Violence rationally used for the general good DOES solve some problems. Massive violence was ultimately necessary to "Purge and blast (Hitler) from the face of the Earth", as Churchill eloquently said. Had firm and rational minds dealt mercilessly with the Nazis that ill-omened day in 1923, humanity would have suffered the deaths of at best a hundred fools and lunatics, not those of 50 million decent people in battle, and another 12 million in the Holocaust. Machiavelli would have agreed.

Jihad does mean struggle, but is used throughout the Koran and Hadith as a synonym for Holy War. Therefore, the "Struggle" that forms the key tenant of Islam is Muhammad's exhortation to violent world conquest. Islamophobia is the sane response to this homicidal insanity. Persian Muslims and Jewish Dhimmis advanced the sciences you mentioned (but NOT evolution, which awaited Darwin). Since Islamic society forsook inquiry for dogma 600 years ago, Muslims have produced little save terrorism.

It's religious people who profusely exude obvious damage from unhealthy parenting. While Atheists mature emotionally and revel in the privilege of exploring the world and thinking independently, believers remain frightened children, instinctively clinging to the father figure they project into the Cosmos.

Palin is a Creationist; that's all I need to know about that idiot. Belief in Creationism is diagnostic of extreme ignorance and fundamental mental incapacity and no rational person can possibly vote to elect an avowed Creationist to high office. Get thee to a nunnery, Palin, and stay far away from the US Presidency.

Everybody, be they sage or morons, says something insightful on occasion. Muhammad pointedly criticized the inanity of Christian Messianic doctrine, Hitler insightfully condemned the cult of indigent weakness enshrined by Jesus' ethics, and apparently Bush inspirationally attacked the idiots who offer to appease Muslim barbarism. I'm quite frankly most surprised by Bush, the most imbecilic of the lot..lol