Weigel on Faith, Reason and Jihadism

Reviewed the book here (and highly recommend it – for some it might even be Lenten reading).

Thanks to Gloria.TV, came across EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo interviewing author George Weigel on the book – excellent!

Quickly transcribed excerpt – somewhat paraphrased:

Thomas Aquinas learned a lot of his Aristotle from Muslim philosophers…A religious community [Islam] which for several hundred years ad been the ground for great speculative accomplishment not only in philosophy but in math and other sciences suffered a kind of intellectual shut-down that continues to affect Islam today. A great illustration of this is that in any 20 year period more books are translated into Spanish than have been translated into Arabic in the last 900 years.

Also, read this well-done piece by Vasko Kohlmayer who argues that American Christians – particularly Evangelicals – are the West’s “Last Hope” against the advances of Islamic fundamentalism. Quite interesting. I’ve said before that Islam has a supernatural mindset that secularists simply cannot fathom – that takes others with the same eye/ear toward supernature. FTA:

[…] a piece which appeared late last year in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard. Its author, Oscar Van den Boogaard, who is a Dutch citizen and a self-described ‘humanist,’ wrote that facing the Islamization of Europe is like ‘a process of mourning.’ Although it makes him feel sad, he is unwilling to do anything about it: ‘I am not a warrior, but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.’

Distinguished Belgian journalist Paul Belien, one of Europe’s most insightful commentators, put it this way:

In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom. Nobody fights for the flag of hedonism, not even the hedonists themselves.

Via