Christ was rather saying, "Don't expect sweetness and light in this mortal lifetime." He was warning his hearers that the earth was under a reign of darkness, which we clearly have evidence as truth.
We are being told that Islam is being perverted to the ends of a madman, but if you read the Koran in even a cursory way, the violence is clear. I don't see how it can be allegorized away. If Muslims are "moderate," they are very distant, indeed, from their religious text.
The absence of religion is not the answer you would appear to seek. Communism, which killed sixty million in one century, was non-religious.
Perhaps you seek a total absence of ideology? Then you would seek to defy the human nature even more than the Communists or the temptation of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...
Mamzelle, is that in line with Christ's teachings? That is what someone who wrote the New testament, years after Jesus' death claims Jesus said.
The absence of religion is not the answer you would appear to seek. Communism, which killed sixty million in one century, was non-religious
I don't care if people pray to a Unicorn. That's their business. I have a problem with organized and institutionalized religion which is as far from that "personal relationship with God" as it can get. If religion is such a personal relationship with some imagined deity, then let it be just that -- personal, not public, not institutionalized. Let it be no different than any other personal relationship, or the private business in the confines of a home.
I have a problem with people who carry on "in God's name," the self-rigteous, self-appointed messangers of "God." We are in the 21st century and we are subjectedo to religious crusades. Religion resisted progress -- and still does. Take a look at religious countries -- Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. In Europe, religious auhtorities blamed the plague on the Jews, the Devil and "God squads" were burining 1,000 "witches" a year for 300 years in Europe, and the only reason why the Crusades did not kill sixty million is because there were not sixty million to kill and -- more importantly -- they didn't have the means!
Communism was not about atheism. It was anti-religious because the class struggle Marxism waged against the establishment was backed by organized religion, as part of that establishment. The only officially atheist communist country was Enver Hoxa's Albania.
Communism was repressive and brutal because its staunchest believers felt they were doing the "right (if not God's) thing." Socialism was, ironically -- like many religious movements, born as a "salvation." It evolved from liberal humanism of the early 19th century and it raised its voice against social injustices of the 19th century Industrial Revolution, the abominable work conditions of the labor class, child labor and women's lack of rights. Communism, or more correctly Marxism (Bolshevism in Russia), was a violent, rabbid "fundamentalist" offshoot of socialism. Its atheism was only coincidental, in context of the times, and wholy reactionary, but never the main driving force.