As many of you know, I help with the FreeRepublic fundraisers. It is not always easy or fun sitting at a computer for hours and hours monitoring those threads. Everyone who work the threads VOLUNTEERS to do so. We spend days and weeks helping to keep FreeRepublic running.

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FreeRepublic is not free. It costs Jim Robinson tens of thousands of dollars to keep this forum running. There are over 60,000 registered users on FreeRepublic and only 1,000 help keep this forum running. Those who do not have the ability to donate money could help by bumping the threads once in a while. Those who who do should be ashamed of yourselves. You are a FReeploader.

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Islam: A faith in the process of being highjacked?

The question to ask the great Islamic nations of the world is this…
“Are you letting your faith be highjacked by a band of extremists who plan to crash it into the world tower of civilization in a bloody fiery holocaust?” Does the great Islamic faith teach that the mass murder of innocents by suicide is a “righteous act?” This may be the most important question the history of Islam, and maybe the world. What will their answer be?

Though I essentially agree, there is another fundamental difference bewteen the two religions. Having read both the Bible and Koran cover to cover, I feel qualified to say this. The Bible preaches that the path to heaven is to follow the personal example of Jesus Christ, or as the author puts it, WWJD?

The Koran, on the other hand says that path can be achieved by destroying infidels. Christianity preaches forgiveness. Islam equivocates on that point.

Toward the end of the crusades, the mongols, who were then sweeping accross asia and into Persia, encountered both crusaders as well Muslims. The mongols had no set religion and many mongols incorporated other religious beliefs into their own paganistic ones. Both sides in the Crusades tried to bring the mongols in on their side. In the end, they never really joined the fight because events back home (death of the kahn) compelled their return. But for the short while that they were a factor they sided with Islam because the "turn the other cheek" aspect of Christianity did not make sense to them, while the more warlike Islamic code did. A large number of mongols converted to Islam before returning home and helped spread the religion east.

And last but not least, we should not forget what precipitated the crusades. Had Muhammed and his follower been content to spread their religion through personal example, like Christianity, there would have been no crusades. Islam was spread through the middle-east at the point of a sword - convert or die. It was not until Jeruselam was sacked and Christians prevented from having access to their holy sites that that Rome put out the call to arms. These difference were in place before the reformation and rennaisance.

The idea of the "Christain Warrior" came about in response to the agressive rise of Islam in the middle-east and the widespread killing of christians, and the incursions of the mongols into eastern europe. Its beginnings were essentially a defensive reaction that eventually evolved to almost mimic the Islamic practice of converting at the point of a sword.

It's because their religion actually advocates this kind of thing.

How many Muslims do you know?

I read the kind you buy at a book store. If you believe I am wrong, then be specific, if you can....

Instead we must selfishly, unequivocally and proudly stand for the worldly values that ended the "dark and doleful night of Christian rule" and ushered in the prosperous way of life the West now enjoys.

This liberal rhetoric---anti-Christ marxist-secular-animalistic philosophy; i.e., moral relativity--social evolution--progress is the dark ages---END TIMES rule takeover--destruction of Satan.

What a bait-switch-scam...180 o's backward...false-hoax-kook science vs. TRUTH!

My dear brother and sister FReepers,

At this, of all times in my lifetime, I would like nothing more than to be able to read these threads and reply to them.  I have much I would like to say.

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Clearly, you did not read the Qu'ran.

What PsyOp has said is very true. Aside from the fact that the theology itself is quite different, there is also the fact that the peoples that adopted Islam were different from those among whom Christianity made its converts. Once Christianity spread into the educated classes in Rome and Constantinople, it found people who already possessed a philosophical foundation and were accustomed to considering abstract ideas and concepts such as the relationship between religion and the state, etc. After all, Augustine and others were already discussing this in the first centuries of Christianity.

Islam, on the other hand, while making many of its converts among peoples untouched by Greco-Roman philosophy, also offered an irresistible shortcut-to-heaven message that went very well with the lives of semi-nomadic tribes. Many of these peoples had been Christians at some point, but the advent of the Arian heresy left Christianity in disarray in that part of the world, and hence, easily swamped by the quick and easy and warlike message of Islam. Civilizations like that of the caliphate of Baghdad did manage to bring a certain level of sophistication to Islamic thought, particularly mystical thought, but it was a constant struggle, and history is full of the uprisings of more ignorant and rigorist Muslims against societies or individuals who had a more "modern" view of the religion.

In many ways, I think the best analogy is not with medieaval Christianity, but with the cast of characters in the Old Testament, people who absolutely wallowed in blood and who were only brought bit by bit to an understanding of what God wanted out of humanity. However, my personal view - and I know this may offend some - is that this was possible in the case of the Jews because their religion is true, while Islam is, from the very beginning, a heresy. I have often seen debate over whether it is essentially a Christian heresy or a Jewish heresy, but it is, in any event, untrue in its foundation. This doesn't mean that God cannot bring good from it, and I think there are many Muslims who have found what nuggets of truth there are to find in it, and have developed them abundantly.

But as a religion, it is one that lends itself unresistingly to politicization. Remember, much of Christian history is the struggle, not of the state to be free of religion, but of religion to maintain its own sphere of authority and to keep the State from either proscribing it or manipulating it for its own purposes. Obviously, it hasn't always been successful, and many times horrible things have been done by political forces working under the guise of religion (the sacking of Constantinople, for example, by those same Crusaders who first set out with what was a noble and justifiable mission). Islam is a religion that is almost 700 years "younger" than Christianity; but even so, Christianity of the 13th century had a much more highly developed understanding of religion, philosophy and governance than Islam, which is approximately 1300 years old now. I think you can find the reason for this in the roots of Judaism and Christianity itself, and in the Greco-ROman intellectual world at the time of the founding of Christianity.

Interesting post #5.

I've learned a lot about Islam over the last week, and the more I learn the worse it looks.

I Most certainly did. An here in lies part of the problem with that book It is so ambiguous as to be open to very wide interpretation. Perhaps it loses something in translation, and perhaps my own world view affects how I interpreted it, But I did read it.

An here in lies part of the problem with that book It is so ambiguous as to be open to very wide interpretation.

Exactly like the Bible. Elsewise, there wouldn't be so many denominations and branches.

An outsider to Christianity or Judaism might look at many passages in the Bible and assume it advocates incest, genocide and the taking of slaves. Most insiders know better.