But PkbonupePeter_Kcos8 continues to make Islam sound of it is entirely separate from Christianity & Judaism. To speak of Judeo-Christianity is to assume that Christianity was the end of the Abrahamic lineage. If you accept a Mormon as a member of the Abrahamic community you must accept a Muslim as well. To assume that there is not a dialogue and continued evolution of theology amongst the Abrahamic faiths.
You are reading too much into it Eion. I simply stated that there are some rather sizeable cultural differences between the "West" and the Middle East which aren't going to simply disappear overnight. A Europe dominated by Islam would be influenced far more severly by such influences than usual. It possibly might even be influenced to the point where it could no longer truly be considered to be "Western" at all.
For instance, even in comparatively secular Islamic nations like Turkey, the "Globalizing Monarchies" of the UAE and the Persian Gulf, Syria, and Egypt, the cultural contrast to the West in regard to issues like family values, government, individual rights, and acceptable behavior is quite substantial.
My point was that such world views are largely a result of Islamic culture, in the same way that our own culture is largely a result of the Christian influences that shaped Europe during the Middle Ages.
The fact that the Muslims happen to believe in the same God that Christians do (sort of) is completely irrelevant.
You say it's a low-probability event, but you act like it's the most plausible outcome.
It is an extrapolation of current trends that
I sure as hell hope could very likely change over the course of the next few decades.
However, so long as we are discussing hypotheticals, why not take them seriously for the sake of the exercise? Worst case scenarios help to put the actual situation on the ground in better perspective.
But when used the way you use it, "ethnicity" is functionally equivalent to "race." When you're talking about how French/American/Western/whatever culture is threatened by outsiders, and that the adherents of this culture need to embrace "traditional values" and breed faster to keep from being dissolved by the foreign hordes... it really doesn't matter whether you're saying "culture" or "race." You're pitching "race"
The racial overtones in your comments: it's all about X outbreeding Y, and about "stronger" peoples absorbing "weaker" ones
Its hardly like I'm preaching the merits of the Aryan Superman here. I'm simply pointing out some rather inconvenient and quantifiable truths about demographic shift.
Namely, that you can't expect to simply allow some ethic group to completely hijack your culture and for things not to change dramatically as a consequence. We've seen the consequences of such apathy on the part of societies in the historical example of Late Antiquity and more recently in places like Lebanon and Israel.
There is also the fact that cultural shift has bad habit of gradually building into wholesale political strife. In such a case, the "stronger" (more culturally entrenched, more politcially motivated, more numerous, etca) people are very likely going to prevail.
You seem to be treating cultures as static eternal verities that cannot change, because any influence on them destroys them and replaces them with something new. And you want your static eternal verity to last forever, which means blocking outside influences and entering a self-referential loop of "traditional values."
Not necessarily. As I was explaining to Eion earlier, there is a difference between allowing for diversity and simply rolling over and playing dead while the latest "johnny come lately" on the block strolls in like he owns the place, takes your lunch money, and steals your girlfriend.
The Europeans need to find a balance between the two. This needn't be an all or nothing situation...not yet, anyway.
The situation worries me only because the European population is, quite frankly, in decline at the same time that the continent is being flooded with (in some cases rowdy and uncooperative) immigrants, and no one seems to even want to acknowledge that there is problem, let alone speak about solutions.
The Byzantine Empire is actually an excellent example of what classical Rome was evolving into with effectively no influences from outside its own borders.
Errr...I might be wrong, but I don't believe that this was quite the case. Weren't Byzantine Armies filled out rather heavily with "Barbarian" (Viking, Slavic, Frankish, etca) mercenaries who were granted citizenship after their service? The Byzantines weren't "up to their ears" in foreign cultural influences in the same way that the Western Romans were, but they were hardly isolated.
For example, was medieval European culture "preserved" as it went through the Renaissance and the Enlightment? Or was it "destroyed" (largely by foreign influence in the form of preserved Greco-Roman literature)? What about the culture that came out of that, the Victorian era of the 1800s? Was that culture "preserved" as Europe and America moved to a more tolerant, secular, democratic model in the 20th century? If not, how could it be "destroyed" with effectively no outside influence?
Obviously, cultures evolve over time. They gradually change and take in new ideas until they reach the point where they can no longer be viewed as being the same as what came before, therefore forcing people to re-evaluate their surroundings and establish new paradigms.
This is natural, and shouldn't be stifled. However, there is still a difference between allowing for diversity and simply declaring that there is no point in even trying to preserve your heritage and that everyone should just give up.
I can't help but feel that some of the "Liberal self-loathing" crowd have been championing the later option as of late.
what you're ignoring is that the Romans were also brutal people who killed a whole lot of people in Roman Europe. That didn't make the Romans cultureless all-destructive savages, so in and of itself it doesn't make the Goths, Vandals, and Franks cultureless all-destructive savages.
Look at it this way. I have nothing against the Germanic tribes which sacked Rome. In fact, I am descended from them.
However, lets make no bones about what they were. They were (comparatively) savage and uncivilized semi-nomads who set human development in the West back by several centuries and ushered in the Dark Ages.
What they did would be comparable with horde after horde of Taliban like organizations and Somali warlords ransacking Europe and the United States, and then setting up their own little constantly fighting despotic regimes in their place. That doesn't mean that the US and Europe have never done "bad" things, it simply means that they would have definitely been the lesser of the two evils had history given us a choice on the matter.
Interesting point. Could you document this? Cite historians of the late Roman era, perhaps? I'd be interested to see the demographics involved, or the cultural changes.
You would have to ask an historian. However, as a few other posters in this thread have noted, there were Barbarian Emperors, tribes which were allowed to settle within the Empire's borders, and tribes who fought on the Empire's behalf.
It is also a well known fact that the Roman army included more barbarians (a great many of them German) than it did Romans by the time of the Empire's fall, and many of these soldiers undoubtedly settled in various regions of the Empire upon their retirement.
I would have to wonder how exactly you wouldn't a great deal of reverse assimilation in such a case.
