Timothy Birdnow

Here is a great explanation of the admiration so many liberals have for Islam. While not an exhaustive explanation, it does a fine job. Jerry Schmitt says:

"A striking clue to the solution to this conundrum occurred to me while reading the following passage in "Celebrating" Orientalism, an important essay by Richard Landes, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2017 (h/t Powerline). He notes concerning the crippling societal effects of Arab "Honor Culture”:

‘In self-help justice cultures, this insistence on honor can mean killing someone who killed a relative, and in Japanese culture, honor can mean killing oneself. However, in some honor cultures, this concern means killing a family member for the sake of the family's honor. And driving the performances, motivating the need to save face, and defining the ways to do so is "public judgment," whose verdict decides one's fate in the community. The Arabic term for gossip is kalam an-nas (talk of the people), which is often harsh in its judgment of others. Psychologist Talib Kafaji writes,

Arab culture is a judgmental culture, and anything a person does is subject to judgment ... induc[ing] many fears ... with serious consequences on individual lives. Avoiding such judgment can be the constant preoccupation of people, almost as if the entire culture is paralyzed by Kalam [an]-nas. In other words, all of the people in Arab society are hostages of each other.[6]’

Notice what happens if we substitute the word "PC” in place of the word "Arab”, and then restate Dr. Kafaji’s psychological diagnosis as shown below. Who among us "irredeemable deplorable Americans” does not feel this passage aptly describes socially-mediated life under Social Justice Warrior-PC extremism that has only intensified in Obama’s America."

End excerpt.

This is preciesly what I was talking about in Paradise Lost; Why the Left Loves Muhammad back in 2007; the left envies the Totalitarian nature of the Islamic world, and by Totalitarian I mean what Benito Mussolini approvingly described as a society intimately involved with the individual and the individual inextricably linked to the larger society. In the Totalitarian world there is no divisions, no seperation of Church and State, no self-reliance or individuality. "You didn't build that" Obama famously paraphrased the faux Indian Elizabeth Warren, and that describes the mindset perfectly; we are all doing it together, one big miserable family. There is no individual success, as we are all part of a team, in their view.

That's why they give participation trophies to kids, and/or don't keep score at games. There can be no winners or losers, because "you didn't do that!" but we all did! We are, in the macabre nightmares of the Left, a gestalt, and all are as important as any.

This is a gross violation of human nature, but there you have it.

One of the great attractions of Islam in the early days was that the Muslims came in and forgave debt. In the Byzantine world that was huge, because the poorer people stayed poor because of high taxes and heavy debt, and when the Muslims conquered a place they generally proclaimed the end of the old order. This was a rather neo-Marxian move, and economics under Islam provided for private merchants but only under the strict control of the local Sheik, who was also largely the local priest/Bishop. Islamic economics is very akin to Fascist/Nazi economics, where private business existed solely at the pleasure of the State. Modern liberalism is the child of Fascism and, as the Marxists said, "first Brown then Red". The ultimate goal in the end is there be no possessions, that all share in the pot.

Islam was like that too, but somehow some were more equal than others. The paradise of Allah never seemed to trickle down to the commoner. But that never stopped the Muslims, and does not stop the Left.

They both WANT it to be true.

Another point to ponder on this issue is the matter of life. The above quoted passage about honor killings is interesting, because what exactly is abortion other han an honor killing? Most abortions are performed to spare the mother embarassment at having a child out of wedlock. Granted, some times it is an economic choice, but there are plenty of options up to and including giving the child to a sterile couple who would love and cherish her. Abortion is an honor killing, only instead of killing the girl who dishonered her family the victim is the innocent child, who did not ask to be conceived. SOMEBODY has to be punished, and the child is the weakest party in the group. So abortion is the high Sacrament of liberals, because, like the Islamic world, it represents a way to maintain honor without the messy side effects.

Oh, there are other reasons for abortion; the desire to usurp the godhead by liberals in order to grant themselves the illusion of equality with the Most High, who created life, the scheme to disenfranchise the rights of fathers who have no say in whether a woman has an abortion or not, the desire to poke Christianity in the eye, etc. But in the end most of these notions go back to the same basic elements, elements that are startlingly similar to Islamic ideas.

Another point to ponder; Islam borrowed heavily from Manicheanism, a Persian religion that Muhammad no doubt encountered on his caravan trips. Mani was called "the Seal of the Prohets" by his followers as Muhammad would later be so entitled, and he had his people to meet for public prayer four times a day and face in the same direction when they prayed, much like Muhammad would have them face Mecca.

As the New Advent article I cited above explains:

"Prayer was obligatory four times a day: at noon, late in the afternoon, after sunset, and three hours later. Prayer was made facing the sun or, in the night, the moon; when neither sun nor moon was visible, then the North, the throne of the Light-King. It was preceded by a ceremonial purification with water or for lack of water with some other substance in the Mohammedan fashion. The daily prayers were accompanied by twelve prostrations and addressed to the various personalities in the realm of light: the Father of Majesty, theFirst-Man, the Legatus Tertius, the Paraclete (Mani), the Five Elements, and so on. They consist mainly of a string of laudatory epithets and contain but little supplication. Astime and attitude of prayer were intimately connected with astronomical phenomena, so likewise was the duty of fasting. All fasted on the first day of the week in honor of the sun, the Perfect also fasted on the second day in honor of the moon. All kept the fast during two days after every new moon; and once a year at the full moon, and at the beginning of the first quarter of the moon. Moreover, a monthlyfast, observed till sunset, was begun on the eighth day of the month."

These are all tenants of Islam, a later developed religion. The five pillars of Islam are; the profession of faith (Shahadah), public prayer (Salah), almsgiving (Zakat), fasting (Sawm) and the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). Most of this was clearly lifted from Manicheanism. And Mani called himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus while dismissing the Old Testament and much of the New, just as Muhammad would later do.

Does any of this sound familiar? Liberals have Political Correctness (Shahada and Salah), taxation and welfare payments (Zakat), and they are forever pushing dietary restrictions (Sawm). Mecca is Washington to them.

And like Islam Manicheanism was a dualistic belief, where there was God and an anti-God at war. While Islam does not see Satan as equally powerful as Allah, they do see a war between the two and hold absolutist beliefs over it, with anyone not in submission being in the "House of War" and subject to not just conquest but degradation, rape, and torture. Manicheanism did not teach the more brutal aspects of Islam, but it certainly despised Christianity. Part of the reason was Manicheanism was a form of Gnosticism, with en answer for everything. They despised the Christian mysteries, such as the Trinity, because they couldn't understand them. Islam is much the same; there is only one God and one Prophet. Oh, and the Koran is seen not as the inspired work of God but the actual dectated Word, making it absolute. The end result is a religion that cannot change or grow but holds the followers in a state of permanent stasis. That stasis is the 7th century.

Liberalism is much the same. Liberals are romantics, and as a result they have fashioned a dualistic view of reality where there are nothing but good guys (Progressives) and bad guys (Conservatives). Hatred is heaped upon the brows of those not with them. It should be pointed out that the leftward movement of the Enlightenment was the product of people involved in a number of Gnostic type groups, such as the Freemasons, who held a similar view to the Manicheans and the Muslims. And many of the more awful movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had roots in orientalism. Take the Nazis, the top leadership of which came out of the Thule Society, a pagan religious order based in part on Manicheanism.

Both Manicheanism and Islam were honor cultures, with the believers acting as judges for their neighbors.

And notice this:

"In no country did Manichæism enter more insidiously into Christian life than in Egypt. One of the governors of Alexandria under Constantine was a Manichæan, who treated the Catholic bishops with unheard-of severity. St. Athanasius says of Anthony the Hermit (330) that he forbade all intercourse with "Manichæans and other heretics".

In the Eastern Roman Empire it came to the zenith of its power about A.D. 375-400, but then rapidly declined. But in the middle of the sixth century it once more rose into prominence. TheEmperor Justinian himself disputed with them; Photinus the Manichæan publicly disputed with Paul the Persian. Manichæism obtained adherents among the highest classes of society. Barsymes the Nestorian prefect of Theodora, was an avowed Manichæan. But this recrudescence of Manichæism was soon suppressed."

End excerpt.

So, Manicheanism peaked the century prior to Muhammed in the very regions where Islam flourished.

Is it any wonder that modern liberalism, which became fascinated with so much of this eastern thinking in the 18th and 19th centuries, is cut from the same cloth?

And both Islam and modern liberalism have ties to [linkhttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10402a.htm]Mithraism, a pre-Christian religion that was a competitor to Christianity in the Roman Empire. It was a warrior cult and also a dualistic belief, and many Roman soldiers joined. Holy war was an important feature, and it is unquestionable that Muhammad probably had contact with at least some Mithraists. Mithraists worshipped in caves, much as Muhammad would encounter the supposed Archangel Gabriel in a cave and would be given the Koran there.

While Mithraism faded in the West, pockets of it remained, especially in France and other places often associated with the post-enlightenment revolutionary movements. Mithraism remained alive in Persia for some time, and no doubt Muhammad got a dose of it and liked the whole Jihad concept.

At any rate, many of the same elements exist in both Islam and modern Progressivism precisely because they come from the same sources, and appeal to the same base elements of human nature. Islam is quite prudish in some ways, yet freewheeling sexually in many others, and the same is true of liberalism; is it any surprse that New England, home of the Puritans, was the source of infection for Progressivism, and that the Congregationalist Clhurches are the most liberal of all Christian sects? Puritans banned any hanky-panky, hated dancing or any other occasion to sin and yet their decendents are open to gay marriage and fornication on a vast scale. Why? Like Islam there is a hypocrisy, a duality that is both a weapon of censure and a recruitment tool. If you join them you get to enjoy all the pleasures of the flesh, but if you are not of them you will be condemned for that very thing.

Clever.

At any rate, I hope everyone enjoyed my little essay on the kissing-cousin nature of Islam and Liberalism.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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