On one hand, you can't blame run of the mill Europeans for their angst against religion. As they leave their front doors and head to the streets of their cities they are confronted with a terrible fact: Muslims, many of whom are Jihadi sympathizers, are taking over their world. Not only are they immigrating to Europe at astounding levels, but they are refusing to assimilate, thus diluting European culture and snuffing out the remaining lights of Western thought in the Old World.Our feckless European friends see this as well as the current war being waged against brutal Jihadism and they blame it on "religion." Were it not for religion, they would all be free to sip their wine, eat their cheese and live to a ripe old age while suckling on the government teet.
A CHARITY set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade has identified a new social evil of the 21st century - religion.
A poll by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation uncovered a widespread belief that faith - not just in its extreme form - was intolerant, irrational and used to justify persecution.
Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years ago.
The responses may well have dismayed him. The researchers found that the “dominant opinion” was that religion was a “social evil”.
Many participants said religion divided society, fuelled intolerance and spawned “irrational” educational and other policies.
...Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said he was “extremely pleased”.
“Britain has had it with religion,” he said.
As Mark Steyn has pointed out in his wonderful book America Alone, the religion-less Europeans are losing the will to resist Islamization. Their rampant secularism and big government welfare state is producing Europeans who are soft. Without religion they are no longer able to see right from wrong. How can they really condemn Jihadis? How can they really say European culture is worth saving when they have turned their backs on such a large part of their rich history.
The welfare state too is contributing to their softness. The Europeans long ago abandoned the idea of liberty while trading it in for "freedom from want." Their governments pay for everything: vacations on the coast of France, health care from birth to death, education, shortened work weeks and afternoon tea. When you rely on big government as your provider, you lose the ability to build character by making it on your own. This, incidentally, is the kind of character -- or hardness -- needed to resist the Jihadis.
