Quote: (06-29-2014 12:39 AM)scorpion Wrote:
Quote: (06-29-2014 12:15 AM)CaP7 Wrote:
As a WASP American, it is very hard for me to imagine a traditional Spaniard, or an Italian, in modern times, identifying with Mecca and Medina.
You realize this is what the Romans used to think about Christianity two thousand years ago, right? They regarded it as a death cult invented by some crazy Jews from the desert. The idea that it would become Rome's official state religion, much less dominate Europe and spread worldwide was unfathomable to them.
But it did.
Whether you attribute Christianity's success to divine mandate or simply to blind chance, the fact that it did succeed demonstrates that large-scale religious conversions can occur over relatively short time frames.
The fact is that most people will simply believe whatever they're told to believe, and whatever they're peer-pressured into believing. With Islam particularly there are compelling reasons to convert once a critical mass of Muslims infiltrate your area: they tend to kill you if you don't. That's more than enough incentive for the weak-willed and the non-believers, who would find it preferable to become a fake Muslim rather than a corpse.
Point taken.
It seems we keep going back 2 centuries to find examples that could occur in modern times. I'm not opposed to that, and I think I share your macro line of thinking regarding general, consistent characteristics of humanity.
One idea that keeps pestering me is, "Where is the next major war going to come from?" If you look back at human history, one consistent characteristic is that we have slaughtered each other. Stay with me here... There have been many different causes of war, but, there has always been major wars amongst civilized people. Therefore, war/conflict is a consistent characteristic of humanity.
The last major war that caused significant casualties of a 'civilized' country was...Vietnam with 58,000 U.S. soldiers dying? That was 40+ years ago. It doesn't seem unlikely that a Western country could see a major conflict in the next 20 to 40 years.
Perhaps there will be a Muslim conflict in Europe, in a country like France or Belgium. That sounds like a complete geopolitical mess where significant casualties of a modernized country would occur.