Syria

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/06/18/syria-turkey-protests-refugees-crackdown.html

This article is a stark reminder of the fact that our world is at war. The article is entitled "Syrian Tanks Roll into Town Near Turkish Border". When thinking of what to write and reflect on tonight, this hit me the hardest. Moments ago I finished writing a paper on the history of Monotheism in Islam. I read about Muhammad and the instability and unrest that was going on in 6th century Arab tribes. Muhammad's travels to Syria and his experience of their "powerful" and "developed" Christian Empire were a driving force in him realizing that his people needed to have belief in a monotheistic God. However, something has clearly changed in the past 2000 years. How is that a country that was so stable it caused one of the world's largest religions to form, can now be somewhere so unsafe, and even "condemned" by the United Nations?

The questions that then come from this are innumerable and unanswerable, but I will list a few of them to chew on tonight:
1. What did Muhammad experience, and what has changed over the past 2000 years?
2. Was it really the religion that he saw that was maintaining the stability of Syria?
- if so, what is another place in the world today that would be an example of this?
- if not, what was it that he really experienced/saw?
3. Did Muhammad's view of a monotheistic God really give long-lasting stability and peace?
4. And finally, to what extent does our religious belief impact our social and political stabiltiy? (Beyond knowing that Yahweh is a transcendent, powerful and sovreign God)