Derbyshire’s reaction to the book and to Spencer’s rebuttal are disappointing. He gets it exactly backwards, somehow. To wit:
“* Irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous.
* This is difficult for believers to grasp.”
Ah no – that is not the problem: the problem is that unbelievers, who dominate intellectual life and direct the policies of many major political parties, have great difficulty in distinguishing between faiths, precisely on the grounds that, to an unbeliever, they are all so much nonsense. The resulting conclusion is often “people who believe in such things are equally preposterous, and all their claims are equally harmful.”
Except even a cursory comparison of Islamic and Christian doctrine show quite quickly that any reasonable form of Christianity will enjoin peace, while Islam will counsel submission. If you are inclined to conflate the strategic and moral notions of kings and popes – that is, political figures who live in The World – with the religious denominations they claim blesses their undertaking, whatever it might be, you are simply a slopy thinker, and have not yet entered into the debate Spencer is conducting.
Derbyshire does not make this last point, but that is the critique offered by the bewildered unbelievers everywhere, at least in my experience: since Christians have announced that God has their back in war, have declared God to have relegated the brown people to servitude, or what have you, it must be that Christianity itself urges such conclusions. This is, of course, false, a fact easily discovered.
On the other hand, any Muslim leader can easily find an actual Koranic or legal basis for exactly this kind of conduct; in fact, with a secular and sociological perspective, one must conclude that in fact Islam, almost in its entirety, was formed precisely to fill this role.
When facing a resurgence of Islam, it is necessary to focus our energy on deflating it. It is not necessary that Christians call a crusade, the Western world return to the bossom of the Church, or any such thing. Mr. Spencer is simply trying to neutralize on aspect of the idiot Lefty and paleo- criticism which enervate us by distracting us with equivocal uneducated bullshit masquerading as insight. So Derbyshire do us a favor: you’re old, I know you’ve crawled into an intellectual fetal position and dwell amidst the Midlands of your youth, but please – let us fight, and get out of the way.
