"I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty." - George Burns

Headline on today's Time.com: "330 Convicted in Turkey Coup Plot"
I had mental images of a whole bunch of turkeys conspiring to bust out and devastate the bean patch.
Oops.

I am one haircut away from a free one at Super Cuts. Sure enough, Attila was working and waiting for me. How does she know I'm coming? And how is it always her turn to take the next person who walks through the door? As soon as I get that freebie I'm gone!

F1 this weekend in Singapore. I've already scheduled the DVR to record Sunday's race. The 2013 season will include a race on the streets of New Jersey and on a purpose-built track in Austin, TX, their first scheduled U.S. appearance since 2007.

WOOT! I located a conversion kit for Louise's dysfunctional choke. A firm in Florida has one that will fit this long-obsolete Holley carb and change it from hot air to electric. Install the unit, connect the single wire to a switched power source (it grounds through the carb) and it's done! An electric element heats up and slowly opens the choke. When the car is turned off it slowly cools down - over the space of about two hours - and gradually closes the choke back up. All of this for $40. SO worth it!

Pam called this afternoon because I've got an appointment this evening when she would usually call. Her mom had a rough night and was taken to the hospital for treatment. She's back home now but Pam doesn't feel right about leaving her alone yet. And there are projects that need to be done around the condo before that point. So if she can get clearance from work she's going to stay until Wednesday instead of coming home Monday as planned. Neither of us likes that but we agree it's what needs to be.

If you're up at 3 a.m. you have lots of time for odd thoughts. Which is why I was mulling over ... I have no idea where that word comes from or why it means both thinking and warm cider ... why I was mulling over the spread of Islam.

I'm old enough to remember not thinking about Islam or Muslims. It was not part of our consciousness back in the day. I may have heard Islam mentioned in a college anthropology class but had I been pressed to describe a Muslim I would have struggled to come up with anything beyond someone who lives in the Middle East and wears a turban. Camels might have figured in there, too.

Do you remember not thinking about Muslims? Now we don't go a day without some mention of Islam or Muslims in the news, usually accompanied by unsettling images. That's a testament to how small our world has become. And with that shrinking has come conflict between the new neighbors. We went from living five miles from each other to houses crammed side-by-side on suburban lots. Put garage bands next to barking Pit Bulls and the outcome is predictable.

But at oh-dark-thirty this morning something else crossed my mind. The world's three great religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have very different approaches to the spread of their faith.

Judaism doesn't really have an approach. Religious Jews (as opposed to secular Jews) are mostly worried about surviving, not spreading. They accept converts but you don't hear about them working toward that end. There's a reason for that, a reason that dates back to Abraham. God picked Abraham and his descendants to be his special people. "Though the whole earth is mine you will be for me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation" (Ex. 19:6). In the Old Testament and the first part of the New Testament the Jews were God's people and enjoyed unique blessings because of that relationship. The problem came when they decided they were better than everyone else and that being Jewish was a mark of superiority. This despite the fact God made it clear they were chosen by God's grace to accomplish his purposes, not because they were any better than other nations (see Deut. 7:7ff). So God set that special relationship aside and now deals with all people equally, without regard to nationality or ethnicity.
However, within religious Judaism there remains this sense of uniqueness, of a special relationship and privilege by virtue of being a descendant of Abraham and the patriarchs. This is epitomized in the concept of eretz Israel, the Land of Israel, a plot of land they see as given them by God to be possessed in perpetuity.
So outreach is pretty much a non sequitur in Judaism. It's an us-vs.-them system in which if you're not Jewish you're on the outside. And since those on the outside have too often been hostile to Jews the wall of separation is thick and well guarded.

Christianity has a very different mindset. It has always been very engaged in outreach, in what has been called evangelism. From the very beginning the words "gospel" and "spread" were joined as not just congruent, but integral. The NT Book of Acts records (after the account of Israel's being set aside) the spread of Christianity from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. In the next two centuries the message of Christ's death for the sins of every individual was carried to the wider world, both east and west. Telling others the gospel (lit. the "good news") is central to the ethos of Christianity. After all, wouldn't it be selfish to be given the gift of life and not want others to hear and receive the same gift?
There was a stretch where the church (not the same as Christianity) got hooked up with the state. That led, as it always will, to disastrous outcomes. Each brought out the worst in the other and the term "Dark Ages" is an apt description of the result.
Thankfully, Christianity reemerged in what we now call the Protestant Reformation (another apt term) and things got back on track. Once again the gospel hit the road so others could hear and accept.
In terms of methodology Christianity's approach is simple. Tell 'em the good news. But because the ethos of Christianity is to live out the same grace we received from God, that telling has been accompanied by schools, medical clinics, clean water programs, and the like. That is, Christianity seeks to model the love of God who sent his Son to die for our sins, and by so doing be a living illustration of the message we bear.

Islam is different from both Judaism and Christianity. Like Christianity their goal is that Islam spread, and like Judaism they have a theology of superiority. The Koran makes it clear that those outside of Islam are infidels. You don't build schools and medical clinics for infidels. You also don't talk about love and compassion.
Another hallmark of Islam is that instead of viewing the union of church and state as an aberration it's seen as the goal, the ultimate objective. The power of the state enforces the tennets of the religion, and the religion certifies the leaders of the state. Think Iran, where the leading Ayatollahs (clerics) grant authority to the Assembly and the Assembly enforces the strictures of Islam.
Not surprisingly, then, the spread of Islam is to be accomplished through the agency of the state, and the state's most effective tool is the sword. The history of Islam's spread is the history of conquest, but that's consistent with Islam's worldview and something for which they make no apologies.
Jihad, the righteous war to conquer the infidels and install Islam.

Doesn't all of this have obvious implications for our new, smaller world?
Is it possible to live in mutual peace and harmony with an Islamic state? Or is that antithetical to the concepts behind a true Islamic state and its stated objectives? (Note: there are countries like Turkey that have worked to separate state and religion and are known as secular Islamic states. As Egypt seems to illustrate, the number of those states seems to be dwindling rapidly, undoubtedly because it's a corruption of Islam's tenets.)
And if peace with an Islamic state is indeed impossible what's the wise course? Should we hum Lenon's "Imagine" or heed Teddy Roosevelt's advice?

What gets called international politics might more accurately be identified as comparative religion.