You think you have it bad? I am an actual Muslim here.;)
I could call it orientalists clap trap, but that attempted to have a veneer of intellectualism about it. The OP is as deep and knowledgable as KKK pamphlets were.
Fair enough.
Mashriqis?
Many white Southern Evangelicals are ok too. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are both Baptists from the South or adjacent to it yet their existence doesn’t disprove that white southern Evangelicals have a cultural problem.
Like I said. Some Middle Eastern countries have done a better job of adapting to the modern world. Some have not. I’d be wary about using Turkey as an example, because under Edrogan their situation re: religion vs liberty seems to be getting worse rather than better.
I kind of think it’s a bit interesting how you are separating out Catholicism as a faith that doesn’t want the State to impose rigid rules about how everyone should conduct their own lives. Most anti-abortion laws and anti-LGBTQ laws were pushed forward (and their repeal opposed) by the Catholic Church. Just because they were cool with alcohol doesn’t mean they are against the state dictating moral laws. Ask someone from Ireland if the Catholic Church doesn’t have the State impose many rigid rules about how everyone should conduct their own lives.
I also think there is a strange linking of Evangelicalism and Muslims and also separating out Catholics. As someone raised Muslim and now Lutheran living in the South (with a 10 year sojourn in atheism between the two), Southern Evangelicalism is FAR more individualistic than Islam, Catholicism, or Lutheranism. The later 3 stress communalism and communal values far more. Evangelicals can be Evangelicals even if they never go to Church on Sundays because communalism and fellowship isn’t that important.