Islam bashing?
For all those people who believe that Islam is, at its heart, a violent religion and that its holy book has some unkind things to say about unbelievers and infidels, I have one question: Have you people read the Bible?
You know, the book where God tells Joshua to enter a city and kill every man, woman and child in the place; the book where a poet rejoices about the coming day when he will be able to smash children's heads against rocks; the book where Jesus says he has come to bring not peace but a sword, and that to love him means you have to hate your own parents.
The Bible itself can be seen as a blood-soaked book. And the record of those who have, over the last couple of thousand years, professed a belief in its God is not so angelic either.
The point here isn't that there aren't some tough patches of road in Scripture, but that one cannot judge a faith by selective quoting from holy books, nor by painting every adherent of a religion with the same broad brush as those extremists who miss the soul of their own faith.
One also has to apply certain interpretative principles to the study of any passages of holy writ, and place them in context. You have to look at the big picture and take the long view of whatever book you call The Word of God.
You know, the book where God tells Joshua to enter a city and kill every man, woman and child in the place; the book where a poet rejoices about the coming day when he will be able to smash children's heads against rocks; the book where Jesus says he has come to bring not peace but a sword, and that to love him means you have to hate your own parents.
The Bible itself can be seen as a blood-soaked book. And the record of those who have, over the last couple of thousand years, professed a belief in its God is not so angelic either.
The point here isn't that there aren't some tough patches of road in Scripture, but that one cannot judge a faith by selective quoting from holy books, nor by painting every adherent of a religion with the same broad brush as those extremists who miss the soul of their own faith.
One also has to apply certain interpretative principles to the study of any passages of holy writ, and place them in context. You have to look at the big picture and take the long view of whatever book you call The Word of God.
posted by Michael Riley at 1:59 PM
6 Comments:
You shall know a tree by its fruits. We see the fruits of the Koran every day. Deadly riots and murder because of cartoons. Suicide bombers blowing up children. The rapes of children at Beslen. Why do you pretend that these things don't exist?
Donnie, what about the fruits of Christianity? The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, various witch hunts, abortion doctors being shot, the Klan, etc.?
Or are you going to invoke the fallacious "no true Scotsman" argument and claim that the folks who did those things weren't "true" Christians?
Brachinus,
Yes, many Christians have done things wrong. But if what you wrote about is all that you see, you need better eyes. Have you ever thought about what happens to abortion doctors and apostates in Islamic countries.
I guess you haven't heard about the Reformation. You ought to check it out sometime. You really ought to brush up on the history of the times around the Crusades. Some minor things like the Moorish invasions of Europe.
Are you really trying to compare three abortion "doctors" being shot with the attack on the World Trade Center and the thousands of partial birth abortions performed. The Klan has little, if anything, to do with Chrisianity and much to do with Reconstruction and the Democrat opposition to Civil Rights.
This may also surprise you, but not everybody that claims to be a Christian follows the tennents of the religion.
Donnie, what you say about Christianity (e.g. don't look only at the bad things) is what lots of Muslims say about Islam. All religions have followers who do bad things in their name. It goes with the territory.
As for the Reformation, did that happen before or after the Salem witch trials?
And would you mind explaining what you mean about the Klan being a response to "the Democrat opposition to civil rights"?
donnie and brachinus, you are both going off topic. There is little sense in going to the past to look at what is happening now. We could all go back and forth pointing out the sins of the past. The issue is Islam in the modern world. There are nuts in all groups. However, we are in a post 9\11 world now. The Isalms who claim to be peacefull have not exactly been real supportive of us, or quick in condeming their bretheren. When a christian nut murders an abortion doctor, we see much more outrage and condemnation from the main stream christians. When we look at the war on terror and the immigration of Islams to Europe, we see a good study of just how incompatable the islam world is with the rest of us. A basic tennant of westerm culture is freedom of speech, yet we see how tolerant and diverse the islams are when it comes to a simple catroon.
Another lesson I see in watching our world is the idea of governments, like ours, not having an established religion. I have come to believe more and more that the intent of this idea is more to protect religion. Sound strange?
Power corrupts. To go back to the past, most of the time religion becomes the dominent force in government, it is destined to become perverted. Religion needs to exist without government, for it's own protection. Within the islam world the previous statement is well backed up.
In referance to the question of the klan that brachinus asked, the answer is simple. The klan and the democratic party were very resistant to freedom and civil rights for blacks. It was the republicans who housed the abolitionist movement. The klan perverted christianity for thier evil ways. Many christian denominations were not reflected by the klan, and again were abolitionists.
I want to leave you two with a saying I have heard and applies to all. " A church {mosque, temple} is not a house of saints, but a hospital for sinners"
I agree that we should be discussing what is happening today, not what happend more than 100 years ago. Today a man is on trial for his life becasue he was a Muslim who converted to Christianity.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-18-voa7.cfm
Christians today don't do that. That is only one difference between the fruits of the Koran and the fruits of the Bible.
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