Religions change over time but is Islam an inherently violent religion?

Daily Journal ^ | December 10, 2002 | Bob Thomas

[Destro]

Religions change over time

Bob Thomas, Daily Journal

December 10, 2002

WASHINGTON -- Is Islam an inherently violent religion? A debate on this subject has received much attention in the United States. The question is absurd. It is like asking whether Christianity is a religion of peace. Well, there is Francis of Assisi. And there is the Thirty Years' War. Which do you choose? Religions are interpreted by the people of their time and thus change over time. Scripture can be invoked to support almost any position. Islam has its periods of violence and its periods of tolerance. The Ottomans gave refuge to the Jews expelled from Catholic Spain in 1492. Today the Arab world is the purveyor of the most vicious anti-Semitic propaganda since Nazi Germany. (Egyptian state television is currently showing a 41-part television series based on the notorious czarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

Which stands for the real Islam? The question is not just unanswerable, it is irrelevant. The real issue is not the essence of an abstraction--who can say what is the real Christianity or the real Judaism?--but the actions of actual Muslims in the world today. And there is no denying the fact, stated most boldly by Samuel Huntington, author of "The Clash of Civilizations?" that "Islam has bloody borders."

From Nigeria to Sudan to Pakistan to Indonesia to the Philippines, some of the worst, most hate-driven violence in the world today is perpetrated by Muslims and in the name of Islam.

Take the most recent example, the Miss World riots in northern Nigeria. Muslim mobs respond to an offensive newspaper article by burning down the newspaper's offices, massacring innocent Christians and issuing a fatwa on the life of the author of the article.

In Sudan, the Arab government in Khartoum has for decades been conducting a genocidal campaign against the Christian and animist blacks in the south -- a campaign that includes mass starvation, the bombing of hospitals and slavery.

In Pakistan, Muslim extremists have attacked Christian churches, killing every parishioner they could. Just last month in Lebanon, an evangelical Christian nurse, who had devoted her life to caring for the sick, was shot three times through the head, presumably, for "proselytizing."

The Bali disco bombers have confessed to a series of previous church bombings. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf specialize in kidnappings and beheadings of hostages in their terrorist campaign against the predominantly Catholic central government.

On the northern tier of the Islamic world, even more blood flows -- in Pakistani-Kashmiri terrorism against Hindu India, Chechen terrorism in Russian-Orthodox Moscow and Palestinian terrorism against the Jews. (The Albanian Muslim campaign against Orthodox Macedonia is now on hold.) And then of course there was Sept. 11 -- Islamic terrorism reaching far beyond its borders to strike at the heart of the satanic "Crusaders."

This says nothing about inherent violence; the vast majority of Muslims are obviously peaceful people living within the rules of civilized behavior. But the actual violence, bloodletting against nearly every non-Muslim civilization from Hindu to African animist, demands attention. Underlying most of the individual grievances is a sense that Islam has lost its rightful place of dominance, the place it enjoyed half a millennium ago. Al Qaeda deputy Ayman Zawahiri's allusions to the loss of Andalusia (medieval Spain) reinforce the bin Laden promise of revenge and redemption.

This feeling of a civilization in decline -- and adopting terror and intimidation as the road to restoration -- is echoed in a recent U.N. report that spoke frankly of the abject Arab failure to modernize. It is one thing for the Arabs to have fallen behind the West. But to fall behind South Korea -- also colonized, once poor and lacking any of the Islamic world's fantastic oil wealth--is sheer humiliation.

Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia and leader of perhaps the largest Islamic society in the world, traces Islamic radicalism not just to a failure of self-respect and self-identity -- deep feelings of inadequacy and loss -- but also to an enormous failure of moderate Muslim leadership. The murderers speak in the name of Islam, and the peaceful majority cannot find the courage to challenge them.

"The Islamic world today is being held prisoner," writes Salman Rushdie, "not by Western but by Islamic captors, who are fighting to keep closed a world that a badly outnumbered few are trying to open." And "the majority remains silent." Until they speak, the borders of Islam will remain bloody.

[stuartcr]

It's all in the interpretation. It's rare that you find terrorists, etc, that stand up and say...'I did that because I am a scumbag sob that wanted to murder'...they usually need something to justify, at least to themselves, why they did it. Religious texts are good for justifying, who can argue with God? It also helps in the recruiting process of other scumbag sobs, to have God on your side.

[Destro]

A third of Europe dies and continues to die until the late middle ages and we know it killed just as many in the Far east and you are not sure if the deaths added up from the crusades measure up? Where did you get your history from? Don't fool yourself on knowlegde of the subject because you watch the history channel now and then.

[desertcry]

Hitler was a Catholic Questions: (1) Was hitler a practicing Catholic? (2) Did hitler used his religion to push his agenda, and as a justification for murdering the Jews?

[agrace]

I understand your perspective, however, you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find justification in Christianity for violent acts. It really isn't about interpretation in the sense that the text can be genuinely manipulated. The crusades, for example, weren't based on interpretation of text. If I'm not mistaken, they were a result of a papal edict that sought to halt Islamic expansion. I bet the pope in question would have had a terrible time finding scriptural justification for what he asked his people to do.

[JCG]

Religion has killed more men than all the diseases and disasters throughout the history of mankind.

Total baloney. Disease is far and away the greatest killer of humans -- and always has been.

America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)

Who is Steve Emerson?

[vtel57]

You re-enforce my point here...

Regardless of who was on the defensive or offensive during the Crusades death was still meted out based upon religious differences.

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[vtel57]

I guess you missed the part in history where the Catholic Church was aiding and abetting Hitler in his genocide of the Jewish people, huh?

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[vtel57]

Regardless of your "true" feelings... I respect you for your opinion and would defend your right to express it, as I would for all others here who participate in civil discourse... and I wish you well. We may disagree on some topics and on others we may be quite in line. That's the nature of free discourse in a civil society.

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[vtel57]

>After five years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.

That quote was taken from this website:

http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Plague.html

25 million. That many at least have died from religious purges and wars. Of course, we were only talking of one disease in this instance. So, disease may take the lead in deaths if we were to actually tally the scores. That doesn't discredit my MAIN point that many of you missed while bickering over my sensationalized method of stating it...

The fact remains that senseless, inane religious beliefs and practices have cost the lives of countless innocents throughout time. Can you really argue that this is a false statement?

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[vtel57]

Yes, I see your point and you are correct. Politics was also instituted to achieve social order, but sometimes causes chaos. It's just the nature of the animal known as "man".

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[vtel57]

What is your understanding of the definition of the word "religion", and why do you not think that Islam qualifies as one... just curious.

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[VOA]

I guess you missed the part in history where the Catholic Church was aiding and abetting
Hitler in his genocide of the Jewish people, huh?

Well, Hitler/Nazis certainly disliked some Christians.
Sorry I can't give a citation, but I think I recall hearing that the largest
single gravesite of Catholic priests is at one of the concentration camps.

And Hitler and Co. certainly didn't like the Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (sp?).

[vtel57]

I guess that is my point, sir. That religious differences (affiliations) are NOT worth killing for. I think that the human race, if it is to survive into tomorrow needs to narrow the rifts caused by perceived differences between us and focus on things that bring us together NOT seperate us further.

Religious based hatreds are no different than racial or nationalist based hatreds. Hatred is hatred and it has been, and may always be, the downfall of mankind. Christianity was based on the teachings of a man called Jesus who stated, "Love the neighbor...", yet there are Christian apologists in this very thread who are espousing hatred and vengeance against people who hold differing beliefs from themselves.

Don't misunderstand me... I'm NO dove. I'm quite hawkish when in comes to the defense of our freedoms and liberties in this country (USA). If a muslim horde (or any other horde) invades the east coast of Florida, I'll be there with my firearms in hand to defend these shores. However, those who profess a hatred of all Islamic, or Bhuddist, or Hebrew, or any other religious group JUST because those groups are not of the same belief system are fomenting and perpetuating the same hatred and chaos that they are accusing these other religions of doing. It's bigotry... plain and simple... no better than the KKK's stance on African-Americans.

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net

[vtel57]

Try:

http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Plague.html

http://www.humanismbyjoe.com/hitler.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~velid/cf/nfd/mhr.html

http://www.alwaysfind.com/magazine/Article1.asp?ID=4

The above were found using this search link at Google:

http://www.google.com

Using the search criteria "Catholic Church's assistance of Hitler"

Of course, don't believe EVERYTHING you read on the Internet without some futher research.

Regards,

V.T. Eric Layton
***Tempus Fugits***
vtel57@softhome.net