The best one so far was actually astroturf for an entertainment site of ill-repute… It was funny on reflection

You are not alone. Curtis has made similar complaints. [1]

I have complained, again, to blogspirit. If this happens again,

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Email it to me or submit it in parts

If you email it to me, I will immediately post it and complain to blogspirit.

Now that I own the tdaxp.com domain, it would be easier to switch to another blog hosting provider. If this keeps up, I will. I know every blog has technical problems (such as the “lost comments” at PC [2]), but I hope this problem is temporary and will go away soon.

Blogspirit's tardy behavior on this issue, so far, is disgusting. Hopefully it will change soon. (And hopefully I can still get your comment back!)

ElamBend,

Post-Rome Europe is a good analogy for Post-Europe Africa. I am aware of the strong Christianity that thrives there. It will be the battleground.

And, as Tom Barnett once said, once we see the battles moving to Africa, we can say we are winning.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/09/11/homosexuality-genetic-determinism-and-thought-processes.html#c1132224
[2] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2006/09/site_feedback.php

Let me try again on explaining my first comment.

There are two key concepts in your post: The definition of Christianity as a “core” phenomenon vs. Islam as a “gap” phenomenon, and martyrdom.

The martyrdom issue seems central to the friction between Christianity and Islam. There's an old saying something like: “Conversion requires the spilling of blood”. The difference between the two religions is whose blood is being spilled. From the defining act of Christ's sacrifice to the martyrdom of numerous Christians, spilt Christian blood led to conversion [Ferdinand Magellan and the conversion of the Phillipines comes to mind]. By contrast, Islamic conversion involves the spilling of infidel blood. I'd be interested to know if there are any prominent (or obscure) examples of comparable Muslim martyrdom.

Since I'm pontificating, why not mention Pope Benedict's speech. The key point in the portion of the speech concerning Islam is this: “The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.” This statement only makes sense in the context of a stable (albeit unequal) political, social, and economic system. The fight for Christians in Rome was for equality, and the oppressed knew that reason was on their side, and they would ultimately prevail when oppressors could no longer effectively ignore them. Could Ghandi's strategy of non-violence have worked against a Nazi German empire, or Pol Pot's rule?

On the other hand, chaotic conditions have historically dictated that group survival require absolute fealty – submission – of the group to the leaders. Take, for example [no, not 7th century Arabia; that's too obvious] Java in the aftermath of the Krakatau disaster. A world literally turned upside down. No reasonable God would wreak such havoc, why should reason factor into anyone's response? Following a charismatic leader who delivered aid made perfect sense, even if the all his teachings did not. The r-Complex calculus of survival is terribly precise.

Wait – didn't you already have a discussion of internal vs external rule sets? Chaos requires internal rule sets. But internal rule sets not based on reason have fatal flaws. The biggest is rejection by the best and the brightest non-rulers. In a tolerant society, this would lead to a reasoned debate of the merits of both arguments and adoption of the better one. But this notion contradicts the need for submission to the order of the leaders. Catch-22! The malignant meme of Communism foundered on this contradiction, because people realized that they had a better option in market economies and greater personal freedom.

It turns out that internal rule sets need chaos to survive! Stability leads to reason which leads to a desire for external rule sets to expand and preserve that stability. That's why Islam is optimized for the Gap and Christianity is optimized for the Core, as you suggested.

And thus the current civilizational friction. Islam has a 300 year record of inability to integrate with the Core. If you're one of the leaders sitting atop the internal rule set, what do you do? In a chaotic environment such as Saudi Arabia, you perpetuate and strengthen the internal rule set by expanding its reach. You fund madrassas around the world to focus education away from reason and onto memorization of the internal rule set. You foment chaotic living conditions to perpetuate the need for the internal rule set (and your rule). Despots throughout history and across belief sets have followed this exact script. Unfortunately for their subjects, they can have either Reason or the effective internal rule set; not both.

Which brings us back to Benedict and his Regensberg speech. The bulk of his address was aimed not at Islam, but at Western Moral Relativism, which eschews reason for an internal rule set of “white guilt”. Benedict points out that this malignant meme must be stopped, or chaos will wash across Europe, wiping away the birthplaces and former bastions of Reason.

In the U.S., we have “political correctness”, which is a secular exemplar of internal rule sets. Any reasoned questioning of the tenets of PC are subjected to vitriolic ad hominem attacks rather than reasoned counterargument. PC principles simply cannot be questioned! I offer as Exhibit A – the Duke Lacrosse fiasco. And as Exhibit B – Larry Summers' remark that boys and girls have genetic differences that result in cognitive differences – which almost got him burned at the stake in front of the Women's Studies department! [Note: here is the ultimate in reason vs. internal rule set conflicts. There is no doubt as to the science of Dr. Summers' points (Dan will add the appropriate footnotes)]

But I digress.

Christianity needs and promotes the Core. Islam needs and promotes the Gap. As ElamBend points out, Africa is the region of greatest expansion for Christianity, and the region where it most actively competes with Islam (Moral authority in Europe has effectively been ceded to Islam by everyone but the few like Benedict. Disagree? Tell it to Theo Van Gogh's son!). It would be interesting to study the cause and effect of expansion of each religion in Africa. But that's probably the subject of multiple posts here and at Spooky Action [Go Dan!].

Did that make any sense?

Cheers,

Mike

Excellent comments, particularly regarding the issue of martyrdom. I think you've cogently characterized the friction between Christianity and Islam.

Mike

I wrote a long comment regarding this issue (with bonus points for tying in Benedict's speech), and where did it go? Aaaargh!

ElamBend makes an excellent point that I did not add. Arica is indeed the fastest-growing area of Christianity, despite being largely in the Gap.

I'll try to re-create my previous remarks later. Is anyone else having this problem?

Mike

After the fall of Rome, in northern Europe, Christianity thrived in chaos, both as a beacon of hope and a repository of civilization. Many African missionaries see themselves as the Irish monks once did.

No problem. It was a fun comment to make, plus it's fun (and flattering) to be lumped in the same category as Tom. Yesterday Gardner [1], today Barnett, tomorrow the world!

I look forward to your next work

Mike,

What's your understanding of the friction? I'm not sure if I understand my post