The Age of Enlightenment that was not that enlightened

The Enlightenment was only a natural reaction against the Wars of the Reformation and the European Wars of Religion and was ended with the French Revolution. There would have been no need for the Wars of the Reformation if Europe had already been Muslim.

In any case, how enlightened were Europeans if they went from Catholicism to Protestantism to the French Revolution without stopping to consider Islam?

Response to Yoram Hazony's essay The Dark Side of Enlightenment

The most important political truth of our generation may be this: You can’t have both Enlightenment and skepticism. You have to choose.

http://jerusalemletters.com/the-dark-side-of-the-enlightenment/

It is clearly rational to have a religion to promote the long-term survival of your group as the success and indestructibility of the most powerful tribe in the world demonstrates. That both Christianity and Islam are derived from Judaism is testament of two attempts to turn Judaism into a  lighter version of Judaism for Gentiles.  The first attempt of Christianity has now failed, so it would be rational to consider the second attempt.

If your civilisation is already in trouble, this is no time to start a new political ideology, which would be the equivalent of trying to grow a forest when you need to build a wooden house.

The Enlightenment was only called the Enlightenment because in contrast to the Dark Ages in a Europe that conducted its wars of religion, it was relatively enlightened. In any event, the Enlightenment is not fully illuminating because Christianity, a failing religion that relies on a corrupt bargain that its adherents pretend to believe in an absurdity remains officially the religion of the West to this day.

Perhaps the effectiveness of various religions could be measured in terms of faith-efficiency, which is the religious equivalent of energy-efficiency.

Islam simply invites us to entertain the idea that if there is one God, then only the Abrahamic God alone is worthy of worship because He is the most powerful, and that Muhammad is the prophet of the God of Islam.

You do not believe in God to readily accept the above proposition while Christianity not only requires its adherents to believe in an omnipotent and perfectly moral God, but that He has begotten a Son who subsequently became his co-equal in eternity.

It is not stretching reason to argue that Islam more than satisfies the minimum moral requirements of the Noahide laws which Jews are under a now forgotten religious duty to promote to the gentile. Christianity is obviously idolatrous and clearly offends against  the Noahide prohibition against idolatry.

Because of its corrupting idolatry, Christianity has failed to protect the West from the depredations of feminism and its attendant irrationality, immorality and degeneracy.

In summary, an Enlightenment that failed to consider Islam cannot be said to be complete. The Enlightenment was abruptly ended by the French Revolution whose benefits the late Chou Enlai said it was too soon to determine. A moral system that promotes extramarital sex as a human right and which has legalised the sexual immorality forbidden by the Noahide laws would soon find itself in difficulties. If the Western political establishment finds itself quite unable to discuss a change a political system and religion even in the face of apparently irreversible decline and growing disorder, then it must be a sign that the Enlightenment is as yet incomplete. The light of Western civilisation is even now dimming and the room continues to darken. 

Replacing the Archbishop of Canterbury with an Arch-Philosopher?

To disestablish the Church would mean that this country no longer has a state religion. At the moment the state religion is the Church of England which, as we all know, was established by Henry VIII to remove England from Papal control and influence.

By doing so, he intended that no monarch who is a Catholic would ever legitimately reign over England.

What of the reign of Bloody Mary? The only explanation is that Henry's last will and testament, which was made on the basis of blood relationship, gender and seniority of his various children by his various wives, omitted to take into account the fact that his eldest daughter, born of Catherine of Aragon, Catholic through and through, would become Queen when his sickly son Edward died young.

No doubt the one who drafted Henry's will would have lost his head had Henry been alive to accuse and find him guilty of professional negligence. After Mary died the succession passed to Elizabeth. If she had any inclination towards Catholicism, she in her wisdom knew it would no longer be politic to be open about them after her sister's Catholic reign had so traumatised the country.

If you disestablish the Church, then it means that those who become monarchs can be free to embrace any religion they please WITHOUT making it the state religion. In my opinion it would be a good thing, precisely because you never know which religion a monarch might embrace and give the British periodic opportunities to discuss the relative merits of different religions. Catholicism? Islam? Mormonism? Buddhism? Who knows? But it would be a private matter and vary from monarch to monarch.

If Prime Ministers who wield real power are allowed to have freedom of faith, then I see no reason why a constitutional monarch with no political power should not be allowed to do so.

Because of this, the objections raised against a Catholic succession no longer apply.

Since it is Prime Ministers who hold power, I would be more in favour of an Arch-Philosopher (who should be preferably an atheist in order that they have the requisite intellectual flexibility and can be more easily seen as non-partisan) to serve as the Conscience of the Prime Minister. As a species, it is in fact Prime Ministers who are most in need of an Official Conscience of flesh and blood that is rooted in philosophy rather than a child-like belief in an invisible magic friend.

It has been pointed out by the Buddha that belief in God is but another form of attachment, which, as all Buddhists know, is the root of all suffering. The goal of being a Buddhist is to achieve enlightenment. Enlightenment, as we all know, equips those who have it with an indifference to suffering and death without the need to believe in the existence of God.

As a nod to Plato's recommendation that society should be ruled by Philosopher Kings, an Arch-Philosopher would be just the thing to replace the ineffectual and redundant position that is currently the Archbishop's. After all, it is not the constitutional monarch that is in need of a spiritual adviser, but the Prime Minister who is in need of a moral guide and a philosophical adviser!