The Moslem religion….."demands a humility and submission that he could not conceive himself as feeling………Discipline for the sake of discipline, mindless and joyous obedience to arbitrary laws, that was an element of their religion which, praiseworthy though it might be, he knew was not for him…..They embody the mystery of man at peace with himself, satisfied with this solution to the problem of life; their complacence came from asking no questions, accepting existence as it arrived to their senses fresh every morning, seeking to understand no more than that which was directly useful for the day’s simple living, and trusting implicitly in the ultimate and absolute inevitability of all things…….. The further one advanced into their world, the more conscious one became that it was necessary to change oneself fundamentally in order to know them."
From "The Spider’s House", by Paul Bowles
The Bush Administration should have read this book before going into Iraq. But then they already knew everything and imagined it was like going into Ohio.
Referring to both your posts re the Muslim faith, its edifice seems to be built upon a very different mindset altogether than that of the Western way of thinking. The latter has ’cause and effect’ as one of the basic concepts; the same concept that is the bedrock of the scientific method.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Christianity is also shot through with this same middle Eastern way of thinking , and maybe that is why it seems so alien to some people. What do you think?.. what about Epicurus …and his thinking?