The Enlightenment can be evil, too

Submitted by Peter J. Herz (Taiwan), Jul 25, 2003 at 23:50

Maybe one reason why Westerners were open to totalitarianism and now want to give radical Islamists every benefit of the doubt is because they have rejected Biblical authority. Fascism and Communism are children of the enlightenment--unless most educated Westerners want to take back a century of crowing about how 19th century scientism routed pious obcurantism.

Muslim pre-modern piety isn't all there is to the problem. I think it's been pointed out many times that the angry young men of Hamas and FIS know Fanon and Marx better than they know any of the classical Muslim theoloigians and jurisprudents.

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