How the West was formed

“Western culture was created a result of the synthesis of two great strains in the history of thought, Hellenism and Hebraism, as Matthew Arnold noted long ago. On one side are the ancient Greeks, who thought very deeply about sociology, politics, science and philosophy, but neglected religion, and on the other side are the Hebrews who thought deeply about the nature of God and morality and took religion very seriously. The record of their reflections created the most advanced body of religious thought the world has ever known.
When this religious thought, further enlarged by the last of the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, was subsequently Hellenized, the resulting synthesis created a body of thought that one might regard as a new social order, one intensely focused on individualism - individual salvation and individual self-realization. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, as part of the process of individual self-actualization is taken for granted in western society and yet this most basic aspect of western civilization is continually miscomprehended by the Muslim world because the goal of Muslim society is in diametric opposition to individualism. It focuses instead on the communal perfecting, defending and enlarging the system of Islam, which seems to have no other purpose than its own self-perpetuation.” Rebecca Bynum, “An Unfettered Mind.”