If radical Islam is violent due to culture and not religion, then how come non muslims in the same area/regions of the Middle East/Africa/Asia aren’t blowing things up, beheading people, and stoning people?
Most of the countries where such things are happening are predominantly Muslim anymore; Iraq, e.g., is now about 99% Muslim, as are Yemen and Afghanistan, while current estimates suggest Syria is 90%. Of which non-Muslims do you speak?
Is there any distinction between religion and culture? Religion shapes culture; culture shapes religion.
the 10% of the people who live in Syrian and do not behead people or mistreat women. If such treatment really is “cultural” then chrisitans who live there would act exactly the same as the muslims do.
What about the 99% of the Muslims in Malaysia who don’t behead people?
Violence is not inherent in a religion. Otherwise, Christianity would, itself, be proven a violent faith because of the Thirty Years War.
n/m
For the middle east, overwhelmingly all people are muslim. When you are talking about small numbers engaging in violent terrorism there simply aren’t going to be many from minority religions interested in those actions. To form a cohesive movement, you need a fair number of people organized around the radical ideology.
In Africa the genocide committed against the Tutsi was committed by a the predominantly Christian Hutu. There was a lot of whacking up of people with machetes by non-Muslims.
Why does the arguement have to be only about places with Islam as a dominant religion. The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland saw quite a bit of blowing things up by non-Muslims. Through the 70s and early 80s there were a number of European based terror groups that were distinctly white and non-Muslim (many espousing Marxist inspired ideologies.) In SE Europe the 90s saw a three way battle of ethnic cleansing where only one of the groups was Muslim. The Orthodox Christians in that fight probably led the way for brutality (although when you are winning there’s more opportunity and they were winning for most of the civili war in Bosnia.)
they are practicing a violent religion in a non violent fashion. before you freak out answer this: does the text justify violence? before you answer that it does not, Does ISIS use the same Koran as the non violent muslims, or, do they have a different koran?
if the religious text calls for violence then it is a violent religion. there is nothing in the NT that justifies going to war. nothing. i am not a christian apologist either. a member of a religion doing something that the text does not proscribe is different than a member of a religion doing something directly commanded by the text.
all fine point and all beside the point in addition to that.
if the violence in Palestine is cultural and not religious then how come christian living in palestine are not acting in a violent manner.
Pretty convenient, leaving out the OT when it suits you.
Claims that most muslims are not terrorists or extremists are are incorrect. 1 in 8 muslims, for example, favourably views Al Qaeda. More importantly, since most Islamic countries are not democracies, the opinion of the majority of the population does not determine the course of their society.
What matters is not obscure theology or distant history. What matters is reality, the world we live in right now. And in reality, Muslims are much more violent than other religions.
Which version of the Bible were used during the Crusades and the Inquisition to justify their violence?
thats an issue you need to take up with christians
Even if this is true, 1 in 8 Muslims are not “most” Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims in America are non-violent and do not support violence.
IDK, the translations are probably vastly different than the ones we have today. but that is not really the point, is it? none of the teachings of christ call for war or torture. Mohamed did.
can you explain to me why christians in Palestine are not acting in a violent manner.
No, I’m taking it up with you; it’s your premise, you defend it. The bible is the holy book of christianity. Like it or not, there is plenty of calls for violence in the bible.
Likewise, if you are going to slice and dice the bible to make christians look non-violent, I’m sure the same treatment would render the quran into a tome of pacifism.
Ahh, but Christians living in Palestine HAVE in fact acted in a violent manner.
George Habash, e.g., was the first leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group that pioneered aircraft hijacking in the late '60s and has in recent years used suicide bombings; he was an Eastern Orthodox Palestinian Christian. Wadi Haddad, another big-wig in the PFLP, was Greek Orthodox. Hilarion Capucci, who smuggled weapons for the PLO, is Melkite Catholic. Hanan Ashrawi is one of several Christians to serve on the Palestinian Legislative Council; he helped organize the first intifada. For that matter, the first known female suicide bomber in the Middle East was Sana’a Mehaidli, a 16-year-old Christian, who blew herself and several Israeli soldiers to smithereens on April 9, 1985, in southern Lebanon. Chris Bandak (think about that first name) is an Orthodox Christian from Bethlehem imprisoned by the Israelis for terrorist killings as a member of Fatah. etc., etc., etc.
Came from a Christian family, I believe
Cherry-picked examples of course. ISIL/Daesh/whatever-you-want-to-call-them are currently taking the cake in terms of brutality and other Islamist whackadoos are trying awful hard to keep up with them in places like Nigeria. There is no denying that Islamists make up a majority of the terrorist threats in the world today.
But don’t make a mistake of viewing man’s inhumanity towards man as a one-sided ideological vision. The Muslims butchered in Bosnia and the Central African Republic by (ostensibly ) Christian militias and the Muslims butchered in Burma and Sri Lanka by ( ostensibly ) Buddhists aren’t any less victims of sectarian violence.
I’ve already defended it. Mohamed called for violence, war, slavery. He specifically advocated these things. Jesus never advocated anything like this, those acts are 1000 mile in the direct opposite direction of what jesus had to say.