How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)

by David Goldman

We can refuse for only so long to face the fact that we will die. Religion offers the individual the means to transcend mortality, to survive the fragility of a mortal existence. Homo religiosus confronts death in order to triumph over it. But the world’s major religions are distinguished by the different ways in which they confront mortality. We cannot make sense of the role of religion in demographic, economic, and political developments—and of the different roles of different religions in different places and times—without understanding the existential experience of the religious individual. It is challenging to recount this experience to a secular analyst; it is somewhat like describing being in love to someone who never has been in love. One doesn’t have to be religious to understand religion, but it helps.

Houellebecq read this passage and paraphrased it in Submission!