Take your new--why the left us loves Islam

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From President Obama to the least popular host on MSNBC or progressive talk radio, the American political left cannot find anything to dislike in the Muslim religion. At least, if they do, they are not telling.

Considering Islam's bad record on human rights (see Sudan) on women's rights (see Afghanistan/Pakistan), its belief in a real God, its belief in a holy scripture, its history of 1,400 years of warfare, conquest, forced conversions, persecution of minorities; you'd think, the political left would loath the sound of the call to prayer or the sight of a minaret, like they do the Christian cross and the memory of Jerry Falwell.

What is it that the American left sees in Islam that makes them defend it with the passion of a convert to the Charismatic Catholic Renewal? Explanations to date range from the argument from cowardice: namely, that the left is afraid to criticize Islam because they fear becoming an intentional target of a suicide bomber; to the explanation from Machiavelli, that the left wants to use Islam as a foil against Christianity and Judaism to destroy Christian/Jewish power in America. Of course, the addendum on this argument is, because of the secular left's antipathy to religion, that after their gambit works, they will turn on Islam, and so completely remove the influence of faith from American life.

As inventive as those answers are, I don't see the left composed of a bunch of cowards afraid to criticize anyone or anything. I also disagree that the left would play the dangerous political game of elevating Islam and then turning on it, knowing that the very first purges of society made by an empowered Islam would be against those left-wing members of society.

The most satisfying answer that no one has yet offered is found by looking at the kind of salvation offered by each of the great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and, of course, Secularism.

Salvation in Judaism

In Judaism, the salvation offered is national. We can prove that by reference to the Hebrew scriptures where it is recorded that the nation was offered a relationship with God. In Judaism, the actions of a single person can bring disaster on the nation; whereas, the righteousness of the nation is required for blessing. One's individual relationship with God in some contexts is constrained by the Jewish nation's relationship with God.

Salvation in Christianity

In Christianity, the salvation offered is personal. One's ethnicity or national origin are facts that do not impede or aid one's personal relationship to God. One is born Jewish, but all Christians are supposed to be converts. Even if your parents were Christians, that heritage does not automatically make you a Christian, at least not in the sense described in the New Testament. Christianity, with its emphasis on individual and personal responsibility before God, has been called the perfect religion for a capitalistic society.

Salvation in Islam

In Islam, the salvation offered is social, not national, and not personal in the way Christianity is personal. One becomes a Muslim by reciting a Koranic exclamation. Everyone in Islam has exactly the same responsibility, the words of the prayers recited are expressed publicly, everyone prays at the same time toward the same geographic spot on the earth, making it social prayer. In Islam, the world-wide religious tax collected from every Muslim goes to provide for the poor.

Look at Islamic societies, like Egypt. Everyone dresses alike, everyone's houses are similar, and everyone speaks the same thoughts (at least publicly). Deviations from socially acceptable speech are punishable by law with beatings and imprisonment. Except for the elite few, everyone lives a similar life, with a similar income. It is only in business that citizens have a hope of gaining materially something more than their neighbors.

Political/Social Salvation

The social salvation offered by Islam is the reason the American political left so "loves" this one monotheistic religion and despises the others. The saying goes, "two cannot walk together unless they be agreed." The American political left agrees with most of Islam's goals and with many of their methods. A world under the control of the American left would look very much like a world under Islamic control. Social salvation (peace) is imposed because every member of society must look like, act like, and think like every other member.

For non-leftists, especially the right-wing commentators, the actions of the political left often seem perplexing and inconsistent. That is because non-leftists usually view political actions from the 30,000 foot level of the nation-state. Even the 50,000 foot multi-nation view of leftist's actions doesn't seem to account for all the political positions leftists take in American society. This is because the American left's actions are driven from the high orbit of a world-viewing satellite. This view from space is primarily a moral view which gives the discourse of the secular left its religious quality and air of moral superiority.

If one believes that no human being should have to choose between satisfying their hunger or their thirst, but not both at the same time, the view from orbit makes sense. From orbit, with the entire world illuminated against the blackness of space, earthly resources are limited. Some human beings have a miserable life because their economics are primative: if they have a drink of water, they cannot have a mid-day meal, if one family member gets a new shirt, the rest must go without shoes.

Other people can go to the richest city on earth, take a penthouse suite in the most expensive hotel, and live there for years without those expenses in any way diminishing their personal wealth. Others can choose between the kinds of luxuries they enjoy, even though they cannot afford everything. Others must choose between wants, but have all their needs satisfied. Not so with many people throughout the world who must choose between basic human needs, and so suffer.

What the Left Believes

To the left, looking at today's default distribution of world resources, the inequalities seems to provide another reason for not believing in a good God. If they (the left) could re-distribute resources so every single human being had at least their basic material needs met (water, food, shelter, clothing, employment), those who accomplished this redistribution would be the gods of this new world order. It's a high moral view because it cares about human suffering and finds no technical reason that economic discrepancies between societies should continue.

Convergence of Islam and the Left

Islam believes if all humanity submits to Mohammed's revelation, then there will be peace. Radical Islam proclaims that until all the world submits, peace for any in non-Islamic society will not be allowed. Furthermore, Islamic societies are driven by top-down, non-democratic means. The elites make the social decisions, for everyone else those decisions amount to the will of God. The political left loves this kind of societal organization because only in this way can their goals be achieved.

The American left is uncritical of Islamic societies not because they don't privately opposes Islamic religious ideas, but because Islam and the left both offer a human, social salvation. Islam imposes their salvation in the name of God. The American left would impose their social salvation in the name of the moral goal of eliminating needs-based human suffering. For the political left to criticize Islam would be to criticize themselves, something those with a high, external, moral purpose will not do.

This explains why Christianity, because of its emphasis on the personal and individual, cannot be tolerated and must be rebuked or marginalized at every opportunity. A Christian society, including even a degenerate western society originally based upon Christian ideas, is an enemy of both Islam and secular political thought because of its elevation of the individual. The elimination of human suffering caused by the inequitable distribution of resources is a goal that rises above the prosperity of a single nation or the possible achievements of any single member of those societies. An all-powerful God could have designed a better system, but because He didn't, the left will rise to the challenge and do the work He should have done, but certainly only in their own name, not in His.

It is true that achieving the end of human needs-based suffering is technically possible. That possibility makes it a moral imperative. Private religious/charitable organizations can only redistribute the gifts of individuals. Governmental/societal redistribution, like the Islamic tax for the poor,  is no longer charity - it is public policy. Such a policy carries not only a moral imperative to the conscience, but the hefty sword of governmental enforcement. It is such a lofty moral goal, that should a portion of the human race suffer the loss of a privileged lifestyle from this necessary re-organization, so be it. At least appears to be the perspective the left offers.

Understanding this connection between Islamic and leftist political salvation explains everything. The left is often accused of condescending, arrogance, and elitism. But if your religion offered a salvation that could bring the world and all of humankind political and social peace, while your opponents followed the teachings of a God who couldn't accomplish what you can, how else could you feel?

The citizens of any country (especially in the West) cannot be allowed to think as individuals who are responsible to God first and only secondarily (and tangentially) responsible to government. National citizens must become world citizens and this means individuals in a society must think as a group, part of a world society in which every culture shares equally. In Islam this view is God's will and so it is a salvation that should be imposed as perhaps a last resort. For the true believers on the American political left, their high moral purpose for the good of humankind must also be imposed, not just as an arrogant exercise of power, but because individuals cannot do it, single nations or groups of nations acting individually cannot accomplish it. Like Islam, if the American left cannot argue society into accepting their moral imperative, as a last resort and for the benefit of humankind, it will have to be imposed. 

http://www.timeoftheheathen.com