1- The most important factor is that Christians are not killing 8,886 people a year - in a holy war - now.
2- I am more concerned with what is happening now, than what happened 200 or 800 or 1400 or 3000 years ago.
3- I’ve never made the case about what happened 1000 years ago, why are you acting like I am ignoring things? I’m not being rude, well, I am, but I don’t debate well, I do not debate tactfully, I apologize. My point has never been, hey, “look what happened 1000 years ago”… I’m not ignoring that point. How is it relevant to 2015?
When has it ever, ever in history, been common for Christians to behead people, to stone people to death, to cut off a thief’s hand, to have women walk around with cloth covering all/most of their face?
Where, in Christianity, does it say - specifically - to kill the infidel? Where did Christ say this. Please, I am not interested in debating OT vs NT, where did Christ actually say kill the infidel. Because, Mohammed said it. Mohammed did it. Christ, did not, say or do either.
That is my honest answer. Maybe there - is - a fundamental flaw in my position that I do not see or will not acknowledge. I don’t think there is but I will not say there can not possibly be a flaw in my reasoning. I don’t claim to be perfect. And I readily admit to being biased.
Yes, Christianity did – and does today! – have very strict codes of costume for women. Try going to the grocery store in a bikini…
Christians DID kill infidels, by the millions. The holy book isn’t the issue: the religion is the issue. Christians have, in the past, been brutal and murderous. Why don’t you argue that Christianity is a depraved faith, full of violence?
You keep making these absurd digressions about the books, but you can’t address the religion. Christ’s religion has been used as an excuse to kill people, torture people, seize people’s property, and so on.
It’s been pointed out to you a great many times by some of the better minds on this board (I do not include myself.) You seem terribly stubborn, because you have never actually answered many of the points put before you. I can only judge that it is “will not” not “can not.” Your position is hellishly flawed, because it depends on special pleading and arrant favoritism.
I think there are some interesting questions buried in this trainwreck of a thread. The trouble is, they’re not really relevant questions.
For instance, it might be the case that the Koran, read in isolation, has 60% more calls-for-violence and 50% fewer calls-for-peace-and-love than the Christian Bible. And in fact, if we restrict ourselves to the new testament (which is arguably reasonable) I can believe that might be true (without any particular knowledge of the topic).
In addition, it seems nearly certain that the precise contents of a source document have some effect on a religion, at least in situations where people are literate and can read the source document for themselves.
All other things being equal, if there are two religions which are currently approximately equally peaceful, and one of them has a source document that repeats over and over “love is the most important thing, be kind to everyone”, and the other one has a source document that repeatedly says “anyone who doesn’t eat the right thing on Fridays should be stoned to death”, but the clerics and theologians of that religion, with total sincerity, insist that all of the stoned-to-death language is purely metaphorical; I think the first language is more likely to remain peaceful, while the second religion is more likely to at some point in the future become violent.
But of course, all other things are NOT equal, and any nearly-theoretical effect that actually exists is swamped by all the other things that influence a religion… and this is amply proven by how much Christianity and Islam have both changed in various directions at various times over the past millenium, when their source documents have remained unchanged.
Taking a step back for a second, even if someone did manage to totally convincingly demonstrated that the Koran makes Islam 0.3% more dangerous than Christianity, well, so what? ISIS is till a bunch of murderous assholes and the vast vast vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceful and reasonable. So… what would be next?
So you are saying that the violence is caused by economic unrest and political instability and that their adherence to religion is an excuse?
Well, let me ask you this, if that’s true, 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?
For the 2000 years of it’s existence, until relatively recently it was extremely common for Christian countries to do all sorts of nasty punishments to people including not just beheadings(I’m genuinely shocked you’re unaware of Henry VIII) but even at the time of the founding of the US there were countries where people would be torn into four pieces by horses and being an “unbeliever” has historically been vastly more dangerous in the Christian World than the Muslim World.
As to when was it common for women to wear a hijab type covering, well just look at pictures and paintings of European women from the 19th and early 20th Century.
Er… the Bible.
Have you the slightest idea how many “infidels” or “heretics” were slaughtered in Europe?
When he commanded his people to obey all the laws of Moses. Among those are the killing of “infidels”.
You are familiar with Moses and how he treated people he found worshipping a Golden Calf and you do know that he is revered amongst Christians aren’t you?
Agreed, they’re both part of the Bible so it’s utterly moronic to insist they don’t count.
That certainly isn’t what conservative Christians think, many of whom repeatedly have insisted that the Ten Commandments be placed in all school rooms.
In the Bible of course. You’ve read the Book of Revelations haven’t you where he’s supposed to come back and slaughter millions.
It’s certainly something that conservative Christians are aware of and believe in. You’re familiar with the incredibly successful book series, the “Left Behind” series aren’t you?
This is quite frankly a ludicrous assertion. It appears as if you are being over backwards to make the most tenuous connection possible. Are you really going to tell me Woman in California or Minnesota does not have SIGNIFICANTLY more civil rights protection than a Woman in Egypt or Yemen.
Is that really seriously your best answer?
Yeah? When have Christians EVER made a habit of beheading people, stoning people to death, or cutting off the hands of thieves? When? Ever?
As far as the book vs the religion that is a specious argument. (Specious being defined as superficially plausible, but actually wrong.) You could of at least tired to point out during the Spanish Inquisition that putting someone on the rack or blinding them with a hot poker was (1)not only not specified in the bible anywhere, but further (2) that Christ spoke out against such actions in many many places. You can’t do that to a member of ISIS, because even if Mohammed has 794 wonderful things to say on a wide variety of topics, he still, specifically says to put an infidel to death.
So that, specifically, is the difference. Christianity at least can be reformed to a better “religion” by sticking to the book. Not so with Islam.
Well I am incredibly stubborn!!!
So what?
This girl in the Bikini that you mention, where is her life, as a whole, going or be better? California? Minnesota? Denmark? Australia?.. or Yemen?
Henry the VIII was cutting people’s heads off because he wanted to, not because the bible told him too. That is a factor that would be relevant to pretty much anyone who is not a a Muslim apologist, or, an apologist for Islam.
Moses may have been commanded to kill specific - groups - of infidels but he was never under standing orders to kill infidels as a common practice.
Even if you were COMPLETELY correct that there is no essential difference between Christianity and Islam… I am not admitting for even a second that you ARE correct, but even if you WERE correct, we still come round to one central point:
In 2011, Muslim Terrorists killed 8,886 people. How many people were killed by Christian Terrorists during this same year?
But how is that relevant to the question of whether the causes are mostly religious or mostly cultural? Did Christianity change somehow in 2011? Have the religiouss killing rates been consistent in the muslim world for 1500 years?
Rather odd for a source in the wiki tradition. But, be that as it may…
Under the heading Support for Suicide Bombers the results of the test question…
“violence against civilians to defend Islam can be justified Sometimes/Rarely/Never/Don’t know.” I note that the actual question and the alleged testing point do not coincide, the survey victim is not asked about suicide bombing, but attacks on civilians in general. “Asked of Muslims only” it notes.
Suspicious, yes. But moreso, surprised that you are not suspicious, surprised that you offer this in support of your wretched religious bigotry. Of the Muslim respondents, in every instance, in every location in the world, “never” stands out as first, “rarely” second. (Except, apparently, in Nigeria [?])
So, you offer this research to support your premise, or simply didn’t read it? You really shouldn’t offer cites you haven’t actually read. Someone might have snuck in some porno, or worse, humanism! And you would be none the, ah, wiser.
I can think of 8,886 reasons why it is relevant. If it was, say, 86 people killed, and even that number would be high, you could say it was “cultural” ie, a few bad apples and not really a result of the doctrine itself. But with 8,886 deaths I don’t think the “few bad apples” analogy applies anymore.
8,886 people are killed by Muslim terrorists and — I’m — a wretched bigot for pointing this out?
I’d be glad to dig into facts and sources, etc, but really, what is the point? I mean really? You are just going to come back and say, “Well, Robert, that is just SOME muslims, that is not MOST Muslims”.
The point is not how many people say never. The point is how many people say “yes”.
If you are concerned with the validity of this data you could research “pew poll, Islam, accuracy”. I will admit it is hard to find accurate data but one has to start somewhere.
OK, so lets say that each of those was a Muslim murdering a non-Muslim. So, you got a little shy of 9,000 to compare with one billion Muslims, worldwide. A bit of a mathtard myself, but lets see…carry the 2, multiply by the square root of zero… Shit, that’s 90%!
Well, hell, I take it all back, 90% of Muslims are murderous mofos! Figures don’t lie!
Let’s not say that. Let’s not belittle the deaths of innocent people. If you notice, probably didn’t and I wouldn’t fault you if you did, it is a long thread, but this cite was mentioned several days ago and I didn’t even comment on it.
I don’t know if that site is accurate, it is definitely heavily biased, but it also the most detailed. If I were so inclined I’d probably go and check 10 random reports from that site and try to match them against newspaper articles and other sources of more reliable media. That is kind of grisly, depressing and time consuming. There seems to be no point in such an activity, solely for the purpose of trying to pacify the complaints of a bunch of apologists for Islam. Even if 50% of those reports are accurate, and I am sure it is way way way more than 50%, people would say, “Well, Robert, that is just the bad Muslims doing that!!!”
The sad thing is that statistics from here, and here seem to match up rather closely to the first report that was mentioned.
I do not have an exhaustive list of data to present to you. Believe it or not, I do not hate Muslims so much that I spend hours and hours and days and days cataloging acts of terrorism by Muslims. But even when facts are presented, none of the apologists care. So why bother? I mean, seriously, why bother.
The pew poll has been out for a while, since 2013. I do not claim that it is completely accurate. But if even 50% of it is correct we are talking about some very very very shocking results. Blogs on both sides seem to take issue. The only “objective” review I have been able to find is from the Washington Post.
I didn’t even want to bring up the numbers of people killed by Muslim terrorists. I really actually didn’t. The whole thing is grisly and depressing. But after several days of listening to people accuse me of making accusations without any facts attached, I did bring it up. To no avail. It is kind of sad, actually, that you want to turn this into a game and try to accuse me of moving goal posts or being ignornat about Moses or Aquinas or whatever other comment you choose to make in a similar manner.
Even if we accept that these deaths have increased dramatically in the past two decades, even if we accept that, for the moment let’s go ahead and say it is relevant. Well, whatever relevance that has is made immaterial by the fact that 8,886 people died in — one — year. I am quite sure if the book - never - mentioned killing infidels and in fact had ONLY passages against harming innocents and ONLY passages to that effect, there would be probably at least 8,800 more people still alive.
But we don’t even have to look at terrorism. Let’s look solely at one factor:
Where is life better, in terms of safety and freedom and civil rights. Under a western Democracy or under Sharia Law. Ibn Warraq I know you will probably not believe me. But if you asked me, whom would I prefer to spend the afternoon with, or live with, or live next to, a “good” Muslim or a “good” Christian. I’d probably pick a Muslim. In my experience, of having roommates who were Muslim and being a very very talkative person and living in NYC for 15 years and talking to lots and lots of cab drivers and hot dog salesmen who were Muslim, I would prefer to hang out with a good Muslim. For the most part, I find Muslim people to be passionate and thoughtful and cheerful but not evangelistic in the ways that christians often are. I do not consider being a cab driver or a hot dog salesman to be a bad thing either, not in any way, I am simply telling you of the many people that I met, Including muslim roommates or classmates in boarding school and college.
But I would not at all, not at all, want to live in Yemen, or Saudi Arabia or Libya.