Fuggedabout That Relativistic "Our Common Ancestor Abraham" Crap. All Religions are NOT the Same (and Only Islam Believes in Jihad)

In a superb essay with many felicitous turns of phrase, Andrew McCarthy writes:

Real faith is an ultimate claim about what constitutes the good life. It is the antithesis of relativism, whether that relativism takes the form of an amorphous quest for “peace” or similarly fashionable pieties: “anti-terrorism,” “social justice,” “equality,” “freedom,” or “democracy.” Such noble ideals, we blithely assure ourselves, could not conceivably provoke dissent from any creed worthy of the name “religion.” Indeed, in our post-doctrinal West, such dissent actually deprives the underlying belief system of any standing as religion — and, therefore, of any need for us to examine the belief system or come to terms with how broadly its convictions are held. That was the wayward reasoning of the British government after the jihadist bombings of July 7, 2005. Terrorism, pronounced Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, is “un-Islamic activity” simply by dint of its being terrorism. After all, Islam is a religion, so violence perforce could not possibly be rooted in Islamic doctrine. Q.E.D. — why tarry over what the doctrine actually says? 

Well, because it matters. There is no common concept of God, and the mush that passes for this feel-good illusion cannot obscure that real faiths exist. They are different because they represent different claims about ultimate truth. One cannot apprehend what those claims are, and how the believer is apt to act on them, without studying doctrine and respecting the divergences between faiths. Substantive differences, civilizational chasms, and supremacist ambitions do not evaporate just because we wish to believe everyone wants “peace.”...

Actually, the do evaporate--for those who choose to dwell in the realm of delusion. It's a happy place, full of hugs and kittens and no jihad whatsoever. It is in such a place that Barack Obama, for one (but not the only one, alas) resides, and it explains why the Benghazi debacle was allowed to occur. There will be a lot more Benghazis in our future--and, ultimately, civilizational collapse--should this clouded vision, this warping of reality, be the one that prevails.