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To: James C. Bennett
In other words, a largely non-proselytising faith.

If only ALL faiths can be like this. If you look at the history of "holy wars" they have usually been driven by faiths that proselytize (and I am including communism as a faith here).

13 posted on 06/03/2010 12:27:57 PM PDT by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: Clemenza
If only ALL faiths can be like this. If you look at the history of "holy wars" they have usually been driven by faiths that proselytize

That wish is tantamount to wishing Christianity away. Sure you don't mean that. All of Western civilization which we take for granted today--inalienable rights, equality between men and women, international law, Europe and the west not being islamic--is because of the Christian faith. A great hope in China is the country is being Christianized. Christians are the main force preventing Islam from taking over even more of Africa.

Christians are not about to give up a central tenet of their faith anymore than Jews are. Aside from that, Christianity does not teach conversion by the sword. Not sure to which "holy wars" you refer. The Crusades were defensive, launched centuries after Muslims had raided Rome and sacked the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. The European wars of religion in the 16th and 17th century were political events created by the rise of the all powerful state as much as religious and spawned by the break-up of the medieval order (in which their was a balance of power between and among crowns, nobles, the church, merchants and peasants). You will find the "religious wars" were a mixed bag too. Sunni Muslims from Poland fought on the side of Catholics at the gates of Vienna while Protestants from Transylvania were on the side of the Ottoman Turks. Jews allied themselves, at times, with Muslims against the Christian Spanish crown during the Reconquista.

17 posted on 06/03/2010 12:56:07 PM PDT by Brugmansian
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To: Clemenza

Jews did it once and only once as far as I know. The Hasmonian King John Hyrcanus (Yohanan Girhan) concquered and forceably converted the Idumeans (Edomites). The grandson of one the converts was the Edomite-Nabatean Roman-imposed ruler, Herod.


42 posted on 06/04/2010 12:26:47 AM PDT by rmlew (There is no such thing as a Blue Dog Democrat; just a liberals who lies.)
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