Insightful commentary

Meant to post this because I found it particulartly insightful. Its an excerpt of a conversation I was
having with alexanderc.

Me: I just was getting frustrated and had to vent.
I’ve got tons of friends that are quite religious without being
idiots so it frustrates me even more to see folks out there that
ARE idiots and are religious. At least its not a direct corollary ;-)

He:
Yeah, it’s sad really. There’s a huge miscommunication gulf between the
two groups. You have the West on one side that is, by and large, tolerant
of religious humor because our goverments are mostly isolated from
religion. Then you have the Middle East with its governments
theocratically ruled that don’t understand (or don’t want to understand)
the separation of the government and religion.

Of course, you have a religion whose leaders are attempting to accumulate
wealth and power over the masses and seem to be doing anything to do it
even if it truly violates the nature of the religion they claim to hold dear.

I wonder if these are “growing pains” for Islam in much the same way that
the other religions suffered through similar bouts of violence. The
Christian world had its Crusades, the Jews had the Holocaust. Maybe this
will be a phase that eventually (hopefully) will spawn a more moderate
version of Islam and the proponents of violence will be quelled.

The irony of the cartoons and the events unfolding are not lost on the
West. But the Mideast seems to be oblivious to it. Of course, the imams,
mullahs, and ayatollahs seem to be getting carried away as they distribute
cartoons that weren’t ever published. Absolute power corrupts absolutely...