Umm...that's what's so hilarious to me, how people can be so ignorant of what it actually is.
Duly noted, you pompous brat.
A) Christianity and Islam are the primary religions known for intolerance and persecution of others. They are the only religions to have had holy wars.
You forgot about buddhists (in Japan prior to WWII, the japanese devised a militant, aggresive form of buddhism, and more recently, in India and Thailand, you had Buddhists/muslims violance), hindues and Sikhs, who all engaged into various form of agressive militantism over religion. Did you know that the worst act of terrorism that my country endured, that is the bombing of Air India Flight 182, which killed 329 people, including 82 children and 280 canadians, was commited by sikhs in the name of their religious independance?
Secondly, which holy war were done
because of christianity? The Crusades perhapes? The european armies went into the Near-East to get back lands that was originaly stolen by muslims. The reason those conflicts toke a religious aspect in Europe was because the Church was the only institution with a legitimate pan-european appeal capable of uniting the myriads of european princes and kings to stop the muslim agression in the Near-East.
It isn't because christianity itself is capable of justifying a war;
there's nothing in the New Testament that can come close to legitimizing violence. Its only because christianity was the only common bond between europeans capable of bringing them together. This is why the Church legitimized the wars, simply because it was the only institution capable of doing so, not because of its christian nature. In the end, the Crusades were geopolitical in origine, and only religious in form, not substance.
They intrude upon others' cultures and insist upon conversion. In the past, Muslim takeovers and expansions (such as the Muslim sweep over almost all of the Middle East, all the way over to India and past to even settle farther East) have been generally tolerant of its conquered territories, but there are also plenty of times when there has been bloodshed simply over religion. India is currently divided between the originally native Hindi Dravidians and the Muslim invaders/immigrants that came over long ago.
Yeah, the famous system of forced dhimmitude; accept servitude under muslim rule, convert, or die. Indeed, it was innovative and progressive for its time. But to have it applied in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia or Iran in 2007 in ridiculous; that it still pass for a form of tolerance is offensive. You call dhimmitude tolerance, I call it a forme of institutionalized repression, where minorities are forced to pay special taxes, cannot build new worship center or preserve the ones they have and where they cannot preach their fate to make new convert (as if it was allowed to convert somebody from islam; apostasie is still punishable by death under sharia law.)
Dhimmitude is nothing but a set of rules and regulations aimed at humiliating minorities, to incite them to give in and convert to islam. Its all according to the Koran's teaching, where it says that conquered people must always feel subdued (Sura 9:29). And thats the word of God!
As well, Christianity almost always forces their doctrines on occupied areas, such as the Inquisition, Crusades, and missionary ventures. Roman Catholic expansions and impressment of Christianity on conquered territories, founding of America's insistant teaching of Christianity to the Native Americans, the attempted missionary expansions to South America and Africa...anywhere people are considered "pagan" or "ignorant" of Christian ways, the good ol' soulsavers gotta go thrust their ideals upon the populace. Contrast this to say...Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, who do not actively seek converts and actually practice tolerance of other religions/cultures.
You make it sound as if those areas where occupied for the sake of converting people. In each and every case, its good old fashioned european colonialism motivated by very material gains. Nobody went to the americas expressely to convert the natives, they went there for the territories, for the gold, and to compete between each others. European colonialism would have happened with or without christianity. And even if christianity was used, among other things, as a justification for this colonialism, know that there is nothing in the bible that justify imperialism, expensionism, colonialism and the subjugation of lesser people.
The missionaries followed the soldiers into the colonies, and they did what they do; they preached. How did the missionaries forced anything? By what means do they "thrust" their ideals into people? Is preaching somehow a crime for you? how?
B) Christianity and Islam are almost the same thing, as is Judaism. They're all 3 the Abrahamic religions, and all believe in the exact same God. "Allah" is the exact same equivalent in Arabic to "God" in English, they are merely what the individual languages call their prime deity, who is in fact the same entity. The primary difference between Islam and Christianity is that the Muslims do not believe that Jesus was truly divine...they believe that he was a prophet, but not divine. To them, there is no possibility of equality to God, and so to speak of the Holy Trinity is simple nonsense to them. Jesus was a prophet, no more, and certainly not The Messiah.
The notion that all 3 religions preach the same diety was made up by the muslims. And having been created 600 A.D, its easy for them to just look back and say "oh, yeah, you people got it wrong, we're the real deal. It must be true, since *your* God said so to *our* prophet!"
I like how they also appropriated themselves Jesus. Nevermind what christians thinks, nevermind how differents are the teachings of christianity and islam; according to the Koran, Jesus is going to come back and spread islam at the end of times.
The muslims can believe what they want regarding the christian and jewish mythology; its still only true to them and them alone. They may think that we worship the same god, but they still think that we're dead wrong and must inevitably be converted
To them, the biggest mortal theological figure is Mohammed...I'm sketchy on his exact birth origins, but he was supposedly a son of some other important Christian/Jewish/Islamic figure (perhaps Abraham), who was cast out into the desert and believed by Christians to be dead. In the Islam faith, Mohammed did not die in the desert, he was instead led to sanctuary by God, where he continued his line and carried forth God's will as the next prophet.
The Qur'an actually tells the nativity birth of Jesus as well, just with very slight differences. I know, I've heard that portion of it read aloud in English.
We discussed this stuff in great detail in my Regional Geography class this semester...my professor believed that the most important region to know in today's world is the Middle East, and to understand all that's going on we needed to understand their religion. He read from the Qur'an in class (the nativity passage), and even showed us a list of translated names of Islamic prophets, that directly corresponded to standard Christian prophets.
Alright, another challenge. Go make a thread in the Arcane Sanctuary, and explain to me why the Middle-East should be considered a relevant region in the XXI century. Moreso, explain to me why islam matters. I believe that this region, its problems and its people should be left to their own design.
Islam teaches tolerance, peace, and all of the standard things that Christianity does...because it is in fact merely an expanded form of Christianity that goes into the life and teachings of Mohammed, the "lost prophet." The wars that get fought in the name of Islam and Allah are no different than the wars fought in the name of Christianity and God.
Alright, we're at the interesting part now. In the bible, can you find views similar to the views from the Qur'an, in which Jews and Christians are under Allah's curse (9:30) and unbelievers are the "vilest of creatures" (98:6)? Which allowed an Imam,
a british citizen, who is entirely ready to condemn attacks on innocent civilians, to say that because non-Muslims have rejected Islam,
none of them are innocent,
and that therefore, attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 are perfectly justified?
In the bible, where is the part that describe the rules of warfare? Where is the part that
justify beheading,
Qur'an 47:4 said:
"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..."
...or the part that justify terrorisme?
Koran 8:60 said:
. Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.
And I could go on and on about how islam justify agressive wars for the sake of expending islam in the dar al-harb (agressive jihad is justifiable when every other pacifist methods have failed to convert the infidels. This agressive ideology help to explain why such significant part of the Earth is under islamic rule, and is also help to explain why there's conflicts in almost every islamic borders, from Pakistan/India to Somalia/Ethiopia to Kosovo/Serbia, and so on), and the many rules and specifics of those wars. And dont forget that Mohamed was a warlord during the last part of his life, and that what he said later in his life holds more authority than what he said earlier (thats how muslims understand it).
And another thing. Christianity is essentialy a personal, individualistic religion (John, 5:41) that doesnt ask for an organized institution to defend or spread it. This is one of the reason why it was possible to separate the State from Christianity: because christianity does not demand to rule over the organisation of a society.
Islam, on the other hand, is more than just a religion. To quote Bernard Lewis:
The penalty for apostasy, in Islamic law, is death. Islam is conceived as a polity, not just as a religious community. It follows therefore that apostasy is treason. It is a withdrawal, a denial of allegiance as well as of religious belief and loyalty. Any sustained and principled opposition to the existing regime or order almost inevitably involves such a withdrawal.
Islam is a form of organization that encompass many aspect of collective and individual life: politics, economics, marriage, warfare, peace, the legal system, and so on. Its totalitarian in nature, and you can't legaly escape it once you're part of it.
And finaly, note how you had to go back 4 centuries into the past to find something wrong with christianity (even if none of those events were christian in nature), while if I was to point out the inherent violance within islam,
I'd only need to open any random newspapers from the past year. Simply said, islam isnt peacefull neither in theory nor in practice.
So, again, where are the similarities between christianity and islam?
Well, I'm done for tonight
Challenge accepted, and completed.
Yeah.... no. And your teacher is either a useful idiot or a liar.
