Why do they convert?

Submitted by John Giannasca (Australia), Dec 6, 2005 at 16:44

I believe conversion to islam has nothing to do with religion and evering to do with social and political reasons. Its interesting that we hear of people converting to during their radical years, say 18 to 25. It's a way of thumbing your nose at authority and show your version of a social conscience in much the same way as baby boomers marched against the Vietnam war, grew their hair long and generally rebeled against authority.

The problem now is that these "converts" are on a very slippery slope, in much the same way that led to the major problems associated with the cults of that time (we know what happened at Jonestown and other places). The problem in this era was that you had the combination of youthfull disenfranchisement and cults willing to absorb them.

This, I believe is the problem we are having today and we need to find a remedy. We need to spend more time not just using rhetoric to argue against the funementalist ideology of Isam, but to lucidily decribe the falicy of their arguments. It's not easy. I know how hard and personal it can be.

How do I know, my step daughter who I love so much converted to Islam earlier this year. I love her just as much, but I worry a lot more. I dont believe she in any way falls into the fundamentalist category, but neither do I believe her conversion was for religious reasons. It was her conversion that let met to this site. It is this site that has enabled me to collect my thoughts in a more structured way.

For this Dr Pipes and all of you who contribute to this site I thank you very much.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".