cults and critters

theworldisoftenadangerousplace
Squeal (Neal Boortz) was back from vacation today, and in rare form. The Mike Vick saga was still the rage, and he got his chops in. Unlike many subjects he rants about, I agree with him on this...mostly...and the rhetorical overkill was highly entertaining.
Then the subject shifted to Islam. It seems as though Squeal referred to Islam as a cult, and some of its believers were offended.
It is a thin semantic line between cult and religion. Squeal did some "research", and read a list of characteristics of a cult.
I was struck by how many of those characteristics apply to Jesus Worship.
America is a Jesus mad country. There are Muslims here, in addition to every Religion known to man, and a few known only to beast.
While I do not deny the threat of Radical Islam, I must say that the Muslims I have met have been great people. And while there are good Jesus Worshippers, the hateful loudmouths have made the greatest impression on me.
The situation is different in Europe. Here, the Muslims are mostly prosperous and well educated. In Europe, there are lots of poor immigrants , doing the dirty work of keeping a country going. This is a breeding ground for radicalism.
The Middle East is another story. There is a an oil rich elite, and millions of poor people. This is another breeding ground for radicalism. Then there is Israel.
Israel is a sore spot to the Muslim world, and is often seen as an American client state. This gives the rabble rousing clerics plenty to scream about. While I suspect that radical Islam would be with us anyway, the presence of Israel makes it much worse.
The occupation army in Babylon does not help.
When you look at the cauldron of the last 100 years...two world wars, the third reich, the evolution of an oil based industrial economy, the rise of Superpower America and Israel, the location of oil on Muslim land...Radical Islam is a logical result. Of course, this does not make it right, or mean that it is less of a threat.
It is just that Jesus gets shoved in my face every day. While Islam may be the greater threat world wide, Jesus Worship is a much more vexing issue at home.