Today's Example of the Religion of Peace

[Stringbean]

@AtomThought

Most followers of Islam don’t commit horrific acts, just like most Christians don’t commit horrific acts. If there is something inherently worse about Islam than there is about Christianity, why aren’t most of its followers committing horrific acts? Both Muslims and Christians can and do ignore the bad parts of their holy text and behave according to the good parts. A follower of Islam is no more inherently bad than a follower of Christianity.

So one religion founded by a pacifist and another founded by an imperial war leader are entirely equivalent in their moral teachings?

I leave an untarnished assessment of that question to you. However…

@AtomThought

Hating and demonizing Islam itself now isn’t going to change things any more than if you hated and condemned Christianity itself when the Christian world was going on Crusades and Inquisitioning all the time. What one can do, however, is not lump millions of peaceful Muslims in with those that do horrible things, which is what people tend to do far too often these days.

The difference is that Christianity accepted secularism and scientism during the Enlightenment. This came after Christian atrocities (the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.) that were rightfully criticized and critiqued by fellow Christians.

You are correct that outrage from the West won’t change Islamic barbarism. As it did with Christianity, that change must come internally. Islam’s continual rejection of the liberal democratic values that make us superior societies is wholly of its own doing.

Yes, our societies are superior. We don’t treat women as property of their husbands, don’t outlaw homosexuality, don’t stone apostates for their spiritual choice. I’ll be damned if a “live and let live” bubble of politically-correct silence is the best we can do.

The more Christianity dominates a nation, the freer and more equal their people. The more Islam dominates a nation, the more repressive and barbaric it is. This is an irrefutable fact, and to suggest religion as some ancillary feature like the mountains or forests is willful ignorance in the fraudulent name of political sensitivity. If you stand for the things that make us great societies, you owe more than a suppressed tongue to the millions suffering in the Islamic world.

[elucidator]

@Stringbean

…The difference is that Christianity accepted secularism and scientism during the Enlightenment…

They did? And this just in…

[Kimstu]

@Stringbean

So one religion founded by a pacifist and another founded by an imperial war leader are entirely equivalent in their moral teachings?

I see, so it’s Christianity’s ancient origin in enlightened pacifism that makes it intrinsically more humane and ethical. Well, that makes sense.

[QUOTE=Stringbean]
The difference is that Christianity accepted secularism and scientism during the Enlightenment. This came after Christian atrocities (the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.) […]

[/quote]

I see, so it’s Christianity’s recent abandonment of its ancient barbarity in favor of modern enlightened secularism and rationalism that makes it intrinsically more humane and ethical. Well, that makes… hey, wait a minute.
(And, of course, that illogical reasoning doesn’t even address the fact that many modern Christians firmly contend that Jesus was not a pacifist.)

[QUOTE=Stringbean]

Yes, our societies are superior. We don’t treat women as property of their husbands, don’t outlaw homosexuality, don’t stone apostates for their spiritual choice. I’ll be damned if a “live and let live” bubble of politically-correct silence is the best we can do.

[/quote]

:dubious: Nobody is saying that anybody has to be “silent” about our opinions that gender equality and religious freedom and gay rights are better than the lack of them. Nobody’s denying that liberal democratic societies that happen to be majority-Christian are better for freedom and universal rights than theocratic repressive societies that happen to be majority-Muslim.

We’re just not buying into the wild-eyed broad-brushing that tries to make sweeping generalizations about Christianity and Islam as a whole with complete disregard for specific counterexamples.

Speaking of which…

[QUOTE=Stringbean]

The more Christianity dominates a nation, the freer and more equal their people. The more Islam dominates a nation, the more repressive and barbaric it is.

[/quote]

Goodness gracious, Grandma, what a broad brush you have. Look, we’ve all agreed that modern liberal democracies are better than theocratic repressive regimes, right? And we’ve all acknowledged that in the present historical moment worldwide, Islam dominates more of the theocratic repressive regimes and Christianity dominates (or at least has historically dominated) more of the modern liberal democracies. All sane and reasonable so far.

But that specific statement that you just made is so hyperbolic as to be nonsense, pure and simple. Are you seriously trying to claim that majority-Christian Haiti, for example, over the past few decades has had significantly more “freedom and equality” than majority-Muslim Turkey? Is the 96% Christian DR Congo more “free and equal” than the 90% Muslim Gambia?

C’mon dude, you’ll make a more convincing spokesman for liberty and justice if you don’t have your head jammed actually up your ass.

[Superdude]

@Kimstu

<snip>C’mon dude, you’ll make a more convincing spokesman for liberty and justice if you don’t have your head jammed actually up your ass.

C’mon, dude, it’s Stringbean. A thread that Stringbean posts in without his/her head up his/her ass is like Gilbert Gottfried without the screeching voice, or Hawkeye without his arrows, man.

[Der_Trihs]

@Velocity

The “But Christians do it too” argument is a tu quoque logical fallacy - the “you too” fallacy.

Also, Whataboutism.

No, it’s not that fallacy because the* actual* argument being made is that Christianity is superior to Islam. So yes, “Christians do it too” is a meaningful argument.

@Stringbean

The difference is that Christianity accepted secularism and scientism during the Enlightenment. This came after Christian atrocities (the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.) that were rightfully criticized and critiqued by fellow Christians.

No, it didn’t “accept” anything;* it fought and lost. *To the extent “Christian” countries are better it’s because Chrsitianity is weaker. When government is unable or unwilling to keep the believers under control, you get violence and atrocities regardless of the religion involved. The apparent “niceness” of any religion is in inverse proportion to its power; where religion is strong, its innately destructive nature will surface. Just look at all the violence by Buddhist mobs in Burma.

@Stringbean

Yes, our societies are superior. We don’t treat women as property of their husbands, don’t outlaw homosexuality, don’t stone apostates for their spiritual choice.

All reforms that Christianity fought against bitterly. And still fights against. The would-be theocrats are still powerful here in the US, and they’d do all those things if they could.

[elucidator]

There is no such entity as “Christianity”. At most, it is a shorthand descriptor. Some devout Christians have been at the very forefront of movements for freedom and equality. For instance, it would be wrong to condemn the Unitarians for the actions of some of its members who adhere to the militant and extremist agnostic wing. Standing about a burning question mark and chanting “I don’t know, and you don’t either!”. Not in the best tradition of the church’s history of benign befuddlement.

[Bill_Door]

@elucidator

There is no such entity as “Christianity”. At most, it is a shorthand descriptor. Some devout Christians have been at the very forefront of movements for freedom and equality. For instance, it would be wrong to condemn the Unitarians for the actions of some of its members who adhere to the militant and extremist agnostic wing. Standing about a burning question mark and chanting “I don’t know, and you don’t either!”. Not in the best tradition of the church’s history of benign befuddlement.

Yeah, the Unitarians are an unusual bunch. I heard a joke about a guy whose mother was a Jehovah’s Witness and whose father was a Unitarian. He’d go proselytizing door to door, and when you’d answer he’d go “Never mind” and walk away.

[eschereal]

“Scientism”?

[nani]

@eschereal

“Scientism”?

Wiki says: “the view that the characteristic inductive methods of the natural sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge and, in particular, that they alone can yield true knowledge about man and society.”

It’s usually used as a pejorative, though.