The West, having been through the religious experience and having shed it from public life, wants mostly everyone else to follow suit. The Muslims want to keep God in everything. That is the rift.

Ideally each side should let the other be as they would be. If the West wants to promote their ideas they should do so without forcing them onto others. Similarly if Muslims believe their way of life is superior, they should demonstrate that by implementing their religious principles in the society and show to everyone how that makes for a better society and wards off some of the decadence of the West that they frown at.

But neither side is doing the ideal.

The West is lecturing the East about how their women should live and how they should allow for gay rights. Then the West is forcing itself on the Muslims by first ridding them of their WMDs (iraq) but after finding no WMDs justifying it by saying it was really about removing saddam and bringing in democracy.

Similarly some Muslims like the Afghans are reacting violently after feeling cornered by the worldly success of the Western way of life and having borne the brunt of the force of the West's military might.

So regardless of which side you think is correct and you hope should win, the fact of the matter is: the clash is on.