This is Nonsense.Christianity has spent 500 more years in the west where secular society has had a moderating effect. The same cannot be said of Islam. 500 years ago, Christians were just as much the animals that many Muslims are today. Once they get out of their little myopic Muslim-only world, secular society is having the same moderating effect on Islam that it had on Christianity.
Same standard, different locations.
This is Nonsense.
Islam/Islamic countries don't exist in a Vacuum/Time capsule.
using your logic/Excuse much of the Islamic world shouldn't have cell pones for another 500 years either.
The meme 'Islam' attracts people with violent predispositions, yes.Is Islam a "Religion of Peace"?
Yes?
No?
Yes and no?
Something else?
Please give some thoughts behind your conclusion.
Bonus question: In your opinion, why did Bush II go out of his way to refer to it as such after 9/11? Do you think he actually believed it? Do you think he was trying to keep people (us and them) calm?
The meme 'Islam' attracts people with violent predispositions, yes.
Any religion that condemns non believers with the threat of death, and those who leave it with death, and those who break its rules with death.... is not a religion of peace. It is a religion of death. As most religions also, are a religion of death. They live their whole lives to die and reap the rewards of death.
You mean like many Christian communities once did just a few hundred years ago? Blame the interpretation and practice of a religion; not the religious ideas, themselves.
Oh, and the vast majority of modern Muslims aren't going to care if you leave the religion. Any idea can have fanatical supporters. Religions especially. And especially in highly religious cultures, and even more so if there's poverty or other environmental traits that breed desperation.
A person's beliefs inform their actions. If they believe that an imaginary friend in the sky is commanding that they strap on a bomb vest and kill the heretics, then the religion that they follow, the beliefs that they hold, are at least partially responsible for the actions that they take.
Of course, a lot of religious people hate that idea because when someone of their own religion goes crazy and does something evil, they don't want anything to stain the "good name" of their own religion. It's base hypocrisy, but we shouldn't be at all surprised.
Violence isn't limited to extremists, unless you're willing to label all US Servicemen & police as extreme.I think people with extreme and very clear options like extremist Muslims (but also other groups like extreme militant groups of all walks of life) attract people who are looking for something that is missing from their lives and they end up in the clutches of these extremists.
It could be they want clarity in their live, something to fight for, some leadership from someone else, etc. etc. etc.
Violence isn't limited to extremists, unless you're willing to label all US Servicemen & police as extreme.
The suicide bomber is extreme, while the rifleman is normal. Remove the brand and look at what they are. They're militia. Most of them are normal people who are just pissed off. ISIS happens to be very good at convincing people that they are pissed off and at whom, but the majority body of terrorists are normal people.
"Terrorist" describes what kind of warfare the person performs, not why and not to what extent like "extreme".
Islam attracts those predisposed to violence, and those people aren't necessarily "extremists", they're mostly normal pissed-off people not unlike the Ferguson rioters.
You mean like many Christian communities once did just a few hundred years ago? Blame the interpretation and practice of a religion; not the religious ideas, themselves.
Oh, and the vast majority of modern Muslims aren't going to care if you leave the religion. Any idea can have fanatical supporters. Religions especially. And especially in highly religious cultures, and even more so if there's poverty or other environmental traits that breed desperation.
But when the bible and the Korean implicitly state that all non believes must be killed, enslaved or sent to a burning pit in hell, I don't see a way of interpreting your way around the violent message that conveys.
The Bible does not say that. The Quran does.
There is a difference.
The Bible does not say that. The Quran does.
There is a difference.
Where do you think the Quran gets it from?
Sure it does. Do I really need to quote it for you. I was a fairly hard core Christian for 18 years. Graduated from religious education (Sunday School). Read the bible cover to cover several times. I can point to passages that say exactly that, or can be taken that way.
And what scriptures were the LA rioters using?Violence is certainly not limited to extremists, but it takes religion or some other type of influence to motivate an extremist to do things that a normal individual would not do. It also takes an ideology that can be interpreted for that purpose. I think most religions fall in to the category of ideologies that can be interpreted as an excuse to carry out violent acts. You would have to be completely dishonest to say that the writings of at least the major religions of today can not be interpreted in that way.
No, the religion has nothing to do with it.
The lack of sanity has everything to do with it.
Nobody who is not insane/severely emotionally disturbed is going to murder innocent people just because some book tells them to.
Sane/emotionally balanced people do not murder innocent people.
I think Mohammed was a genius- Islam as a concept is logically sound since there is only one god and he shrewdly made himself the last prophet of it. On the other hand, the ones who created christianity by committee ended up making that religion full of holes in its logic (like there is supposedly only one god but all of a sudden that god has a son who also happens to be the same god, huh? etc.) thus making it inevitable that another religion that would finally fix that flawed logic (namely Islam) would be created and begin gaining converts rapidly... it was the very weakness of christianity (since the early christians already started fighting with each other in regards to differing dogmas due to the lack of logic of the core tenents as explain above) that gave rise to Islam.The certifiable psychopath who founded the religion, perhaps?
I think Mohammed was a genius- Islam as a concept is logically sound since there is only one god and he shrewdly made himself the last prophet of it. On the other hand, the ones who created christianity by committee ended up making that religion full of holes in its logic (like there is supposedly only one god but all of a sudden that god has a son who also happens to be the same god, huh? etc.) thus making it inevitable that another religion that would finally fix that flawed logic (namely Islam) would be created and begin gaining converts rapidly... it was the very weakness of christianity (since the early christians already started fighting with each other in regards to differing dogmas due to the lack of logic of the core tenents as explain above) that gave rise to Islam.
The certifiable psychopath who founded the religion, perhaps?
Quote me where, precisely, it is said in either the Old or New Testament that all Christians and Jews have the universal right and moral prerogative to kill, enslave, or forcibly convert all people of other religions.
I'll be waiting.
(Exodus 22:19 NAB) They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
(2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB) Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock.
(Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him.
I think Mohammed was a genius- Islam as a concept is logically sound since there is only one god and he shrewdly made himself the last prophet of it. On the other hand, the ones who created christianity by committee ended up making that religion full of holes in its logic (like there is supposedly only one god but all of a sudden that god has a son who also happens to be the same god, huh? etc.) thus making it inevitable that another religion that would finally fix that flawed logic (namely Islam) would be created and begin gaining converts rapidly... it was the very weakness of christianity (since the early christians already started fighting with each other in regards to differing dogmas due to the lack of logic of the core tenents as explain above) that gave rise to Islam.
He was a "genius" is roughly the same sense that someone like Hitler or L. Ron Hubbard were. I'll certainly grant you that much.
He knew how to effectively craft and market an idea that was appealing to the masses of his era, while simultaneously empowering and enriching himself beyond all reason.
I would disagree that Christianity is fundamentally untenable, however. The simple fact of the matter is that we know only so much about God as God himself has chosen to reveal.
God, if he exists at all, reveals such knowledge in his own good time.
That's historically inaccurate
First off, Mohammed was illiterate, he didn't know how to read or write.
Secondly, Islam didn't start in a Christian area.
If you look at Christianity in the 6th century or in the 7th century, it had gone down as far as Ethiopia, but it didn't even enter the arabian peninsula. So the arabian peninsula was completely Christianity-free. Maybe merchants that would travel from Byzantium and ethiopia but the vast majority of people living there had no idea of something called "christian" because most people back then were farmers and farmers don't travel a whole lot. So they didn't know that Christianity existed and those that did, knew very little of it. Which means that to go about saying you're it, you're the final prophet from a christian background meant nothing.
Thirdly, say that what i said earlier was wrong, the reality was that if the arabic peninsula, the knowledge of Christianity was widespread and known, even though it wasn't, among the population, they would have been exposed to Byzantine christianity, which was not ridden with wars or conflicts within it since it was under imperial control and the emperor didn't want trouble from the church. Moreover, the only real rebellion to make the headlines as it were, was the iconoclast rebellion... well, not really a rebellion... but that was the only thing that troubled the bynzatine empire. But that was in the VIIIth century. So long after mohammed.
Finally, the koran was written after mohammed's death. Much like the bible as we know it today was put together in the IVth century in the byzantine empire in Nichaea.
Just a few I can remember off the top of my head. There are many more.
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