Welcome to the world of 'peaceful' Islam
by Shining One 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Carmel
Quoting Mahmoud as representing Islam is like quoting Jerry Falwell as representing Christianity! Bigots both! Me thinks shinny one could wear their shoes.
carmel
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Abaddon
Rex, please don't be a religious bigot.
Religion is expressed by a culture and has characteristics chiefly formed by the culture, not the religion or it's 'source texts'.
Any study of history will bear this out.
People have claimed to be Christian over the years have approved or taken part in every vice and wrong imaginable; racism, misogyny, slavery, theft, rape. murder, warfare to acquire territory, warfare proclaimed as god's will. The native population of the USA were ethnically cleansed and buctchered under a doctrine supported by Christian churches, that of the 'divine mandate'. Throughout medevil Europe, down to the 19th Century, the age-of-consent was 12, as it was in some US States until the 1980's. Until the 19th Century women were chattel. Until the learly 20th Century women didn't have the vote. Black people didn;t have equal rights in law until the 1960's. And all of this in 'Christian' countries.
For all the fluffy bits in the Bible it is a brutal book; bears bitchering children at god's behest, god commanding an invading army that everyone apart from virgin girls be killed, and the girls taken as captives (which the soldiers had full sexual freedom with under Mosaic Law).
Many Christian countries are now comparatively civilised, despite the bloody nature of the source text, despite the bloody history of their faith.
Muslim cultures were actually more civilised (at the high of Islamic expansionism) than the European Christian ones, and also had the most advanced socieities of time.
Now it is the other way round. Islamic societies are backward. Mobile phones do not turn someone whose dad was a misogynistic goatherd into a member of 21st Century society who regards women as equals, any more than the son of a Parson from a CofE parish in 1856 could have been made to feel women were equal by giving HIM a mobile phone.
Islamic societies have gone for having a more peaceful and fair society than Christian societies to having a less advanced culture than Christian socieities. The source text has not changed. Their behaviour HAS. The variable is not the religion, but the development of the culture.
Christian societies have gone for having a less peaceful and fair society than Islamic societies to having a more advanced culture than Islamic societies. The source text has not changed. Their behaviour HAS. The variable is not the religion, but the development of the culture.
Thus characterising a religion as 'peaceful' or 'violent' is in this application ignorant and bigoted. Religions are reinterpretted by every generation in the light of the culture those people grow up in.
If Palestinians were Christians and Americans were Muslims, American Muslims would be tutting about the inhumanity of young fanatical Christian Palatinian suicide bombers blowing up Jews.
You can kid yourself otherwise, but I would LOVE to see you prove a religion produces an invariable and consistant standard of behaviour throughout the history of the cultures that express it.
If you fail to do this, your answer isn't relevent unless it is an aplogy for bigoted comments.
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BluesBrother
Abaddon, you are so right.
I have often disagreed with stuff you have written, but this is so true. Any objective viewpoint of world history would have to agree.
This story from the press about the President of Iran's remarks is a little worrying, and has made me think again as to his country's determination for a peaceful energy programme. But you cannot tar them all with the same brush
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Shining One
Carmel,
Perhaps you could actually compare 'apples to apples' for once. Islam teaches that all shall come to Allah by any means, that includes persecution and execution, Jihad. Jesus did not teach Jihad nor did his followers war against one another in any way until after the apostasy of the Roman church. Islam has always spread by force or been stopped by force. You cannot leave Islam or you will be threatened or even killed by the rest. Just ask Salmon Rushdie. I know some ex-Islamists personally, so don't try to compare anything Falwell does with this wacko in Iran.
Wait a minute, you comparing a loving and passionate Christian like Falwell to an Islamic radical ispossibly the stupidest assertion that I have ever heard. You should be embarrassed.
Rex -
Shining One
Abaddon,
Read and compare the texts of Islam and Chrsitianity, Abaddon. The Old Testament judgements have absolutely nothing to do with the spirituality brought to us by the advent of the Messiah.
Read the history of the two religions in the immediate times after the death of the spiritual leaders in question.
If I am a 'bigot' for pointing out the stark contrasts between the teachings of the two religions then so is juat about every person on this board. You are all religious bigots persecuting a harmless religion called Jehovah's Witnesses!
Rex -
Shining One
Blues Brother,
>President of Iran's remarks is a little worrying
A little worrying???????My gosh you jhave not seen the brutality inflicted on this country's citizens to 'keep them in line'? If the Watchtower persecuted and executed people on this forum it would hit home then! Your country and mine are among the few ones that have enough courage to stand against this bloody, barbaric regime. Start reading something besides the leftwing elements of the press!
Rex -
Elsewhere
I find it very interesting that the massive Arab Islamic world with almost 300 million people has utterly failed at destroying the "zionist" country that occupies a very small plot of land with only about 6 million people.
I wonder why they consider this small nation of 6 million so much of a threat? That's like all of America getting all worked up over a single large city within its borders.
Why so much hate? Why so much failure?
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Abaddon
Rex
Read and compare the texts of Islam and Chrsitianity, Abaddon.
Why to go at missing the point.
1/ No matter WHAT the texts of the Christian faith and Islamic faith say, the followers of BOTH religions have behaved in disgraceful, inhuman fashions at various points.
- Is this true or false?
2/ In 1000AD Islam made Christendom look backward and brutal.
- Is this true or false?
3/ Now "Christendom" makes parts of Islam look backward and brutal.
- Is this true or false?
4/ Yet 200 years ago Christians and the various religions they were members of typically would have been in favour of things we would find totally unacceptable given concepts like human rights.
- Is this true or false?
5/ You can claim the content is different, go ahead. But can't support with evidence any claim the behviour of the two religions is significantly different if one views the history of each religion over the past 1,000 years.
- Is this true or false?
This puts you in an embaressing situation. You claim the Bible is, shall we say, a less brutal biook than the Qu'ran? Yet despite this it's followers have been just as brutal as the followers of the Qu'ran! What does that say about the average Christian and Muslim over the past thousand years? It seems, according to what you say, that Christians have frequently been less peaceable than their text would allow, and the average Muslim has been more peaceful than their source text would ask for, if your claims about the relative content are accepted as true. Shock news; Muslims are frequently nicer than their beliefs require them to be but Christians often fall short of the basic requirements of their faith!
The Old Testament judgements have absolutely nothing to do with the spirituality brought to us by the advent of the Messiah.
It's the same Bible, the one you describe as the 'text of Christianity'. The same God I assume? Did he go on an anger management course, or what?
If you will criticise what you see as offensive/immoral content in the Qu'ran, I think you'd best accept criticism from others about offensive/immoral content in the Bible. To try and evade it like that just makes it look like you have a massive double standard.
Read the history of the two religions in the immediate times after the death of the spiritual leaders in question.
And? For Christ's sake man; 6/ Jesus was betrayed by one of the Apostles!
- Is this true or false?
Open your eyes, you're so eager to prod at the mote in Islam's eye you ignore the beam in Christianity's eye!
If I am a 'bigot' for pointing out the stark contrasts between the teachings of the two religions
... oh, I'd agree the teachings are to an extent different, and this underlines and proves MY ENTIRE POINT.
6/ Despite teachings being different, the daily behaviour of the adherants of the two religions over the past thousand years (and this actually applies to almost all belief systems) is about the same as far as humanity or inhumanity towards others go.
- Is this true or false?
A religion is expressed by a culture, not a culture by a religion.
As secularism in the West has moderated many of the views held by society 200 years ago (misogyny, racism, whether 'just war' is possible, etc.), Christianity is expressed differently by the culture it enaminates from.
7/ Christians once went to war for profit, kept slaves, and beat their (what we now call underage) wives... and didn't see themselves as bad Christians for doing so...
- Is this true or false?
8/ Now such behaviour is condemned almost Universally by Christians. But the book it is based on stays the same.
- Is this true or false?
If religion expressed cultures then their behaviour would be stable and constantly in-line with the texts of the faith.
The logic is simple and unassailable so you can pound the keyboard all you like, it won't change the fact I am right about this. My argument is supported with facts, so you have to show the facts to be in error, and they are not.
Thus, although you are not being bigotted because of 'evil in your heart towards your fellow man', you are being bigotted because you persist in an unsupported criticism of another religion only achivable by ignoring the facts. By all means go over the eight true/false questions above and answer them, show me where I am wrong - you just saying I am wrong is of no interest to me, give me a decent rebuttal.
If someone said people with blue eyes were stupid, and persisted in this despite having facts presented to them which showed people with blue eyes were just like people with other eye colours, they would be a bigot too. They might not presist in their illogical insistance due to hate of people with blue eyes, but they'd be a bigot all the same - check the dictionary definiton.
Of course, if you don't like being called a bigot (using your own words and logical argumentation supported by the facts), then you can choose either to change your opinion to that supported by the facts, or to keep your mouth shut about that particular opinion so you don't get called a bigot for expressing it.
The choice is yours.