[D9 (RIP)]

The thesis is that, roughly, there were factors in the formative years of both religions: Christianity and Islam, that have translated into the respective differences. Namely, that Islam was a religion born into an era of dominance, success and conquest - reinforcing the "religiousity" and unadulterated dependence on faith. Christianity, by contrast, was born into an era of desperate repression and persecution. Christian culture, in the Western church at any rate, was forced to incorporate a dichotomy that never crystallized in Islam - the recognition of a seperate "spiritual life" from a "worldly life." This eventually was the catalyst for the rennaissance, enlightenment, and industrial revolution - on the shoulders of which stands what we call "modernity." It makes a compelling case not that Islam had some special fault that has caused it to lag the world, but rather that it was a unique dichotomy in Christianity that permitted a kind of part-time secularism that is the ultimate wellspring of the great rift between our cultures.