The beginning of the jihad in Europe?

What do you guys make of the on-going riots in France? Could this be the beginning of a war or something like that?MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest VideosI really don't know if this is something they can address by more job opportunities and inclusion, or if this is the beginning of ethnic warfare or serious Islamic terrorism?Hopefully, they can find an economic way to address this rather than a military one.

Good post. The lefties here want to blame the West, but they forget that one reason so many immigrants want to come to America and Western Europe is because these societies are generally superiour economically to their own. But it's hard to admit the truth.Hopefully, France will take notice. It may be they can split the Moslem population by trying to correct some inequalities or offer some sort of programs to help impoverished suburbs, but at the same time Europe probably needs to awaken to reality, much of Islam if not most of it is inherently anti-Western and totally at odds with assimilation and tolerance. I don't know what the solution is but recognizing the problem is a good first step.

But at the same time, I was thinking more of a military strategy. Is france willing to engage in a sort of ethnic warfare?Perhaps there could be some accomadations made with a large part of the French Moslem community, as many of their leaders have denounced the violence and some have issued fatwas against the rioters. If France can obtain the assistance of a good portion of the Moslem community, they can more easily root out the trouble-makers.It is probably worth trying to do that, and if that means more schools and programs, that may be better than outright extermination of 10% of their population.I agree ultimately it may not help that much, and that these communities need to figure out a way to help themselves, but in the meantime, it could avoid a nasty urban war that could possibly only be won by killing huge numbers of civilians that the Islamacists hide behind.

One other note: maybe the wisest response is to demand France negotiate with the new intafalda and grant them an independent state, and only then can they have peace?Land for peace. It makes so much sense.

Let's hope Bush's gamble on Iraq turns out a democratic republic rather than a theocratic one. I think it's possible for some Islamic nations to change, but at the same time, it seems the trend has been towards more oppression, not less.

It's humorous, but at the same time, this is serious stuff. We can forgive France and the French. There are great things about their culture and nation. Geopolitics is just not one of them.

The Enlightenment were johnie-come-latelys to the cause of freedom. The fact of the matter is Christians were the ones that challenged establishment thinking in the arena of liberty, specifically arguing for religious liberty for centuries, suffering millions of deaths as the result of persecution for the cause, and finally with Rhode Island (Baptists) and Pennsylvania (Quakers) was the evangelical wing of Christianity able to put those ideas into practice, and prove their ideas, which were totally laughed at by establishment, educated thinkers.So the establishment was open to Enlightenment ideas since some of those ideas, such as freedom of religion, had proved to work so well in the colonies. In other words, the Enlightenment did not originate those ideas, but was merely a portion of the educated, establishment thinkers adopting those ideas within a secularist persepective since they weren't about to become holy rollers for the most part, like the Quakers or Baptists, and the Anabaptists prior to that.To lightly dismiss the people that did the heavy lifting, often with their lives at stake, as inconsequential shows a complete ignorance of true Western history.This message has been edited by randman, 11-08-2005 11:01 AM

jar, funny how you left off the evangelical Christians slaughtered for centuries at the hands of the Roman Catholic heirarchy.I know, I know, it's too hard for you to accept some basic nuanced level of thinking. Just saying the word "Christian" is like waiving a red flag in front of a bull. Coupled with the fact you claim or are a "Christian", one wonders if there is some sort of self-loathing involved.This message has been edited by randman, 11-08-2005 11:16 AM

jar, you seem incapable of reading my posts. When did I mention Catholics being the ones advocating liberty.I specifically mentioned the Evangelical wing of Christianity and specified 3 groups within that stream of thought:Baptists
Quakers
Anabaptists

Jar, we're talking history here. Evidently you lack a basic level of understanding of the history of Christianity and so you are not able to grasp what I am talking about. That's not my fault.Take some time to learn what "evangelical" would have meant from the years 300AD to 1800AD.Ever hear of the Anabaptists?Where did their theology come from? The Enlightenment concepts of liberty of conscience and freedom of religion stemmed from Anabaptist theology which in turn stemmed from centuries of Medieval sects which stemmed all the way back in their beliefs to the time before the Constantinian changes and then from those that dissented from them.Additionally, communism has been far more violent and destructive than even the hybrid forms of Christianity such as Catholicism which sought to marry the Church and State. You're just spouting propaganda without any reliable historical sense at all.

CanadianSteve, you are making a common error. Early Protestant theology did not accept freedom of religion. Anabaptist theology did. Eventually, most Protestants were won over to Anabaptist theology that the early Reformers like Luther and Swingli condemned as heretical, consenting to the killing of such "heretics" which arguably were the truer Christians.But in the colonies, both non-Catholic camps were well-represented. Massuchusetts was represented by the camp that denied freedom of religion, although there was some sentiment there for it, and Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were strongly represented by the tradition of Anabaptist theology.To pretend that there was a monolithic view even at the very earliest times is just wrong. To really understand Western history, you have to realize that the Reformation was not principally just about the Catholics and the Protestants, but it was a 3-way split, between the Catholics, the Protestants, and the Evangelicals lumped together as Anabaptists.The Evangelicals were nothing new, and their beliefs dated all the way back before Catholicism had even become established, and from time to time such Evangelical sects were bitterly persecuted even to the point of genocide.Protestant theology was something new, but the Reformers held to the Church/State marriage and some Catholic ideas, although eventually these waned and Anabaptist theology became dominant in these areas, which is why many Protestants today say things like "you must be born-again" which was an alien thought to early Protestantism since infant baptism already secured that status. Luther and the early Reformers, for example, would not have considered the Great Commission something that needed to be carried about since they thought it had already been carried out and established Christendom.But at the same time, Calvinism merged with evangelicalism to produce a vibrant, biblical-based form of Christianity in America leading to major revivals that helped shape the nation and continues to do so today.

It's not my fault you don't know who the Anabaptists were or the influence of their theology on liberty in the West, and please remember you were the one drawing this off-topic.You could learn, but refuse to do so.This message has been edited by randman, 11-08-2005 01:11 PM

I think you're right. It might help alleviate the situation and lead to more assimilation into French society. It could be better alternative than civil unrest, but at the same time, if France does this, imo, they should put a cap on the number of years the program lasts, say 25 years.Same thing here, imo.

I know, and I am not disagreeing with your sentiment on how the times changes. But too often people forget that colonies like Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, as a direct result of Christian Anabaptist theology, did generalize the concepts of religious freedom for everyone, even the non-Christians. This was the natural outgrowth of centuries-old theology. In fact, the term "separation of Church and State" is very old and was a slogan so to speak among the Anabaptists, and dates as far back to the 4th century and the Donatists.So there was this tremendous centuries long effort to advocate religious freedom (not the modernist concept of separation which involves hostility towards religion), and all during those centuries the establishment thinkers rejected totally the more radical Christian theology.The idea was that not everyone was Christian by virtue of being baptized or just living in a geographic area, but only those born-again and following Christ were Christians. So there was no need for the State to enforce religious law on people since many were really not Christians, and moreover it was against the whole volunteer nature of the gospel to compel people by force of the State to follow Christ.But what I would call the more secular thinkers back then thought this was crazy and believed an accomadation with religion and the State was vital for a unified society. Even as late as when William Penn announced his intentions to allow total freedom of religion, even for the Indians, he was laughed at in England and mocked.But he proved the ideas worked. So did Rhode Island which adopted freedom of religion from the Baptists.So the people that formed the Enlightenment had solid examples and centuries of people telling them this would work, plus the gospels, and so the more secular establishment thinkers realized, hey, we don't need State religion for society to work. It was a radical conversion, but in truth, the secularists and establishment Christians that formed the Enlightenment were just picking up on very old ideas and doing so, I might add, when it didn't cost them their lives and their childrens' and wives' lives as it did for the Christians that advocated such things.That's one reason I bring it up so often. It is offensive to the memory of these brave Christian martyrs whom the West owes their concepts of liberty of to pretend that secularism originated the concepts, and that Christians were against it. These "Christians" paid for it with their blood. That's why the West enjoys the freedoms that we do. The Evangelicals that believed people must only volunteer to serve Christ are the people most responsible for the long effort to establish individual liberty of conscience.

It's not a good thing on principle, but to correct a prior injustice or perceived injustice, that idea has merit. Making it permanent just creates another injustice, imo.