I need some help. A friend of mine has recently bought a copy of the Koran to try to find out what would cause Islamic terrorists to do what they do. He has pulled out a few quotes to show that these guys were just following Islam.
I think that these quotes are either metaphorical or out of context but that’s not my point or my GQ. I told him that I could find similar (out of context) quotes in the Old and New Testaments that would make Judaism and Christianity look just as bad. Can any of you help me out?
He’s wasting his time. Their motives are not based on faith or any doctrine of the Quran. There are other threads discussing the terrorists motivations. Someone in another recent thread made the point that you can find verses in any of the Western holy books to support any side of any issue. Consequently, an argument based on these verses is entirely pointless and irrelevant. I support your efforts to set your friend straight, though. Good luck!
For the most part, the bible says that God will take things into his own hands. There are parts in the Old Testament where God tells the Israelites to kill a bunch of people, like after the Exodus when he tells them to kill everyone in Canaan. Each of those times God made it specifically a one time event, and never told them to kill people just because of their race. He told them to wipe out the Canaanites because the Canaanites worshipped other gods, and he didn’t want them to fall into idol worship. In the New Testament, Jesus taught that you should not kill anyone. He even went against the old teachings that gave permission for stoning to death. When Jesus came, he took away those harsh punishments. He gave people the chance to make up for the wrong things they’ve done. There are no passages that say, “Go out into the world and kill for me a thousand Americans, and thou shalt reap rewards for your children.” Anybody who interprets any bible verses as directing them to kill other people are wrong. I know it has been done throughout history, such as the crusades, but they didn’t follow the true meaning of the scriptures. They followed there own political reasons and used God’s name to legitimise it. God does not want people to be killed. That’s why it’s one of the ten commandments.
I feel the need to restate my GQ. I am looking for out of context OT and NT quotes to show that my friend’s out of context Koran quotes do not prove that Islam is evil. Anything else does not answer my question and is inappropriate in this particular thread.
I don’t think that’s necessarily the best way to go about proving your friend wrong. Instead of searching for out-of-context verses in other scriptures, why not examine the verses around the Quran quotes?
Taking verses from any scripture out of context does nothing but sow disinformation. If you were to show your friend the context of those verses, it should be plain to him that Islam is not a religion which is rooted in evil.
That’s a valid point but it is more of a long term strategy. I don’t know enough about the Koran to do this very easily. I thought that “giving him some of his own medicine” would be a quicker and easier way to prove the same point and it appears to have worked.
Some assholes in my quiet little town today beat up a student of Middle Eastern decent. He was just walking down the street and two of them jumped out of a car and started pummeling him. It just makes me ill. Sometimes fighting ignorance seems hopeless. For every little battle I win there’s about 10,000 other ones that I can’t.
If you are looking for specific words in Bible quotes, you might want to consult the Exhaustive Concordance by Dr. James Strong, compiled in the 1890s and likely the most comprehensive such book ever published as a Bible reference. (I once bought a paperbound copy at a religious bookstore; it cost about $10.00 then.)
That said, I am hard put to find any justification for killing “infidels” in either the Bible or the Koran (in which Mohammed made many Biblical references, even including such as Abraham, Moses, Solomon, and Jesus as prophets. :))
I read in a local newspaper an editorial column which pointed out that, from the Koran’s standpoint, Allah does not condone terrorism, bigotry, or any kind of oppressive attitude or practice. Neither does the God of the Bible, for that matter. (It must be pointed out that the Israelites, as noted by The Bitterdunk Kid, above, were not given the same instructions at every point in their history. Whereas the Pentateuch directs ancient Israel to build a nation, complete with a body of laws, the book of Ezekiel (specifically the 21st chapter) describes God’s disfavor with the Israelites at this point, so much so that God abandoned the nation. (Jesus even alluded to this in the parable of the murderous cultivators; he said “The Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people bearing its [proper] fruits.”)
Perhaps even the context of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy would not justify the “fruits” borne in New York and Washington last week. :mad:
