(April 20, 2015 at 12:01 pm)francismjenkins Wrote: But there's another often ignored dynamic at play here. Most atheists are left of center on the political spectrum (and they tend to be more intelligent than the general population). So they realize that US and British intervention into the Middle East (and Islamic world more generally) has been an important factor in creating the needed space for Islamic extremism to thrive...
While not doubting that western governments' policies in the Middle East have made the West a target for Islamic ire, I wonder why causal explanation for the rise of Islamic militancy depends on political leanings. It's become a litmus test: Either they envy all our freedoms (right), or they just don't like the West's meddling (left), and more importantly, accepting the right's or left's thesis on the matter automatically means rejecting the other thesis. To me, both theses seem to make sense. Extremism has always been a major current within Islam even if only a minority of Muslims espouse it. Islam itself began in violent military response to the prevailing 7th century world situation, having never made a formal ideological retreat from this root. Meaning there is a genuine incompatibility of values between western thought systems and Islam that goes beyond religion: Islam simply doesn't countenance the Enlightenment or separation of religion from the state, among other things, with the possible exception of a few recent Muslim scholars who are reassessing these issues. Yet U.S. conservatives on their part refuse to acknowledge that nearly every thing we do over there makes the problem worse.
