The Terrifying Brilliance of Islam

A religious doctrine is a collection of ideas. These could be customs, words, beliefs, etc. A religion is not a single idea; it is a collection of ideas. The collection of ideas that make up the religion of Islam makes Muslims behave and feel as they do.

Collections of ideas compete with each other in the same way that collections of cells (organisms) compete with each other. And because idea-collections compete, and because new ideas can often be added or subtracted from the collection, and because some collections gain more believers than others, collections of ideas can actually evolve.

Let's look at how religious idea-collections evolve and compete. To begin with, let's assume we already have a religion established. It already has a holy book and millions of people are already believers.

And then there is a slight variation...

Let's say the original version had a "live and let live" attitude, and never tried to encourage its followers to bring in converts. But then someone comes up with the idea that if you can persuade a non-believer to become a believer, you earn some sort of spiritual merit. You are saving souls, and your chances of getting into heaven are better.

Okay, now you have two variations on the same religion: One contains the idea that it doesn't really matter if you get anyone else to join the religion. The other motivates its believers to persuade others to join.

After a thousand years, which of the two variations will have more believers? I'm betting on the motivated-to-spread-it version.

Let's assume, for the moment, that the motivated version gets far more followers. Does that mean it makes people happier? Or more successful in life? Or have healthier children? No. Just because a collection of ideas successfully gains followers does not mean it benefits any of the people believing those ideas.

The same is true in genetics. Contrary to common sense, a successful gene doesn't necessarily benefit the organism. It is "successful" in the sense that it has made lots of copies of itself and is found in many organisms. But it may actually be harmful for the organism.

For example, if there is a gene for alcoholism, and if drinking causes someone to start having children younger than someone who doesn't drink, over thousands of years, the alcoholism gene might be more successful (the gene makes its way into more offspring) than the non-alcoholism gene, even though it is bad for each individual person carrying the gene.

In the same way, the success of an idea-collection doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the people who believe it or follow it.

If an idea-collection says it is wrong to use contraception, over time, that idea-collection would probably be followed by more people than the version that says contraception is just fine (assuming people normally teach their children to believe as they do).

So the hapless believer of a particular idea-collection will try to follow the rules and be a good person by avoiding the evil of contraception, and what will be the result for him personally? He may have more children than he might want or could afford, causing him to work overtime to support them — working two jobs if he must. This may send him to an early grave, but his effort creates more believers of that particular collection of ideas than someone who doesn't hold those ideas.

So in a sense, the idea-collection has used the man for its own purposes, or at least that's one legitimate way to look at it. And it's a way that sheds new light on Islam, which is why I've spent so much time explaining it.

If you were going to deliberately design a collection of ideas with the purpose of making one that might eventually dominate the world — one that would eventually out-compete or eliminate every other religion or political system — you would be hard-pressed to do better than Islam.

Let's look at some of the individual ideas within the collection. Many of the ideas enhance each other. In other words, adding one idea to the others can make the whole collection much more effective because some ideas work synergistically. If you'd like to read more detail and background about the principles below, check out: Terrifying Brilliance of Islam: Amplification of Key Concepts.

Here are some of the key components of the idea-collection known as Islam:

1. A standardized version of the idea-collection is written down. This is something basic to several religions and isn't an Islamic invention, but it is an important factor in the success of Islam.

Something only transmitted orally can change over time, but something written will be identical a thousand years from now, and with modern printing presses, can be reproduced in the billions, giving it an enormous advantage in spreading identical copies of the idea-collection.

2. The Quran includes instructions for its own spread. It tells believers they must spread Islam. It is their holy duty to bring Mohammad's warnings and Islamic law to every corner of the world. Read more about that.

3. The idea-collection includes instructions for its own preservation, protection, and replication fidelity. The Quran, the most important of the Islamic holy books, directly tells its followers that they can never change or modify or "modernize" any of the teachings within the idea-collection. It is perfect as it is. It is a capital sin to try to do so. This idea ensures the preservation of the whole collection.

These first three ideas are pretty standard for several successful religions. But now it gets interesting...

4. Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. This may be one of the most ingenious ideas in the whole collection. Islam is the only religion that uses it. Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers — as a religious duty — to create a government that follows its own system of law.

Islam has a system of law, called Sharia, and all Muslims are obligated to continually strive to make their government — wherever they are — follow it. Because of some of the other ideas added to Islam, you will see that this political addition to the idea-collection has significant consequences. Not only is this perhaps Islam's most brilliant innovation, it is also the most terrifying to non-Muslims. Read more about the political nature of the core doctrines of Islam.

5. Permission to spread the religion by war. This is another brilliant innovation. Although some other religions have spread themselves using force, they had very little justification from their own religious doctrines to do so.

Not so with Islam. Expanding by conquest is very much accepted and encouraged by the idea-collection. Islamic teachings present it this way: The poor non-Muslims not living in an Islamic state need to be saved from the sin of following laws other than Allah's. If they won't voluntarily change their laws to Sharia, then it is the duty of Muslim warriors to insist. The world cannot be at peace until every government on earth follows the laws of Allah.

Mohammad's own experience showed the example — an example, says the Quran 91 times, that every Muslim should follow. At first, Mohammad tried to spread Islam by peaceful means. After thirteen years he had a paltry 150 converts.

But then he changed tactics and started using warfare, slaughter, executions, and assassination, and within ten years he converted tens of thousands, and after he died, they used the same tactics and converted millions. And by simple population increase, it is now over a billion.

The use of warfare combines synergistically and powerfully with the instruction to create an Islamic state. So Islam spread quickly as their armies got bigger. They conquered and set up Islamic states, most of which have lasted to this day, and the laws within an Islamic state make Islam very difficult to dislodge. The laws also make it very advantageous to individual people to convert to Islam, and penalize those who don't.

This is one of the most effective methods ever invented for getting an idea-collection into huge numbers of minds. It's a method of control and indoctrination similar to those used successfully in communist and totalitarian states. But as you'll discover below, Islam makes unique use of the power of the law to enforce complete conversion to the religion.

6. Lands must be conquered. Lands that Islam has lost must be reconquered, like Spain and Israel, for example. The Islamic empire must continually expand. Contraction is bad, expansion is good. So if a land was once Islamic and now it is not, that's contraction, and must be remedied.

According to Islamic teachings, the earth is Allah's. If there are parts of the earth not following Islamic law, it is the duty of the faithful to gain control of that land and establish Sharia. It is a sin to let it be.

7. The idea-collection provides for new soldiers by allowing polygamy. A Muslim man can marry up to four wives, and he can have sex with as many slave girls as he wishes.

The Quran especially encourages men to marry widows. This is an important idea to add if you are going to be losing a lot of soldiers in war. You need some way of replenishing your army. Otherwise the idea-collection could die out from a lack of offspring. Read more about this principle.

8. It is a punishable offense to criticize Islam. You can see why this one is a good supporting idea for the collection. It helps suppress any ideas that would reduce the authority of Islamic ideas. This one, like many of the others, is good for the idea-collection, but bad for people. This one limits freedom of speech. This idea is in the Quran, and Mohammad set a fierce example of punishing people who criticized him or Islam. The punishment was usually death. Read more about this principle.

9. You can't leave Islam once you're in. This is an interesting one. It is actually illegal in Islamic states to convert out of Islam. This is a critical part of Sharia law. Someone who has rejected Islam who was once a Muslim is an "apostate." This is a crime and a sin, and the punishment for it is death (and eternal damnation in hell thereafter).

Obviously, you can see why this idea has been included in the collection, but this one has actually caused Islam a problem because those who are following Islam to the letter consider more "moderate" Muslims (those who want to ignore or alter the more violent passages of the Quran) to be apostates. Since the punishment for apostates is death, fundamentalist Muslims are fighting modernizing Muslims all over the world, and keeping many rebellious, modernizing Muslims (or MINOs) from speaking up for fear of death.

Every time a group of Muslims decides that maybe Islam should be updated for the 21st century and maybe women should have some rights or maybe the government should be more democratic, the devout Muslims call them apostates and discredit them or even try to kill them.

The idea-collection protects its own fidelity (the original idea-collection cannot be altered). This is not good for the organisms (the Muslim human beings), but it's great for the collection.

Another idea in Sharia law says it's against the law for anyone to try to convert a Muslim to another religion.

10. Islam must be your first allegiance. This is a great idea to add to the collection if the goal is world domination. You are a Muslim first, before any allegiance you give to your family, your tribe, or your country.

This does two things: It causes a unity of people across borders which allows the group to grow bigger than any other entity. In other words, the "Nation of Islam" can grow bigger than any country, no matter how large (which gives the group a massive numerical advantage).

11. Dying while fighting for Islam is the ONLY way to guarantee a man's entrance into Paradise. This is a great idea for creating fearless, enthusiastic warriors, especially given the Quran's vivid descriptions of the sensuous delights of Paradise.

A Muslim man has a chance of getting to Paradise if he is a good Muslim, but it is not guaranteed. However, if he dies while fighting for Islam, he is guaranteed to get in, and that's the only thing he can do to guarantee it.

12. You must read the Quran in Arabic. This unites believers by language, and language is a very powerful unifying phenomenon. For added incentive to learn Arabic, another idea in the collection says you can't go to Paradise unless you pray in Arabic.

So all Muslims all over the world share a language. This makes it easier to coordinate far-reaching campaigns of protest, political pressure, and war. I doubt if Mohammad foresaw this possibility, but this idea is brilliant, even if it was an accident. Read more about this principle.

13. You must pray five times a day. This is one of the five "pillars" — that is, one of the five central practices — of Islam. Within an Islamic state, it is enforced by law. Every Muslim must pray five times a day. The practice helps the idea-collection dominate a Muslim's life, infusing his daily rhythm with Islam.

It would be impossible to forget anything you deliberately do so often. Five times a day, every day, a Muslim must bow down and pray to Allah.

Research has shown the more effort a person expends for a cause, the more he is likely to believe in it and value it. So this is a good way to eventually make believers out of people who became Muslims through coercion.

Islam completely takes over every aspect of Muslims' lives. Not only are they required to pray five times a day, they have to go through a washing ritual beforehand. Islam dictates the laws, and the laws cover many public and private behaviors. In an Islamic state, it is impossible to be a casual Muslim.

14. The prayers involve moving together in time. When Muslims pray, they all face the same direction, they bow down, get on their hands and knees, and put their face on the mat, all in unison, and then rise back up. Again and again.

When people move together in time, whether dancing or marching or praying, it creates a physical and emotional bond between them. That's why all military training involves close-order drill (marching in unison), even though it has been a long time since military groups have actually marched into combat. There is no longer a need for the skill, but military training retained the practice because it is so effective at creating a strong feeling of unity between soldiers (read more about that).

The same is true of any physical movements people make in unison. So the method of prayer in Islam is a unifying idea added to the collection.

15. A woman is in a thoroughly subordinate position. This idea really helps support other ideas in the collection, like five and six. If women had too much influence, they'd try to curb the warring. Women in general don't like to send their husbands and sons off to war. But if women have no say, then the rest of the ideas can express themselves without interference. By subordinating women, the idea-collection prevents their effective vote against war, violence, and conquest.

The rules and laws within Islam that keep women subordinate are numerous. For example, she is not allowed to leave her house unless she is accompanied by a male relative. Under Islamic law, a woman is forbidden to be a head of state or a judge. She can only inherit half of what a man can inherit. In court, her testimony is only worth half of a man's. She is not allowed to choose where she will live or who she will marry. She is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim or divorce her husband. He, however, can divorce her with a wave of his hand. And according to Sharia, he can (and should) beat her if she disobeys him.

All of these ideas keep her subordinate, which helps keep the war machine going unimpeded by domestic rebellion.

16. The only way a woman can get into Paradise for sure is if her husband is happy with her when she dies. When I read about this one, I thought, "Mohammad, you are a crafty one."

This idea obviously helps with the subjugation of women. It motivates her to subjugate herself. It gives her a strong incentive to subordinate her wishes to her husband's, because while she might have a chance to get into Paradise if she's a good Muslim, the only way she can guarantee she will go to Paradise (and avoid eternal suffering in hell) is to make sure her husband is happy with her when she dies.

17. Allah gives Himself permission to edit his own work. This is an interesting one. It says in the Quran that if a passage written later contradicts an earlier passage, then the later one is the better one (read more about this). The Quran was written in sections (Mohammad's revelations, each written as a sura or chapter) over a period of 23 years. The circumstances of Mohammad's life and his religion changed quite a bit over those 23 years.

One of the ideas in the Quran is "this is the word of Allah." People had already memorized his earlier revelations, so Mohammad couldn't just change his revelations. It would look a little strange for the all-knowing, infinitely wise Allah to change something He had already said.

But with this new idea — that later revelations abrogated or overwrote any earlier revelations they contradicted — Allah's methods could change as Mohammad found more effective ideas.

As I pointed out earlier, in his first 13 years of peacefully preaching, Mohammad only managed to win 150 followers. But as a military leader and violent conqueror, he was able to subjugate all of Arabia to Islamic law in less than 10 years. The peaceful ways were too slow. Conversion by conquering and establishing Sharia was much faster and more efficient. So later, violent, intolerant verses abrogate the earlier peaceful, tolerant passages. Read more about which passages were abrogated and what the last passages say.

18. The Quran uses the carrot and stick to reinforce behavior. Throughout the book are vivid descriptions of hell, where sinners and non-Muslims will have to drink boiling, stinking water, will be thrown face down into a raging fire, and will be there for eternity, suffering endless torments in agony. Read more about this.

There are also vivid descriptions of Paradise. In Paradise, it says, believers will wear green silk robes and recline on plush couches. Trees will shade them, fruit will dangle nearby. They'll have tasty food and refreshing drinks served in silver goblets. To have a chance of achieving this, they must be devout Muslims. To guarantee it, they must die in jihad (for men) or make sure their husbands are always happy with them (for women).

19. It provides a huge and inspiring goal. Leaders of countries or companies or religions have all discovered that you can get the most motivation and enthusiasm from your followers if you provide them with an expansive vision — an enormous goal. In the Islamic idea-collection, the goal calls for a continuous effort to expand the domain of Islamic law until all the world is subjugated to it.

Many religions have the goal of converting everyone, but Islam has a method available nobody else has: To expand by seizing and converting governments to Sharia.

Once the whole world is Islamic, peace will reign. That's why even terrorists can say with complete sincerity, "Islam is a religion of peace."

The Quran says it is best if non-believers accept Islam and become Muslims without force. But if they refuse, then you must fight them and conquer them and save their poor souls by insisting they live by the laws of Allah. Read more about this.

Once all countries are conquered, the world will be at peace. Therefore, Islam is a religion of peace.

It is an enormous and inspiring goal, and a strongly unifying purpose. It creates motivated, enthusiastic followers.

20. Non-Muslims must pay a large tax. Once Muslims conquer a country and convert the government to Islamic law, any non-Muslims have the choice between becoming Muslim or becoming a dhimmi. Dhimmis are allowed to practice their non-Muslim religion if they pay the jizya (a tax). If they convert to Islam, they no longer have to pay a tax, so there is a practical incentive to convert. Read more.

But another aspect of this makes it a brilliant idea to add to the collection. The tax takes money away from the non-Muslims and their competing idea-collections and gives that money to support Islam. This is pure genius!

The income from these taxes (usually a 25% income tax) helped fund the Islamic conquests during the first two major jihads. They conquered vast lands, most of them already filled with Christians and Jews, many of whom did not convert at first, and their jizya poured huge sums of money into the Islamic war machine.

Eventually, the numbers of Christians and Jews dwindled down as they converted or escaped, until now, in most Islamic countries, Jews and Christians are very small minorities.

The tax-the-non-Muslims idea helps the Islamic idea-collection make more copies of itself by suppressing competing religious idea-collections and financially supporting Islam.

Several ideas within Sharia law extend this effect. For example, non-Muslims are not allowed to build any new houses of worship. They're not even allowed to repair already-existing churches or synagogues. This puts the houses of worship of any competing idea-collection in a state of permanent decline. Brilliant.

Also, non-Islamic prayers cannot be spoken within earshot of a Muslim — again, preventing Muslims from being infected by a competing religion. No public displays of any symbols of another faith may be shown either.

All of this prevents the spread of any competing religion, and makes competing idea-collections die out over time. That's why today there are so many "Muslim countries." Almost every other country in the world is made up of many different religions.

One added idea makes it that much easier for Muslims to dominate non-Muslims within an Islamic state: Non-Muslims are not allowed to own weapons of any kind. To subjugate a people, all dictatorial rulers in the history of the world have done the same thing: Disarm the subjugated people. They are much easier to manage, less dangerous, and less capable of upending the status quo.

21. A Muslim is forbidden to make friends with an infidel. A Muslim is allowed to pretend to be a friend, but in his heart he must never actually be a friend to a non-Muslim. This is one of the best protections Islam has against Muslims leaving the faith because in every other religion conversions to the religion are usually made because a friend introduced it. Being forbidden to make friends with infidels effectively prevents that from happening. (See Quran quotes about this.)

22. The Quran counsels the use of deceit when dealing with infidels. Mohammad instructed one of his followers to lie if he had to (in order to assassinate one of Mohammad's enemies). The principle was clear: If it helps Islam, it's okay to deceive non-Muslims. Read more.

This principle has served Islamic goals very well through history. And it serves those goals today. On the DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, you can watch real-life examples of Islamic leaders saying one thing in English for the Western press, and saying something entirely different to their own followers in Arabic a few days later.

Deceiving the enemy is always useful in war, and Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world until the whole world follows Sharia law. All non-Muslims living in non-Islamic states are enemies. So deceiving Westerners is totally acceptable. It is encouraged if it can forward the goals of the spread of Islam.

And so we have the strange phenomenon covered by Steven Emerson in Terrorists Among Us, where organizations in America were ostensibly raising money for orphans, but really giving the money to terrorists. They deceived good-hearted Western infidels into giving money to organizations that were actively killing Western infidels. As it says in the Quran, "War is deceit." This idea gives Islam a tremendous advantage over idea-collections that encourage indiscriminate truthfulness. Read more about the Islamic concept of "religious deception" here.

23. Islam must always be defended. This idea is a primary linchpin that gives justification for war with almost anybody, as you'll see in the idea below. After the enemy is defeated, of course, Muslims are required to establish an Islamic state.

24. Islamic writings teach the use of pretext to start wars. The Quran devotes a lot of time complaining about people who did not support Mohammad when he first started his religion, with Allah often condemning them to torment in hell in the hereafter. The Quran is intensely intolerant of non-Muslims (source).

Mohammad was rather pushy and insistent with his religion, and when others felt intruded upon and protested, Mohammad took that to mean they were trying to stop Allah's holy prophet from bringing the revealed word of Allah to the world, so he was justified to fight them and destroy them as Allah's enemies. This is a demonstration of the principle of pretext.

Non-Muslims of the world need urgently to become aware of this principle. Of all the ideas in the Islamic collection, this is the most dangerous to the West because it removes our natural self-preserving defenses. The use of pretext tends to make the West defenseless against the Islamic invasion now underway. Muslim terrorists are not naive people. They are smart, educated, well-funded, and being used by a very clever idea-collection.

The invasion of the West is underway, and it is being done so cleverly, most Westerners don't even know it is happening. (Read more about their 20-year plan to overthrow the government of the United States. Also, read about the Shariatization of Europe.)

The use of pretext means you need only the barest excuse to begin hostilities. It means you're actually looking for an excuse, and even trying to provoke others into striking the first blow ("starting" the hostilities).

If the only way to get to Paradise is dying while fighting for Islam, you need war. And if it is your holy duty to make all governments use Sharia law, you need to conquer those governments. But you don't really want to look like the aggressor. Appearances count. All throughout the Quran, Mohammad tries to justify his aggression as defending Islam.

The Quran repeats 91 times that followers of Islam should use Mohammad as a model and imitate him. So Muslims the world over try to find or create grievances, so they can get a holy war started, so they can fight and die in Allah's cause and help make the world ruled by Allah's laws.

And because of the rise of multiculturalism (respect for all other cultures) in the West, the use of pretext is very effective against people who are unfamiliar with Islam. Many people think al Qaeda is angry at the West for having troops in Saudi Arabia, for example. That's merely a pretext. They want all non-Muslims out of the Middle East. Then they say they will cease hostilities. It is a ridiculous and impossible goal, so they are justified in permanent war against the West.

It's surprising that so many Westerners accept this particular pretext because it flies in the face of a fundamental Western principle: Equality. What Osama bin Laden is saying is "infidels are so undeserving, their very presence defiles our holy places." Wow. What does that say about the non-Muslims?

Why doesn't this kind of racism or prejudice or infidelphobia (or whatever you want to call it) outrage more Westerners? Instead, many think we ought to pull out of the Middle East so these poor offended Islamic supremacists aren't so angry with us any more!

The principle of pretext means you try to provoke a hostile reaction and then use the hostile reaction as a reason to escalate hostilities. It's the same method schoolyard bullies have used for thousands of years: "What are you looking at? You got a problem?! You wanna take it outside, punk?"

25. The explicit use of double standards. Islam has one standard for Muslims, and a different standard for non-Muslims, which always gives the advantage to Muslims and within a Muslim country, it provides incentives to convert.

For example, Islam must be spread by its believers, wherever they are. But when other religions try to spread their own idea-collection, Muslims are supposed to see it as an aggression against Islam — an act of aggression that must be "defended." Remember, Islam must always be defended.

Another example of how the double standard idea gives Islam an advantage: When Islam is defamed in any way, Muslims should violently defend it. Even in a cartoon. But Muslims can and should defame Jews and Christians in Muslim newspapers and television, and they should defame any infidel or enemy, as they defame the U.S. today.

Here's another example: The Islamic supremacists of Saudi Arabia are pouring money into building mosques all over the world. But according to Sharia law, which is the law in Saudi Arabia, no non-Muslim religious structures are allowed to be built.

Muslims all over the world protest loudly and violently when anyone in Europe or America resists the building of more mosques in their countries.

Islamic supremacists don't see the irony in it. They don't feel strange having such an obvious double standard. They are, after all, Allah's followers and everyone else is deluded. Fairness and equality with such unworthy infidels would seem very out of place. A double standard seems completely appropriate from that perspective.

The double standard principle is a key part of the idea-collection, and it has been a great advantage in the spread of Islam (and the suppression of competing religions).

Fifty-one percent of the Quran is about non-Muslims and how to deal with them. Not one verse in the Quran about non-Muslims is positive (source).

26. It is forbidden to kill a Muslim (except for a just cause). It is not forbidden to kill an infidel. This causes a bond between Muslims, fear in non-Muslims, and motivation to become Muslim. This is also another example of an explicit Islamic double standard.

27. If Muslims drift away from Mohammad's teachings, Allah will end the world. That makes converting others and promoting Islam a matter of survival. It also motivates Muslims to prevent each other from losing faith.

28. The message in a standard Quran is difficult to decipher. Whether it was done intentionally or not, the Quran's message has been scrambled and in a sense, coded. This discourages almost all non-Muslims and a significant percentage of Muslims from understanding it.

In what way is the message scrambled? First, the chapters are published out of order in every standard Quran. Rather than printing them using the chronological order in which they were revealed, the 114 chapters (suras) of the Quran are arranged using a baffling method: They're arranged in order from the longest chapter to the shortest. That's the traditional order.

When you read a standard Quran straight through like a normal book, the message is disjointed and the story jumps around and seems contradictory. One very important consequence of this curious disorder is that it hides the clear progression from Mohammad's semi-tolerance of non-Muslims to his violent hatred toward them.

The disorder also prevents anyone from figuring out which passages are abrogated unless they know the chronological order of the Quran.

The second way the Quran has been put into code is by putting the key somewhere else. Much of the Quran cannot be understood without being familiar with the life of Mohammad (by reading the Sira and the Hadith). These are primarily about Mohammad — what he said and did.

In other words, the Quran — the source book, the single most important holy book in Islam — can't be understood without the key, and the key can only be found somewhere else, which is similar to one of the ways a message can be written in code: Put the key to understanding the message somewhere else besides including it in the message. This is enough to keep most non-Muslims from understanding the Quran, and also keeps most Muslims on a need-to-know basis. So the only ones who really know what's going on are the imams and the scholars. They call the shots. Everyone else is in the dark.

If the Quran wasn't put in code deliberately, it has been a tremendously fortuitous accident which has served the goals of Islam very well throughout history. Fortunately, someone has unscrambled the Quran for us. Read more about that here.

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Okay, we can admire the brilliance of the Islamic idea-collection in an abstract, intellectual sort of way, but it is terrifyingly real. Millions of people try to follow these ideas to the letter. And their belief in the idea-collection is strongly supported by the side-effects of Sharia law. By making the government and laws ruled by Islam, the idea-collection applies two powerful principles of influence: social proof, and authority.

Everyone practices the religion in an Islamic state (or they are flogged, taxed, or killed) and no one can criticize it, not friend-to-friend, and not through any media. The psychological impact of this is enormous. Three generations later, it would be almost impossible for any Muslim living in that state to think outside of Islam. The authority and social proof would be overwhelming.

Of course, just because I admire the genius of the idea-collection doesn't mean I'm in favor of it. As a non-Muslim, I am wholeheartedly against it. Remember, the success of an idea-collection has nothing to do with making people happy or healthy. "Success" only means it propagates well.

The same is true for genes. A successful gene is one that gets the most copies of itself into future generations. The genes making up a deadly virus may kill millions of people and cause untold misery, but from a genetic point of view, the virus is successful. Genes don't care about people. They don't try to make us happy. They are cold and indifferent to our plight.

Same with ideas. An idea-collection will use up and spit out human lives in the service of its propagation, indifferent to the pain, misery, or death it causes.

An idea-collection, well-drilled into someone's head and reinforced by the powerful authority and social proof of his whole society, can cause him to blow himself up just to kill others for the fulfillment of a fantasy goal of ultimately attaining world peace and the triumph of Allah (and a harem of 72 dark-eyed voluptuous beauties devoted to his every wish).

The Islamic idea-collection is formidable. It is a force to be reckoned with and we ignore it at our peril. It has already taken hold of the minds and lives of almost one and a half billion people, and it's the youngest of the major religions.

And yet, I don't think the situation is hopeless. Many Muslims now living in Islamic states are trapped and would defect from Islam if it were safe to do so.

The first thing we in the multicultural and tolerant West need to do is help each other become aware of the formidable idea-collection threatening to overtake us. We need to help our fellow citizens awaken to the fact that orthodox Muslims will deliberately take advantage of our tolerance and our freedom so as to ultimately eliminate it.

This is an ideological war, so the ideas in the heads of your fellow Westerners makes all the difference. And you can help turn the tide. Find ways to introduce this information to your fellow non-Muslims. Here are a few ideas to help you.

You will be shocked at how little most people know about Islam. And they will be shocked to find out. And when enough non-Muslims know about it, Islamic tactics like pretext and deceit will be seen for what they are, and will no longer make us defenseless. When we know more about the founder (the one all Muslims should imitate) and the goals of Islam, our collective decisions and actions can effectively thwart their plans. Our collective grasp of the real situation will bring more rational changes to our laws and policies.

But to do this kind of inoculation, you have to have a pretty good handle on the Islamic teachings. That will require some study. I know you have other things to do, and you can't make this a full-time occupation, but I also know how serious this is, so it will require some sacrifice on your part.

I have created a curriculum of sorts. I tried to figure out what would be the material you could study that would give you the most critical knowledge in the easiest way with the smallest investment of time. You can see my curriculum here.

Study that material, and start right away. After millions of people have fought against tyranny and died to gain the rights and freedoms we enjoy today, we are now confronted with a pernicious idea-collection hell-bent on taking them away. And the Islamic idea-collection could realistically succeed with terrifying brilliance.

Take action today. Learn about Islam. With every new understanding you have, and with every new certainty and clarity you gain, you will feel bolder in speaking up, and speaking up is the first thing we must do to win.

Here's a downloadable and printable PDF version of The Terrifying Brilliance of Islam (free).

The creator of Islam Exposed wrote a reference article on The Terrifying Brilliance of Islam to provide links and quotes from Islamic doctrine that support the principles above: Terrifying Brilliance of Islam: Amplification of Key Concepts.

If you don't already know much about Islam and you're skeptical about what you've just read, I suggest you listen to an ex-Muslim woman: Nonie Darwish Speaks to Berkeley. And if you're still skeptical, you should read the Quran and find out for yourself what's true or not.

I have also created a version of the above article edited for readers who know nothing about Islam so you can share the information a little easier. Check it out: What Makes Islam So Successful?

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.