Nope, nada, nyet. Except maybe to highlight -- and to "vaccinate" against -- the problematic consequences of religious psychoses.
A rather famous observation by UK philosopher Anthony Flew:
" 'Why I am not a Muslim' gives readers abundant excellent reasons for not becoming or remaining Muslims and also makes a compelling case for the conclusion that Islam is flatly incompatible with the establishment and maintenance of the equal individual rights and liberties of a liberal, democratic, secular state. It thus provides further support for Mervyn Hiskett's more particular contentions about the threat to British traditions and values arising from our rapidly growing Muslim minority."
I suggest reading "The Dying Citizen" by Victor Davis Hanson, who shines a light on many of the topics discussed in this video. I summarize one of these issues in my "2026" Substack about global elites at https://2026.substack.com/p/the-schism-of-globalism
Great episode, Pete! Still hoping you make it to Mexico City for Street Epistemology. I don't think I can really assess whether Muslims are a net positive or negative for the West. I think the doctrines of Islam aren't consistent with the formation nor maintenece of the largely free societies stemming from Enlightenment ideals that we have in the West. I think the idea of freedom of religion seems somewhat paradoxical in many cases in that it enables parents of to indoctrinate their children into their faith, effectively denying the child their own right to religious liberty in the process. If Islam obligates its followers to put apostates to death and the reward for waging war against the unfaithful is an infinite stay in paradise, then a prison sentence on Earth with a finite term of incarceration is an infinitesimally small price to pay, which is to say nothing of the "stick" part of the ideology which threatens the believer with infinite torture in hell for failure to obey. If someone believes himself bound to obey these commandments, then how can they possibly agree to respect the liberty of the people who don't? I'm sure there must be plenty of Muslims who don't buy into at least the dangerous parts of the ideology or who lack the requisite personality traits to pose a threat to others or for whom the opportunity to succeed in life is a greater motivator than the destruction of supposed enemies who'd mostly be a benefit to the Western countries they immigrate to. The trouble seems to me to be in sorting them from the potentially harmful individuals without violating the tenets of religious liberty. To be clear, I'm not taking a position on the issue, merely discussing what makes it seem like a complicated if not impossible problem to address. Sorry for the long comment. 😬
"Are Muslims a benefit to the West?"
Nope, nada, nyet. Except maybe to highlight -- and to "vaccinate" against -- the problematic consequences of religious psychoses.
A rather famous observation by UK philosopher Anthony Flew:
" 'Why I am not a Muslim' gives readers abundant excellent reasons for not becoming or remaining Muslims and also makes a compelling case for the conclusion that Islam is flatly incompatible with the establishment and maintenance of the equal individual rights and liberties of a liberal, democratic, secular state. It thus provides further support for Mervyn Hiskett's more particular contentions about the threat to British traditions and values arising from our rapidly growing Muslim minority."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Am_Not_a_Muslim
https://web.archive.org/web/20160529034626/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/tfst/chiv3.htm
I suggest reading "The Dying Citizen" by Victor Davis Hanson, who shines a light on many of the topics discussed in this video. I summarize one of these issues in my "2026" Substack about global elites at https://2026.substack.com/p/the-schism-of-globalism
Great episode, Pete! Still hoping you make it to Mexico City for Street Epistemology. I don't think I can really assess whether Muslims are a net positive or negative for the West. I think the doctrines of Islam aren't consistent with the formation nor maintenece of the largely free societies stemming from Enlightenment ideals that we have in the West. I think the idea of freedom of religion seems somewhat paradoxical in many cases in that it enables parents of to indoctrinate their children into their faith, effectively denying the child their own right to religious liberty in the process. If Islam obligates its followers to put apostates to death and the reward for waging war against the unfaithful is an infinite stay in paradise, then a prison sentence on Earth with a finite term of incarceration is an infinitesimally small price to pay, which is to say nothing of the "stick" part of the ideology which threatens the believer with infinite torture in hell for failure to obey. If someone believes himself bound to obey these commandments, then how can they possibly agree to respect the liberty of the people who don't? I'm sure there must be plenty of Muslims who don't buy into at least the dangerous parts of the ideology or who lack the requisite personality traits to pose a threat to others or for whom the opportunity to succeed in life is a greater motivator than the destruction of supposed enemies who'd mostly be a benefit to the Western countries they immigrate to. The trouble seems to me to be in sorting them from the potentially harmful individuals without violating the tenets of religious liberty. To be clear, I'm not taking a position on the issue, merely discussing what makes it seem like a complicated if not impossible problem to address. Sorry for the long comment. 😬
We have no immediate plans to go to Mexico City, but we will be going eventually!