To me it's laughable people who attempt to defend Islam and in their appeals lump it in with all religious expressions and faiths as if that made it just another rational pursuit. One can rationally defend religion's place in the world because it satisfies an unfortunate human need - but you can not defend religion itself as a rational expression. Christianity is better than Islam, not because of the quality of it's tenets and teachings and beliefs or the mellifluous beauty of its scripture - it's better because history has effectively subdued its darker purposes [albeit Bush et al strive to unravel that knot] whereas Islam runs free like a mad dog gone to rut. One fears what force bearing what carnage must be unleashed to tame it [Christianity? It truly is the age of irony]."Holed up inside the complex behind the lines of troops and razor wire, the children – many of them girls whose families had sent them to the mosque to receive a strict Islamic education – repeatedly rejected relatives’ entreaties to leave before a threatened army onslaught.
There was evidence that many had been brainwashed into a cult of martyrdom, and the authorities feared last night that some were being prepared to be suicide bombers. In barely eight weeks, Saima had been transformed from a religious but fun-loving girl to a jihadi, grimly craving martyrdom."
