Original Work Doubledealer

Chris,
Excellent... don't know how I missed this one. This reveals that you are a man of varied abilities and talents. This is the second of your stories that had Islam as a focus, as such, you will not get much play, or recognition for it, as the lack of comments belies...
You can argue until the cows come home, that Islam is 'the religion of peace', but, it will be of little force or effect on a post 911 society. Myself, I consider the Arab translation of word; Islam, to be the determining factor in understanding the religion;
In Arabic, Islam means;
"There will be PEACE, when all the world SUBMITS to the Will of allah."

There is only one way to interpret this. You can wrap it in Sufi isms, and 'moderate' isms, all you like, but Jihad only has one meaning to western minds, a continuation of Mohammed's bloody war... to spread the sixth century to all of the world.

Having known several Muslims in my life, one of which I tried to get closer to after 911, I am always left with the impression that they are hiding something, that they are behind a mask. I am a very good judge of character and poker 'tells', and I always know when somebody is lying to me...
I can't know if they were hiding behind a mask of fear, as you imply, or a mask of deceit, but in the end, it matters little, when their religion allows them to lie in the service of allah.

But cultural arrogance is not owned by the Muslims... the Jews and Christians have their own arrogant attitudes, and basic hypocrisies and stupid teachings. Which shows the basic truth in your story of the future... that we have been led to be as sheep, and they have been led to become wolves. We think we can coexist in harmony, but in a world beset by resource depletion and money failure, this is naive thinking. Our men have become women, and our women have become men, and the pussification of the west is almost complete.

The Real End Game is probably very close to your vision of an Islamic future. The book of Revelation, I think, speaks to this phase of civilization coming up. If you can but understand the meaning of the four horses of the Apocalypse, as being the three phases or paradigms that civilization has gone through since the time of Christ, the Age of the Church;
-White horse, The Holy Roman Empire (Projecting power at a distance, in the name of God.)
-Red horse, The Kings and Nobles (the sword, and rivers of blood in the name of God)
-Black horse, The Dark heart of Greed within the money changers and democracies, 'in the name of God'. (The scales has always been a symbol for the money changers, and justice...)
Which fails on their own global money failure, leading to the end of the middle class.

To truly understand it, you have to read the Greek, and see how the Catholic translators screwed the pooch, and invoked the curse of the book upon themselves... They changed the color of the last horse from green to pale yellow. When you look at the paradigms being in the name of God, you wonder what God would say about the last 2000 years...
Preachers, have screwed up the interpretation of this, and have always been wrong. Being misled by Rome, and their own ignorance of the Gnostic symbols(it was a Gnostic book, a message and a warning to the Church, that barely made it into the Canon), and then applying words improperly. If you look at verse 6:8, the word 'them', is applied only to the last horse, a Green horse. It represents a fourth of the Earth, and they worship death and hell follows them. I can apply only one interpretation to this horse; Islam. Going forth conquering the Earth 'in the name of God', represented by the universal color; Green.

The way you weaved this story is, excellent, and almost Biblical...
(Don't know if that was intended or not.)

 

Thank you <grin>


A great many Muslims have an attitude that basically boils down to ‘my religion, right or wrong.’ Which isn't, of course, unique to them, but makes it harder for them to come to grips with very real problems pervading Islam and societies that attempt to manage themselves on an ‘Islamic’ basis. In the long run, these societies will attempt to destroy all differences (Iran cracks down hard on different forms of Islam, as does Saudi) and eventually destroy themselves. Present-day Islam is simply incapable of evolving without a major kick in the pants.


Chris

 

I agree wholeheartedly.
Thus it is my thesis, that men need to evolve beyond 'religion' and that is the reason for the interest I have in your work. The only way this can be done is to gain the Unified Field of Intelligent Design. A mathematical and philosophical nexus between ancient religions and modern science, based on Aetherial physics of Hyper-relativity.
My latest experiment confirms the "imponderable aether" of General Relativity, and unifies it with Special Relativity, and, Quantum Mechanics. I managed to cause a time dilation, using a magnetic field... 'impossible', is the only response... no attempt at peer review, recreating it or disproving the data, I am effectively, a 'nut'.

When attempting to publish, either math or science, in this world, you run up against the defenders of the faith... whether in religion or science, they will defend their status quo unto the death. They defend the mystery and magic paradigm, or the particle paradigm, there is no interest in Knowing the Primal Causation.
I have discovered, through much pain, that this world has no interest in the Truth, only the appearance of truth. Plato was right, we are trapped in the Cave of Illusion, and those who manage to break free, will become outcasts, reviled, heretics.

Thus my moniker...the heretic.