[Systemz]

I agree that the "european lifestyle" is certainly an illusion - just as the "american lifestyle" and the "Iraqui lifestyle" are certainly socialized norms that don't actually reflect the majority of the citizenry of these nations. I'm the last preson that'll tell you that holding on to these illusions is beneficial to the society as a whole. The illusions are the product of a patriarchial social system that wants to retain control - the fear of immigration and the resulting "destabliziation" is baseless. Its not as if these churches in London are being bought out in a hostile takeover - only 12% of Britons actually attend church weekly, and nearly 70% never go at all. That's down enormously from even 10 years ago - and it's not like there are roving packs of scientologists out there scaring Anglicans away from church. So if the traditional Anglicans aren't going to church, its their own damned fault if they lose their churches to a group more interested in practicing. Change does indeed make people miserable - if the people are the people who have control. The fall of the Berlin Wall didn't exactly make the Stasi very happy, but mysteriously our images of those days are of teeming masses of jubilant people - people who were changing their lives. Sure - not every German was out carving their portion of the wall to sell on EBay that day, and certainly some of those people were unhappy about the wall coming down. Just as the landowning classes were cranky when the common man got the vote, and how the common man was cranky when women got the vote. Change happens - in fact, change is inevitable, and even Mr. Realism himself, Niccolo Machiavelli, will tell you that a proper person adapts to change, because the alternative is to be run under the gears. There is no "status quo" - the status quo changes as often as the days are numbered. If you want to be first against the wall when the revolution comes, go ahead and hide in your rabbit hole and scream at anything that comes into your territory - your failure to change'll get you left behind.