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Christianity and the Muslim Invasion

I guess everyone knows what part Muslims have in modern European politics today. However, how is all that connected to Christianity? Let's take a few steps back in history, about 2 millennia ago when we can first trace the origin of Abrahamic religion.

As Sphaer and I have discussed earlier, it is very likely Christianity started as a revolt against the Roman Empire, which also as we know, utterly failed. Christianity never managed to give its believers more freedom. The Roman Empire later even incorporated the religion into itself instead of its previous Roman mythology akin to that of Greece, and at this point, Christianity's existence was a de facto, when the Roman emperors stated the ultimatum: believe or die. Christianity then spread further throughout the Empire and to Europe and missionaries kept doing repeated attempts to convert the pagans up north (ie Scandinavia) even though Scandinavia was out of reach for the Roman Empire rule. As we know, they got stuck with Germany and never managed to move more north and then the empire collapsed. Too bad for the Romans. However, the religion managed to survive, and no wonder a few of the most avid believers are to be found in central Europe (Poland and over Slavic countries).

After the Roman Empire fell, Europe slowly moved into what would later be known as the Dark Ages. The name is pretty literary, no one wanted to live during the Dark Ages. What people feared the most of all? The Inquisition who so kindly kept the common man in place through Christian propaganda and what happens when you defy the might of Christ. In other words, torture and death. You would afterwards be sent to Hell at Judgement Day. However, war started to tear all countries apart, and people started to loose faith in Christ, and the so called Enlightenment era began. While it was still ok to believe in a beardy man in the skies, human thought and freedom of thinking was appreciated the most. This one again backlashed with the Romanticism when you would rather live in a fantasy than in reality, something that the previous Enlightment followers had regarded highly.

Then... we pass into our modern society with liberalism oozing all throughout European politics. Now back to the initial question, what has this all to do with Islam and the Muslim invasion?

It's all repeating again. Islam is right now confined to a very specific area of the world, just like Christianity was, but now it's spreading slowly throughout Europe mostly due to Muslim immigrants. The politicians are so stuck up in their liberal values they even make rules that only work for the minority; the latest outrage was in the UK where some judge minor had come up with the very clever idea to incorporate Sharia laws into the existing British law system. Even if you've never seriously studied Sharia and Islam, it's not something we really want to have in Europe where it's fine to stone women to death and cut off the hands of thieves.

Question is what we will do to revert back this "invasion", or I am not surprised if we will move into a similarity such as the Dark Ages. In terms of liberalism, Muslim countries are all far behind. I have started to think whether to start a passive political movement, whose job is to enlighten and make people "wake up". It's not enough to just stay at home feeling frustrated and think "I don't think this is ok but there is nothing I can do". But won't this look like a Nazi movement? No, not if we are careful always stating that we don't mind immigrants, but this is getting out of control when politicans can no longer dare saying no. Getting other colored people such as myself behind it, it would be hard to accuse me as a Nazi since I am as far away from the Aryan race as it can get.

What do you think? Of course, this probably concerns Europeans a lot more than Americans.

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Permalink Reply by Jumile on July 7, 2008 at 5:56pm

> about 2 millennia ago when we can first trace the origin of Abrahamic religion.

Abrahamic monotheism dates back to Abraham's sons Isaac and Ishmael, and was a good deal more than 2,000 years ago. It's the branch point of Judaism and Islam. Christianity doesn't even factor into it at this point, not for another 1,000-1,500 years, as it's a Jewish sect. Sorry, but the "once upon a time..." start needs to have the right time. :)

The theory that Christianity began as a revolt against the Roman Empire is a new one on me. I always thought it began as a revolt against the Jewish religious order, fed largely by Paul (as law maker) and his contemporaries, and then later back-filled to provide the otherwise non-existent link between Paul and Jesus. Then the First Council of Nicea was held to consolidate the multitude of Christian sects and other religions (Mithraism, etc) into the new Roman religion, to replace the defunct Roman pantheon with a newly-deified Jesus, and to regain control over the masses. "Do what we say now or you'll burn in hell... see? It's in the book!" In a very real sense, the RC Church is the Roman Empire.

My skin crawls at your use of the term "Muslim invasion." It drips with invective - like reading any of the UK'sredtops. It's especially worse if you (the OP) happen to be British, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch or from any of the other "Old World" colonising nations. The Muslims have emigrated legally in recent centuries - not by conquest or invasion, unlike the colonisers. Having said that, I understand your point about the spread of Christianity and Islam, and the latter's potential affects on the demographics of Europe.

I think it's easy to forget that Christianity was once the unwelcome, destroyer-of-ways-of-life, invading force in Europe. The people living here were more than happy with their pagan way of life. But the Roman Empire, with its official state religion, knew better. And such authorities always do.

However, I don't foresee another Dark Ages, as that was brought about by the rapid conquest of parts of Europe by a massively advanced, organised and militaristic civilisation on underdeveloped, tribal nation-states; the conquered living with almost magical technology, and then suddenly that advanced civilisation pulling out and leaving things back where they started. Only now there was a power vacuum, more advanced weapons, and some people who knew what was possible and how to achieve it. (The similarities between this and what Europe has done throughout Africa, and is still front page news to this very day, is murderously striking). It was this that threw Europe into the Dark Ages - a sudden, overwhelming quantum leap into advanced civilisation and then an equally rapid leap back again. If anyone reading is into fantasy fiction, I suppose an analogy would be Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series.

Not that I think Islam will achieve this any time in the future: Islam has had is glory and grandeur, centuries past. Anyone reading about the scholarly pursuits and unique governance of al-Andalusia can see that. Islam was once the greatest, perhaps most enlightened civilisation the Mediterranean region had known, but is now barely a shadow of its former self.

All this talk of "invasion" is also subjective because it was also said of the Carribbean, south Asian and more recently eastern European immigrants to the UK (and in Australia it was the Italians, the Greeks, and now the southeast Asians; and so on). I think the difference between them and this is that the former were not seen as a threat to our way of life or indeed safety. It's this distinction that also makes the discussion dangerous - not from a safety perspective, but from an "-ism" perspective (race, religion, etc).

I wouldn't invoke Godwin's Law on your premise, but I would be questioning the logic and reasoning behind the argument - especially to determine how much of it is based on proven fact versus what one reads in the infotainment/news media.

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Permalink Reply by LeaT on July 7, 2008 at 6:18pm

Ok you wrote a lot, but of course, I meant Christianity in particular, and I am making a very rough statement, when I mean Abrahamic in this context I mean not only Islam or Jew but I mean all three of them. If it's clear it is very much possible to change.

Nope, I am not from those countries, I live in Sweden and I was born in Korea and I have Korean blood in me. I very much understand what they contributed for in the past in terms of culture etc, but the issue is now, we can say that Christianity contributed a lot to culture too in such a sense, since all our Western culture is based on Christianity.

If I remember, weren't the Roman Empire in control even back then? Or at least, attempting to control. I think we looked a little further can getting away from Jewish rule and took expanded the context further. I cannot exactly remember now.

Of course, the word invasion is a strong word, but I use it with a point and of course, if I would use a more politically accepted word as immigrants, it would not cause the same semantic effect on the reader. It is supposed to be eye-catching as well as being a metaphor for what I am really trying to say which is further explained at the end of my post.

And that my friend, is the very point of it all. Christianity wasn't welcome, hence the analogy I am drawing. Still, it managed to emerge as the main religion in all pagan countries because of prosecution etc. However, while I understand culture clashes, I understand how much those pagans suffered and we are going through the very same right now, we just haven't seen the mountain top yet, unless some clever person would dare to speak up.

But you also see, my question I am thinking of, will we revert back when the Muslims will gain more political control? We have already seen that religion can very much mean to revert in terms of knowledge, as with the examples of schools who refuse to teach anything else than the creation myth as the only right explanation to the creation of earth, completely forgetting the evolution theory. It is already true that particularly public schools are becoming worse. May it be because of religion or not is another matter but in certain countries like in the US, religion is definitely one of the reasons.

I am not basing it on any absolute facts but rather collecting of what I have seen and heard during the past months about the issue in general, also after having a long discussion with a friend and this idea merely hit me, how strikingly similar the Chiristian convertion of Europe is to what is happening today with Islam.

It is a well known fact that religious people want to convert people to their religion, Muslim countries have never so far managed to seperate religion and state. However, what I am discussing most here are fundamental Muslims in particular, people who follow the Sharia word by word. Do you think that it is right to cut off the hand of a thief because he/she stole another person's belongings? Neither do I think that European women wish to wear veils.

Of course I am generalizing and making the issue far simpler than it is because I simply didn't want to go too deep with the issue. I have a tendency to loose my point when I do and my point was to draw a simple analogy between history of Europe in terms of religious conquest.

The issue is of course that European politicans are giving in to a Muslim minority which I think most people agree is wrong. While I understand they might have it tough adapting to a new culture etc it is also very rude of them expecting us to be like they want us to be in their homeculture when they obviously aren't at home anymore. When you visit another country, you must respect their laws and their culture, but the thing is, some people don't even want to adapt, some people don't want to be integrated, some people even think they should impose their laws and culture upon us, and what's worse is that politicans are giving after because they don't want to have a fight.

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Permalink Reply by Jumile on July 8, 2008 at 5:32am

Being Korean-Swedish, I imagine you have more of an advantage seeing Christianised Europe from a different angle. While I understand its affects have spread far, didn't the Scandinavians countries avoid most of the "Christian invasion"? And Korea until fairly recently?

I see your point about the parallels between the spread of unwelcome Christianity during the Middle Ages and the spread of unwelcome Islam today but - allowing for the possiblity that this is indeed what is happening - I'm not sure they can necessarily been compared that way. For instance, today's former colonising powers seem to suffer from "coloniser's guilt" that seems to affect dealings with all eastern and former colonial peoples (I say this as an Australian living in the UK). It could be this that is allowing the apparent situation where a group of immigrants move into an area, state that certain societal conditions transgress their religious beliefs, and then the government accedes to their wishes. With some European cities having up to 25% Muslim population, it's not hard to see why they want it.

Most of the Muslims I know here in the UK are fundamentalist (not in the alarmist sense) who would love Shariah to be put in place. I don't agree with it as my philosophy has always been "when in Rome" - I live under the law of the country in which I live. The problem with expecting the same of Islam is that the law is so tightly bound with the religion, so they quite rightly (from their point of view) expect their new home to be changed to meet their requirements. This is why they are unable to separate Church and State; Turkey is probably the only country to seriously try it. I don't know the (practical) answer to the problem.

Ultimately, I don't think we're ever going to reach a point where the entire world is rational. It's not in our nature - at least not at our current stage of development, and that's completely ignoring socio-economic factors, propaganda and indoctrination. You can see this by just looking at people from all walks of life who believe in homeopathy, chiropractic, ghosts, the supernatural, and all other forms of woo. The "I WANT TO BELIEVE" (love that poster) desire is strong.

I symapthise with your premise, but I find it hard to see how it would be possible to lobby or be an activist against the spread of Islam and Shariah (which is the real fear, if I've understood you right) into western society without falling into the trap of racism or Islamophobia (just try Googling for "muslim population europe" for an example).

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Permalink Reply by LeaT on July 8, 2008 at 5:58am

Yes, it's a hard to walk the edge and indeed, my question is very much which will happen if we get a Muslim rule in Europe and they will implement Shariah into our liberalist law systems. While 25% is a lot, it is also a minority. We can just take the US as an example where non-Christians (people who believe or with a lack of belief in a non-personal god) and the fact that politicians still try to speak to the Christians and not the the rest of the population is the same thing, except in this case the non-Christians are being ignored instead of giving more space than they maybe rightly should earn. I completely understand Muslims who believe their laws and culture should be implemented, but then it is also our right to inform why we don't like it instead of trying to avoid conflicts eventually giving in to their demands. I am not maybe speaking of a general rationalism, but at least where two cultures must be able to interact with each other without having to give in to each others' demands.

We westerners also quite rightly have the right to stay exactly how we are and how we like it and I guess what would be wanted is more of a common respect for each others' cultures which at least for now, Muslims fail at since they take their religion "too seriously".

I don't for example mind stores selling Halah meat, but I do mind if they must have Shariah laws into our law system. Hopefully it won't happen since Shariah in general clearly breaks the UN national rights system. Selling Halah meat doesn't hurt me and it's my choice and everyone elses to buy it or not, but a law system incorporates all. I cannot say I don't want to obey the current law system because I don't like it because it will indeed lead to punishment.

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Permalink Reply by Infidel_girl on July 8, 2008 at 7:43am

It looks like Shariah Law will be in England sooner than I thought. Cal Thomas: England's top judge bows to Sharia law, WTF?!?!
And the sickening thing is that many Muslims support this transition (Notice how I didn't say all!). However many muslims don't really know or understand what the Shariah law entales, especially the ones who are young.

This has been going on for a while now, where the government and Archbishop have suggested that Shariah law should be used in places of England dominated by muslims. The archbishop had said: "The question remains whether certain additional choices could and should be made available under the law of the UK ... it would create a helpful interaction between the courts and the practice of Muslim legal scholars."

I seriously hope it doesn't happen and many muslims I have talked to aren't very fond of the idea either and find it to be a joke.

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Permalink Reply by Jumile on July 8, 2008 at 8:51am

Don't forget that separate regions of law within the UK is nothing new. Setting aside the fact the UK contains numerous legal systems already (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc), there is historical precedent in England with the Danelaw. Sure, it was a long time ago, but it seemed to work well at that time. The same is true in many colonised countries with indigenous populations: Australia, for example, allows outback Aborigines to enact tribal law (one punishment is a spear through the thigh - in a hunter-gatherer people, this can be a death sentence).

Having said that, I'm not convinced that something like the Danelaw is an acceptable way forward. As you say, I know numerous Muslims here who are horrified at the idea of Shariah being implemented here in the UK. They recognise and argue, quite reasonably, that they're the foreigners (nationality, culture and religion) here, so should live under UK law. The fact that they can live a more liberal lifestyle without (as much) fear of community reprisal or punishment is, I'm sure, a large factor in that. And I can't blame them for it - many did not choose to be born into their religion.

But the issue is not going to go away, any more than the issue of people wanting to teach creationism/ID in school will. The government simply saying "No!" is never going to quiet the zealots.