More Rock ~

So some say: it is the "Christian West" vs. "Islam."

Now leaving aside which and what "Islam" they're talking about, more to the fact they should say: it is the Duotheist Manichean "West" disguised as a Christian vs. "Islam" -- if not "the Rest" for that matter.

For one cannot claim being a Christian without being a Monotheist at the same time. And being a Monotheist, the "West" never was nor is.

The state of being dedicated to the One God as the origin and end of all, as the ultimate point of reference and value-center, the "West" never knew what that was/is all about.

So why bother calling it "Christian"? . . .

* * *

~ And,

Here is from H. R. Niebuhr:

There is a third form of human faith [beside Polytheism and Henotheism] with which we are acquainted in the West, more as hope than as datum, more perhaps as a possibility than as an actuality, yet also as an actuality that has modified at certain emergent periods our natural social faith and our polytheism.

In all the times and areas of our Western history this faith has struggled with its rivals, without becoming triumphant save in passing moments and in the clarified intervals of personal existence.

We look back longingly at times to some past age when, we think, confidence in the One God was the pervasive faith of men; for instance, to early Christianity, or to the church society of the Middle Ages, or to early Protestantism, or to Puritan New England, or to the pious nineteenth century.

But when we study these periods we invariably find in them a mixture of the faith in the One God with social faith [henotheism ] and polytheism; and when we examine our longings we often discover that what we yearn for is the security of the closed society with its social confidence and social loyalty.

It is very questionable, despite many protestations to the contrary, despite the prevalence of self-pity among some modern men because "God is dead," that anyone has ever yearned for radical faith in the One God.

Radical Monotheism and Western Culture, p. 31

Let's Rock!

Which "Islam" and which "West" are people talking about?

It is as if there are two monoliths out there diametrically opposed to each other--is that true?

Some people say "Islam" is not understood in the "West" - Fine, but is "Christianity" itself understood in the "West", let alone other religions of the world?

"Christianity" is taken to be a Monotheistic religion, given its origin in the Abrahamic faith. But then again one looks in vain to see such Monotheism in the "Christian West."

The One God of Abraham was short-circuited, equated with Jesus a long time ago. A mistake anyone with a modicum of education in Monotheism does not do.

For when one equates Jesus with the One God of Abraham one ends up positing TWO GODS:

One is GOOD = Jesus = God

The other is EVIL = Devil = Satan

And, what does not look like Jesus=God the "Christian West" deemed and still deems it to be of the Devil, be it Muslim or Hindu or Native American, or what have you--not forgetting the other "Jesuses" of other "Christians."

No wonder why a lot of "Christians" are so fond of talking about Satan, since he is in a perpetual struggle against their Jesus=God, naturally.

Here, then, we see the "Christian West" looks more like a Duo-theist Manichean disguised as a Christian than a Mono-theist Christian.

In short,

The "West" never really knew what the One God of Abraham was/is all about, and, concomitantly, what the Christ was/is all about.

Never knew what One God & One Adam, Love God & Neighbor was/is all about.

The disastrous political consequences of this ILL-conceived Abrahamic Monotheism for the "West," and for other cultures that came in contact with it, are written all over the pages of "Western" history.