The non-Arabs & non-Persians might be capable of reform since they're not too crazy. Large sections of the ME & Iran are too far gone in hatred of the West\Jews\America to be anything other than geostrategic roadkill.

All religions are, in the end, fundamentally different from one another.

Christianity requires one to have a certain way of going to the lav?

Paul: All religions are different, and I won't argue about what differences are fundamental. However, the notion that Islam is uniquely unable to coexist with secular government is wrong.

David,

Upon what do you base your view that "the notion that Islam is uniquely unable to coexist with secular government is wrong."

If you are basing it upon OJ's premise that individuals will work to collectively make their religion more compatable with "reality," I suppose I agree.

Conversely, Whereas the Bible says "render unto Caesar..." and Hinduism and Buddhism have their own way of "conforming" to the culture, Islam seems somewhat unique in that it specifically abolishes any differentiation between church and state.

Question for any Muslims here (Ali). Is this from the Koran, or is it years of piled up "Dicta" from the clerics. Further, will Islam conform?

Bruno:

Separation of church and state means keeping an organised, distinct Church separate from an organised government. Islam doesn't have an organised Church. Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two nations most hardcore in their exercise of religiously driven authoritariansim, but they seem to be the exception and not the rule. Most Muslim countries still govern themselves by what remains of colonial-era law.

As to whether Islam will conform or not to liberal democracy, my guess is that a number of Muslim countries will edge closer to the preferred model. Progress however will be pretty uneven, and there's no telling what pressures future demographic shifts and the years of economic and educational mismanagement will bring to bear.

I'm not very optimistic about the future of the Arab world.

Bruno: Egypt has a secular government and here's a guy coming to terms with that fact. Obviously, it's possible. Also, we don't have to be, like OJ, more Shi'a than the Shi'ites to notice that there are elements of their history (i.e., oppression by Sunni minorities) that look likely to help them reform.

However, the notion that Islam is uniquely unable to coexist with secular government is wrong.

True, they're not unique in that respect: numerous religions throughout history have been unable to exist with secular government!

The basic problem is that the average Muslim and the average Muslim cleric belief that the Koran existed in its current, perfect form in Heaven, was sent down in one piece, and is the final authority on all Earthly matters. (The fact that early Korans had different versions is ignored or explained away.) Thus, even "edging closer to liberal democracy" gets denounced as heresy.

Might Islam go through a Reformation? Sure, but how long are we willing to wait for that? If it happens 100 years after non-reformed Islam takes over all of the Middle East, Europe, and Russia, the Western world is still pretty screwed.

Why does Mr. Khaled live in England? I hope he stays safe.

PapayaSF;

The "uniquely" is Mr. Cohen's strawman, which he wields whenever this subject comes up. There's no point in calling him on it, as he will just re-iterate as if you hadn't brought it up. I also see history littered with failed religions, unable to co-exist with the tides of history (anything but a handful of Mithrans left? Druids? Heaven's Gate?). What's really funny is that Cohen believes that secularism is incompatible with liberal democracy, so believing the same of Islam wouldn't be unique even for him. Even OJ's tropes are more plausible.

Guy: I don't think I've ever said that secularism is incompatible with liberal democracy, and if I did I mispoke as I don't believe that. The only thing close that I have said is that American atheists are just free-riding Christians.

The Mithrans and Druids are still around; they got subsumed into Christianity.

"Uniquely" is as compared to the other two religions.

Oh, and I'm also not saying that Islam has been reformed, just that it can be reformed. As the alternative, if it can't be reformed, is something not far from genocide, and the cost to us of trying to reform Islam is relatively low, aren't we obliged to try reform before reaching for the H-Bombs?

Even if Islam doesn't manage to reform, it won't necessarily mean that we'll have to nuke 'em.

As Ali Choudhury touches on, the demographics of most Muslim nations, combined with their largely nonexistent science and industrial bases, will combine to offer them the choice of Westernization or grinding poverty, rampant disease, and early graves.

We'll only have to nuke them if they lash out in frustration.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 21, 2006 7:01 PM

I'm not sure you guys understand what being a devotee of the prophet and the koran really means. Not much wiggle room. People are people, of course, but the faith, as interpreted by clerics according to the scripture, could not be more specific regarding what it means to be a Muslim interacting with non-Muslims as well it's purpose in this life.It is the final word delivered by the conclusive, pefect prophet. There is little theology beyond Allah and His Messenger. There is no prophecy fulfilled, no foundation in history or sympathetic connection to the history of earlier traditions."Liberalizers" and reformers will come and go but it will always return to it's specific founding principles of the 7th century. If not, it will no longer be Islam.

Ali-

I commented without reading your earlier comment. Please accept my apology, I was not referring to you. The few Muslims I come into contact with are small retail business owners. They are good folks with charming, friendly wives and adorable little kids. The guys seem a little more stand offish although they get a kick out wishing their customer a 'Merry Christmas' (not happy holidays) during the season. They really seem to appreciate the opportunities they have to build a life for themselves and their families over here. They don't appear to be overly observant and I was wondering what kind of Islam they follow or are they simply non-observant, cultural muslims?

I don't think I've ever said that secularism is incompatible with liberal democracy

P.S. It's not clear to me that the statement that secularists are free-riding on Judeo-Christianity isn't equivalent to saying secularism is incompatible with liberal democracy. If by "compatible" you mean "there can exist instances of people with that belief in liberal democracy" then it's a tautology. With that logic hard core Stalinism is compatible with liberal democracy. If there is to be any meaning in the word in this context, it must mean that liberal democracy can exist in a society where that belief system is the dominant one. And if one believes that, as you state, that secularists are free-riding on Judeo-Christianity, then it follows that a society in which secularism is dominant cannot sustain itself, that it will fail or die out, i.e. that secularism is incompatible with liberal democracy.

AOG: "Atheist" and "secular" are two different things. I'm secular, but I'm not atheist. The government of the US is secular, but not atheist. I'm open to the possibility that liberal democracy is only possible in a secular society and the necessary reform of Islam is to make Islam more easily compatible with a secular society. I am convinced that a decent secular society must be one informed by what we call, for lack of a better shorthand, Judeo-Christian values.

Note, though, that liberal democracy is not an end unto itself, but merely the best means we know of to our desired end, a society with optimal human dignity (as informed by our Judeo-Christian values).

Could there be a decent society that was all atheist, or predominantly atheist? It's easy enough to conceptualize, but hard to imagine, if you get my drift. All of the self-proclaimed atheist societies have been pits of despond. I asked the atheists over at Daily Duck to promote the atheistic rule upon which a decent society could be based, and they posited the Golden Rule. That's a nice example of how American atheists are free-riding Christians.

When I was a kid, there were Moslems in the neighborhood. Nothing was out of the ordinary, the kids were just like other kids. No animosity at all. As a kid, I never thought about what adults did when they weren't being annoying, so I don't know what they did for a living.

I don't believe American Moslems can blame their neighbors if they're having problems now. It's up to them to make it clear they are Americans first and Moslems second. It's not up to us to prove how tolerant we are.