When our perspective is formed solely by our own culture, we tend to assume that certain values are universal. If you live in western civilization or the various cultures around the world that have been heavily influenced by it, you may have heard of the golden rule.

How it goes is pretty simple: treat others as you wish to be treated. There are other expressions that have a similar meaning, such as, what goes around, comes around.

It’s because of this that, even if a person has trouble remembering each of the Ten Commandments, which are considered the principal points of a Christian society, they’ll still function generally well. In fact, even in secular societies, some of the Ten Commandments might still seem to be upheld, because even the golden rule or a variant thereof seems to be respected.

After all, the Ten Commandments teach not to steal, kill, or bear false witness. Out of each of these, which would you be okay with happening to you?

One might think that these values are universal, upheld by people the world over. That seems reasonable to expect in an advanced and peaceful society that has heavily benefited from these virtues.

But that’s not the reality of the matter. The fact is, there are no universal ethics that are observed by all cultures all over the world.

In the western world, it’s taken for granted that you should not kill a person you disagree with, no matter how much you may disagree with them, as a virtue of freedom of expression.

However, freedom of expression is not a virtue of every society. There are societies today where it’s deemed okay to kill someone who is in “the outgroup”, and the way that you can tell that someone is in the outgroup is if they either say something that someone in the outgroup would say, or if you say something that would put you at odds with the ingroup.

Then there’s the topic of slavery. The British people did great in spearheading the abolishment of ownership of humans by other humans. They were so insistent that there be no slaves in Britain, that if any slaves set foot on British soil, they’d immediately become free. The Americans were not far behind with the Emancipation Proclamation.

As much as we like to think that slavery is a thing of the past, it remains in much of the world, including civilizations that are relatively modernized, such as China and India. In much of the Islamic world, slavery permeates their society. The reason being, according to their religion, it is impermissible to forbid what their prophet Mohammad allowed. And because Mohammad had slaves, slavery has been hard-wired into their religion and society.

While we might like to think that in terms of science, literature, and the arts, it’s the tendency of humanity to tend ever forward, there are cultures on this earth where all scientific and literary achievement has come to a grinding halt, because the prevailing ideology discourages the pursuit of anything outside of itself, and encourages its followers to fanaticism.

As much as certain skeptics may make light of the idea that the civilized world could become subverted by the same brand of ignorance and mysticism, efforts to bring it about have long been underway, and it’s something that they would do well to take seriously, because no society that has been ensnared by that same mystical ignorance has ever freed itself from it without external intervention.

Then there’s the topics of polygamy and pederasty. Most of the civilized world have criminalized these practices, and those who would attempt to engage in them are singled out for the worst treatment, even in the company of other criminals. Knowing this, it can be quite jarring to learn that there are still cultures, even an entire civilization, that refuses to outlaw these practices, simply because a person who they consider a prophet practiced them both.

As optimistic as people today may be about humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrials, it should be known that there is an X-factor involved. We have no guarantee that the first extraterrestrials we meet will even have the same values that we do.

Imagine for a moment that you live on an island community that has never made contact with other islands, or with the outside world. Imagine that you’ve been taught by your elders that a certain way to live is moral and right, and that’s how you’ve lived for your whole life. Then, one day, the people of your island makes contact with people on another island. Then, to the horror of your entire community, everyone on that island lives in a way that your community considers bafflingly immoral, and neither community speaks the same language.

It’s easy to see how, in this scenario, the people of your island might decide that it would be better to go to war with the other island in an effort to put an end to their immorality, and the other island might have already decided to do the same to yours. While most of the world today is hesitant to use force to resolve differences, there are people today who consider the use of force as always justified when confronting another culture with different values!

While the mask has slipped somewhat when touching on the topic of slavery above, it’s time to drop the hypotheticals and start being more specific. A couple days ago, during a holy day that the Jews observe, Hamas initiated a brazen attack on the land of Israel with thousands of rockets, some getting by Israel’s Iron Dome defense. This was concurrent with a ground invasion, in which Hamas militants attacked primarily civilian targets, killing some and taking others hostage. It is believed that foreign nationals are among the hostages.

While Saturday’s attack was brazen, it was an escalation of what has been ongoing for decades. For Hamas to fire rockets into Israeli cities, such as Sderot, has been an ongoing occurrence.

Not everyone understands the nature of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. Contrary to a popular perception, most wars throughout history were not over religion, they were over resources. Superpowers have set up rule over vassal states to ensure their own prosperity. It’s been said that in order to achieve true peace, people need to come to a true understanding. While that helps, it also helps to understand that there is a ruling class that is complicit in fanning the flames of hatred.

Hamas is not motivated by resources. To them, resources are merely a means to an end. Rather, Hamas is motivated by ideology. They have a legendary hatred for Jewish people, and this is because this hatred is hardwired into their religion. In fact, just about everything about their ideology is hardwired into it.

I understand that religion is a sensitive topic, and quite nuanced. I also know that not everyone who professes a religion is the same as its extremists. Still, there are times when it’s more productive to deal in generalities, especially considering the fact that the state of peace in the world is increasingly at stake. What’s more, from what I’ve studied about Islam’s foundational materials and their history, there is ample cause for concern.

While I know that most Muslims want the same things out of life as most anyone else, it still remains that, out of them, the extremists are the primary difference-makers on the world stage, and they are becoming harder to ignore. And the fact is, it’s their ideology that’s making men into killers.

When you understand their ideology, you’ll understand why it’s often Jews who are targeted. In the Islamic theology, there’s a veritable tier list of people who are to be targeted. It goes as follows:

• Muslims: At the top, whom Muslims are not to kill.
• Christians: Merely tolerated, made to pay a backbreaking jizya tax, but might be killed anyway.
• Jews: Tolerated even less, same tax, but are often killed outright.
• Infidels: Not tolerated, usually killed right away. Consists of atheists and any religion not mentioned above.
• Ex-Muslims: Any Muslim who declares that he’s leaving his religion. These guys can often count the seconds they have left on their fingers.

You might wonder how Jews came to be so disrespected by Muslims. This had to do with the Islamic prophet, Mohammad. At some point in his life, Muhammad was exiled by his own people, the Quraysh (they found his teaching a little intolerant). After that, Mohammad joined a settlement of Jews. At one point, he hired someone to read their Scriptures to him (Mohammad was illiterate). After learning about the Jewish Messiah, Mohammad claimed to be the Jewish Messiah.

They took it as well as you might have expected.

Only this time, instead of trying to have him executed as they might have attempted centuries earlier, they instead ridiculed him. For one thing, because the Messiah is supposed to be a descendant of David, not Ishmael. But also, because Mohammad didn’t know a word of the Scriptures until they were read to him.

Mohammad then told them that they’d know that he was the Messiah, if only they’d read their Scriptures. Mohammad then forbade Muslims from reading the Jewish Scriptures, saying that they doctored them. Putting aside, of course, that Mohammad wouldn’t have even had the idea to call himself the Messiah if the Jewish Scriptures weren’t read to him.

Mohammad handled the laughter the same way that most tyrants would. Once he had an army, he came back and seized the town, imprisoned the women and children, and any man who refused to accept his religion was executed.

Understandably, Jewish comedians today are more cautious.

Most political ideologies today are like EEPROMs: sophisticated, intricate, and with the capability to be updated.

But imagine a circuit board that is little more than a cluster of jumpers and transistors. Horribly inefficient, primitive by today’s standards, with a high potential for failure, and no potential for updates. That’s a great allegory for Sharia, the law of Islamic states.

The Islamic world is different from the rest of the world, because it’s a completely different society built on a completely different foundation. They don’t have the golden rule. They don’t have the same Ten Commandments, but instead a different code with a twist of fatalistic indifference. While they’ve got their own code of righteousness, they’ve elevated ritualism to the point that it becomes suffocating.

It’s a fact that the primary function of government for most of human history has been to mediate disputes between people. The Islamic religion is so dysfunctional in how disputes are to be handled, and how forgiveness is to be administered, that anywhere that Islam becomes the dominant ideology, brutal dictatorships tend to be what surfaces, because that’s the kind of thing it would take to maintain order.

When you understand that there’s a hardwired hatred for Jewish people in the Islamic religion, it’s easy to see their obsession with destroying Israel for what it is. But there’s more to it than that. There’s a difference in values, and it’s a difference that matters.

While western civilization does have its problems, including from those who would undermine it from within, the fact is, it’s a civilization that’s worth defending from those who would threaten it.

A man’s hatred is always concentrated on the thing that makes him conscious of his bad qualities.

Carl Jung