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To me, the difference between the ‘violence of the Bible’ and that found in the Koran is that no Christian denominations are out there actively preaching the elimination of the followers of Mohammed.
You can’t say that about Islam, no can you?
“any scripture” — I guess that covers all religions.
As for religions and violence, one of my favorite subjects.
Muslims are only peace-loving when they are in the minority. Minority muslims always fool themselves that their faith can be peaceful. Even Turkey failed to remain secular. Their quaint ‘must have a coup to remain secular’ clause in their constitution failed. Iraq has been the most recent testing ground, a free muslim nation which has every reason to see the good in Christians.
Jews and Christians of today are at the top rung when it comes to being peace-loving. [Although way back when our faith was ‘taught’ in Latin, our Crusaders were quite barbaric.] Buddhists failed to restrain Red China even after several decades. And I hear that even hindus are persecuting Christians in India. As for communists and socialist facists — history speaks loudly at what level they are. As for Spain — the Inquisition perverted their Catholic faith, and I believe that people South of the Border are still suffering from a post-inquisitional church.
[Note that Luthran Germany never gave Hitler a majority vote, and that his own generals sometimes rebelled and tried to assassinate him. Nazis blatantly violated Gal.6.10 in scripture. It was not religious-based.]
But I would agree that Christianity and the Jewish faith do have scriptures that give us leeway to self defense. Jesus actually wanted his apostles to sell whatever was necessary to arm themselves before he was betrayed by Judas. When Peter did it alone, that was when Jesus said those famous words ‘... live by the sword ... die by [it].’ In other words — no suicide mission. Abraham led an attack to save his brother, Lot. They profitted greatly from the bandits’ spoils.
Reza Aslan: “If you’re a violent, war-mongering person, you can find justification in any scripture”
Correct if you misuse or misinterpret those religions dictates. However if you are a muslim and follow the death cult of Islam you simply follow its directions. No misuse or misinterpretation required.