why do people bash islam but love christianity??

Post Reply New Topic

I don't know why any religion would want to bash another religion. In the grand scheme of things religion probably doesn't matter anyway.

There is a war between monotheists and polytheists. Both religious.
And in philosophy that would be between the elite and the public.

Power, control and supremacy.

A war? Where? Even if you are being metaphorical, I don't see how the war analogy can be applied to monotheists and polytheists (anywhere).

In my humble opinion many Christians are only Christian because they have been baptised. they don't really hold a strong faith. Therefore to me it's more a case of secularism bashing sectarianism.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure you will.

Well, you make many errors.

Christianity has more or less emerged from its infancy. All the "evils" you can cite were done in a time when the lay person's knowledge of scripture was either non-existent or tightly controlled. Every religion that allows that to happen winds up doing some sick things.

Now that anyone who can read can buy a Bible and read it for themselves, abuses are limited to people under the influence of strong, charismatic leaders that sway their followers into blind obedience.

When you study the Bible and its historical context, much of the things you take issue with make sense.

Today, there is no mandate (as the Bible teaches) to convert people by violence. There is mandate to spread the gospel, but not to compel conversion.

Islam not only has not reached that stage of maturity, but is implicitly teaches to kill or enslave all non-believers. "Convert or die" was a mantra of the Spanish Inquisition...during the Dark Ages. It was never in the Bible. In contrast, Islam has "convert or die" as a fundamental tenant of the faith.

To add to that, there is no punishment (social or otherwise) for apostasy in much of the Western world these days (there are some exceptions, like certain types of fundamentalist Christianity in the U.S., but that is more social ostracism). In Britain, most people really don't care. The vast majority of the people I know don't go to church, and many of the ones that do are essentially secular. We do still have a small Christian fringe population, but these are outside the mainstream and are seen as pretty reactionary (and are thankfully mainly ignored by most people).

From what I can tell, there is still a big taboo over leaving Christianity in the most devout African countries like Uganda (and less so in the Caribbean) but you won't be imprisoned or killed for it. Under Islam, apostasy is a much bigger taboo.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that even under fundamentalist Christian regimes or among the obnoxious type of Orthodox Jews, the consequences for apostatising aren't as severe (or potentially as final) as desiring to leave Islam.

I don't love Christianity. You should be free to bash both that is the point. You have to take them as they are though.

Christianity hasn't got a great record, granted.

However if you take Jesus's message (I'm an atheist BTW), and compare it to Mohammad message, I'm sorry there is no comparison.

There is nothing progressive about Mohamed's message, it is just dictated diatribe.

I view the Jesus movement as more of political subversion, and it was very effective for a time. Certainly pretty progressive at the time. Of course I'm not saying it has the moral high ground, its primary purpose (in my hypothesis), was to subvert the culture of the time, which actually make sense if you look the contradictory message across the testaments. It not all good granted, but they pushed the taboos as far as they could.

I see the current pope as sort of the same as the Jesus figure, as in a political populist, saying all the right things to put a positive spin on things. That doesn't make him a saint by any stretch, and also you could say that at the time of Jesus they needed such a figure more.

Mohamed merely dictates the 'word', and putting little rational explanation behind it. I'm not saying the Jesus message explained everything, but but it was based on lessons. The lessons in Islam aren't really lessons, OK there are a few, but frankly the majority is just telling you what you can and cannot do.

There is a lot people will tell you that Islam is peaceful, and compassionate. Now, I don't think people are bad simply because of what church they belong to (so I don't think people are automatically bad for being Muslims), however this is frankly nonsense that doctrine in the Koran is compatible with being peaceful or compassionate.

The Koran is just horrible sorry, anyone with some time, please read it and see for yourself. I think sometimes, perhaps if you read it without neutrality, you will find yourself explaining away all the bad stuff. However from a neutral position read it and tell me if you think it is a good guide for life.

In its defense (if you can call it that) it at least half of its vitriol and general idiocy come from the Old Testament.

One of the biggest gripes with Islamic movement, is it claims that it is the immutable word and it superseded the other Abrahamic faiths, especially dismissing them as tainted or 'changed'.

The real problem with this is presuming the Christian and Jewish doctrine were tainted, the version of this message in the Koran is so different it is effectively a complete rewrite.

Now it would be idiotic to say that everything in the testaments is absolute and unchanged, however there is a general theme, a theme corroborated by many contemporary witnesses, some of them Pagan/non-Abramic.

I'm not even talking about the fine detail, but the basic life story. The Koran gets this spectacularly wrong. Not only is the Jesus story an afterthought in the Koran it is not corroborated anywhere.

The probable reality is that as the Arabian peninsular was remote to the Levant, there was a few disparate trader who would have spread some culture in a disparate way. The Koran is basically a rehash of the Abrahamic tradition to cater to the Meccan culture, which was very brutal by their one admission. Religions were of this nature in these times, there was no internet, most people were illiterate.

That is par for the course because even Judaism came from Canaanite culture and was originally polytheistic and deeply ritualistic, and has retained some of that, and even some of that has made it into Islam.

What I don't buy is the defense of Mohamed's own conduct. The whole argument over underage sex aside, he committed murder, and was slave owner and advocated extreme violence.

The argument that is banded about is "it was the culture of the time". Well frankly this doesn't cut it. He is supposed to be the messenger of God. This was precisely what Jesus didn't advocate, six centuries before in a similarly brutal culture.

On thing they say in Islam is Satan is very crafty. I would like to think if I grew up in an Islamic culture, that the deception was self-evident.

Well my opinion is based more on what I see from society today. I would think that a lot of people who bash Islam in England have never even been in contact with a bible let alone read one at length.

This is more of a clash of cultural values that somehow gets entangled with religion.

In general, present Jews, Christians, Bahá'í and Sikh (monotheists) seem to have no fundamental disagreements with Buddhists, Hinduists and Shintoists (who could be polytheists) which could be adequately described as a "war", although splinter factions do display such an animosity towards the beliefs of others.

Last time I checked, there is currently only one major religion which routinely displays an intolerance towards other faiths (monotheistic or polytheistic) worthy of the word "war"9:5/9:29

nominalist is right, there is no war. However with people whom are interested in and seek conflict zones like me and GGPViper, there is.

Nominalists faith (Bahai) failed in accomplishing this on Gods behalf. Bringing a clear evidence. They brought an evidence but not clear enough.

Quran/The clear evidence
[98.1] Those who disbelieved from among the followers of the Book (monotheists) and the polytheists could not have separated (from the faithful) until there had come to them the clear evidence:
[98.2] An apostle from Allah, reciting pure pages

DIATRIBE
1
archaic : a prolonged discourse (there are very many repetitions and i think it is interesting if you can understand)
2
: a bitter and abusive speech or piece of writing (Id say tactical)
3
: ironic or satirical criticism ((true....uuuuu? I dont think so. I belive in psychology then north and south and positive and negative and abstract and conncrete are two ways of seeing the same thing))


Satan is very smart. Rather iblis the fallen Angel. Or the negative force. God is doing everything. Iblis is under the control of God. He is God.

I prefer to define my own thoughts and interests, thank you. I have no need for you to theorize about my motivations...



I am quite sure that the Bahá'í disagree with this sentiment.

Furthermore, the criteria for accepting "clear" evidence seems to be more correlated with the religion that a person just happened to grow up with than any rigorous scientific standard.



And why is this clear evidence? Do you have any source other than the Quran itself (Self-referential) to support the Quran as "The clear evidence?"

The Baháʾí Faith will not establish peace. According to the Baháʾí teachings, human beings need to do it - to be forced into it by dire circumstances. Peace will come to this world following global convulsions and worldwide chaos. Gradually, we will rebuild. The present world order needs to unravel before we will see world peace.

The simple answer is 911 and the propaganda / vitriol which followed from the largely Zionist owned mainstream media in the west. Back in the 1990s Islam was really a non-issue in the UK apart from amongst a handful of hardline Zionists. You had your common racists back then but they couldn't really see much difference between Asian Muslims and Asian Hindus or non-Muslim blacks - they were all foreigners. White Muslims were seen as eccentric but they were still British at heart. They were not a 5th column. Most people considered terrorism to be something practised by the IRA. Even the BNP changed its stance towards Islam (and they did have white Muslim members in the 1990s) because of all the propaganda from the media following 911. If it wasn't for 911 then they would have continued down the racial nationalism road. Even the race riots of 2001 in Oldham were portrayed by the BNP as race riots and not Islam riots.

The British don't love Christianity and no longer consider it to be part of mainstream culture and identity. It's viewed by the masses as a hobby followed by a minority of people. There is also widespread support to disestablish the Church of England and finally separate religion from politics. There isn't the ill-feeling towards Christianity as there is towards Islam on the basis that Christians don't blow things up in the name of their religion nor are they out to conquer the world and impose their own legal system and social order.

Most white British people have not read the Bible nor the Qu'ran so their perception of both Christianity and Islam comes from the mainstream media. It's also interesting that many outspoken critics of Islam in Britain have read older translations of the Qu'ran such as those by George Sale or John Medows Rodwell rather than the more modern translations that Muslims and academics use nowadays.

Most of Mass Media are clearly pro-palestianian, and even openly manipulative. As an example, here is a blog reflecting manipulations in the BBC news with regard to the arabic-israeli conflict.

http://bbcwatch.org/

There's several hundreds of entries only during last year.



Well, I wonder how those 'modern' translations translate things like those ones:

- And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out.
- Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it.
- Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority
- And be not weak hearted in pursuit of the enemy; if you suffer pain, then surely they (too) suffer pain as you suffer pain...
- The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned
- Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace...
- Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth
- And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.
- The Prophet... was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans).
- Allah's Apostle said... 'I have been made victorious with terror'
- I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes.
- Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us
- The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, "Kill any Jew who falls under your power."
- "Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah.
- Embrace Islam... If you two accept Islam, you will remain in command of your country; but if your refuse my Call, you’ve got to remember that all of your possessions are perishable. My horsemen will appropriate your land, and my Prophethood will assume preponderance over your kingship.