Economic and social competition? From a culture that discards the creative and administrative capacity of one half of it's population (the female half) and won't even let them out of the house without a male relative escorting them? From a culture that tells its young the only book worth reading is the Koran? A culture that can't even operate and maintain the source of it's own wealth (oil drilling and refining) without importing large numbers of foreign engineers, geologists and technicians? That can't even tolerate the existance of written documents of another faith within it's borders so it's people can't compare/contrast the wisdom and compassion of those other faiths with the bloody minded hatemongering of their own? I don't think so.

I was speaking a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the lesson of that previous post is that Islam is not "A culture." It is many cultures, and they are capable of change.

All of your generalizations are false. They fit some Moslems, but not others. Some Moslem countries, but not others.

This reminds me of a children's school project I read about where the children were studying Islam, and were going to dress in "Moslem clothing." Of course there is no such thing. Moslems wear different attire in Turkey, Arabia, Pakistan, or the Philipines...

Doug, your ignorance of the Muslim world is stunning. You're painting a picture of Saudi Arabia, and pretending that picture applies everywhere Islam is practiced, when Saudi Arabia represents somewhere around 2% of the Muslim world. Learn a little about Morocco or Egypt or Turkey (each of which has more Muslims than Saudi Arabia), and you'll see your stereotypes are as inapplicable to the Islamic world as they would be to any globally defined set of humans...