No, they weren’t. They were bad people hiding behind the name and misusing the religion’s history.
You need to study how Islam came into being and how it grew....by the power of the sword.
Christianity advanced through the spread of the Gospel.
In the Christian Bible we have many quotations concerning war. Here are a few:
There's a difference in commenting on war and telling your people they have to commit war.
In Islam, jihad or holy war, is the only way a Muslim can know for sure if they've gained what they call Heaven. Islam's history confirms this.
If you carefully study the OT the instructions to the Israelis in their conquest of the Promised Land were limited to just those areas.
No where in the NT are believers ever commanded to go and fight. You will find that in the Koran however.
But Christians have just as much, if not more, in out history as Muslims do with the practice of war. We have learned better in most cases. But not all.
Respectfully disagree. Muslims are commanded to fight for Allah.
If you study the revelations given to Muhammad you will find the more aggressive ones were given toward the end of his life. The Koran is not arranged chronologically. But if it were the reader would see this. Ask your Muslim friend to repudiate this statement in the Koran.
9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
And yes, I have a few Muslims in my lodge and the Koran is on the alter. So is the Jewish, Christian, Catholic, and other Bibles.
If you have an alter with the Koran on it I'd leave right now.
Are they all wrong because we should only consider our religion right? That’s the main principle for the creation of this land and our Constitution. And it is also the reason so many have died defending all the people’s rights.
If you recall US history Islam played no part in the founding of this country.
We fought the Barbary Pirates very early in our history. Our first war on foreign shores. We fought them twice.
If Islam had its way there would not be US Constitution. We would have Sharia Law instead.
Isn’t it wonderful that you can live in a country where you have the religious freedom to choose your worship as you please? Would I choose Islam, no. But you are trying to blame the religion for the failure of its representatives.
From your wording, I feel you very much dislike the Muslim religion of Islam. Islam started, according to the Koran, in the 7th century, approximately 600 years after the founding of Christianity. And yes they did their fair share of wars, maybe more. But the Christians were not totally free of this.
“Christianity advanced through the spread of the Gospel.”
And in conjunction with violence. An example of this would be The European wars of religion that were a series of religious wars waged in Europe in the 16th and 17th century, devastating the continent and killing over 10 million people. The wars were fought in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation (1517), which disrupted the religious order in the Catholic countries of Europe. However, the wars were not fought only because of religion, and they included revolts against centralized authority, territorial ambitions, and Great Power conflicts. By the end of the Thirty Years’ War, Catholic France was allied with the Protestants against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy. The wars were largely ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648). And there are many more examples I could bring up. But it would get redundent.
But, does this sound familiar? The trying to control real estate has always been a part of the human race and taking it by force for their need is not above anyone in history. Look at WW II. The Japanese and the Germans were interesting in expansion for their livelihood, so they attacked their neighbors. They hit us in 1941 in Hawaii, and we actually fired the first shot in that one sinking a Japanese sub in our harbor right before the air assault.
The only real difference of opinion we have is that I feel you are blaming the wrong topic. Christians had their share of “religious” wars like the one, only, display I did give you. There are many more. The only problematic difference between Christianity and Islam is that too many purveyors of Islam haven’t accepted that peace is a better way. And in history. Muhammad and the Pope were both the generals of each of their armies. So you are blaming the gun for the wrong it was used for.
It isn’t the religion, it’s the people that use it for their personal gain. It is just unfortunate the world’s society hasn’t caught up as a unit. We still have riots in the US when teams win sporting events. Are you going to blame the teams? And we know it is unlawful and it is damaging, and that it is going to happen. It’s just people. Hopefully we will all get smarter. But it appears it’s going to take a while.
Right now, there are about 3.45 million Muslims of all ages in the U.S., or about 1.1% of the U.S. population. This is based on an analysis of census statistics and data from a 2017. But according to the CATO Institute, history displays that the likelihood of being killed by any refugee from any country is just 1 in 3.64 billion a year. So, how many militants do we have over here? If it was the numbers based on the census, we’d already be in flames. Why aren’t we? We watch and we stop in advance.
And it isn’t all Islamic terrorists. According to the Huffpost, looking at both plots and attacks carried out, the group tracked 201 terrorist incidents on U.S. soil from January 2008 to the end of 2016. The database shows 115 cases by white supremacists compared to 63 cases by Islamist extremists.
It’s just the people, not the religion. And anything can be misinterpreted and used. And the Craft recognizes this as Islam has a diety just like Christianity does. Maybe we are ahead of society a little. And if you think we are pacifist, you better realize that Hitler had over 50K Masons murdered during WW II because he thought we supported the Jewish race. We will fight, but not until it is a fight and not a misunderstanding or misinterpretation. And many in my lodge, and in many lodges, are retired military. And prior to the early 60’s, we had a huge history with the military. Makes good reading if you can find it.
rwood