Quotron
April 20, 2002
 

Program Description

This program will examine the use of anthropology, biology and language to further the political and religious interests of believers.

Culture

"Culture refers to the values, ideas, relationships, and patterns of behavior that are meant to give meaning, identity and security to a people in a given place and time. Culture gives an interpretation of the world and
guidance for life according to such beliefs, values, and attitudes. It implies an intellectual and moral discipline or training. Culture involves specific actions or rituals to be performed in a given way at different stages of
life such as birth, marriage and funerals within a community, and these acquire the value of tradition. Culture also includes the aesthetic and artistic activities and realizations of a people, including those of the past." Robert J. Schreiter from: The New Catholicity - Theology between the Global and the Local.

"Man is the only creature possessing culture, as distinguished from instinct; and if culture is effaced, so is the
distinction between man and the brutes that perish...  From what source did humankind's many cultures arise? Why, from cults. A cult is a joining together for worship-that is, the attempt of people to commune with a transcendent power. It is from association in the cult, the body of worshippers, that human community grows...
Once people are joined in a-cult, cooperation in many other things becomes possible. Common defense, irrigation, systematic agriculture, architecture, the visual arts, music, the more intricate crafts, economic production and distribution, courts and government-all these aspects of a culture arise gradually from the cult, the religious de. Out of little knots of worshippers, in Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, India, or China, there grew up simple cultures; for those joined by religion can dwell together and work together in relative peace. Presently such simple cultures may develop into intricate cultures, and those intricate cultures into great civilizations. American civilization of our era is rooted, strange though the fact may seem to us, in tiny knots of worshippers in Palestine, Greece, and Italy, thousands of years ago. The enormous material achievements of our civilization have resulted, if remotely, from the spiritual insights of prophets and seers. But suppose that the cult withers, with the elapse of centuries. What then of the culture that is rooted in the cult? What then of the civilization which is the culture's grand manifestation?" Russell Kirk, from: "Civilization Without Religion?"

"Since September 11, we have all been brought to the point of recognizing the pervasive power of religions to shape all kinds of events," Weber adds. "We are dealing with ancient religious convictions and memories, and they are driving forces in the modern world. The secular press just doesn't get it, but it seems to me there's no other way to understand this." Rod Dreher, from: "Red-Heifer Days"

"It seems more likely that the wellsprings of religious or ethnic fanaticism are political more than cultural. Fanaticism has to do with a lack of representation or free speech. Either can lead to an impotent rage."  Ian Buruma, from:  "The Blood Lust of Identity"

"In essence, culture is eclipsing both nationalism and ideology as the nexus of politics." A. J. Bacevich, on "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

"Identity is a bloody business. Religion, nationality, or race may not be the primary causes of war and mass murder. These are more likely to be tyranny, or greed for territory, wealth, and power. But "identity" is what gets the blood boiling, what makes people do unspeakable things to their neighbors. It is the fuel used by agitators to set whole countries on fire. When the world is reduced to a battle between "us and them," Germans and Jews, Hindus and Muslims, Catholics and Protestants, Hutus and Tutsis, only mass murder will do, for "we" can only survive if "they" are slaughtered. Before we kill them, "they" must be stripped of our common humanity, by humiliating them, degrading them, and giving them numbers instead of names." Ian Buruma, from:  "The Blood Lust of Identity"

Memes

"Once you have a brain harnessed to imitation, you can transmit behavior non-genetically, thus giving rise to
"culture" or "memes." Richard van Ort, on "Mirror Neurons"

"Memes are cultural units of information that self-replicate by means of thought-contagion, using the human mind as a host, and attach themselves to individuals, organizations, entire cultures, and societies. They culturally impact the body politic, just like genes, the code carriers of DNA, biologically impact the body physical."
Caleb Rosado, from "An Explanation of Spiral Dynamics Memes and Vmemes What are they?"

"Thought contagion theory arises by inverting the age-old question of how people acquire beliefs, focusing instead on how beliefs acquire people. Some beliefs make adherents have more children, other beliefs bring better imitation by the children. Some beliefs lead adherents to spread the belief to friends, and still other beliefs deter dropping out. When beliefs take this active role in acquiring new adherents, they are called by the new word memes, a term that emerged from evolutionary biology 20 years ago. Some beliefs induce retransmission better than others, and those are the ones that tend to win out by spreading to wide prevalence. In taking this evolutionary approach, the theory brings scientific understanding to what otherwise looks like the arbitrary
currents of culture." Aaron Lynch,  from: "Thought Contagion Theory and the Heaven's Gate Tragedy"

"Unlike a virus, which is encoded in DNA molecules, a meme is nothing more than a pattern of information, one that happens to have evolved a form which induces people to repeat that pattern. Typical memes include individual slogans, ideas, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions. It may sound a bit sinister, this idea that people are hosts for mind-altering strings of symbols, but in fact this  what human culture is all about." Glenn Grant, from: "Memes: Introduction"

"Memes are insubstantial entities which pervade our human world, harboring and thriving in our brains and
books. Like viruses, they go from center to center, replicating themselves. Most of the times, the replication is
rough rather than exact. But every thought and idea that props up in your brain (mind) may not be a meme,
though a good many of them are, as are also conventions, traditions, rules, crafts, and the like. Moreover...
...since there are millions of memes floating around to find a place, no human brain is, indeed can never be, without any thought.... To empty the mind of all thoughts would be like ridding the home of all dust particles: just not possible. Memetic crowding is a better imagery than simply saying that thoughts are concomitant with blood streams in the brain."   Susan Blackmore, from: "The Meme Machine"

"Whether memes can be considered true "life forms" or not is a  topic of some debate, but this is irrelevant: they behave in a way similar to life forms, allowing us to combine the analytical techniques of epidemiology, evolutionary science, immunology, linguistics, and semiotics, into an effective system known as "memetics." Rather than debate the inherent "truth" or lack of "truth" of an idea, memetics is largely concerned with how that idea gets itself replicated." Glenn Grant, from: "Memes: Introduction"

 "Memetics is vital to the understanding of cults, ideologies, and marketing campaigns of all kinds, and it can help to provide immunity from dangerous information-contagions. You should  be aware, for instance, that you just been exposed to the Meta-meme, the meme about memes..." Glenn Grant, from: "Memes: Introduction"

Graves and Spirals

 "Briefly, what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as man's existential problems change." Clare W. Graves, from:  "The Theory of Levels of Human Existence."

"Graves realized that the neuro-psycho-social apparatus that we carry (i.e. our body) interacts with our
outer world and the life conditions existing at the time. To facilitate this we form a set of internally
consistent values and beliefs appropriate to our circumstances. As life conditions change, our values
and beliefs must also change to remain appropriate. This creates a series of nested, emergent levels unfolding as we grow in consciousness and understanding. We progress through a hierarchy of developmental stages, generally only moving up when we have sufficient competency at our existing stage." Victor MacGill, from "Complexity Theory as a possible mechanism for the  progression through the stages of social evolution as described by Spiral Dynamics®

"Graves' theory can be summarized in the following five key points:

     1.Human nature is not static, nor is it finite. Human nature changes as the conditions of existence change, thus forging new systems. Yet, the older systems stay with us.

     2. When a new system or level is activated, we change our psychology and rules for living to adapt to those new conditions.

     3. We live in a potentially open system of values with an infinite number of modes of living available to us. There is no final state to which we must all aspire. [Here is where GRaves differed with Maslow and most other psychologists. Maslow, before his death, told Graves that he (Graves) was correct and he (Maslow) was wrong in thinking of human development as a closed state.

     4. An individual, a company, or an entire society can respond positively only to those managerial principles, motivational appeals, educational formulas, and legal or ethical codes that are appropriate to the current level of human existence.

     5. A Spiral vortex best depicts this emergence of human systems as they evolve through levels of increasing complexity. Each upward turn of the spiral marks the awakening of a more elaborated version on top of what already exists. The human Spiral, then, consists of a coiled string of value systems, worldviews, and mindsets, each the product of its times and conditions. In other words, new times produces new minds."
Caleb Rosado, from "An Explanation of Spiral Dynamics Memes and Vmemes What are they?"

 "Graves spoke and wrote of surface values, what people, groups, and societies usually quibble over: geopolitics, beliefs, education, crime, justice, religion, norms, racism, business practices, etc. This is similar to what Dawkins called memes, self-replicating ideas or cultural DNA, beliefs, and actions that like viruses use the human mind as a host and are transmitted from mind to mind. But Graves contribution went further. What he discovered was that beneath these surface values or memes [Graves never used the term "meme"], human behavior tended oscillate between two forms of action--focus on the individual, focus on the group; dependence,
interdependence. He called it, "express-self belief/behavior" and "sacrifce-self belief/behavior." Other psychologists came to the same conclusion. Csikszentmihalyi calls it "differentiation" and "integration"; Val Geist calls it, "dispersal modes" and "maintenance modes." Caleb Rosado, from "An Explanation of Spiral Dynamics Memes and Vmemes What are they?"

"Thus, man tends, normally to change his psychology as the conditions of his existence change. Each successive stage, or level of existence, is a state through which people pass on the way to other states of equilibrium. When a person is centralized in one state of existence [read "vMEME"], he has a total psychology which is particular to that state. His feelings, motivations, ethics and values, biochemistry, degree of neurological activation, learning systems, belief systems concepts of mental health, ideas as to what mental illness is and how it should be treated, preference for and conceptions of management, education, economic and political theory and practice, etc. [read "memes"], are all appropriate to that state." Caleb Rosado, from "An Explanation of Spiral Dynamics Memes and Vmemes What are they?"

"Graves research showed that humans have evolved thus far through six stages or levels of biopsychosocial development, that are like six themes or movements in a symphony, beginning with its simplest expression and working through ever-increasing levels of complexity. In other words, as the Life Conditions (LCs) or existential problems change, humans alter their Neurological System (NS) in the brain or mental capabilities to adjust to these changing conditions. Graves used letters of the alphabet for each stage, dividing the alphabet in half, the first half for NSs and the second half for LCs. Beck and Cowan discovered that using a color scheme was more
useful. The six stages or "Subsistence levels" are:
 

                                  COLOR                 THEME               FOCUS    VALUE SYSTEMS

        LEVEL 1 (A-N)
                                    BEIGE              SurvivalSense       "ME"        Group bands together to stay alive
        LEVEL 2 (B-O)
                                    PURPLE          KinSpirits               "WE"         The sense of family-tribe with time honored
        LEVEL 3 (C-P)
                                     RED                 PowerGods            "ME"         Power-action driven, egocentric
        LEVEL 4 (D-Q)
                                    BLUE                TruthForce              "WE"        Purposeful, absolutist, "one right way"
        LEVEL 5 (E-R)
                                   ORANGE           StriveDrive             "ME"        Entrepreneurial,materialistic,success-driven
        LEVEL 6 (F-S)
                                  GREEN               HumanBond             "WE"      Community,harmony,equality,relativistic
        LEVEL 7 (G-T)
                                 YELLOW              FlexFlow                  "ME"       Natural processes, mutual realities; live for
        LEVEL 8 (H-U)                                                                               mutuality
                                TURQUOISE       GlobalView              "WE"        Harmony, holism, spirituality
 

"Memes are the horizontal differences among human beings, such as culture, color, gender, religious beliefs, actions, lifestyles, etc. The vMEMEs are vertical differences, such as deep-level belief systems, core ways of thinking. Thus, an African American gang member and a White Neo-Nazi Skinhead, though on the surface look different and spout angry language filled with memes of hate toward each other and could end up killing each other, below the surface at the vMEME level the astute observer using Spiral Dynamics, will notice that essentially both groups are at the same level, members of PURPLE tribes using RED talk."

"Each vMeme has a set of core needs. Deprivation of such needs inhibits memetic growth. When the core needs are provided the vMeme naturally evolves. These needs can be summarized thus:

               Beige - basic necessities, food, shelter
               Purple - identity, tribal or familial
               Red - control, over the environment and rival groups
               Blue - security, stability and certainty
               Orange - individual expression
               Green - tolerance and accommodation of multiple views"
                                                      Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"The First Tier vMEME Codes and their respective impact: The Survivalist Systems

               *The First Level – AN – Beige vMEME Code that produces instinctive skills in the rain forest, the
               savanna, the bush, on the tundra, in the inner city, as well as in cases of serious deprivation and
               human tragedy.

               *The Second Level – BO – Purple vMEME Code that creates animistic thinking, bond humans to
               closely-knit groups, and enriches inanimate objects with vMEMETIC meanings and magical
               significance.

               *The Third Level – CP-Red vMEME Code that awakens individual senses of the impulsive self while
               generating powerful images of aggressiveness, conquest, predator/prey relationships, and
               pontifications from high perches — high horses, kings of the hill, and queens of the valley, or vice
               versa. The age of fiefdoms.

               *The Fourth Level – DQ – Blue vMEME Code that engenders transcendent purpose, impulse control;
               creates abstract causes, principles, explanations, and orders, while imposing authority-driven
               command structures.

               *The Fifth Level – ER – Orange vMEME Code that frees the autonomous person, creates the
               algorithms of strategic changeability, and shifts the thinking away from fatalistic ideology to
               pragmatics and positivism.

               *The Sixth Level – FS – Green vMEME Code that rejects authoritarian and materialistic codes while
               awakening the individual to inner states in a search for harmony, and external communities in a quest
               for peace and caring.

               2. The Second Tier vMEME Codes and their respective impact: The Being Systems

               *The Seventh Level – GT – Yellow vMEME code that restores human viability to a world of vMEMETIC
               chaos, while legitimizing and enhancing all of the vMEME codes as they produce healthy whorls along
               the Spiral.

               *The Eighth Level – HU –Turquoise vMEME code that detects the holistic energy flows that bind
               everything together and permeate every aspect of the Kosmos. This code “sees” everything before
               “doing” anything." From: Dr. Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamic integral 2002 Series and Schedule

Splits

"The Greek word for symbol, symbolon, actually means, an object which is broken in half. That is why communication systems are not monadic or unitary, they are always dual or dyadic...  The breaking of the symbolon symbolizes the split in human consciousness itself. A split between the animal intimacy, which we can
hypothesize as our Semian heritage, and the idea that consciousness and self are two different things. As soon as that split occurs we have a symbolic system at work, where one thing stands for another. The same holds true for all language systems, all musical systems, all dance systems, anything which can possibly communicate on any level whatsoever. These are all symbolic systems. Language is a symbolic system. All computer programs are symbolic systems."

"It is important to remember that in any symbolic system this split, the doubling consciousness, the hypothesis of consciousness which is actually prothesis, obtains something which is outside the body and which can act in the world. In the history of religion, this desire for lost intimacy, this desire to recapture unified consciousness, is the cause of yet a further split. We see the whole idea of sacrifice that is meant to heal this wound in the cosmic structure. Sacrifice appears very early in human religion, at least as early as agricultural systems in the Neolithic Age, if not sooner, and it is violent. Initially, it probably involves  human sacrifice." Peter Lamborn Wilson, from  "Islam and the Internet: Net-religion, a War in Heaven"

"I see this as a violence of the sacred. Whatever is religious is also inherently  violent, because it's based on the split. The split consciousness, the act of splitting is violent, and so the act of repairing the split is also violent. In fact,  the word religion, "religio," in Latin, means to re-link, which is really the same as the word in Hindi "yo go" which means yoke, as the yoke which connects two oxen. Religion itself, at its very base, is about this relinking of consciousness. It is an attempt to overcome the split of consciousness and to unify what was doubled and make it one. This is a very violent process throughout human history, and it is not an accident that religions were associated with violence."  Peter Lamborn Wilson, from  "Islam and the Internet: Net-religion, a War in Heaven"

Religion and Replication

"The evolution of humankind and religion are inextricably bound together. For millions of years evolution
was controlled by one set of rules. The rules were simple: whichever genes carried the design for creatures
most efficient at getting their genes copied into a new generation would come to dominate any gene pool. Then
at some point those genes described a new environment. The new environment was a brain of sufficient power
to support language. A new replicator would soon take advantage of the new environment. Not surprisingly, a
rule very similar to the one for genetic replicators would apply to the new replicators. Whichever language
constructs were most efficient at getting themselves copied would come to dominate the pool of language
constructs.  Religion is really just a language construct – a word-based replicator. All replicators are affected by their  environment and normally affect their environment in turn. The replicators must then adapt to the changes or perish. Thus we can see that the rules regarding natural selection of replicators apply equally to biological life
and bodies of religious thought." Tal, from: "English 111 December 7, 1999"

"Religious memes may have influenced the evolution of man. A religious meme might influence the
survival and reproductive success of susceptible populations through several mechanisms. For example, a
meme that limited the number of sexual partners would also limit the spread of venereal disease and thereby
increase the reproductive success of those whom the meme was able to influence. A meme enforcing a healthy
diet free of tainted meat would reduce food poisoning and thereby increase the health of those under the
meme's influence.... By selecting behaviors which lead to increased reproductive success of
its hosts, religious memes were in effect also selecting for susceptibility to the meme or meme-plex."
Tal, from: "English 111 December 7, 1999"

"Until the late 1940s, the strongest Bible believing Christians distinguished themselves from religious liberals by
the term "Evangelicals." When the strongest Evangelical group of the day, the National Association of
Evangelicals (NAE), slowly began a leftward turn, which has accelerated unto the present day, those who
wished to be more steadfast and less ecumenical began identifying themselves as "Fundamentalists." Bob Jones, on the term "Fundamentalists"

"With each passing generation, the host population becomes a bit more numerous. And compounded over hundreds of generations, the effect  takes a meme from rarity to majority status.  A good example from the realm of religion is the idea of giving mystical significance to spreading "the Word," as in the Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Clearly the faith spreads more vigorously by telling adherents that to spread the Word is to instill God himself."
Aaron Lynch,  from: "Thought Contagion Theory and the Heaven's Gate Tragedy"

"The term “God Module” was coined to describe a part of the brain which some people believe to be
responsible for “spiritual” experiences. Many people would like to interpret the “God Module” as evidence that
our creator made us in such a way that we could properly worship him. Mainstream scientists and freethinkers
are likely to dismiss the whole idea as illogical ranting or seek an explanation that does not involve religion... Perhaps a better explanation is provided by the idea that the “God Module” does indeed exist and represents another way in which the genetic code of humankind has been manipulated by meme-plexes to better accommodate those meme-plexes. A brain structure which created spiritual feelings or visions would
seem to mesh nicely with a humankind's curiosity about his origins and surroundings. There would not only be
more things for the meme-plex to “answer,” but perhaps even a means of more directly controlling the host. If we
are wired so that we feel the constant presence of a supernatural being, then we are more likely to follow the
rules of the watching meme-plex – and more likely to pass along the genetic code for accommodating the
meme-plex. Tal, from: "English 111 December 7, 1999"

"Thanks to God, the Catholic Church can run a healthcare system--10 percent of private hospitals in the United
 States--that refuses to practice modern medicine where women are concerned: not just no abortion but also no birth control, no emergency contraception for rape victims, no sterilization, no in vitro fertilization. The church can agitate against the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, even in desperate Africa, a position as
insane as South African President Thabo Mbeki's stance against antiretroviral AIDS drugs, but that generates a lot less outrage in the West. It can lobby in Ireland against allowing suicidal women to have abortions and intimidate a 14-year-old rape victim in Mexico into carrying to term; it can practice total sex discrimination, barring women from the priesthood and therefore from sharing in the political life of the church, and still demand to be taken seriously when it speaks of human rights or ethics--rather like the Philadelphia parochial school recently reported as giving academic extra credit to students who march in antiabortion-rights demonstrations even as the church goes after public funding through vouchers. No secular institution could get away with any of this, any more than a secular psychotherapist or family counselor could get away with telling poor mad Andrea Yates what the Protestant evangelist Michael Peter Woroniecki did: that Eve was a witch whose sin required atonement in the form of perfect motherhood and that working mothers are "wicked."" Katha Pollitt, from:  "Priests And Pedophiles - God Changes Everything"

"Those bumper plates with the Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish could turn out to represent the truth, but
for all the wrong reasons. We are supposed to interpret the Jesus fish as destroying the blasphemous ideas of
Darwin because to do so is the will of God. If we instead interpret the Jesus fish as representing the Christian
meme-plex and the Darwin fish as representing scientific memes, then the Jesus fish is winning the struggle
because it is better evolved to appeal to the average mind than is scientific truth. Ironically, if religion wins it will
be further evidence of how the rules of natural selection apply equally to biological life and other replicators."
Tal, from: "English 111 December 7, 1999"

Religious Superpowers

"Islam and Roman Catholicism, each billions strong, are the equivalent of religious superpowers." Editorial, National Catholic Reporter, March 8, 2002

"There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the
leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries." Zbigniew Brzezinski, from  "Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser in 'Le Nouvel
 Observateur' (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76 "

"Once the spirit of the Islamic revelation had brought into being, out of the heritage of previous civilizations and
through its own genius, the civilization whose manifestations may be called distinctly Islamic, the main interest
turned away from change and "adaptation." The arts and sciences came to possess instead a stability and a
"crystallization" based on the immutability of the principles from which they had issued forth; it is this stability that
is too often mistaken in the West today for stagnation and sterility." Seyyed Hossein Nasr, from,  Science and Civilization in Islam

Religion Under Theoretical Pressures

"Think of all the ongoing conflicts involving religion: India versus Pakistan, Russia versus Chechnya, Protestants versus Catholics in Northern Ireland, Muslim guerrillas in the Philippines, bloody clashes between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia and Nigeria, civil war in Sudan and Uganda and Sri Lanka, in which last the Buddhist
Sinhalese show a capacity for inflicting harm on the admittedly ferocious Hindu Tamils that doesn't get written up in Tricycle. It's enough to make one nostalgic for the cold war--as if the thin film of twentieth-century political ideology has been stripped away like the ozone layer to reveal a world reverting to seventeenth-century-style
religious warfare, fought with twenty-first-century weapons. God changes everything." Katha Pollitt, from:  "Priests And Pedophiles - God Changes Everything"

"Male circumcision is practiced world-wide by about one billion Muslims, three hundred million Christians, sixteen million Jews and an indeterminate number of atheists. It is almost unheard of in Europe, South  America, and non-Muslim Asia. .. This barbarity is rooted in religious fanaticism....  It is by no means insignificant that St. Thomas Aquinas, classic Muslim authors, and great Jewish philosophers, such as Philo and Maimonides, all affirmed that the objective of male circumcision was to reduce sexual pleasure. It is no coincidence, therefore, that, as late as the 1970s, leading American medical textbooks advocated circumcision as a way to prevent masturbation." Jamie Glazov, from: "Male Circumcision – The Mutilation of Male Sexual Pleasure"

"The Islamic swordsmen considered Pagan temples as monuments of Jahiliyya, the Age of Ignorance, and they
wanted to destroy them in order to stamp out this evil superstition of Paganism and all reminders of its history.  In Islamic countries with a great pre-Islamic past, history courses in schools start with Mohammed, and pay minimal (if at all any) attention to the long and fascinating history of the Pharaohs, the Achaemenids or Mohenjo Daro; the intention is to deny an unwanted, “impure” part of history.  As recently as 1992, this rejection of history led to raids to the ruins of Buddhist temples in Afghanistan to deface any remaining Buddha statues; and in 1992 and 1997, bomb attacks were committed against the pharaonic temples of Karnak.  One could arguably hold it against the demolishers of the Babri mosque that they too have tried to wipe out an unwanted chapter of Indian history embodied in the Islamic architecture of the temple building."  Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"Some British-born Muslims, on the other hand, felt strongly enough about their Islamic identity to go and kill infidels in Afghanistan, even if they were fellow British citizens. These holy warriors were no longer able to do as Maalouf advocates, and give the various parts of their mix equal weight. For them, Islam became absolute. To draw general conclusions from such cases is risky. Young people, especially in marginal communities, can be swayed by agitators for highly personal reasons: a never-forgotten childhood slight, a sexual rejection, a yearning for significance, or just the adolescent blend of confusion and ennui." Ian Buruma, from:  "The Blood Lust of Identity"

"I have ambivalent feelings about the possible confrontation of the New World Order and Islam. On the one hand, I am Jewish and a Zionist. While I do not embrace Israel's every deed, I do believe Jews have a right
to a homeland in Israel. Naturally, I am wary of the nuclear bombs that both Iran and Iraq are preparing. Possibly these regimes need to be replaced. On the other hand, I believe in G-d and in a Divine Plan. Islam is a theocratic religion and probably the last obstacle to the barren secular materialist vision represented by the
New World Order."   Henry Makow, Ph.D., from "Islam Vs. New World Order:The Battle Lines Are Drawn"

"What first attracted me to Hartman when I reported from Jerusalem was his contention that unless Jews reinterpreted their faith in a way that embraced modernity, without weakening religious passion, and in a way that affirmed that God speaks multiple languages and is not exhausted by just one faith, they would have no future in the land of Israel." Thomas L. Friedman, from "In this war, generals don't wear stars"

"Ecumenical butchers dismember the faith, doctrine by doctrine and compromise by compromise, and leave a Christianity that bears no resemblance to the biblical model. We who are biblical Preservationists can express our resolve by the words from the songwriter who wrote:

Faith of our fathers! We will strive
To win all nations unto thee,
And through the truth that comes from God
Mankind shall then be truly free.

Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death!"
Bob Jones, on the term "Fundamentalists"

"I find it interesting that Marxism (scientific materialism) and forms of Globalization (conspicuous consumption)
both generate the Orange acid that eats into the cool colored systems -- the metaphysical, the mystical, the
traditional, and the ritualistic. Rapid Marxists punctuated this blind ideology with the rat-tat-tat firing in the killing
fields of Cambodia, and in the savage attack on religious institutions. Even China, now, fears the onset of any
form of mystical interior development in the minds of Chinese, totally convinced it will result in the ultimate
collapse of the mechanistic "state." Dr. Don Beck, from: "A Note on a Global SD Strategy"

"The morality of the Koran is developmentally quite primitive. It is primarily Red/Blue. And the visions of Mohammed are examples of temporary peak experiences that consist primarily of psychic and subtle contents, with the occasional causal moments.  Further, the visions seem to be highly colored by what Mohammed seemed to already believe. He seems to have been prejudiced by a strong belief in a Talmudic, vengeful,
monotheistic Yahweh. Some of his visions may indeed have been somewhat psychotic. And people caught in the Purple/Red vMeme can easily mistake manic psychosis for religious insight and fervor.Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"Throughout the Islamic Middle East, men and women are taught to be vehemently opposed to pleasure, especially of the sexual variety. Men are raised not only forbidden to touch women, but to even look at them. Sex before marriage is not just a sin -- but a criminal offense. It is punishable by a severe beating at best, and an execution at worst. The sexual privileges that are allowed in Islamic cultures are permitted to men. Women’s sexuality and social independence represent major threats to male supremacy and are tightly controlled. Thus, as the Moroccan feminist Fitna Sabbah reveals in her book Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, there is a disturbing conflict in the Middle East between sexual libido and repression. A deep-seated fear of, and hostility to, individuality prevails, and its main expression exists in misogyny. Socially segregated from women, Arab men succumb to homosexual behavior. But, interestingly enough, there is no word for "homosexual" in their culture in the modern Western sense. That is because having sex with boys, or with effeminate men, is seen
as a social norm. Males serve as available substitutes for unavailable women. The male who does the penetrating, meanwhile, is not emasculated any more than if he had sex with a wife. The male who is penetrated is emasculated. The boy, however, is not, since it is rationalized that he is not yet a man. In this culture, males sexually penetrating males becomes a manifestation of male power, conferring a status of hyper-masculinity.
It is considered to have nothing to do with homosexuality. An unmarried man who has sex with boys is simply doing what men do. As the scholar Bruce Dunne has demonstrated, sex in Islamic societies is not about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male's achievement of pleasure through violent domination.
There is silence around this issue. It is the silence that legitimizes sexual violence against women, such as honor crimes and female circumcision. It is also the silence that forces victimized Arab boys into invisibility. Even though the society does not see their sexual exploitation as being humiliating, the psychological and emotional scars that result from their subordination, powerlessness and humiliation is a given. Traumatized by the violation of their dignity and manliness, they spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back." Jamie Glazov, from "The Sexual Rage Behind Islamic Terror"

"I cannot tell you exactly why Islam may be taken behind the woodshed. But I suspect it has something to do with its resistance to secularization, which is seen in its birthrate. As Patrick Buchanan has pointed out in The Death of the West, the future belongs to people who have children. Islam puts great value on family. The birth rate in Afghanistan is 7 per woman. It is around 4 in the rest of the Moslem world. It is half that in the US; 1.5 in Canada and Europe. Hence the emphasis on spreading "women's rights". Henry Makow, Ph.D., from "Islam Vs. New World Order:The Battle Lines Are Drawn"

"The Muslims are the principal religious group that practice female circumcision. In Egypt, for instance, 97 percent of women are circumcised. Their clitorises are amputated. In countries like Sudan, meanwhile, the women-haters are not so kind: all the women’s external genital organs are completely removed. This violence has to occur because, in much of the Islamic world, the female’s genital area is considered dirty and unacceptable. For example, in Egypt the uncircumcised girl is called nigsa (unclean). Thus, it has to be made "clean." Jamie Glazov, from "Islam’s Hatred of the Clitoris"

"An attack on another Muslim country - particularly one with no proven link to the September 11 atrocities - would be taken by many as evidence of an inbuilt hostility to the Islamic world. . .The consequence for interfaith relations of an attack on Iraq must therefore be of grave concern." Jonathan Petre, from "Church Accuses Blair Of  'Cruel Thirst For Vengeance'"

"And, now, Globalization has the effect of replacing local customs, unique places, and indigenous experiences
with huge Walmart-like monoliths that block the echoes from the past with McDonald's arches and CNN
commercials...Whenever any specific vMEME becomes malignant and spreads its "viral" codes into other domains, we get ourselves into big BIG trouble. Further, this failure to legitimize the existence of the Purple/Red zones of human choice-making, and facilitate the emergence of healthy versions of purpose-driven Blue, has contributed to the horrible AIDS plague in West and Southern Africa. A truly "global" Spiral Dynamics strategy facilitates the "growth toward goodness" in the Purple/Red to Blue (salvation) Orange (perfection) and Green (sensitivity) vMEME codes while, at the same time, encouraging BR> the postmodern"emergence toward enlightenment" in the leap into the Second Tier (Yellow/Turquoise) worldviews. The evolutionary chain must remain unbroken. Dr. Don Beck, from: "A Note on a Global SD Strategy"

Catholicism's Red and Blue Memes

"The soldiers of Christ do not know the least fear, neither for sin, when they kill their enemies, nor for danger that they themselves might perish. This is because to kill someone for the sake of Christ, to risk death, is not only completely free of sin, but highly praiseworthy." Bernard of Clairvaux, from Praise of the New Knighthood

"The Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages typified the Blue vMeme and relied on Purple and Red resources to maintain power.... authority clearly laid out the acceptable beliefs and guilt and the fear of burning in hell maintained adherence to them. The Pope had widespread power not only in the church, but also in education and politics. For hundreds of years, the church was in control and life was very deterministic. Over time, however, the church was impacted by events, which shook its foundations. The Black Plague killed one third of the inhabitants of Europe. People asked why the Pope and the church could not intervene and persuade God end the disease. They asked why priests were also struck by the plague." Victor MacGill, from "Complexity Theory as a possible mechanism for the  progression through the stages of social evolution as described by Spiral Dynamics®

"Catholicity (in theology) [Gr. kaqolikoV, general, universal]: Ger. Katholicismus; Fr. catholicité; Ital. cattolicità.
In ecclesiastical controversy, Catholicity is the quality of universality which the Roman Church claims as peculiar
to itself on the grounds (1) that it is not confined to any single people or to any one language; (2) that, as a
matter of accomplished fact, it is universal; (3) that its members greatly outnumber other Christian sects, and
that even taking all the others together, Roman Catholics are more numerous. The properties of unity, holiness,
apostolicity, catholicity, exist, therefore, in no Christian society except that which recognizes the supreme
authority of the Roman pope. (R.M.W.)  from Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology by James Mark Baldwin

Edwin Clowney, in the New Dictionary of Theology discusses this catholic character trait of the church as follows; " The NT church is catholic or universal: it is not limited geographically as Israel  was, and it joins in one fellowship people of every sort. The church cannot exclude from its membership any who credibly confess Christ. Sectarianism that  limits church membership to any race, caste, or social class denies catholicity.

"To speak of the catholicity of the church is...to refer to the entire church, which is universal and which has a common identity of origin, lordship, and purpose. While the local church is an entire church, it is not the entire church. As catholic, the church includes believers of past generations and believers of all cultures and societies."    Phil Hopwood, from the Sermon, "One Holy, CATHOLIC Church"

"In their own respective ways, both secularism and Augustinianism represent a Promethean revolt against the conditions of creaturely existence. Secularism accepts human beings' appreciation of creation, but seeks to prevent the gesture of thanksgiving that points beyond creation to that which it symbolizes, to its transcendent source, to its infinite ground, to the Transcendent God. Augustinianism denies the world as a means of God's revelation, refuses to accept God's  immanence in creation, and affirms only His transcendence. One denies God, the other denies creation. In both cases there is the denial of the sacramental dimension of human existence—which results in an impoverishment of the ability to love. Orthodox sacramentalism affirms that there is no antithesis, no gulf between creation and God; to affirm one at the expense of the other is to alienate oneself from both. Seth Farber from "Christian Humanism: Beyond Secularism and Augustinianism"

In Crisis in the Modern World, René Guénon suggests "that if a Western tradition could be rebuilt it would take on a religious form in the strictest sense of this world, and that this form could only be Christian; for on the one hand the other possible forms have been too long foreign to the Western mentality, and on the other it is only in Christianity - and we can say still more definitely in Catholicism - that such remnants of a traditional spirit as still exist in the West can be found."

"Since Catholicism lacks a reverential attitude toward the dynamic workings of a free market system, it has not have given birth to the spirit of capitalism. Yet the traditions of hard work, loyalty, and submission to authority have formed an energy towards developing modern industry. The Catholic work ethic has provided a base line of values and attitudes that has made the Germany Catholic people ripe for exploitation as modern industrial dominators. In the business field, the standard of morality is therefore the product of religion and religious belief." University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, from "International Business Ethics: Germany Culture, Religion, and Tradition"

"In 1959 the technocratic ministers affiliated with the Catholic Lay order Opus Dei were permitted to
change the course of economic policy by announcing the Economic Stabilization Plan.  The impact of
this plan brought about the ‘economic miracle’ of the 1960’s. The quality of life improved as money came
into the country from emigrants, foreign investment and tourism. Spain started to experience a consumer
culture." from "In 1959"

"The second Vatican Council, in 1962, was in favor of a clear separation between Church and state.
Franco was against this; he did not want his power to block the elevation of liberally minded priests taken
away. The Council exposed these issues, and a new generation of bishops began to speak out against
aspects of the political and social situations, denouncing the conditions of agricultural laborers in the
south, criticizing confessionality, supporting freedom of association and becoming involved in the strikes
and Workers’ Commissions. By the 1970’s, the clergy realised the dangers of tying the Church to a
regime that might not outlast the death of the dictator." from: "The second Vatican Council"

Socialism's Green Meme

"The Socialist doctrine teaches that all men are brothers, that the same red blood of a common humanity flows in the veins of all races, creeds, colors and nations, that the interests of labour are everywhere identical, and that wars are an abomination. Is not this also good Catholic doctrine – the doctrine of a Church which prides itself upon being universal or Catholic? How, then, can that doctrine which is high and holy in theory on the lips of a Catholic become a hissing and a blasphemy when practiced by the Socialist? The Socialist does not cease to love his country when he tries to make that country the common property of its people; he rather shows a greater love of country than is shown by those who wish to perpetuate a system which makes the great majority of the people of a country exiles and outcasts, living by sufferance of capitalists and landlords in their native land. Under Socialism we can all voice the saying of the poet; at present "our" native land is in pawn
to landlords and capitalists. James Connolly, from: "Labour, Nationality and Religion"

"In Marx’s writing Charles Darwin is held in high esteem, largely for having developed a purely materialistic theory of the origin of man (no need for “the opiate of the masses”), and for the notion of evolutionary progress. In Marx’s theorizing the natural outcome of man’s  progressive evolution will be socialism/communism.  By a strange quirk of fate Marx knew  nothing of Mendel’s work and what would become the science of genetics.
Thus, when the Bolsheviks implemented Marxist/Leninism under communism in the Soviet Union, Darwin was revered while Mendel was excoriated.  Evolution yes but inherited individual and group differencesno.  If individual and group differences were to some extent caused by inherited genetic differences instead of being the sole result of previous oppression, then socialist sociopolitical programs might not be capable of creating a utopian egalitarian society. The resulting ideological travesty in the Soviet Union that came to substitute for honest  biological science is called “Lysenkoism,” after one of its main proponents. But it is important
to realize that Trofim Lysenko did not subvert science by himself: the vast majority of biologists and previous-geneticists were willing to play the game.  The alternative option was first social opprobrium, later exile, Gulag, and sometimes death. The Lysenkoist “science” held that genetics, called “Morganism-Mendelism” was a  western bourgeoisie fiction invented to justify slavery and oppression.  The ideological position was that actually genes caused none of the differences among people or animals or plants.  Instead all differences were due to the environmental conditions under which critters grew up."  Glayde Whitney, from "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"Building on Marx’s theory the socialists of the late 1800s clearly saw Jews as their prime enemy. And almost without exception the anti-Semitic movements of the era were all variants of socialism. Wilhelm Marr, who some attribute as the man who coined the term anti-Semitic, bragged: “anti-Semitism is a Socialist movement, only in nobler and purer forms than Social Democracy.” Even the pre-Marxian socialists were convinced anti-Semites. Pierre Leroux, in an 1834 article, one of the first to use the word socialist, said: “This merchant is a real Jew. It is applied, in familiar style, to all those who show great greed for money and eagerness to make it.” He later clarified: “It is quite evident, is it not my friends, that when we speak of Jews we mean the Jewish spirit, the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, the spirit of commerce, of speculation, in a word, the banker’s spirit.”  Leroux’s contemporary and fellow socialist Charles Fourier argued that Jews were “parasites, merchants, usurers” who “pillage the country like pirates and were guilty of mercantile depravities.” Edmund Silberner in Jewish Social Studies  noted: “Socialist anti-Semitism is indeed as old as modern Socialism, and is not limited to any particular country.” Jim Peron, from: "The Marxist Origins of Hitlerian Hate Part 1: Marxist Naziism"

Islam and the Red Meme

"The breakneck spread of Islam was astonishing. By 634, a mere two years after Muhammad's death, Muslim armies were well engaged in the conquest of Persia. Syria fell in 636; Jerusalem was captured in 638. Alexandria was stormed in 641, opening the entire Visogothic realm to the west. Forty years later Muslims were at the gate of Constantinople itself, and from 673 to 677 nearly succeeded in capturing the city. By 681 the Arabs neared the Atlantic, formalizing Islam's incorporation of the old kingdom of the Berbers. Carthage was taken for good in 698 and their last queen, Kahina, captured, her head sent to the caliph at Damascus. Only seventeen miles now separated Islam from Europe proper. By 715 the Visogoths had been conquered in Spain and periodic forays into southern France were commonplace. In 718 Arabs had crossed the Pyrenees in large numbers and occupied Narbonne, killing all the adult male inhabitants and selling the women and children into slavery. By 720 they were freely raiding in Aquitane. The large expedition if 732 led by Abd ar-Rahman, the governor of Morrish Spain, had already captured Poitiers and was advancing to sack Tours when it was intercepted by Charles Martel between villages of Vieux-Poitiers and Moussais-la-Bataille on the road to Orleans."  Victor Davis Hanson, from Carnage and Culture

“Immediately after this violent rush of Islam in the Dark Ages came the assault of a new barbaric Paganism from North and East. The pirates out of Scandinavia did all that such anarchy could to destroy Christendom; so did a vast eruption of Mongols from Asia.” Hilaire Belloc, from How the Reformation Happened

 "...of any organized attempt to force the acceptance of Islam  on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action,  they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out of Spain,  or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France, or the Jews were kept out of England for 350 years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christiandom throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of Mohammedan [sic] governments towards them". Sir Thomas W. Arnold, from: The Preaching of Islam, A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith,  Westminister A. Constable & Co., London, 1896, p. 80.

"It is incorrect and objectionable to call Muslims Muhammadans, as Muhammad is not worshipped
 in the way Christians worship Christ." from "What is Islam"

“Islam, the youngest of the Western religions, sounds again the message of God’s unity. This time the highest truth takes the form of a denial of error: “There is no god but God.” Recognition of this truth constitutes the act of submission by which man becomes a Muslim, “one who submits.” Conscious of his dependence, man acknowledges “I am not the absolute.” Yet one who is called to the inner path of Islam follows the same truth to the ultimate realization “I am nothing separate from or other than the absolute.” From this point of view, unity is reflected everywhere, drawing itself out like a beautiful arabesque that baffles the eye as it continually turns back on itself to create forms by it own interweaving.” Jacob Needleman, from Consciousness & Tradition

"Islam has been a problem. It has inherent tendencies and contradictions that have prevented it from embracing
modernism and therefore fully evolving in a healthy manner; it is, in fact, beset by a range of pathological conditions. The Arabia of Mohammed's time was a Purple/Red society of shifting and warring clan alliances. It was also a society that practised polytheism. The site that is now the Ka'ba was a site in which the various clans would place votive statues to invoke various agricultural and fertility deities. Mohammed was a charismatic reformer who brought monotheism and unity to this society. His actions allowed this society to make the transition from Purple/Red to Red/Blue. The Koran and the Hadith gave rise to a unifying Blue legal system, the Sharia."  Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"The mealy-mouthed and apologetic character of so much Western scholarship on Islam springs from the fact that many of these scholars, were, and are, believers, albeit in the rival creed of Christianity. While they might be
willing to show Muhammad in a poor light compared to Jesus, they were not keen to press the non-historical and
non-divine arguments too far, since they realised that such arguments could just as well be used against their
own cherished beliefs. They preferred a complicity of intellectual dishonesty with the Muslims in the face of an
increasingly skeptical and secular environment."  from Review of "Why I Am Not a Muslim"
by Ibn al-Rawand originally published in the New Humanist

"One of the principle pathologies is its absolutism, a problem it shares with its Abrahamic siblings. Islam holds that Mohammed is the final prophet and that there can be no further revelation. Islam does recognise and acknowledge Judaism and Christianity, but even this recognition is problematic given the absolutist tendencies explicit in those religions. According to Islam both Abraham and Jesus (Isa) are prophets, but Mohammed is accorded primacy as the end of the line, as the end of history. Islam does not recognise the Christian absolutist
claim that Jesus was the only Son of God, nor does it recognise the Jewish absolutist claim that God chose them above all other people." Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"In many respects the fundamentalists are right in their interpretation. There are very clear passages in the Koran and the Hadith that permit a Muslim to kill an unbeliever. The life of Mohammed is a life of violence. Not only did he lead battles, he also ordered his followers to kill individuals. The idea of Jihad is a Red level moral response. It was bound to cause ideological conflict amongst Muslims who evolved to higher vMeme expression." Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

Memes of War

I.
Jihad:
"Israel has nuclear bombs, we have human bombs."
- Sign in Al-Najah University

Reason:
"The best strategy is always to be very strong: first in general and then at the decisive point. There is no higher
and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one's forces concentrated."
- Karl von Clausewitz

II.
Jihad:
"The children of the kindergarten are the holy martyrs of tomorrow."
- Sign in Hamas-run schools

Reason:
"A generation that was destroyed by war, even though it might have escaped its shells."
- Erich Maria Remarque

III.
Jihad:
"I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys. I will tear their
bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know."
- Ahmed, an eleven year old Palestinian

Reason:
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.
- Gen. Robert E. Lee

IV.
Jihad:
"I described to him how God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a
martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness."
- Muhammad Abu Wardeh, Hamas recruiter

Reason:
"There's many who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it's all hell."
- Gen. William T. Sherman

V.
Jihad:
"Oh, Muslims, attack and you will gain one of two blessings: either victory or martyrdom. The Muslim loves death
and martyrdom."
- Ikrama Sabri, Mufti of Jerusalem

Reason:
"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- Gen. George S. Patton
"Five Points: The Difference Between Rational Warfare and Jihad

"I am a soldier, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet."
 -George Washington

Esoteric Islam: Beyond the Red/Blue Meme

“Islam, the youngest of the Western religions, sounds again the message of God’s unity. This time the highest truth takes the form of a denial of error: “There is no god but God.” Recognition of this truth constitutes the act of submission by which man becomes a Muslim, “one who submits.” Conscious of his dependence, man acknowledges “I am not the absolute.” Yet one who is called to the inner path of Islam follows the same truth to the ultimate realization “I am nothing separate from or other than the absolute.” From this point of view, unity is reflected everywhere, drawing itself out like a beautiful arabesque that baffles the eye as it continually turns back on itself to create forms by it own interweaving.” Jacob Needleman, from Consciousness & Tradition

"The initiatic journey to Islamic soil has been a repeated theme of European esotericism, ever since the Templars settled in Jerusalem and the mythical Christian Rosenkreuz learnt his trade in "Damcar" (Damascus). We find it in the lives of Paracelsus and Cagliostro, then, as travel became easier, in a whole host that includes P. B. Randolph, H. P. Blavatsky, Max Theon, G. I. Gurdjieff, Aleister Crowley, Rene Guenon, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, and Henry Corbin. There was very likely some element of this in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1797,  when he announced to an astounded audience that he, too, was a Muslim..." Joscelyn Godwin, from The Theosophical Enlightenment

"The 'moderate' view interprets Jihad to mean an internal 'struggle' with one's own belief. And indeed, a mystical view would include 'struggle' against demonic psychic and subtle energies.  Unfortunately, despite this moderate interpretation the Koran explicitly endorses violence. It is not a case, as with Judaism, that there are contradictory injunctions that lend themselves to various interpretations, or in the case of Christianity expedient interpretations of clearly pacifist teachings, no, the Koran and the Hadith are unmistakably clear about the use of
violence. This attitude can best be summed up as; it is good to kill unbelievers in defence of Islam and those who do so will be assured a place in paradise."  Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"Perhaps the most important Islamic movement to arise in Central Asia was Sufism: a form of Islamic mysticism that preached direct communion with God and tolerance towards all other forms of worship." Ahmed Rashid, from Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia

"The Sufis encouraged popular participation in Islam through their opposition to authority, intellectualism, and the mullahs (clergy). Sufis urged all Muslims to experience God directly, without the intervention of priests or scholars - an important factor in the spead of Islam amongst Central Asia's sparse, nomadic population."  Ahmed Rashid, from Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia

"...during the Crusades Sufism flourished in Muslim-ruled Spain and influenced the early Qabalistic Jews and other mystics on both sides of the border.... Templars fought alongside Sufi warriors in Spain. And many Masonic trappings, such as the checkered floor and the tolerance of all monotheistic religions, are at least Islamic in origin if not specifically Sufic.) Frater Baraka, IV, from "Baphomet: A "Mystery" Solved At Last?

"Sufism predates Islam. Throughout the Middle East there always existed mystic schools of some form or other, from desert visionaries to more organised schools (Jesus, or should I say Joshua ben Yussef, his true name, came under the influence of the mystic John). It can be argued for instance, that Kabala entered Jewish lore as a result of their exile in Babylon. Essentially Sufism is the adaptation of Islam to several mystical traditions, Ismaili Gnosis, Neo-Platonism and so on. The point I want to make here is that Sufism unfortunately, does not arise from within Islam itself, but is the result of the influence of various mystical traditions." Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"Sufism has allowed a multi-layered interpretation of what is essentially a clear set of injunctions. Some Sufi schools hold that there are seven levels to the Koran. The various types of mystical interpretative methods are too complex to go into here. The essential point is that Sufism has allowed what was a previously closed belief system to find ways to be read in an open manner. With the influence of Sufism Islam was able to develop beyond its Red/Blue absolutist barrier."  Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"This development has not been without its conflicts. Sufism needed the patronage of political power to operate successfully. There have always been fundamentalists who see Sufism as impure. At times Sufism has been suppressed. When Sufism is allowed to flourish Islam has, as is to be expected, undergone normal evolution. When Europe was under the thumb of the closed rule of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic hierarchy the Middle East underwent a renaissance. But all this is well known history."  Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"But in the minds of some members of the Catholic Church, a dialogue with Sufis is hardly a dialogue with Islam. Sufis, they claim, are not mainstream Islam. They are considered heretics in some parts of the Islamic world because they believe in an accessible God of love with whom a believer can strive to commune. Sincerity of the heart is the hallmark of the Sufi, who is driven by a desire not only to please God but to be reunited with God." John W. Kiser, from: The Monks of Tibhirine

"Christians consider Sufis to be those Muslims most like themselves. Sufis also conceive of "knowing God," even if it is without the mediation of the Son." John W. Kiser, from: The Monks of Tibhirine

"So the mystery of the number '22' is simply that it is the number ID for darkness, and the Knights Templar usual
 ID 59, is also of the Moon, for it is the ID for the face of the Moon because from Earth we can only ever see 59% of the Moon's surface. Now I won't explain why 159 is the special ID of the Knights Templar. So we have the number 11, the standard height of the Biblical giants, that of Goliath at 6 cubits and a span, we have 33 steps to reach the Masonic Grand First Principle, and 440 cubit ancient Egyptian cubits for the mean width of the base of the four sides of the Great Pyramid, and 44 is the ID for the eagle or eagle's wings. Now the area of the Dome of the Rock, the Islamic shrine so loved by the Knights Templar, the octagonal shrine with sides 67.5 feet, with the crescent Moon on the domed top, has a diameter of 22,000sq.ft. so it is the shrine of darkness." Message from John.D.M

Fundamentalism, Islamism and Political Islam

"When Mohammed succeeded in his conquest he brought Blue stability to Arabia. This stability saw a period of Red/Blue aggressive expansion. The wealth gained by this expansion allowed, despite various dynastic conflicts, an emergence into Blue proper. This then allowed the emergence of individual contributions and Orange innovation and creativity. The Moorish rule of Spain saw a tolerant and creative period that gave rise to such unique thinkers as Ibn Arabi. Arabic culture underwent a renaissance. This was to end. The Moors were defeated and Europe underwent its own renaissance (influenced by the Arabic renaissance). The conquest of the seas brought great wealth to European nations. A period of ascendency led to the conditions that engendered the enlightenment and the consequent modernist/Orange revolution. Whilst this was happening
the Islamic world was steadily loosing its own empires, most notably India to the British and Indonesia to the Dutch, and so on. The Arabic world lost its wealth and declined economically, itself being dominated by European nations, especially the British. Islam was pushed back to its Red/Blue centre. The core needs of Blue and Orange had been denied to them." Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

'Fundamentalism', or 'Islamism', has its roots in the Arabic opposition to the Ottoman Empire, in the tradition of
challenge, and especially the traditional interpretation of Islam by the Wahhabis in present day Saudi Arabia.
This was founded by Muhammad ibn Wahhabi (died 1787) and has dominated Saudi Arabia up until today. It
was a 'purification movement' based on Arab and traditional ideology which grew in reaction to the Ottoman
Caliphate, which some saw to be 'pagan and corrupt'. This encouraged people who were governed by the
Caliph to join in and it gradually led to a re-emergence of Jihad." Bill Turnbull W.F Islam Through the Years - part 2

"The Islamic ideology is an ideology revealed by Allah, the Creator. It offers the only correct, comprehensive, and viable way of life for the human being, providing him with a sound purpose, a clear vision, and a stable life. It manifests itself in the personalities of its followers and in the form of a system implemented by a State. It is a universal ideology meant to liberate all of mankind. Consequently, one cannot accept for this ideology to be confined to a specific people or land; rather, it has to be offered to all of mankind. In order to deliver this ideology to the rest of humanity, the State that adopts this ideology shoulders the responsibility of carrying it to new lands. As would be expected, this goal will lead to a conflict with other states and their ideologies. This conflict has to be resolved either through diplomacy or through force. Every ideology utilises these alternatives. All leading nations use diplomacy and force." from "The Concept Of Jihad In Islam"

"The West developed the discipline of history and began to examine the truth claims of its dominant belief systems. Judaism and Christianity, despite pockets of resistance, were eventually dragged kicking and screaming into such self-examination. Not so with Islam. Both Judaism and Christianity have produced a vital industry of critical research. Islam has not. Any critical research has been very sparse in comparison and has had to contend with hostility from Islam... What we are left with is the Koran, the Hadith and the many interpretations of these texts,  all of which assume the infallibility of the revelations and of Mohammed.
Ray Harris, from "What Is The Integral Response?"

"They had all encountered different Islams: orthodox Islam, mystical Islam, a broad, generous Islam, and a narrow, literalistic Islam. All had experienced the arrogance found most often among the intellectuals and students who used the Koran as if it were Mao's Little Red Book. For them, the Koran was a Xerox copy of God's word. It contained no ambiguity, and when they quoted the Koran, they were speaking for God." John W. Kiser, from: The Monks of Tibhirine

"All Muslims, not just the fanatics, believe that every word of the Quran is quite literally the word of God, absolutely and unquestionably true for all times, places, and people, and practically the same goes for the hadith and the sharia. Anyone who wishes to argue that the fanatics' interpretation of these elements is wrong and that a far more `liberal' interpretation can be made and that that is the real Islam, have really only their own tastes and inclinations to support them. There is no Pope in Islam, nor any Councils with authority to impose a Creed. The fanatic who thinks that all unbelievers should be killed has just as much authority as the Sufi who thinks that all religions are true and that even atheists go to heaven. Both parties could adduce Quranic texts and hadith to support their positions, and both would be drawing, in their own minds, upon the immutable word of God. As Ibn Warraq observes: `Even if we concede that Muslim conservatives have interpreted the sharia in their own way, what gives us the right to say that their interpretation is the inauthentic one and that of the liberal Muslims, authentic? Who is going to decide what is authentic Islam?'" from Review of "Why I Am Not a Muslim" by Ibn al-Rawand originally published in the New Humanist

"What is different about Islam is that while there have been a few attempts at such a reformation, none has flowered or found the support of a Muslim state. We patronize Islam, and mislead ourselves, by repeating the mantra that Islam is a faith with no serious problems accepting the secular West, modernity and pluralism, and the only problem is a few bin Ladens. Although there is a deep moral impulse in Islam for justice, charity and compassion, Islam has not developed a dominant religious philosophy that allows equal recognition of alternative faith communities. Bin Laden reflects the most extreme version of that exclusivity, and he hit us in the face with it on 9-11. Christianity and Judaism struggled with this issue for centuries, but a similar internal struggle within Islam to re-examine its texts and articulate a path for how one can accept pluralism and modernity -- and still be a passionate, devout Muslim -- has not surfaced in any serious way. One hopes that now that the world spotlight has been put on this issue, mainstream Muslims too will realize that their future in this integrated, globalized world depends on their ability to reinterpret their past." Thomas L. Friedman, from "In this war, generals don't wear stars"

"Muslims no longer view Islamism as the source of utopia, and this more pragmatic view augurs well for the future." Gilles Kepel, from Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam

"Islamism is the most serious totalitarian threat to challenge the world since the fall of Communism. Like communism, its cadres form an internationale of dedicated adherents with a global support group of fellow travelers supplying money, logistics, propaganda and muscle. It is fanatic, intolerant of dissent and contemptuous of the very societies whose principles it uses to undermine them. Unlike Communism, it does not have a single headquarters but is a supranational movement, taking advantage of various host entities as the occasion warrants. Its chief venue of organization is not the union hall but the mosque. Just as Communists infiltrated unions in the ‘20s and ‘30s in an attempt to take over organized labor, the Islamists, with financial and logistical help from their Saudi backers, have taken control of mosques throughout the West and elsewhere, as well as seized control of education from the Middle East to Pakistan." Jack Schwartz, from "Islamophobia"

""Jihad in America" pulled together a fair representation of the material we had collected. We showed Hamas operatives and militant mullahs preaching jihad and violence "with the gun" against Israel and America. We didn't show the torture and confessions of Palestinian collaborators -- that would have been too inflammatory. The documentary continuously stressed the fact  that militant Islamists are only a minute percentage of the Muslim population.  Nevertheless, the film was attacked, and I was called a "crusader," a "racist," and just about everything else. To say it was disconcerting would  be an understatement. I never anticipated the degree to which these groups were going to try to deny what was going on. They claimed that I was making it all up and that I had fabricated the tapes. I was also amazed at how far some prominent mainstream newspapers would do the same, some running several highly skeptical and critical editorials. Other newspapers simply used the tried-and-true method of being "even-handed." On the one  hand, Steve Emerson says militant Islamic groups are bringing jihad to America. On the other hand, Islamic groups deny it." Steven Emerson, from "How I made "Jihad in America"  and lived to tell about it"

"Another YENI SAFAK headline said that Steve Emerson, "who deceives the public by portraying his own articles as FBI reports... was in fact a "hit man of MOSSAD", the Israeli intelligence organization." "Turkish Press Scanner"

"Potentially anti-Semitic commentary contained in a translation of the Quran distributed to every middle school and high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District prompted school officials Tuesday to remove the Muslim holy books from school libraries.  Nearly 300 copies of "The Meaning of the Holy Quran" printed in English and Spanish will be  reviewed for content. They were donated to the school district last week by the Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation, the funding arm of the Omar Center for Cultural and Educational Outreach
in Los Angeles. Questions about the commentary contained in the book's foreward -- which officials say
refers to Jewish people as illiterates who reject knowledge -- arose after a history teacher read the comments and told school district officials that the book was anti-Semitic." Holly Edwards, from  "Schools' Quran shelved by concerns over anti-Semitism"

"THE PRIMERS, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines,
have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.  As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence." Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, from: "From the U.S.A., the ABCs of jihad: The unintended result of rousing Islam to fight communism"

"Up until that point I had thought militancy was a mind-set of impoverished and ill-educated people whose fervor was driven by their lack of opportunity in life. But this was an audience of privileged young people -- future doctors and lawyers -- and still they openly supported Hamas. This brought home to me that Islamic fundamentalism is a trans-class movement.  Poverty and lack of opportunity have little or nothing to do with it. The real proof of militant Islam's trans-class appeal can be seen in the support for the Islamic Fundamentalism among the unions representing doctors, lawyers, and scientists in Islamic countries and in the support for bin Laden in such wealthy countries as Saudi Arabia, Qator, and Kuwait."  Steven Emerson, from "How I made "Jihad in America"  and lived to tell about it"

Abusing My Religion: Hijacked Memes

"An Englishman, Jason Goodwin, wrote a best seller about the history of the Ottoman Empire, Lords of the Horizon. The Turks successfully used the concept of an emporium within an emporium in controlling its empire. Goodwin also noted that the provision within the Koran that it is better to lose a prince rather than a province. A New York Times columnist, Friedman, goes after the Palestinians for not using Gandhi's passive resistance tactics, rather that sacrificing a few princes for the sake of a province. Goodwin also mentions another concept from the Koran. The Koran says that he who destroys fruit trees is forever cursed. A few weeks ago, NPR said that for the first time in Afghanistan fruit trees were extensively destroyed. If the United States destroyed the trees, does then the devote Muslim population of Afghanistan and nearby Pakistan now believe that the US is forever cursed? Joseph Canepa, from: Subject: Re: Odds & Ends

"Enraged at seeing his imperial designs thus thwarted, Wilhelm now issued his celebrated order to all German agents and diplomats in the East to unleash the wrath 'of the entire Mohammedan world' against his British cousins." Peter Hopkirk, from Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire

 "Allahu ta'ala declared in the eighty-second ayat of Maida sura of Qur'an al-karim, "The biggest enemies of
 Islam are the Jews and mushriks." The first mischief contrived to demolish Islam from within was instigated by a
 Jew, namely Abdullah bin Sebe' of Yaman. He established the Shiite sect against the Ahl as-sunnat, the true
 Muslim group. From then on, Jews disguised as Shiite scholars in every century consolidated this sect. After
 the Ascension of Isa alaihissalam a number of corrupt Bibles were written. Most of the Christians became
 mushriks (those who believe more than one god). Others became kafirs (disbelievers) since they did not
 believe Muhammad alaihissalam. These and the Jews were called Ahl-i kitab (people with a heavenly book).
 When Islam was established, hegemony of the priests as in the Dark Ages, was abolished. They founded
 missionary organizations to abolish Islam. The British were the forerunner in this regard. A Ministry of the
 Commonwealth was established in London with a view of fighting against Islam. People who worked in this
 Ministry were taught the Jewish tricks. Contriving inconceivably vicious plans, they attacked Islam using all
 available military and political forces toward this end. Hempher, only one of the thousands of male and female
 agents employed and sent forth to all countries by this ministry, entrapped a person named Muhammad of Najd
 in Basra, misled him for many years, and caused him to establish the sect called Wahhabi in 1125 [1713 A.D.].
 They announced this sect in 1150." from, "Confessions of a British Spy"

 "According to the British, there are three groups of people on the earth: The first group are the British, who are
 self-portraited as the most developed beings Allah has ever created in the human form. The second group are
 the white-colored Europeans and Americans. These people may also be worthy of respect, as they so
 generously admit. The third group are the people who have not had the luck of being born in either of the first
 two groups. They are the sort of creatures between human beings and animals. They are not worthy of respect
 at all; nor do they deserve such things as freedom, independence or a country. They have been created for
 living under others' domination, especially that of the British." Confessions of a British Spy"

"In World War I  the Ottoman Turks supported Germany, but defeat brought the loss of their territories outside Asia Minor. Germany's Propaganda Department in Berlin urged the government of Turkey to declare jihad (a Muslim holy war). To date, neither German nor Turkish historians have reappraised the question of shared guilt or responsibility for the annihilation and expulsion of two million Christians (Armenians and Assyrians) in Turkey during the First World War, a genocide that is still not part of our historical consciousness. It is often described as the 20th century's second worst genocide after the Jewish Holocaust in Germany." The Hidden Origins of Nazism

"Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), for example, later to become prime minister of Great Britain, once thought of volunteering for the Ottoman army. Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), perhaps Europe's single most influential student of the Middle East, went so far as to pray as a Muslim in Cairo, recounting that "never in my life was I more devout, more truly devout." Some actually converted: Muhammad Asad, né Leopold Weiss of Lvov and Vienna (1900-92), advised the Saudi king and served as Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations before settling down to publish an influential  English-language translation of the Qur'an."  Daniel Pipes, On  "The Jewish Discovery of Islam"

"The proclamation was read out at a solemn ceremony in Constantinople by the Shaikh-ul-Islam, the highest religious authority in the land after the Sultan himself. This he did before the great mosque of Mehmet the Conqueror, named after the brilliant Ottoman chieftain who seized the city from its Christian rulers four centuries before. In his summons to Muslims everywhere to join the Holy War, he ordered them to rise as one and smite their infidel oppressors wherever they could be found...But it was among the millions of Muslims living under British and Russian rule that Berlin and Constantinople wanted word of the Sultan's fatwa to spread. For it was there, under the banner of Holy War, that they planned to forment violent revolutionary uprisings and persuade Muslim units of the British and Russian armies to refuse to fight against Turkey or its German ally." Peter Hopkirk, from Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire

"Ghulam Ahmad was a heretic belonging to the Ismaili group. He died in 1326 [C.E. 1908]. The British hired him
 for a considerable sum of money. Formerly he claimed to be a Mujaddid; then he promoted this claim of being
 the promised Mahdi; his next step was to assert that he was Jesus the Messiah. Finally, he announced that he
 was a Prophet and had been revealed a new religion. He called the people he had managed to deceive his
 'ummat', asserted that many ayats had foretold of him and that he displayed more miracles than had any other
 Prophet. He alleged that those who would not believe him were unbelievers. His sect spread among the
 ignorant people in Punjab and Bombay. The Qadiyani sect is still spreading under the name Ahmadiyya
 movement in Europe and America." from "Confessions of a British Spy"

"With the arrival of the Muslim, India literally went into hibernation. That the Hindus ... sided often with the British to overthrow the cultural if not the political yoke of Islam is common knowledge. Living under the British was not exactly a matter of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The fire, it turned out, served to purify Hinduism in many ways. The early British missionaries may have succeeded in some way to recruit lower castes into Christianity, but then came the social reformers in their dozens from Raja Ram Mohan Roy to Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Swami Vivekananda at one end and Dayananda Saraswati at the other. During the Moghul period Hinduism had got stratified. During the British Period, especially from 1900 onwards Hinduism came to be resurgent."  M V Kamath, from "The millennium that's soon to go"

"... it would appear that a type of strict jihad or perversion of Islam may have come into being in 20th century Germany. The goals of this iniquitous association were to destroy infidel minorities, replace the family unit with a harem or harlot component, lure youngsters toward Wicca and djinn worship, eliminate expressions of art (except for  crescent moon drawings, swastikas, etc.), prohibit alcohol or other intoxicants, and direct a media spotlight on Sumerian, Babylonian and Ottoman myths. But to attract Europeans, it had to be done under the guise of an Aryan revival, while strongly hinting that the original Aryan Fatherland was not Nordic, but
near the northern borders of Turkey." The Hidden Origins of Nazism

"For decades pro-Israeli lobbyists have operated under the assumption that Islam and Israel are locked up in a
 zero-sum-game. They see the growth of Islam and growth of Islamic consciousness as a threat to the very existence of Israel. Based on this operating premise, pro-Israeli forces have sought to undermine the spread of Islam in the US and stem the increasing political significance of Muslim organizations. It is easy to understand the fears of the friends of Israel. In order to sustain Israel’s military advantage over Arabs, they have to sustain the asymmetrical balance of power between American Jewish lobby and the American Muslim lobby." Dr. Muqtedar Khan, from "The Domestic Dimension of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

"In helping to develop 19th-century European attitudes toward the Middle East, Jewish scholars, Lewis has pointed out, brought a very different sensibility to bear from that of their Christian counterparts. Unaffected by
"nostalgia for the Crusades," and untouched by the bitterly hostile feelings toward Islam and Muslims that prevailed in Europe, Jews, in Lewis's words, played "a key role in the development of an objective, nonpolemical, and positive evaluation of Islamic civilization." More broadly, they were "among the first who attempted to present Islam to European readers as Muslim themselves see it and to stress, to recognize, and indeed sometimes to romanticize the merits and achievements of Muslim civilization." Daniel Pipes, On           "The Jewish Discovery of Islam"

"In his insider expose' of `Islamic Studies,' Dr Ghorab demonstrates how the new school of thought derives legitimacy by employing compliant Muslim scholars and professors, such as Ja'afar Sheikh Idris, Yusuf al-Qaradawi,Abdullah and Akbar Ahmed, to name just a few. Christian missionaries and professors, such as Bishop Kenneth Cragg, Rev. Montgomery Watt and John Esposito, are, as Dr Ghorab shows, always close at hand to guide verious `Islamic Studies' programmes . Dr Ghorab also exposes the Saudi role in funding such programmes, both in the Muslim world and in various European and American academic institutions. Dr Ghorab provides a detailed discussion of the Oxford Centre for `Islamic Studies,' and also mentions other institutions with similar programmes, such as the Hartford Seminary, College of the Holy Cross, or Princeton University. By naming people and places suberting Islam, Dr Ghorab has done a great service for the Islamic movement...
Rahhalah Haqq, from "Book Review: Subverting Islam: The Role of Orientalist Centres by: Dr Ahmad Ghorab

"Columbia University in New York City, fits Dr Ghorab's description of a centre for subverting  Islam. While there is no department of Islamic Studies per se, Islam is the focus of various components within the Departments of Middle East Languages and Cultures (MELAC), Religion, Music, and, Anthropology, as well as the Middle East Institute. Though staffed primarily by Jews and Christians, there are also a few Muslim professors on hand for good measure. While the student body is one-third Jewish, some Muslim students take their degrees from Columbia, a few in MELAC... Many of the students who study languages at Columbia do so either to train for the Israeli Mossad or the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)...Rahhalah Haqq, from "Book Review: Subverting Islam: The Role of Orientalist Centres by: Dr Ahmad Ghorab

"At Columbia, political studies of Islam are the task of the Middle East Institute, a part of the University's school of International and Public Affairs, which is a recruiting front for the CIA...The Muslim Student Association (MSA) at Columbia reflects `Islamic Studies' in practice. During the early 1990s, its president was a Jewish convert to
Islam (who has reportedly now changed his mind).  A model `moderate' Muslim, he was a student in the Department of Religion, which projects Islam as a violent antithesis to Buddhism, the preferred religion for this department's faculty."Rahhalah Haqq, from "Book Review: Subverting Islam: The Role of Orientalist Centres by: Dr Ahmad Ghorab

"In 1992 when Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan offered to join hands with a group of zionists to commemorate the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain, MSA-central in Indiana quickly called for implementation of this plan on its satellite campuses. When some Muslim students at Columbia suggested inviting Dr T B Irving, a Muslim scholar of Islamic Spain, the Jewish student protested,  claiming that he was an `extremist' and an `anti-Semite,' the latter a zionist euphemism for anyone who questions Israeli supremacy. The programme was subsequently cancelled, after the Saudis and the zionists could not secure a `moderate' speaker.... In the US, people like Esposito are revered as Islamic scholars by several Muslim organizations. As Dr Ghorab points out, Esposito was invited by the Saudis as far back as 1983, when he suggested establishing an institute for `Islamic Studies' in the US... The American Muslim Council (AMC) needs to be investigated for ties to the Saudis and official Islam in places like Egypt, as well as for its connections with US government agencies and corporations.... One of the stated policy goals of the AMC is to entangle Muslims with American party politics, which is also a US government policy goal recommended by CIA analysts and the RAND Corporation in a special report prepared for the US department of Defence in 1990. Founding AMC member Robert Crane, whose long history of US government service includes an appointment as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates by US president Reagan, is one of the AMC ideologues. He fits Dr Ghorab's description to someone who is seeking to "revise" expediency. The AMC also appears to be playing a role in dividing Muslims between `moderates' and `extremists', fulfilling another agenda item for `Islamic Studies', as is evidenced by public statements on Steve Emerson's zionist `jihad' against Muslims or on the rigged `trial' of Shaikh Omar Abdel Rahman and other Muslims in New York." Rahhalah Haqq, from "Book Review: Subverting Islam: The Role of Orientalist Centres by: Dr Ahmad Ghorab

"American Muslim leaders and organizations’ only failing is that they have not fully learned to play  “American political games” skillfully. Sometimes their naivete and even sincerity leads them to make strategic errors as
they seek to balance their loyalties to America and to Muslim worldwide.  Riding two horses is never too easy and sometimes,  Muslim leaders do look ungainly. But that does not make them terrorists or traitors. If it is ok to be loyal to America and Israel,  then it is ok to be loyal to America and the Ummah. Only American Muslims have to learn to be so with as much skill and finesse as displayed by pro-Israeli lobbies." Dr. Muqtedar Khan, from "The Domestic Dimension of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

"The most sophisticated version of the attack on Islam is the attempt to besmirch the reputation of prominent American scholars of Islam and the Middle East who advance different analysis of Islam and Islamic resurgence from that maintained by Israel. A recent book, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America authored by an Israeli scholar,  Martin Kramer, and published after Sept. 11th by a pro-Israel think tank, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,  criticizes the entire academy. Interestingly this book is just an expanded version of an article written by (no prizes for guessing) Daniel Pipes and De Atkine, Middle Eastern Studies: What went Wrong? in the Winter 1995-1996 issue of Academic Questions." Dr. Muqtedar Khan, from "The Domestic Dimension of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

"Muslims themselves have played a critical role in this process. Having adopted the romantic conceptions propagated by Jewish scholars, and having incorporated them into the Islamic self-image, they then turned  them into weapons against Zionism and Jews. As Lewis has written, the myth of a time when Jews enjoyed equal rights with Muslims "was invented by Jews in 19th-century Europe as a reproach to Christians--and taken up by Muslims in our own time as a reproach to Jews," particularly the Jews in the state of Israel who have declined to assume their "rightful" - i.e., subordinate - place in the Islamic Middle East. It is an old story, this story of good will rewarded with enmity, but seldom has it been illuminated with such bitter clarity."  Daniel Pipes, On  "The Jewish Discovery of Islam"

 "The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and
mines, have served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan secular government in the
early 1990s] as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002

According to the Post, these violent Islamist schoolbooks, which "served...as the Afghan school system's core curriculum" produced "unintended consequences."  Core curriculum? Unintended consequences? Yes, reports the Washington Post, according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence."  How could this result be unintended? Did they expect that having fundamentalist schoolbooks in the core curriculum would produce moderate Muslims?... Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks." Jared Israel , from: "BUSH & THE MEDIA COVER UP THE JIHAD SCHOOLBOOK SCANDAL"
 

Caste: Equality or Quality

"Caste [Lat. castus, pure]: Ger. Kaste; Fr. caste; Ital. casta. A class distinguished originally by marks of race, but
later by occupation, or religious faith, or both, and perpetuated by descent and rigid limitation of social
intercourse; a name given by the first European (Portuguese) settlers in India to divisions of the social system.

'Caste, at first, means "pure," and signifies that there is a moral barrier between the caste and the outcast. . . .
The native word [varna] means "colour," and the first formal distinction was national, (white) Aryan and "black
man"' (Washburn Hopkins, The Religions of India, 28). 'In societies of an archaic type, a particular craft or kind
of knowledge becomes in time an hereditary profession of families, almost as a matter of course' (Maine, Early
Hist. of Institutions, lect. viii. 245). 'The maintenance of those class-divisions which arise as political
organization advances, implies the inheritance of a rank and a place in each class. The like happens with those
subdivisions of classes, which in some societies constitute castes, and in other societies are exemplified by
incorporated trades' (Spencer, Princ. of Sociol., v. iii. § 444). (F.H.G.) It commonly originates in usages which have become prescriptive, or have been stereotyped into duties; and where the division is most completely crystallized, religious sanction often plays a great formative part. Although the term is applied pre-eminently to the Brahmanic system of India, caste, or something like it, may be found in many civilizations, and at widely separated periods of time; e.g. in Iran (Persia), in pre-Brahmanic India, in Madagascar, among the North American Indians, in mediaeval Europe, and to-day in countries having nobility. Nevertheless, India remains the classic instance of the institution."   from Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology by James Mark Baldwin

“Like all sacred institutions, the caste system is based on the very nature of things (…) to justify the caste system, it is enough to ask this question: do heredity and diversity of qualities exist? If yes, the caste system is
possible and legitimate.” Frithjof Schuon, from Castes et Races

" Should it not be possible to appreciate certain historical merits of the caste system (e.g. its decentralized structure which helped Hindu society to survive centuries of Islamic occupation) without going all the way in glorifying it?" Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"The caste system as a religiously sanctioned hierarchical organization of society has exerted a fascination on Western nostaligics who felt lost in the modem world and longed for a kind of restoration of the pre-modem world.  Among these nostaligics, one of extraordinary stature was certainly Julius Evola (1898-1974), an Italian aristocrat and an independent Rightist ideologue who, after years in the margin, ingratiated himself with the Fascist regime by developing a “truly Italian” version of the Race Theory, “more spiritual than the purely biological German Rassenlehre”. Thus, he rejected biological determinism in favour of will-power, preferring chivalrous values like courage over the modem rigid bio-materialist subjection of man to the verdict of his genes." Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"Circumstances can make the ingredients of individual identities conflict, or click in unexpected ways. A grand lady in the former Portuguese colony of Goa, who grew up speaking Portuguese, Goan, Hindi, and English, described herself to me as a Roman Catholic Brahmin. It struck me as curious that a Christian would still be so conscious of her Hindu caste. Then she explained that in the colonial past Christians had a special need to protect their Indian identity from Portuguese encroachment, and so caste consciousness grew even stronger."
Ian Buruma, from:  "The Blood Lust of Identity"

"Vivekananda was a staunch follower of Rama Krishna... He did not like the myths and superstitions with which the religion is generally associated. Under the able guidance of his guru he began to believe in God as the totality of all souls. He advised people to practice religion through complete devotion to men and not through ascetism and meditation. He strengthened the spiritual legacy of India in the 19th century. He never hesitated to condemn evils like casteism, but his pride in the philosophy of Hinduism combined with his catholicity of views turned the Parliament of Religions in 1893 into a historical event."  from Indian Mirrorr - Makers of India - A portfolio of Portraits

"Bishops and religious superiors had subscribed to that culture’s ethic of reflexively supporting its privileged and professional members. They accepted this baptized version of the caste system as in the nature of things. Church leaders at every level were conditioned to believe that, by virtue of their office, their own words and actions incarnated the will of God. Their subjects were trained to hear God’s voice in that of the bishop or the abbot and to forsake their own feelings and judgment if they conflicted with those of the superior class. To this day, many bishops firmly believe that their ordination grants them a share of the infallibility attributed to the pope." Eugene Cullen Kennedy, from "Fall From Grace: Abuse scandals strain an already crumbling institution"

"The people were impressed and attracted by the provision in the Qur'an and the Hadith that mankind should be ranked on a basis of interpersonal equality. Those who for so long had been considered of low caste saw how the different strata of Islamic society were laid before them. They were no longer imprisoned within a religious caste system and the notion of living in "classes". In Islam there was no discrimination, or division on the basis of colour, class tribal affiliation, race, homeland and birthplace, all of which gave rise to problems. Equal rights seemed the right human solution, which in practice meant the acceptance of rights and obligation as a member of the Islamic Community. The pious person achieved sublimity and nearness to God." Hj. Ahmad Kamar, from "Islam in Peninsular Malaysia"

Nationalism

"The problem for researchers concerned with establishing humanity's true history is that the goals of nationalists or ethnic groups who want to lay claim to having been in a particular place first, often dovetail with the goals of cultural evolutionists.  Archaeologists are quick to go along with suppressing these kinds of anomalous finds. One reason Egyptologists so jealously guard the Great Pyramid's construction date has to do with the
issue of national pride." Will Hart, from "The Brain Police and the Big Lie"
 

"In certain factions of Hindu nationalism, it is not uncommon to find Muslims described as traitors.140 After the Partition, which turned millions of Hindus into foreigners in their places of birth overnight, which put at least seven million of them to flight, and which may have killed up to half a million of them, it is not surprising that many Hindus remember how that Partition was imposed on an unwilling Hindu majority by an intransigeant Muslim minority.  Of course, generalizations about groups of people are dangerous and unwarranted, and the simplistic crudeness of some RSS discourse about Muslims is deplorable.  Yet, even the grossest RSS blockhead hasn’t stooped to calling them “alien”. Though their religion is undeniably of alien origin, and though many of them cultivate imaginary Arab genealogies for themselves, the Indian Muslims are mostly the progeny of Hindu converts to Islam.  This fact, far from being denied, is frequently cited in RSS literature as a basis for reclaiming these Muslims for Indian nationalism if not for Hinduism. Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"... India's Hindu Nationalists have always resembled 1930s European fascists more than they do contemporary "fundamentalists." Members of the core organization of Hindu nationalism, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in the 1920s, are given paramilitary instruction, not religious, and wear khaki uniforms reminiscent of Mussolini's brownshirts. While the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), founded in the 1960s, is mainly
concerned with religion, it still does not prescribe how Hindus should worship or behave--an impossible task given the diversity of Hindu religious practice. Instead, like all Hindu nationalists, it is bent on characterizing Muslims as alien and hostile while seeking to unify Hindus around a romantic nationalism, in which military prowess plays a central role. Hindu nationalists' emphasis on international prestige has won them the support of the westernized middle class, typically the target of Islamic fundamentalism. Their focus on demonizing Muslims rather than promoting Hinduism is illustrated even by the dispute over Ayodhya, where extremist Hindu groups destroyed a 16th century Muslim mosque in 1992, sparking nationwide sectarian riots in which more than 2,000 people died. Hindu nationalists claim that a temple on the same site honoring the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Rama, was torn down to make way for the mosque. For Hindu extremist groups the claim that a temple was torn down to build a mosque--for which there is no concrete evidence--was at least as important as the claim that Rama was born at the site. The destruction of the mosque was commonly spoken of in terms of retaking territory that had been lost to invaders. Hindu nationalists have identified other mosques they wish to destroy, claiming that these too were built on temple sites. For none do they claim the sanctity associated with the birthplace of Rama. Indeed, the purpose of claiming a particular site as Rama's birthplace--for which there is no basis in theology or tradition--was to justify tearing down the existing mosque." Arun R. Swamy, from: "Is India Going the Way of 1930s Germany?"

"Indian Marxists have the power but lack the numbers, so they have cultivated alliances with all actual or potential enemies of Hinduism.  Most importantly, they have assiduously sought to ingratiate themselves with India’s large Muslim community (about 13% of the population), and in any debate with Hindu nationalists, they will invariably try  to drag in some Muslim angle to the topic at hand.  Their last trump card against the anti-AIT argument is that it is somehow anti-Muslim: “The Hindutva version of the theory became a mechanism for excluding some sections of Indian society, specifically Indian Muslims and Christians, by insisting that they are alien.”137 Or: “If Muslims have to be projected as the sole invaders of this land, the Aryans need to be presented as natives… If the Muslims are to be projected as traitors, bereft of any attachment to this land, they need to be presented as the only outsider.”Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"The platform of the Socialists of the United States lays down: "The aim of Socialism is the organisation of the working classes for the purpose of transforming the present system of private ownership of the means of production into collective ownership by the entire people." The International Socialist Convention at Paris, 1900, lays down as an essential condition of membership the admission of the essential principles of Socialism; amongst  them, "the socialisation of the means of production and distribution". James Connolly, from: "Labour, Nationality and Religion"

"Communists still try to capitalize on their victory against Nazism in their struggle against other opponents, arguing e.g. that liberal democracy is deeply flawed and that this is proven by Hitler’s rise to power through democratic elections: so, down with democracy, for it has “led to” Hitler’s regime." Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"Sri Aurobindo, for one, has definitely used the term “Aryan race”, thereby not meaning what Hitler and post-Hitlerian readers will understand by that term, but “Hindu nation”.  For all his “Aryan race” talk, Aurobindo was among the most clear-sighted analysts of the problem which Nazism posed.  In 1939, Aurobindo advocated India’s total support to the Allied cause as a matter of principle, because he saw in Hitler a force of evil; this at a time when many Indians, both Hindu and Muslim, were very fond of Hitler, and when others advocated participation in the British war effort on purely tactical grounds. On 19 September 1940, he briefly broke his self-imposed seclusion to make a public statement: “We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilization (…) To this cause our support and sympathy will be unswerving whatever may happen; we look forward to the victory of Britain and, as the eventual result, an era of peace and union among the nations”. Koenraad Elst, from: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

"From about 1450 on, most of the Arabic speaking world was under the domination of the Turkish Empire. In the late 1800’s came the rise of Arab Nationalism. The Arabic language became an emotional symbol of the unity of subject people in the Turkish Empire against their Turkish overlords. People began to think of themselves as one Arab nation. Along the more westernized this unity included Christian Arabs as well as Muslims." Jodey Bateman, from "Four Thousand Years of History"

"Zionism was an expression of European liberalism, and there were Arab intellectuals who imagined that            their nationalism also would be nurtured by that source. But, in practice, Arab nationalism has become a very nasty business, defined everywhere by dictatorship. Palestinian nationalism is no different. Arafat has no grand vision of human affairs whatsoever, no desire other than territory--and territory not as the seedbed for an inspired vision of community but as a launching pad for war against the Jews." Martin Peretz , from "Murdering Jews, Then and Now"

Life Forces and Bad Blood

“It is no coincidence that the rise of tribunal to impose religious orthodoxy [the Inquisition] was accompanied by the growth of certain practices designed to secure racial purity, for religious and racial deviation were equated in the popular mind.” J.H. Elliott, from Imperial Spain

“A certification from the Inquisition testifying to the purity of his blood was required of any individual who sought appointment to government municipal office, a religious or military order, the faculty of the universities, and nearly any position of social significance. “Clean” blood became the determinant of one’s good name.”   Arthur H. Williamson, from “The Cultural Foundations of Racial Religion and Anti-Semitism” in Lingering Shadows: Jungians, Freudians and Anti-Semitism

"It is maintained that the position of Jews in Medieval Europe “cannot be distinguished from modern racial prejudice” (p. 20).  Furthermore; Jewish persecution clearly illustrates that the idea of race can be socially constructed.  The Jews were a cultural group rather than a biologically distinct population (to say nothing of a race) (p. 20)." Joseph L. Graves Jr., from Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium

"In imperial Spain "Pure" blood, "clean" blood, became the criterion of community, of civic capacity, and ultimately of survival. Such categories translated readily into the circumstances of the New World, where the authorities sought to introduce certifications of "whiteness." Arthur H. Williamson, from “The Cultural Foundations of Racial Religion and Anti-Semitism” in Lingering Shadows: Jungians, Freudians and Anti-Semitism

"Arabs often look like Jews, since both are Semitic. Much as bin Laden hates Jews and imagines himself to be an Arab holy war daredevil, who defeated Soviet Russia and will defeat the West, he looks like a 19th century Russian Jew, terrified by pogroms. His premature senility and grave ailments do not a