You’re producing fiction right now. The only question of mild interest is whether you’re lying about it to us all or just to yourself.

@HH: Yes, I suppose that may be so for some. Similarly, many avowed atheists excuse themselves from any serious thinking and just say: “God didn’t do it. I figured that out by age 3.”

One can’t expect much deep thinking in a world where most people are preoccupied with the daily struggle to survive. But it’s a shame that more people with the means to try it, won’t.

@Ken: I don’t produce fiction myself, but I hear it’s not that easy. They award Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for it. And could anything be more “baseless” than atheism, i.e., a firm belief in nothing?

Which is what believers do imo. They can’t answer a question so just say, “God did it.” It’s a cop out. It stops deep thinking on any topic.

Thinking must indeed be hard, if all you can produce is baseless fiction.

Yes, thinking is hard. Much easier to think about nothing.

Got a point there, but we should not overdo it either. Afghanistan has been unstable, a ‘wild West’, since human memory. Iraq was kept ‘stable’ by Saddam’s Iron Fist (it can even be argued that many Iraqis are better off know, especially the Kurds). Syria and Iraq are quite alike: stable do to ‘Iron Fistedness’. And Lybia too to some degree. Nor would I overestimate the stability of Somalia/ Somaliland under Syad Barre. I doubt whether the ‘West’ had very much to do with the interminable civil wars in Sudan (and now also South Sudan).
The Cold War, of which ‘East’ and ‘West’ were equally culpable, led to a lot of interference in these generally pre-existing conflicts, no argument there.
Of course, if we count the Saudi support for subversive Wahhabism as being caused by the ‘West’ via petrodollars and within ‘cold war context, we would have a stronger case. That, however, leads us straight back to the possible link between Islam and war & strife.

Or even a malevolent and impotently obsessed god.

I think there is a connection, but one that shouldn’t be over played, particularly in the countries mentioned, where Western military interventions have been such a strong factor in creating ongoing instability.

But that detract us from the point: is it war and strife that corrupts, or Islam, or are they connected?

@Ken, yes, I do know, in theological sophistry anything goes. Even nonsense squared, obviously.