quote:

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A rhetorical device favoured by opponents of Turkish entry is to affirm the “Christian” (or “Judaeo-Christian”) foundations of Europe.

The argument ignores three basic realities. First, the cultural, political and linguistic origins of European lie in Greece and Rome, and long predate Christianity (the word “democracy” is found nowhere in the Bible). Moreover, Christianity and Judaism are in their origin not European at all, but - itself a testament to 2,000 years of interaction - religions that originated and have long flourished in the middle east.

Second, Muslim empires - and in particular the Ottoman, precursor of the Turks – have a record of historic tolerance of Jews and other minorities that (while open to considerable criticism) is far superior to that of Christian Europe. Indeed, the permanent Jewish population of around 50,000 in modern Turkey, descendants of those expelled by Christian Spain in 1492, is testimony to one of the best records of toleration of Jews of any country.

Third, the contemporary culture of Europe is not in any meaningful sense Christian; it is, rather, secular in tone and content if not actually hostile to religion.

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But there is a fear in Europe not restricted to the right-wing or Islamophobes,

"the contemporary culture of Europe is not in any meaningful sense Christian; it is, rather, secular in tone and content if not actually hostile to religion".

And that is something I see very much worthy of defence, as long it is even-handed and not ethnocentric. Here our hatred of organised religion has infinitely more to do with the CatholicGrande noirceur than with the Muslim brand of obscurantism.