You mean the kind of zealot that blithely ignores whatever other people say and keeps thinking he knows best no matter what?

Seriously, your theories here have so many weird stuff and holes in them that every time I focus on one thing, I have to let a bunch of other slide; every time I accept something for the sake of the argument, I really shouldn't. Like this Iranian irredentism deal you're talking about, and your claim that that's a serious thing and it's seriously influencing their politics - I really should require some evidence backing that up before I even move on to how important the Med would be in such a scheme (short answer: not very).

Really? You have some sources backing that up, about Iran wanting to conquer Jordan and the rest of the Arab Middle East? In a more threatening fashion than just "the Mahdi will come and all Muslims will bow down to him", that is.


Dude. When somebody who's (evidently) better informed than you tells you something, you might at least want to, you know, look it up before saying it's not true. Relying on your own logic is all very fine, but it's not a valid substitute for the facts, I'm afraid (see Wikipedia link below, which mentions more substantive sources). You don't have to find it logical, but it is what it is. You may be pleased to know, however, that the Islamic view does not actually violate your logic of "prophets do not return from the dead"; you merely failed to take into account that in their view, Jesus never died at all but was taken to heaven alive.