The difference between someone saying to do something and someone who actually did what they said? Did they bring people to slaughter before Jesus? Did Mohammed actually slaughter opposing tribes, raid caravans, behead surrendered prisoners, etc?
Mohammed was a historical warlord; we don’t even know for sure that Jesus EXISTED, much less have any degree of certainty about what He did or didn’t do.
However, the New Testament has Jesus commanding His followers to bring unbelievers for slaughter. (Do you disagree with that?) His followers certainly have slaughtered opposing tribes, raided caravans, beheaded surrendered prisoners, etc., in the belief that they were following the dictates of their faith. (Do you disagree with that?) In parts of the world even today, Christians are still slaughtering opposing tribes–see, for example, parts of central Africa (Congo, the Central African Republic, Rwanda, etc.)–in the belief that God has commanded them to do this. How does this make those Christians any different than those Muslims who believe Allah has commanded the same?
So, you subscribe that all religions are the same, that people only act on their base instincts such that nothing they have been taught factors into their decision making?
A Jain who believes in non-violence is just as likely to use his religion incorrectly as a Muslim?
Muhammad didn’t “slaughter” anybody. He fought a defensive war and won it.
I don’t know that he ever raided caravans himself, but his folks probably did because everyfuckbody did that in 8th century Arabia. Turns out life is a bit harsh-y out in the desert where every year is a lean year.
As for beheading prisoners, first of all, cite, second of all if that happened (It’s probable, but hey) I would wager it was the typical case of “two choices, surrender or fight, but if you do fight there won’t be a second chance to surrender”. Which is how wars were (and are) waged if you don’t actually want to keep fighting all the damn time. It’s *actually *the less slaughterful way. It’s certainly how his followers did it once they started expanding out of Arabia after his death, which led to many peaceful surrenders - but then again, they were much better masters than the Byzantines. They didn’t fuck with their conquerees beyond taxing them, and they taxed them less than the Greeks to boot. How do you think a handful of desert riders conquered so much, so fast ?
Defensive war? Wtf? Where do people get these ideas from?
They surrendered and were beheaded.
What the fuck is any of this supposed to prove about a religion with literally billions of peaceful followers?
That they are ignoring what their religion actually says? That they are a bunch of hypocrites (lucky for us)? What does it tell you when most people ignore their holy books? Does it worry you that some day they might take it more literally and start following its dictates as so many have done before?
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Weinberg”
Logic this please:
The issue is that today, unlike Christian Fundamentalism, there is a significant number of countries where people live under Islamic Fundamentalism whether they like it or not; for example you don’t see any state sponsored murder of homosexuals in predominantly Christian nations, and if you did it wouldn’t be helpful in any way to minimize the problem by saying “well this other religion has some nasty stuff in their book too”.
The good thing is that there are some peaceful bits in it for those so minded to choose.
It is claimed that It is the absolute, final, completely accurate word of god as dictated and unchanged through the centuries. An omnipotent, omnipresent and infallible supernatural being said those actual words so you would hope that mere mortals would follow those parts.
Unfortunately there are also simply dreadful parts to it that can only be explained away through contextualising and interpretation (even though it is supposedly completely accurate and you’d think such a being is capable of making his main points clearly) and to which those so minded can justify by pointing back to the whole infallibility and accuracy thing.
So it’s a mess basically, as most man-made things are. An ethical Rorschach test for those seeking guidance and those seeking to give it. The writing itself is just as objectionable as most religions (though not all, some religious and philosophical texts do seek to take out the necessity for interpretation of brutal, violent and hateful words and actions) but the biggest problem it makes for itself is that claim to be the final and unchanging word of god. That is a bad place to start from when you have scriptures with bad stuff in it.
Thankfully the vast majority of muslims happily ignore that bad stuff and cling to the “nice” interpretations. Of course they do, they are basically decent human beings who recognise the benefits to society of the golden rule (a secular understanding that has no need to appeal to the supernatural)
Are you seriously quoting “thereligionofpeace.com” ? Jeez, that’s like quoting Glenn Beck for an accurate view on Obama. It naturally provides a narrow, out of context, biased interpretation of historical facts.
Again, check your source. This “wiki” is 99% the work of one former Muslim with a serious axe to grind. And the criticism he offers in this particular section is pretty weak sauce to boot, involving a *lot *of handwaving and supposition being used as authoritative facts later in the argument.
Of particular interest to this here discussion (and amusement to me) is his dismissal of Deuteronomy 20:10-19 which enjoins Jews to do exactly what he poo-poos Muhammad for doing except on a much larger scale, by saying “oh but that was instructions for just this one vast program of conquest, see”. Huh-huh.
Did you even read your own link?
If you want to read something actually germane to the point, this is it:
Hey, thanks for wasting my time with your feigned interest. And of course you cite 2:191, totally out of context. It’s the favorite verse of ignorant people who want to bash Islam. Do you have any idea at all of the context?
And did you happen to read the verse that follows 4:89? I bet you didn’t.
Except those who join a people between whom and you there is an alliance, or who come to you, their hearts shrinking from fighting you or fighting their own people. And if Allah had pleased, He would have given them power over you, so that they would have fought you. So if they withdraw from you and fight you not and offer you peace, then Allah allows you no way against them.
As poster **Ramira **often explained on this very board a number of times, quite a few Muslim countries do have such laws on the books, because it says in the Quran to have those laws in the books. And so some Muslims put 'em in. But the real test is whether or not those laws are *actually *enforced.
The Ugandan law definitely is, btw. As well, law enforcement takes a “live and let live” approach to solving homophobic crimes. And if your response is that life imprisonment is more defensible than the death penalty, you probably deserve a swift kick in the nuts.
Religion can have influence on how people act, but history shows us that no religion is special, and there were times in which the followers of “someone who taught people to ‘turn the other cheek’” were, on average, more violent then the followers of the “warlord” Muhammed (and times in which the reverse were true). It’s trivially easy to find warmongering and violence-promoting language in the Bible, and trivially easy to find peaceful and anti-violence language in the Quran (and vice versa for both).
So I expect this because that’s what history shows us. No religion is special, and violent people will find it incredibly easy to justify their violence with either religious text. Ditto for peaceful people. Religions can influence people, but not such broad categories as Islam or Christianity – peaceful sects of Islam can influence people to be peaceful, and violent sects of Christianity can influence people to be violent. And vice versa.
By this measure, so are Christians. Or they’re all just interpreting it differently, which is what they’ll tell you if you ask.
I’m not arguing the point of this OP or anything, but I’ve read that chapter (Luke 19) several times, and it seems like the “bring them here and kill them in front of me” line was spoken by the king in Jesus’ parable, and not Jesus himself. I’m obviously not a biblical scholar, but is my interpretation incorrect?
The Ugandan Law you linked to is enforced? The one that your link says has been invalidated?
The reason I asked if you even read your own link is because:
“On 1 August 2014, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the Act invalid as it was not passed with the required quorum.[8][9][10] Bahati then announced that the government will appeal to the Supreme Court of Uganda to overturn the ruling.[58][59] A 13 August 2014 news report, however, said that the Ugandan attorney general had dropped all plans to appeal, per a directive from President Museveni who was concerned about foreign reaction to the Act and who also said that any newly introduced bill should not criminalize same-sex relationships between consenting adults.”
On one you are trying to argue that law that has been repealed is being used to execute homosexuals while on the other hand you brush away the laws that are actually in the books as not being applied, you are wrong.
In any case what compels you to divert attention from regimes that use an ideology to justify their human rights abuses? You are just proving my initial point.
If Islam were some brand new religion, and the Quran was just catching on around the world, then I might share all these concerns that Islam and/or the Quran might be especially violent. But we have over a thousand years of history to look back on, and we can compare Muslims to Christians and others over that history. And it’s pretty easy to see that there were periods of time in which Christians were (in general) incredibly violent, and times when Muslims were (in general) incredibly violent, and various periods of time in which both groups were, in general, more or less violent than the other. There were times in which a Jew would be much safer in an Islamic society than a Christian one, and times in which they’d be much safer in a Christian society.
So we don’t need to look at the Quran to see if Muslims/Islam are inherently violent – we can just look at history. And the answer is that they/it seem no more or less inherently violent than Christianity.