Posted on 01/08/2015 10:33:32 AM PST by GraceG
It annoys me to no end when someone says that Christianity was just as bad as Islam in the past by some "supposedly" well meaning but totally ignorant Atheist Liberal.
What these fools all ignore was the Major differences in HOW the religions spread and WHEN they became misbehaving.
So let's look at this and stare and compare as they say:
Christianity: Started very peaceful, spread mainly by word of mouth and voluntary conversions, took several hundred years to spread across the world and then never did it by the sword. Many early Christians were heavily persecuted. Most all powerful countries that were christian were usually a powerful country first that then later adopted Christianity as it spread peacefully. It was only later, hundreds of years after they became christian countries that bad things happened like the Spanish inquisition and witch burning.
When it came time to reform the reformers had a past of peace they could point to get the faith back on track as at one time Christians used to be the persecuted people, so the reformers could say, "this is wrong because we are doing the persecuting now, when we used to be the persecuted".
Islam: Started peaceful.... For about a few years then the founder of it wasn't getting any traction so he ramped up the violence in the text and made it into a conquering cult. Once this was done is was spread by the sword through violence and intimidation. It took less than a century to spread as far a Christianity had taken several centuries due to the despicable tactic of forced conversions. It wasn't early Muslims that were the persecuted, it was early Muslims actually doing the Persecution. Countries were not peacefully converted and existing empires slowly converted, but instead it was more of a reformatting and conquering by blatant force. The Muslim missionary had an army instead of a flock of peaceful followers. Bad things that the Muslims did not happen after Islam was well established. Instead the Bad things were done in the name of actually establishing it by force into new areas.
When it comes time to reform Islam there is no truly "peaceful past" that the reformers can use as a bulwark to help convince the masses that they are still being true to the faith, instead there is only a bloody history of conquering and extinguishing other religions. The Islamic reformers (the few that actually exist and are trying to reform it into a more peaceful form) do not have the tool of "early Islam where for hundreds of years Muslims were persecuted just like Christians". Instead they have a completely uphill battle where they only have a slight sliver of a few years of time at the very beginning before Mohammed changed his mind and went on a genocidal killing spree.
Islam has already had a reform, sadly it what we called Wahhabi Islam or Violent Jihad Islam, why because the reformers of faiths ALWAYS have to point to the past to reform their religions, and Islam has a very bloody past. Islam doesn't need another reformation, it actually needs an honest to goodness revolution.
It would be like trying to reform Christianity by only using Christs first sermon as a basis for reform while tossing out everything that happened afterwards out. Trying to sell that sort of reform would be met with people going "Why are you throwing out 90% of the bible?" and would never gain traction.
This is why Islam needs a Revolution, revolutions actually throw out the past history of the existing structure and attempt to replace it with something new, hopefully something more peaceful, but the success rate of a revolution actually accomplishing it's goal is a lot lower than a reformation because of this, revolution is risky. The success rate is low, but when you are starting out with Islam, any reformation is simply going to "spinning your wheels" because the baseline is violent jihad. Islam needs to throw away that violent world conquering baseline and only a risky revolution inside of Islam will do that, not a Reformation.
The. anti-Christian bigots always equate Muslim butchery with the Crusades. Look up the history of the Muslim conquer, Saladin, who wiped out thousands of Europeans in merciless slaughter to add to Muslim territory. Had the Christians not fought back, they would have had to convert to Islam in order to survive.
History is repeating itself and our abject ignorance of it is an enormous defect in our culture.
The last “Christian” war IIRC was in Northern Ireland. There have been sporatic nutjobs like Jim Jones killing his “flock.” Then, a couple of hundred years ago there was Salem.
But, no continuous and ongoing murders or mayhem have taken place by Christians in the name of God or conversions to Christianity has been happening for 2,000 years unlike those since the time of Mohammed.
The Crusades were a belated reaction to the conquest of the ME and Northern Africa by muslim forces.
And the Protestants were every bit as vicious agains the Catholics.
In the Haddiths, Mohammad clearly says anyone attempting to change to Given Word of allah must be killed.
Mohammad also clearly said that on the Second Given Half of the qu’ran is valid. Since all the peaceful suras (which, incidentally, are plagiarized from the Bible and the Torah) are in the First Given Half which has been invalid since the time of Mohammad, what would an Islamic Reformation look like presuming the reformers were not killed, en mass? Only kill every other non-believer?
Further, to attempt such a change would be like a Christian attempting to gainsay Christ.
Islam cannot be reformed.
I am not a Christian a Jew or a Muslim.
But I see a big difference between Christianity and Islam.
People like Timothy McVeigh and the Inquisitors are violating the fundamentals of their Christian religion, which are laid out in the NEW TESTAMENT.
There is nothing in the New Testament that encourages or justifies their actions.
The Koran and Hadiths, the fundamentals of Islam are radically different.
They justify killing non believes, and anyone who is a threat to the faith. - Tom
It had nothing to do with pointing to the past but for the common man being able to read the Bible for himself and figure out that what the church was saying and where it was leading was not really what the Bible was saying.
Islam on the other hand will never have that option as it says what it says and is being taught truthfully in the mosques unlike Christianity before the reformation.
Absolutely not true.
That said; whatever it takes.
It's not going to happen, and Westerners who think it will — or could — are sticking their heads in the sand in hopes of delaying the inevitable world war.
Why and when mass slaughters occurred does not make it less heinous.
Again, Islam has done far worse, but there is an awful lot of rationalizing in this thread. Christians, in the name of Christianity slaughtered many Jews for no good reason.
If the Crusades was only about Islam, no Jews would have been murdered.
It’s okay to admit wrongdoing by Christians or at least it should be.
Christianity grew up. Islam has yet to grow up, if it ever will.
Don’t leave out the Crusader murder of ten of thousands of fellow Christians in Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
I guess you missed this sentence.
“It was only later, hundreds of years after they became christian countries that bad things happened like the Spanish inquisition and witch burning.”
Tamerlane, a Muslim, was one of the bloodiest conquerors in history (although few if any of his victims were Christians).
Tamerlane, a Muslim, was one of the bloodiest conquerors in history (although few if any of his victims were Christians).
Didn’t miss it.
I even addressed it.
Maybe you missed my reply.
That really is the bottom line. To those who can’t understand it, there’s little more that can be said.
I was astonished when I read “my” first translation of the stinking koran back in 2001.
its utterly depraved...clearly HYPER contradictory and thoroughly INSANE...and evil
And that's really the only relevant fact.
I’m willing to kill as many of our enemies as it takes, and to die myself, to avoid having my country overrun by savage muslims.
If that results in a “mass slaughter” then so be it. I will not apologize for it and I will not agree that it is in any way “wrong”.
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