Posted on 01/08/2015 10:33:32 AM PST by GraceG
It annoys me to no end when someone says that Christianity was just as bad as Islam in the past by some "supposedly" well meaning but totally ignorant Atheist Liberal.
What these fools all ignore was the Major differences in HOW the religions spread and WHEN they became misbehaving.
So let's look at this and stare and compare as they say:
Christianity: Started very peaceful, spread mainly by word of mouth and voluntary conversions, took several hundred years to spread across the world and then never did it by the sword. Many early Christians were heavily persecuted. Most all powerful countries that were christian were usually a powerful country first that then later adopted Christianity as it spread peacefully. It was only later, hundreds of years after they became christian countries that bad things happened like the Spanish inquisition and witch burning.
When it came time to reform the reformers had a past of peace they could point to get the faith back on track as at one time Christians used to be the persecuted people, so the reformers could say, "this is wrong because we are doing the persecuting now, when we used to be the persecuted".
Islam: Started peaceful.... For about a few years then the founder of it wasn't getting any traction so he ramped up the violence in the text and made it into a conquering cult. Once this was done is was spread by the sword through violence and intimidation. It took less than a century to spread as far a Christianity had taken several centuries due to the despicable tactic of forced conversions. It wasn't early Muslims that were the persecuted, it was early Muslims actually doing the Persecution. Countries were not peacefully converted and existing empires slowly converted, but instead it was more of a reformatting and conquering by blatant force. The Muslim missionary had an army instead of a flock of peaceful followers. Bad things that the Muslims did not happen after Islam was well established. Instead the Bad things were done in the name of actually establishing it by force into new areas.
When it comes time to reform Islam there is no truly "peaceful past" that the reformers can use as a bulwark to help convince the masses that they are still being true to the faith, instead there is only a bloody history of conquering and extinguishing other religions. The Islamic reformers (the few that actually exist and are trying to reform it into a more peaceful form) do not have the tool of "early Islam where for hundreds of years Muslims were persecuted just like Christians". Instead they have a completely uphill battle where they only have a slight sliver of a few years of time at the very beginning before Mohammed changed his mind and went on a genocidal killing spree.
Islam has already had a reform, sadly it what we called Wahhabi Islam or Violent Jihad Islam, why because the reformers of faiths ALWAYS have to point to the past to reform their religions, and Islam has a very bloody past. Islam doesn't need another reformation, it actually needs an honest to goodness revolution.
It would be like trying to reform Christianity by only using Christs first sermon as a basis for reform while tossing out everything that happened afterwards out. Trying to sell that sort of reform would be met with people going "Why are you throwing out 90% of the bible?" and would never gain traction.
This is why Islam needs a Revolution, revolutions actually throw out the past history of the existing structure and attempt to replace it with something new, hopefully something more peaceful, but the success rate of a revolution actually accomplishing it's goal is a lot lower than a reformation because of this, revolution is risky. The success rate is low, but when you are starting out with Islam, any reformation is simply going to "spinning your wheels" because the baseline is violent jihad. Islam needs to throw away that violent world conquering baseline and only a risky revolution inside of Islam will do that, not a Reformation.
You missed the Crusades.
Not comparing Islam to Christianity, but it wasn’t nearly as peaceful as you present it.
Well...if somebody wanted to start a “Reformation” in islam, they would have to nail a list of “issues” to a mosque door.
The size of the nail long enough to secure the reams of paper necessary, the sheer weight of the tome, and the size of the hammer necessary to drive the nail makes this an insurmountable task!/s
Well, there was a lot of violence in the “wars of religion” of the 16th century, most of it from of attacks on Catholics by the various Protestant groups, since Protestantism split up fairly early in its career. These groups included the Huguenots, the Anglicans and the Calvinists (who mostly attacked other Protestants). This of course was followed up by attacks from Catholics on Protestants. In many cases, including the inter-Protestant attacks, there was a secular political element on either side.
The main difference between Christianity and Islam is simply that this is never justified in Christian scriptures, whereas Islamic writings are one long violent screed. Oh - and the fact that Christianity is true and Islam is not...
the crusades were meant to TAKE BACK those Christian Areas Conquered by the mohammadummies...By The Sword.....In the name of alluh
The crusades were a reaction to jihad.
Mohammed went from being a businessman, to becoming a war lord once he started his religion.
That is why Islam will always mean death. murder, and conquest, and can never mean anything else, true believers will always rediscover the true faith of Mohammedanism.
I was tweeting some girl about the fact that Hitler was an atheist that used religion opportunistically - he never believed it.
She just couldn’t accept all the evidence so I let it drop.
They also killed Jews who refused to convert to Christianity.
My personal belief is that a Muslim reformation will be led by women.
There has to be a reformation or WWIII. One or the other eventually.
Christianity has always attempted to define ‘free will’, and in doing so, has affirmed that it is an individual choice.
Mohammedanism’s only choice is to convert or die. The individual, and the acknowledgement of free will, are both things that are suppressed, oppressed, and destroyed, at the interpretation of the so-called omniscient cleric.
Thus, the spirit of The Reformation flowed from the individual, and in thus, is completely opposite to anything Mohammedan.
[ You missed the Crusades.
Not comparing Islam to Christianity, but it wasn’t nearly as peaceful as you present it. ]
Christian Crusades only happened hundreds of years after Christianity had peacefully established itself, with a good number of the crusades being a response to Islamic expansionism.
Islam started with a “Crusade” to take over most of the known world at the time.
As Christians we can look back at the horrific violent parts of the crusades with disdain because of early centuries of Christianity that were peaceful when Christians were a persecuted people.
Muslims look back at their Initial “Crusade to spread Islam” as “the good old days when they were positioned to take over the entire world and spread the word of Allah by the sword” and they look back at it with reverence because at that time they were winning.
The Crusades were a reaction to the invasion of Europe by muslims, and the violence and butchery associated with that invasion.
[ They also killed Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. ]
Yes they did and that was BAD, all Christians KNOW this.
When it came back to stopping that VILE practice the reformers could point back to the early days of Christianity and say that they didn’t do that sort of thing back in first few hundred years of Christianity. And that very fact helped to stop those atrocities.
[ Christianity has always attempted to define ‘free will’, and in doing so, has affirmed that it is an individual choice.
Mohammedanism’s only choice is to convert or die. The individual, and the acknowledgement of free will, are both things that are suppressed, oppressed, and destroyed, at the interpretation of the so-called omniscient cleric.
Thus, the spirit of The Reformation flowed from the individual, and in thus, is completely opposite to anything Mohammedan. ]
That is very good point.
[ Well, there was a lot of violence in the “wars of religion” of the 16th century, most of it from of attacks on Catholics by the various Protestant groups, since Protestantism split up fairly early in its career. These groups included the Huguenots, the Anglicans and the Calvinists (who mostly attacked other Protestants). This of course was followed up by attacks from Catholics on Protestants. In many cases, including the inter-Protestant attacks, there was a secular political element on either side.
The main difference between Christianity and Islam is simply that this is never justified in Christian scriptures, whereas Islamic writings are one long violent screed. Oh - and the fact that Christianity is true and Islam is not... ]
Great Point, we as Christians can condemn the bad behavior of some of our fellow Christians in the past precisely because their action were antithetical to the actual founding days of the religion of Christianity.
The leader in Egypt, President al-Sisi, has asked for revolution in islam.
He is right, and I suspect that he echoes the views of leaders in many majority muslim countries, like Indonesia, etc.
I do believe these countries should vow to punish severely any and all terrorist acts, through the families and communities of the bad-actors.
France would be a good start. Round up about 300 of the radical islamics, and put them in prison for life, for inciting violence and terrorism.
the impetuous to do so is not contained ...In The Bible.
islams built on violent “conversions” contained,,,in the koran
Islam is unlike any other religion on the planet.
In fact — it isn’t so much a religion as it is a repressive social system.
I’ve heard even the “Catholics” on Fox talk about how Islam “needs to have a reformation like Christianity,” as though Christianity was violent until Luther, and non-violent afterwards.
What anti-historical bilge!
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