Mark Steyn writes about how the western world deals with their values. How we stand up for those values, or fail to do so.
I'm not sure I understand what he means, though. He seems to be saying that the people from the western world are weaklings because we would convert to another religion (say, Islam) just to save our life. And in doing so, we would diminish our values and our culture.
I can only speak for myself, but one of my values is Life itself. So I can't see how dying for my religion would help my values. To me, there are very few things worth dying for, and religion is certainly not one of them. I'll gladly convert to another religion if it means I "get to leave jail for free". Oh, and by the way, isn't the god of Islam the god who spoke to Abraham? And isn't the god of Christianity that same god who spoke to Abraham?
Maybe this attitude makes me look weak and unworthy in the eyes of some other people. Well, isn't that just too bad? I do have my ideals, and maybe I'm not doing enough for them. But the thing is, I just don't know how much (if anything at all) I can do for my ideals when I'm in the Undiscovered Country that comes after death. Faced with the choice between "doing a small amount of work for my ideals while being alive" and "doing an unknown amount of work for my ideals and appear strong in the eyes of some other people while being dead", I choose Life.