Originally Posted by
ETWolverine
That's an interesting perspective.
Orthodox Jews who pray 3 times a day say essentially the same three prayers each time... at least the major prayer, the Amidah (aka Shemonah Esrei) is the same one for all three services.
And yet, interestingly enough, Jews are also some of the most imaginative people on the planet. I think that Jews have more Nobel, Pulitzer and other major awards for imaginative, productive and problem-solving actions than any other group in the world.
I would argue that Kurds, who are also Muslim and also pray 5 times per day, are some of the hardest working, imaginative, problem-solving, high-work-ethic people in the whole world. (Which is why we ought to be supporting them over the Iraqis and the Iranians any day of the week.) Turks are also mostly Muslim and pray 5 times per day too, and also, for the most part, share the same work ethic and imagination and inventiveness of the Kurds.
I wonder why you connect prayer to a lack of imagination?
I personally connect the Arab Mentality to a lack of imagination, but it has nothing to do with prayer. Because others with similar prayer requirements in their religions do not share the same lack of imagination.
As a point of interest, The Hunt For Red October was published AFTER the incident that got Congress in an uproar, which means that Clancy didn't influence the events at all.
Weber's book, while writen before 9/11, was actually published AFTER, and so it also didn't influence anyone.
And frankly, I don't think that OBL reads Clancy. Clancy has a tendency to make his Muslim badguys into stereotypical villains (even moreso than his Cold War-Era badguys). So much so that at least one Clancy movie changed the badguys from Muslims to European terrorists in order to be PC. I don't think that OBL would read the works of sombody that was so unPC toward Muslims.
Just a thought.
Elliot
