s observation that Catholicism offers a more charitable response to the things that ISIS laments, but such observations also fly under the radar way too often, because American Catholics try to “fit in” to the mainstream culture– even if they don’t do it with their pop culture, they do it with their politics: the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church will not be hauled by the scruff of the neck and made to salute the American flag or the agenda of either political party. Catholics in America should be more aware that most people, Republican or Democrat, left or right, traditional or progressive, separate matter from spirit, and thus the Corporal Works of Mercy from the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and sever “lex orandi, lex credendi” from “lex vivendi,” when the Church does not– because human beings are not matter or spirit, but both/and. We can also acknowledge that ISIS has a point, or that radical feminists ask good questions, or consider the concerns of our opponents without endorsing their modus operandi, because the Church has better answers to those same questions.
James
Thank you for verbalizing a critique that frames the frightening scenario we are living through clearly and with insight. Your thoughtful essay is a small gift. But it appears they have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear.
God reward you.
The author is discounting the carnal, sinful motives of militant muslim sacrifice. Read the Koran and the approved hadiths which I did for weeks. They are aiming for a paradise that includes an unending orgy. One hadith says each man in paradise will have a tent so large that his wife in one corner will not know about the houri he has in other corners. Right now ISIS is raping Yezidi and Christian captured women daily. Why is this carnality glossed over here as to the demonic energy in their “sacrifice”? Only very modern muslims and sufi influenced muslims see the houri as metaphoric symbols. Militant Islam believes they will get excessive sex with a number of houri in paradise. Google Koran houri.
You make many good points, but I think you’re quite wrong about ISIS. ISIS hates everyone and everything that does not conform with its narrow vision of Islam. If all of Europe, North America, Australia, etc. embraced devout Christian faith today, ISIS would still wage war against us.
Claire, I’m not sure the author ever meant to say “if we were more devout Christians, ISIS would like us, or if not, they’d at least not hate us.” Rather, she is asking a rather difficult question: if we’ve been given the fullness of the Truth in the Catholic faith, then why don’t we have just as much fervor, such that zeal for the Lord’s house will consume us?
We know full well that Christ told us that we can expect to be hated, because the world hated Him first. We aren’t to be more fervent Christians because we expect to be “liked,” but rather because we want others to know that God is Truth, and that He loves them in this wholly magnanimous way: this is a God Who pours Himself out for us unto the end of time.
That’s what the Eucharist is about– and yet, way too many Catholics, despite calling themselves Catholic, don’t believe in the Real Presence, either because they’re not used to believing in it to know that that belief does have consequences, or because they’ve compromised enough already in order to “fit in” with a largely Protestant culture. One thing that I have noticed (as both an ethnic minority and a Roman Catholic, by the way) is that amid all the well-meaning talk of “respect for other cultures,” the one culture that almost invariably gets ignored, marginalized, or out-and-out dissed, even by Catholics, is the Latin Rite’s own tradition and culture. This is not to knock our Protestant brothers and sisters, or anyone else at all, only to point out that we believe different things, and that true ecumenism and respect also means the respect of differences: we are not forcing them or anyone to convert to Catholicism. But they should respect that we are Catholic because we ourselves respect that we are Catholic. Meeting others where they’re at does not mean compromising who we are. If “everybody’s different” in our pluralistic age, then Catholics have just as much right and reason as anyone else to be ourselves.
What should trouble us is why we should even expect to be liked, even if we don’t go out of our way to offend anyone, either.
Danielle
Thank you for this amazing article. Very well put! I will share!!
Firstly, that famous Belloc quote has nothing to do with Islam, even though he was concerned about a resurgence of that heresy. That quote better describes people who sit down, watch and enjoy movies and TV shows and plays and speeches by mocking prominent men that ridicule and denigrate the Faith.
Secondly, ask yourself what was the trigger that has suddenly unleashed fanatical Islam. Why has Islam been more or less quiescent until relatively recently? What pushed the fanatical element over the edge? What antagonized them? If we are to be honest about this we have to look at the actions of our own government and the occupying force in the Holy Land. The injustices committed against Arab Muslims AND CHRISTIANS in the Holy Land by the occupying power have, since 1948, been inflaming Islam to take revenge not only on that occupying power but on its most vociferous supporter, the USA.
Thirdly, where did ISIS come from? How did this small group of radical Islamic extremists suddenly emerge as if out of nowhere fully equipped with money, training and advanced weaponry? For the answer to that look again to Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia. They were created as proxy armies to “soften up” the nations that the Three Amigos wanted destroyed. Of course, it has gotten a bit out of hand of late, but the sponsors and creators of ISIS still find them useful.
Fourthly, who is doing the most right now to fight and destroy ISIS? It is Bashir Assad, president of Syria who is doing that. And what does he get for his efforts to destroy ISIS? Bombings by Israel and the US. Who in the Middle East is the greatest protector of its Christian population? Again, Mr Assad.
If you want to understand Islam you have start to learn the actors behind the scenes who are bringing this chaos upon the world. You also have to understand that some Islamic regimes are not beheading and killing innocents, two examples of which are Syria and Iran. What two nations do Washington and Tel Aviv want destroyed? Syria and Iran. Generalizing does not help us find the truth; it only helps the war propaganda artists who hold the world’s microphones.
Some points of your political comments make sense, but that was not necessarily the focus of the article. Correct, North Africa to Mid East and up to Turkey have been destabilized, often at hands of USA. However, we must remember that Assad is/was a ruthless dictator who is responsible for the death of many innocents to have stability and control. Remember, “The devil you know…”
We must remember that violent Islam is always just below the current ready to resurface, no matter who makes it possible. Belloc in his book, The Great Heresies, stated that Islam would return with a very threatening strength. Islam wants to conquer the West, whether it is decadent to put it out of its misery, or Christian. The greater threat is the latter to the Muslim.
schmenz
Dear Father:
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I guess the main point of my comment was to warn people against accepting at face value the nonstop, 24/7 propaganda fed to us by Washington and its kept mass media. Believing their propaganda leads to wrong conclusions, then inevitably to death and destruction. The never-ending demonization of Assad is a perfect example of this. (There is far more innocent blood on the hands of Truman, Bush, Clinton and Obama than on Assad.)
Can Muslims be converted? Yes. Can they be human beings? Yes (http://theeye-witness.blogspot.com/2014/07/encounter-with-muslims.html) Do all of them want to conquer and kill Christians? No. If that were true, how can we explain the acts of Muslims protecting their Christian friends and neighbors who were being murdered by Israeli soldiers, some of them putting their own lives at risk to do so? The world, and Islam, is not as simple or black and white as our mass media would suggest, and the fact that the mass media has lied about or ignored the fact that ISIS was a total creation of Washington and Tel Aviv should give us all reason to pause. Again, who is doing the most, by far, to stop ISIS? Assad. And who does Washington and Tel Aviv want to destroy? Assad. Let us ponder this carefully.
Mr Belloc, my hero, did indeed warn against a resurgent militant Islam. But were he alive today I think he would be appalled at the recklessness, evil and stupidity of deliberately inflaming them so as to gain wealth, land and political advantage, as our leaders have done. In my writings and conversations I don’t try to enrage a Muslim who wants to have a sincere discussion. Rather I try to use our shared veneration for the Blessed Mother and Jesus Christ, flawed as it is in the Muslim mind, as a starting point. That’s better than the Wall Street Journal/Lindsey Graham/Netanyahu/Rush Limbaugh approach, I believe.
Please pray for me and my family, Father.
jerome_ky
“…the fact that the mass media has lied about or ignored the fact that ISIS was a total creation of Washington and Tel Aviv…”
Apart from bashing Israel (and the U.S. because we support them) what is the sense of this statement? Jews in Tel Aviv created a group calling itself the caliphate? Riggght… No, I know, because we sold arms to the enemies of Assad, obviously at the pressure of mighty Israel. Rigggght…. Bad, evil Israel the root cause of all the world’s problems, got it.
St Donatus
I am surprised nobody responded to you. Actually, it was only recently that Islam settled down. They have been expanding violently since there start 1400 years ago. They have now spread by use of the sword throughout the world. The difference in the 20th and 21st century is that countries like Suadi Arabia have so much power over us that we do their bidding in invading Iraq, etc. Islam was relatively powerless against a far more technically advance West until the last 50 years. Guess what has been going on for the last fifty years. Do you really think that Bush thought that Iraq was a threat to the US?
schmenz
Hello St Donatus,
I believe militant Islam, as a conquering horde, went more-or-less quiescent after Lepanto. Yes, there were skirmishes between different factions and tribes of Islam since then, most of them exacerbated by colonial interests, primarily British. None of those intramural fights involved any Western nation, however. But they have not, as a religion, shown any signs of wanting to conquer the world of late, despite the ludicrous propaganda of some molders of opinion.
The trigger that set off the conflagration and turmoil, and destroyed the good relationship the US once enjoyed with Middle Eastern nations, was the brutal invasion and occupation of Palestine by primarily Eastern European Jews and their enablers who ethnically cleansed the Arab semites, Christian and Mulsim, from their homelands. Since then (1948) the anger among nations, not only Muslim, has grown over this horrible injustice. Recently the Vatican made a move to address this terrible situation by recognizing the Palestinians as a true nation…to the dismay, of course, of Washington, Tel Aviv and Pamela Geller.
Where we need to be careful here is in lumping all Muslims together into one convenient batch. The reality is quite different. For example, unthinking people portray all Palestinians as rag-headed murderers, which would be laughable if it were not so serious. Presumably the Palestinian Christians don’t count for much among those who rail against them. If they would read the opinions of the Catholic prelates who are in that land they might learn a thing or two. Also, neither the Syrian or Iranian nations have posed no threats to the West whatsoever, despite the 24/7 nonsense coming from Washington and their media.
I’m not sure what you meant by stating that the Saudis have power over us. Other than being a major oil supplier they have very little political power over the US. They deal with us in ways that are most beneficial to them obviously but they wield no power over us that I am aware of. The two countries calling the shots in the Middle East right now are the USA and the Israeli occupiers. Israel’s nuclear arsenal makes it clear that nations there don’t want to commit suicide, so there constant so-called fears over another nation having nukes is chimerical. The reason why there is so much hysteria over Iran having nukes (which it doesn’t) is that Israel wants no nuclear competition, and wants to be the hegemon over there.
ISIS is a proxy army created by Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia (with recent help now from Turkey’s weird president) used by them to create chaos. That is simply the blunt truth:
We should know that the US has been backing radical Islamists since the Cold War so actually this is not surprising.
But don’t confuse the ISIS monsters with, say, Syria or Iran, the two countries doing by far the most to stop them.
You ask if I thought Bush thought Iraq was a threat to the West. I would be the last person in the world to decipher what went through that man’s head. But that he was a puppet of the neocons and Wall Street (like Obama) probably says a lot.
charrell
I love your analogy of the Emperor’s new clothes! Just saying a thing is something doesn’t make it so.
True, esp since the beginning of the 20th century when we decided to “drink their milkshake” as the saying goes in the fantastic epic film ” There will be blood ” In this case we did “…Start the fire.”
Tweck
The meddling, yes. But also the consumerism and self-idolatry – they’ve been saying that about us for decades. It’s contrary to their religion. And also to ours, but we are so swept up in the joys of lavishing ourselves with consumer goods and obsessing about sex, we either don’t or pretend not to notice how contrary it is.
Andre B
Are you slightly bored? Dissatisfied with life? What you need is a new phone, a new car, a new relationship, a sex change?
Neither will the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage bring happiness to the LGBT community; rather, they will begin frenetically seeking another source of satisfaction.
I don’t understand why you would feel the need to trivialize the reasons some people feel compelled to seek out sex changes or how important being afforded marriage equality was to much of the LGBT community. Surely you could have made you points without resorting to this.
No trivialization involved here, Andre. Elizabeth is dead-on right. The recent supreme court decision is part of and evidence for the West’s ever-increasing disengagement from Objective Reality, choosing delusion over Truth.
Andre B
No trivialization involved here
I’m sorry, you are wrong. The decision over whether or not to undergo a sex change was likened to somebody opting for a new phone out of boredom. The fight for marriage equality (and the associated rights it brings) was similarly cast as a fleeting distraction. This is trivializing things that people have spilled blood, sweat, and tears over.
Even if one were inclined to accept your argument that people are “choosing delusion over Truth”, there’s no reason to think that they do so in the trivial manner described by Ms. Anderson.
Windsong
Wow, what a very good article, you nailed it all in one swoop!
“Misguided notions of fulfillment engulf most of the world in confusion.”
In the Bahagavad-gita it is noted that we are in the last age, the age of Kali or quarrel.
“Think of St. Therese of Lisieux transforming the small labors of every day into veritable treasure hordes of grace for herself and generations to come.”
Mindfulness ( MBSR) is the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment, Clinical studies document the physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in general, and similar models have been widely adapted in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments. Finding God in one’s life is a personal problem since faith is a gift and not everyone is nurtured to develop or even receive it. But we try.
“While the West turns a blind eye to Islam’s true nature, …”
If you think the joint chiefs of staff are not planning an all out armed battle with these animals I
guess you don’t know the US military. We will do everything to protect our indulgences, the inherent harm not withstanding.
I see little to admire in Islamic extremism. These are folk who have given their lives over to complete hate of everyone and everything that are not themselves. Their attitudes, customs, and viewpoints are steeped in hate. In 1996, some Islamic militants attacked a murdered a group of TRAPPIST MONKS who were living in and serving the people of Algeria. Why? Because the monks were there . . . and because they didn’t belong to their particular sect of Islam. Beheaded.
Islamic extremists wouldn’t allow to live a Saint John Paul II or a Saint Augustine or anyone who didn’t renounce Christianity on their demand. Why? Because to them, to say that a man (e.g., Jesus Christ) is God is blasphemy; this makes him deserving of summary execution.
If I want to look at some cultural Others to inspire my admiration, I look at the Amish.
I think you may have misunderstood. At no point did the author say she did or would or should “admire” Islamic extremism. I think the point she is making is that we, as Christians, should be every bit, if not more, zealous about our Faith and committed to spreading the Gospel than these Islamist militants whose “violence repels us” and whose “intolerance sicken us”, even to the point of giving our lives because we speak the Truth. We know that “…militant Islam will live, fight, and die for Allah.” Shouldn’t we be willing to live, fight, and die for Jesus Christ? And yes, I agree, the Amish can teach us a lot about living more simply and rejecting our world’s frivolous materialism. They are admirable in their steadfast faith and firm adherence to their beliefs! 🙂
Elizabeth Anderson
Thank you Michelle! I couldn’t have responded better myself!
Theresa
in a perfect world yes, but even the Amish community have their own problems and keep “splitting” over doctrine, theology, and electric lights
WSquared
Agreed.
We seem to forget that we are not meant to “fit in,” because God has always formed His people to be set apart, set aside for His purposes. That’s not just true of the Old Testament. It’s true of the New Testament, also. Tellingly enough, we live in a culture where enough people calling themselves “Christian” may well pay lip service to the Incarnation, but essentially deny it, because they haven’t realized that they’re supposed to think with their faith and its logical implications– in the way that Mary “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
Elizabeth Anderson
Thank you for your insightful comment, Marion. Absolutely I agree that we should not admire Islamic extremism. Basically what I’m saying is that if they work hard, we should be working harder because we have truth on our side.
Marion (Mael Muire)
Thank you, Michelle and Elizabeth, for your kind replies expressing clarification on one or two of the themes which had struck me in this very interesting and original article.
John Connell
“Even as we of the West flip through People Magazine, there is something deep down in every human being that arcs toward greatness.” – Pure poetry Elizabeth!
49 thoughts on “This Is Precisely Why Islam Hates Us”
Go here for the self sacrifice of militant Islam..lol…..the top ISIS leader sexually abused US hostage Kayla Mueller at another leader’s house.
We know that from the captured wife of the second leader and from two Yezidi women who were there at that time but freed by us.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/14/us/isis-leader-sexual-abuse-u-s-hostage/index.html?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion&iref=obnetwork
What a dilemma. The problem is that, for a man, when we have a cause we want to fight for it. A man is made impotent in this fight from the get-go because In the United States the intellectual high ground is inhabited by neo-marxists, neo-freudians and political Progressives. These people are (heavily) funded by secret societies of every stripe, the tax base of the American people, every kind of special interest lobbyist, and employ just about every political opportunist in the US if not on earth. American tax money is being lavishly spent to fund the intellectual war against Christianity and to virtually turn the United States into a mercenary army, an army clearly in service of an atheistic “New World Order”. I am not an advocate of salvation through politics but, am becoming terribly discouraged by the Catholic Church’s naivete in voting indiscriminately for any politician who says he (or she) wants to help the poor while demonstrating that they are the most Marxist pro-death candidate in American history. I don’t mean to sound negative (and I know I must) but, if we do not wrest the power of the state from the God-Haters we are going to lose this battle. It is NOT evil to be a godly Catholic who believes in Christian civic duty.
As a great grandmother, it’s refreshing to read a young writer’s view of the world the way I see it. Hope exists in those who will live the future.
Anyone who thinks Islam is against Christianity has absolutely no understanding of moderate Islamic teaching . Moderate Muslims are the the majority of the Muslim world and understand the teaching of the prophet Mohammed in its truest sense .
It is unfortunate however that the leaders of many Islamic nations have used their positions to enforce a much more hostile and burdensome interpretation of the Quran . Moderate Islamic people are a peace loving people and many of them immigrate to western countries to escape their oppressive rulers .
Catholics should be cautious about those who claim Islam is anything other than a peaceful religion.
The atrocities that are committed in some Islamist nations by militant Islamists are not representative of of Islam as a whole .
If any person wants to garnish a true understanding of Islam then asking a moderate Muslim may be a step in the right direction. .
I have no issue with the helping refugees .. but what next.. who can give guarantee that these people will not turn over the west… We the Christians should be kind and helpful but here the fact we are missing This Muslims will not do any good do the west instead of gratitude they will kill innocent people for sake of Their prophet .. Those killings will be on the people too who cannot thinking this right now ….
I am RC and Islam calls Christians the ones who love them most in the world. This is why Islam does not hate Christians and why they do not hate me. BTW, those professing to be of Islam who are terrorist mercenaries like ISIS are not following it and they are harming the people of Islam. Do you not see the Syrians in the refugee camps ever since our US and UK governments were involved in trying to create another, yes, yet another, regime change? Do you not see how our governments are cosying upto terrorists again like we did in Libya? Where is the truth? The Truth is that the Muslim people are being persecuted by the terrorists, by our governments and by those professing to be Christians. I can see it because I bothered to actually seek for the truth about it instead of believing false witnesses in our media.
I am RC and I can say to my own, who profess to be RC, that their attitude towards Muslims actually stinks of pride and contempt and hatred, just like our governments’ attitude.
Your choice of the quote by Belloc is spot on. God has been so patient with us since Original Sin. He waited through all the centuries when we had no notion of anything beyond the next piece of meat or berry, through the time when we felt the need for gods and so made up very scary ones that called for human sacrifice, through the time when He saw that we were finally ready for Moses to give us His Commandments (before we killed one another off completely), through the time when we were sufficiently spread across the globe and connected by the Roman Empire to send His Son to go beyond the Don’ts of the Ten Commandments to the Do’s of the Two Greatest Commandments that summed up all the other Ten and to suffer and die for our sins. Now, we are so complacent that we have slipped back into that idolatry that celebrates the human sacrifice of our own children to satisfy our lusts including sodomy. The angels in Heaven watch us and ask is now the time when our evil is complete? Will ISIS be allowed to join with Lucifer to scourge the Earth, and, finally, to receive into Hell all who have ignored their Savior and God in favor of their own Narcissism?
I
tried placing this comment on an article on National Cathol;ic
Register about Islam, but they didn’t print it. Perhaps this site
will.
The
fact is, there are a number of crucial points about Islam and about
“terrorism” that no one, defenders or condemners of Islam even
want to touch!
Among
them, why is all this happening now?: Before September 11, there
were absolutely no high profile, massive, civilian “terrorist”
acts. Since September 11, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Nairobi, the
anthrax scares, the “shoe bomber”, the “underwear bomber”,
the Times Square bomber”; Rafik Hariri, Benazir Bhutto, the Sears
Tower plot”, the “Ft. Dix plot”, the Ft. Hood shootings, the
Washington shipyard shootings. More than a century’s worth of
“terrorist” incidents in less than a decade and a half! The
technology used was the same as that before September 11, Islam was
presumably the same and the “hatred” of America was presumably
the same, but there was nothing before September 11, but a flood
afterward. Why?
Another
point to be considered is that, frankly, there isn’t a single Muslim
on the planet who doesn’t have a relative no more than three levels
out, great grandparents or great grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces
or nephews no more than three times removed, third cousins, who
wasn’t butchered by depredations by The West to try to steal Middle
East lands and resources! Expand the view and the number of
relatives slaughtered by Western greed skyrockets. France invading
Algeria because a sheik struck an ambassador with a fly whisk; the
British expeditionary forces and militarism throughout the Victorian
times; colonization by other nations throughout Europe; the
contemptuous divvying up of the Middle East by Europe after World War
I, Mossad/CIA/MI-5 Special Forces operations to destabilize
legitimate governments, foment inter tribal warfare, create inter
clan agitation; establishing corporate friendly dictators, like
General Suharto, who killed more Indonesians than all the “terrorist”
events throughout the world put together; Reza Pahlavi, who oversaw
the murderous SAVAK secret police. And, then, ion the face of the
abominations visited upon their families, so many Westerners snicker
malignantly at hate filled depictions of Mohammed deceitfully termed
“cartoons, and churned out by malingering forces intent on seeing
Westerners killed by Muslims so they could have an excuse for
unleashing the Final Solution to the Arab Problem.
Islam, from the little I’ve read, has had various militant factions. They have fought against and killed each other. When militant Islamists fight against the West, it seems rarely motivated by love for God initially but more as an afterthought. Their violence seems motivated far more by vengeance, hatred, frustration, fear, envy… at least what I’ve read about. Most of their vengeance and hatred is focused against Israel, of course. If they have “greatness” as a goal, it is by using what Christians would say are very evil means.
I love that the author is honest even when her honesty might shock, but doesn’t shock at the expensive of honesty. Does anyone know if Elizabeth Anderson had a regular column or blog somewhere?
The problem with this analysis is that Islam has hated the Christian West (and East) since Muhammad first claimed his revelations–long before same-sex “marriage” or the Kardashians. Ms. Anderson is certainly correct that the Qur’anic literalist/Jihadist wing of Islam views the West largely with contempt–but that is secondary to the animus directed at us as “worshippers of the cross.” See my forthcoming books “Ten Years’ Captivation with the Mahdi’s Camps” and “Sects, Lies and the Caliphate.”
I don’t think that Americans are as vapid as we are portrayed. We have tried to push back against the propaganda, the lies and cultural rot. We have tried to use the chain of command to change the immoral laws that we are served almost daily and have been betrayed EVERY time. The game is rigged so that a tiny minority holds all of the political power. The problem is that we are up against people hell bent on our destruction. You can’t watch a home improvement show or a cooking show without a progressive message being inserted. You can’t go the store without being exposed to indoctrination; the magazines stare you down at the check out. Schools and even churches are equally under attack. Moral standards are mocked and treated with hostility and scorn. This year military recruits were required to wear pink heels, these were men by the way, to support the LGBT cause. We are being force fed pop culture against our will. I don’t know how people who don’t have access to the sacraments survive the onslaught. We are treading water against a tsunami. Islam is the hand that will hold our heads under water because our fight or flight response has been exhausted from all of the other invasions. I honestly think that we are numb because of the constant attacks and not because we are decedent.
No, but we will likely be spinning our wheels if we think that we can fight the mainstream culture with its own weapons, or expect certain readings of American history to provide solutions when, in the words of Ross Douthat, we are “a nation of heretics.” Heresy is always less than the fullness of the Truth. Americans hold “freedom,” “liberty,” and “independence” at a premium. And they have also differed on what those things mean from the very beginning.
To have the fullness of the Truth is to think bigger. To think more magnanimously, capaciously, and charitably without compromise of the Highest Things. That’s what an authentic, dynamic orthodoxy is about: to become small and humble and pure of heart, so that we may see and think big.
I honestly think that we are numb because of the constant attacks and not because we are decedent.
We’re only going to be numb because of the constant attacks if we think with the culture for presuming that we’ve got nothing, whereby we’re always playing defense– that somehow, being a Christian is about what we’re against than what we’re for.
I’ve noticed, for example, Catholic parents complaining endlessly about the popular culture while not realizing that the Catholic faith offers viable alternative– they don’t realize that they need not get bogged down, because certain things about the culture are good as far as they go, but they don’t go far enough. We spend way too much time being outraged at the lack of decency, and not enough time cultivating an attitude of cultured boredom where the culture is concerned: a person who doesn’t like Taylor Swift, but who has not heard of Palestrina, will spend way too much time and energy complaining about Taylor Swift and what she’s wearing or not wearing than listening to Palestrina– much like many of us assume that being holy consists mostly of “not sinning” rather than wanting and loving God more than anything. Catholicism is way more profound, and the “thou shalt nots” only make sense in light of what the Church says an emphatic and enthusiastic “YES” to.
There is a difference between so many approaches that assume that Catholicism needs to chase and ape the larger culture in order to speak to it, and the likes of a Fr. (soon to be Bishop) Robert Barron, who can take certain aspects of pop culture– be it Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, etc.– and use them to talk about St. Thomas Aquinas or Benedict XVI. It’s because he knows his own Catholic tradition first,knows that it thinks bigger, and therefore knows where to point its audience in telling them that the Catholic tradition has so much more to offer them. Only then is he able to tap more effectively into how people try to fill themselves with something other than what they were made for: to be with God, and to love and serve Him in this life and the next. There’s a difference between chasing after the culture on the one hand, and being fully rooted, if not anchored, and throwing it a lifeline on the other. The aim of the evangelist isn’t to flee from the culture, but to transform it; to win it over for Christ. And for that, the evangelist must first know and accept Who Christ really is– not Jesus the hippie, Jesus the Marshmallow, or Jesus, my personal sock-puppet, or a myriad fond and familiar caricatures. Notice that over and over, Barron pushes back against our culture’s tendency to domesticate Christ, when Jesus, in Barron’s words, is “strange.” Christ is Mysterious.
Catholics need to start with the Eucharist, because it is what keeps us rooted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith, as we’re supposed to be. It renews, empowers, and enables us to live what the culture says is “too hard” (by the way, how many of us hear a “no” from the pulpit, but next to nothing about what enables us to live this “more excellent way”?): it may make us stick out like a sore thumb in this culture of ours, but it gives us a distinct advantage if we are prepared to see it that way: this it the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the ultimate in True Love, right here, right now, under the auspices of a tiny host. This is what the Catholic Church has on offer– and the Good News is that you don’t have to be married to have access to it; you just have to be willing and humble enough to want to receive it on its own terms. And yes, that will “offend”– if not truly offend– people, no matter what we do; it did in Jesus’s own time. What we have in common with everybody else is that the Real Presence offends even us, since there are many, many times when we prefer to have a “close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ” without being challenged by Him. While we’re not going to go out of our way to offend anyone, what we’re about will offend people, anyway, and not just ISIS. At the very least, being yelled at, criticized, and ridiculed are facts of life. If we’re going to get yelled at, criticized, ridiculed, and much, much worse, anyway, it may as well be for something worthwhile.
Consider that Ms. Anderson’s observation that Catholicism offers a more charitable response to the things that ISIS laments, but such observations also fly under the radar way too often, because American Catholics try to “fit in” to the mainstream culture– even if they don’t do it with their pop culture, they do it with their politics: the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church will not be hauled by the scruff of the neck and made to salute the American flag or the agenda of either political party. Catholics in America should be more aware that most people, Republican or Democrat, left or right, traditional or progressive, separate matter from spirit, and thus the Corporal Works of Mercy from the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and sever “lex orandi, lex credendi” from “lex vivendi,” when the Church does not– because human beings are not matter or spirit, but both/and. We can also acknowledge that ISIS has a point, or that radical feminists ask good questions, or consider the concerns of our opponents without endorsing their modus operandi, because the Church has better answers to those same questions.
Thank you for verbalizing a critique that frames the frightening scenario we are living through clearly and with insight. Your thoughtful essay is a small gift. But it appears they have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear.
God reward you.
The author is discounting the carnal, sinful motives of militant muslim sacrifice. Read the Koran and the approved hadiths which I did for weeks. They are aiming for a paradise that includes an unending orgy. One hadith says each man in paradise will have a tent so large that his wife in one corner will not know about the houri he has in other corners. Right now ISIS is raping Yezidi and Christian captured women daily. Why is this carnality glossed over here as to the demonic energy in their “sacrifice”? Only very modern muslims and sufi influenced muslims see the houri as metaphoric symbols. Militant Islam believes they will get excessive sex with a number of houri in paradise. Google Koran houri.
You make many good points, but I think you’re quite wrong about ISIS. ISIS hates everyone and everything that does not conform with its narrow vision of Islam. If all of Europe, North America, Australia, etc. embraced devout Christian faith today, ISIS would still wage war against us.
Claire, I’m not sure the author ever meant to say “if we were more devout Christians, ISIS would like us, or if not, they’d at least not hate us.” Rather, she is asking a rather difficult question: if we’ve been given the fullness of the Truth in the Catholic faith, then why don’t we have just as much fervor, such that zeal for the Lord’s house will consume us?
We know full well that Christ told us that we can expect to be hated, because the world hated Him first. We aren’t to be more fervent Christians because we expect to be “liked,” but rather because we want others to know that God is Truth, and that He loves them in this wholly magnanimous way: this is a God Who pours Himself out for us unto the end of time.
That’s what the Eucharist is about– and yet, way too many Catholics, despite calling themselves Catholic, don’t believe in the Real Presence, either because they’re not used to believing in it to know that that belief does have consequences, or because they’ve compromised enough already in order to “fit in” with a largely Protestant culture. One thing that I have noticed (as both an ethnic minority and a Roman Catholic, by the way) is that amid all the well-meaning talk of “respect for other cultures,” the one culture that almost invariably gets ignored, marginalized, or out-and-out dissed, even by Catholics, is the Latin Rite’s own tradition and culture. This is not to knock our Protestant brothers and sisters, or anyone else at all, only to point out that we believe different things, and that true ecumenism and respect also means the respect of differences: we are not forcing them or anyone to convert to Catholicism. But they should respect that we are Catholic because we ourselves respect that we are Catholic. Meeting others where they’re at does not mean compromising who we are. If “everybody’s different” in our pluralistic age, then Catholics have just as much right and reason as anyone else to be ourselves.
What should trouble us is why we should even expect to be liked, even if we don’t go out of our way to offend anyone, either.
Thank you for this amazing article. Very well put! I will share!!
Firstly, that famous Belloc quote has nothing to do with Islam, even though he was concerned about a resurgence of that heresy. That quote better describes people who sit down, watch and enjoy movies and TV shows and plays and speeches by mocking prominent men that ridicule and denigrate the Faith.
Secondly, ask yourself what was the trigger that has suddenly unleashed fanatical Islam. Why has Islam been more or less quiescent until relatively recently? What pushed the fanatical element over the edge? What antagonized them? If we are to be honest about this we have to look at the actions of our own government and the occupying force in the Holy Land. The injustices committed against Arab Muslims AND CHRISTIANS in the Holy Land by the occupying power have, since 1948, been inflaming Islam to take revenge not only on that occupying power but on its most vociferous supporter, the USA.
Thirdly, where did ISIS come from? How did this small group of radical Islamic extremists suddenly emerge as if out of nowhere fully equipped with money, training and advanced weaponry? For the answer to that look again to Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia. They were created as proxy armies to “soften up” the nations that the Three Amigos wanted destroyed. Of course, it has gotten a bit out of hand of late, but the sponsors and creators of ISIS still find them useful.
Fourthly, who is doing the most right now to fight and destroy ISIS? It is Bashir Assad, president of Syria who is doing that. And what does he get for his efforts to destroy ISIS? Bombings by Israel and the US. Who in the Middle East is the greatest protector of its Christian population? Again, Mr Assad.
If you want to understand Islam you have start to learn the actors behind the scenes who are bringing this chaos upon the world. You also have to understand that some Islamic regimes are not beheading and killing innocents, two examples of which are Syria and Iran. What two nations do Washington and Tel Aviv want destroyed? Syria and Iran. Generalizing does not help us find the truth; it only helps the war propaganda artists who hold the world’s microphones.
We have seen the enemy…and it is Us.
Some points of your political comments make sense, but that was not necessarily the focus of the article. Correct, North Africa to Mid East and up to Turkey have been destabilized, often at hands of USA. However, we must remember that Assad is/was a ruthless dictator who is responsible for the death of many innocents to have stability and control. Remember, “The devil you know…”
We must remember that violent Islam is always just below the current ready to resurface, no matter who makes it possible. Belloc in his book, The Great Heresies, stated that Islam would return with a very threatening strength. Islam wants to conquer the West, whether it is decadent to put it out of its misery, or Christian. The greater threat is the latter to the Muslim.
Dear Father:
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I guess the main point of my comment was to warn people against accepting at face value the nonstop, 24/7 propaganda fed to us by Washington and its kept mass media. Believing their propaganda leads to wrong conclusions, then inevitably to death and destruction. The never-ending demonization of Assad is a perfect example of this. (There is far more innocent blood on the hands of Truman, Bush, Clinton and Obama than on Assad.)
Can Muslims be converted? Yes. Can they be human beings? Yes (http://theeye-witness.blogspot.com/2014/07/encounter-with-muslims.html) Do all of them want to conquer and kill Christians? No. If that were true, how can we explain the acts of Muslims protecting their Christian friends and neighbors who were being murdered by Israeli soldiers, some of them putting their own lives at risk to do so? The world, and Islam, is not as simple or black and white as our mass media would suggest, and the fact that the mass media has lied about or ignored the fact that ISIS was a total creation of Washington and Tel Aviv should give us all reason to pause. Again, who is doing the most, by far, to stop ISIS? Assad. And who does Washington and Tel Aviv want to destroy? Assad. Let us ponder this carefully.
Mr Belloc, my hero, did indeed warn against a resurgent militant Islam. But were he alive today I think he would be appalled at the recklessness, evil and stupidity of deliberately inflaming them so as to gain wealth, land and political advantage, as our leaders have done. In my writings and conversations I don’t try to enrage a Muslim who wants to have a sincere discussion. Rather I try to use our shared veneration for the Blessed Mother and Jesus Christ, flawed as it is in the Muslim mind, as a starting point. That’s better than the Wall Street Journal/Lindsey Graham/Netanyahu/Rush Limbaugh approach, I believe.
Please pray for me and my family, Father.
“…the fact that the mass media has lied about or ignored the fact that ISIS was a total creation of Washington and Tel Aviv…”
Apart from bashing Israel (and the U.S. because we support them) what is the sense of this statement? Jews in Tel Aviv created a group calling itself the caliphate? Riggght… No, I know, because we sold arms to the enemies of Assad, obviously at the pressure of mighty Israel. Rigggght…. Bad, evil Israel the root cause of all the world’s problems, got it.
I am surprised nobody responded to you. Actually, it was only recently that Islam settled down. They have been expanding violently since there start 1400 years ago. They have now spread by use of the sword throughout the world. The difference in the 20th and 21st century is that countries like Suadi Arabia have so much power over us that we do their bidding in invading Iraq, etc. Islam was relatively powerless against a far more technically advance West until the last 50 years. Guess what has been going on for the last fifty years. Do you really think that Bush thought that Iraq was a threat to the US?
Hello St Donatus,
I believe militant Islam, as a conquering horde, went more-or-less quiescent after Lepanto. Yes, there were skirmishes between different factions and tribes of Islam since then, most of them exacerbated by colonial interests, primarily British. None of those intramural fights involved any Western nation, however. But they have not, as a religion, shown any signs of wanting to conquer the world of late, despite the ludicrous propaganda of some molders of opinion.
The trigger that set off the conflagration and turmoil, and destroyed the good relationship the US once enjoyed with Middle Eastern nations, was the brutal invasion and occupation of Palestine by primarily Eastern European Jews and their enablers who ethnically cleansed the Arab semites, Christian and Mulsim, from their homelands. Since then (1948) the anger among nations, not only Muslim, has grown over this horrible injustice. Recently the Vatican made a move to address this terrible situation by recognizing the Palestinians as a true nation…to the dismay, of course, of Washington, Tel Aviv and Pamela Geller.
Where we need to be careful here is in lumping all Muslims together into one convenient batch. The reality is quite different. For example, unthinking people portray all Palestinians as rag-headed murderers, which would be laughable if it were not so serious. Presumably the Palestinian Christians don’t count for much among those who rail against them. If they would read the opinions of the Catholic prelates who are in that land they might learn a thing or two. Also, neither the Syrian or Iranian nations have posed no threats to the West whatsoever, despite the 24/7 nonsense coming from Washington and their media.
I’m not sure what you meant by stating that the Saudis have power over us. Other than being a major oil supplier they have very little political power over the US. They deal with us in ways that are most beneficial to them obviously but they wield no power over us that I am aware of. The two countries calling the shots in the Middle East right now are the USA and the Israeli occupiers. Israel’s nuclear arsenal makes it clear that nations there don’t want to commit suicide, so there constant so-called fears over another nation having nukes is chimerical. The reason why there is so much hysteria over Iran having nukes (which it doesn’t) is that Israel wants no nuclear competition, and wants to be the hegemon over there.
ISIS is a proxy army created by Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia (with recent help now from Turkey’s weird president) used by them to create chaos. That is simply the blunt truth:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/newly-declassified-u-s-government-documents-the-west-supported-the-creation-of-isis.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881
We should know that the US has been backing radical Islamists since the Cold War so actually this is not surprising.
But don’t confuse the ISIS monsters with, say, Syria or Iran, the two countries doing by far the most to stop them.
You ask if I thought Bush thought Iraq was a threat to the West. I would be the last person in the world to decipher what went through that man’s head. But that he was a puppet of the neocons and Wall Street (like Obama) probably says a lot.
I love your analogy of the Emperor’s new clothes! Just saying a thing is something doesn’t make it so.
Islam hates us because they hate everybody in general. Specifically they hate us because we constantly meddle in their affairs.
True, esp since the beginning of the 20th century when we decided to “drink their milkshake” as the saying goes in the fantastic epic film ” There will be blood ” In this case we did “…Start the fire.”
The meddling, yes. But also the consumerism and self-idolatry – they’ve been saying that about us for decades. It’s contrary to their religion. And also to ours, but we are so swept up in the joys of lavishing ourselves with consumer goods and obsessing about sex, we either don’t or pretend not to notice how contrary it is.
I don’t understand why you would feel the need to trivialize the reasons some people feel compelled to seek out sex changes or how important being afforded marriage equality was to much of the LGBT community. Surely you could have made you points without resorting to this.
No trivialization involved here, Andre. Elizabeth is dead-on right. The recent supreme court decision is part of and evidence for the West’s ever-increasing disengagement from Objective Reality, choosing delusion over Truth.
I’m sorry, you are wrong. The decision over whether or not to undergo a sex change was likened to somebody opting for a new phone out of boredom. The fight for marriage equality (and the associated rights it brings) was similarly cast as a fleeting distraction. This is trivializing things that people have spilled blood, sweat, and tears over.
Even if one were inclined to accept your argument that people are “choosing delusion over Truth”, there’s no reason to think that they do so in the trivial manner described by Ms. Anderson.
Wow, what a very good article, you nailed it all in one swoop!
Dear Elizabeth-You go
girl! In that plethora of free time you have, since all you are doing is
raising three small children, keep on writing-this piece is excellent, spot-on.
Well done. A little historical perspective: https://chroot/home/af92ee87/catholicstand.com/html/youtube.com/embed/MioNZBRrKZg. Guy
Thank you Guy!
“Misguided notions of fulfillment engulf most of the world in confusion.”
In the Bahagavad-gita it is noted that we are in the last age, the age of Kali or quarrel.
“Think of St. Therese of Lisieux transforming the small labors of every day into veritable treasure hordes of grace for herself and generations to come.”
Mindfulness ( MBSR) is the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment, Clinical studies document the physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in general, and similar models have been widely adapted in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments. Finding God in one’s life is a personal problem since faith is a gift and not everyone is nurtured to develop or even receive it. But we try.
“While the West turns a blind eye to Islam’s true nature, …”
If you think the joint chiefs of staff are not planning an all out armed battle with these animals I
guess you don’t know the US military. We will do everything to protect our indulgences, the inherent harm not withstanding.
I see little to admire in Islamic extremism. These are folk who have given their lives over to complete hate of everyone and everything that are not themselves. Their attitudes, customs, and viewpoints are steeped in hate. In 1996, some Islamic militants attacked a murdered a group of TRAPPIST MONKS who were living in and serving the people of Algeria. Why? Because the monks were there . . . and because they didn’t belong to their particular sect of Islam. Beheaded.
Islamic extremists wouldn’t allow to live a Saint John Paul II or a Saint Augustine or anyone who didn’t renounce Christianity on their demand. Why? Because to them, to say that a man (e.g., Jesus Christ) is God is blasphemy; this makes him deserving of summary execution.
If I want to look at some cultural Others to inspire my admiration, I look at the Amish.
I think you may have misunderstood. At no point did the author say she did or would or should “admire” Islamic extremism. I think the point she is making is that we, as Christians, should be every bit, if not more, zealous about our Faith and committed to spreading the Gospel than these Islamist militants whose “violence repels us” and whose “intolerance sicken us”, even to the point of giving our lives because we speak the Truth. We know that “…militant Islam will live, fight, and die for Allah.” Shouldn’t we be willing to live, fight, and die for Jesus Christ? And yes, I agree, the Amish can teach us a lot about living more simply and rejecting our world’s frivolous materialism. They are admirable in their steadfast faith and firm adherence to their beliefs! 🙂
Thank you Michelle! I couldn’t have responded better myself!
in a perfect world yes, but even the Amish community have their own problems and keep “splitting” over doctrine, theology, and electric lights
Agreed.
We seem to forget that we are not meant to “fit in,” because God has always formed His people to be set apart, set aside for His purposes. That’s not just true of the Old Testament. It’s true of the New Testament, also. Tellingly enough, we live in a culture where enough people calling themselves “Christian” may well pay lip service to the Incarnation, but essentially deny it, because they haven’t realized that they’re supposed to think with their faith and its logical implications– in the way that Mary “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
Thank you for your insightful comment, Marion. Absolutely I agree that we should not admire Islamic extremism. Basically what I’m saying is that if they work hard, we should be working harder because we have truth on our side.
Thank you, Michelle and Elizabeth, for your kind replies expressing clarification on one or two of the themes which had struck me in this very interesting and original article.
“Even as we of the West flip through People Magazine, there is something deep down in every human being that arcs toward greatness.” – Pure poetry Elizabeth!