“Any religion that wants to survive goes through change even if it means, as in the case of Christianity’s Reformation, a period of warfare and division. Once there was the Roman Church. Then there was the Roman and Eastern Church. Then, following the Reformation, there were numerous interpretations of Christianity spawning Protestantism’s diversity of churches.

“Judaism, the rock on which both Christianity and Islam is built, is over 3.5 thousand years old. It has survived because its spiritual leaders found ways for it to adapt to changing times. In each generation, Jews turned to the wisest among them to ask what adaptations were acceptable and these were assimilated into their lives allowing them to live in many different cultures and nations.

“Islam, however, leaves no room for real change. A modern Muslim must either cast a blind eye to its many strictures or must yield, willingly or not, to laws that are applicable to the seventh century, but which conflict with life in the twenty-first. It has produced a conflict being violently played out in nations throughout the Middle East where Islam has failed to advance freedom, enlightenment, equality, human rights, and tolerance.”

Alan Caruba at Progressive Conservative, 29 July 2004