A fascination with death is typical of morally exhausted, effete societies. The difference between radical Islamists and those elements of Western civilization still under Christian influence that the Islamists wish to destroy is that Islamists value death the way most Westerners, particularly Christians, value life. Listen, for instance, to the words of this Palestinian (courtesy of Hot Air):
I can't imagine a cultural divide greater than this. One culture considers murdering school children to be perhaps the worst possible crime, the other treats the killers as heroes. One culture treats death as a great evil, the other as a great good. One culture teaches that we should love our enemies while the other teaches that we should hate them with an all-consuming hatred. One culture wants to convert the world to Christianity through the persuasion of reason and the heart, the other is determined to convert the world to its belief through fear, intimidation and murder.
This is the existential challenge we and our children face in the 21st century. The great question of the next couple of decades will be whether we will have the will to resist a militant Islam that believes it has a divine mandate to spread its culture across the globe and kill all who refuse to submit.
RLC
