The Barbarity of Christianity (as compared to Islam)

So what group of human beings does not have someone that has committed barbaric acts? I suspect there are kindergarter teachers somewhere guilty of murder. Do we then argue that kindergarter teaching engenders barbarism?No, you have to look at the teachings and motivations themselves along with the specific acts.The simple fact is that Islamic radicals are killing and oppressing millions in Islamic areas and do so in the name of their religion without any corresponding parallel among Christians or Christianity today.The simple fact is Jesus never implored his followers to persecute unbelievers, but Mohammed did and so does mainstream Islam.

We're not talking about a particular group "engendering" barbarism. We're talking about a particular group engaging in barbarism. We're not just talking about what some Muslims are doing today. We're talking about what any group - say Christians - has ever done. You can't absolve Chtistianity of all barbaric acts just by saying they haven't done any in the past five minutes. It doesn't matter one bit who was implored or not implored to do what. It's only what they do do that counts.One more time: give us some examples of "barbaric" acts that Muslims have commited that Christians have not also commited. The longer you avoid doing so, the more it looks like you can't do it - the more it looks like there are none - the more it looks like there is no historical difference between Christians and Muslims.

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in fact during the arab comquest of egypt and the near east the life of many christians and jews vastly improved under islamic rule .. was they where no longer killed as herictics and such by the western chritian church .as followers of the book OT xians and jews had to pay small tax , and where then free to follow their own creed , this is why there there are pockets of xian in odd places across the arabic world .as to conflicts due to "spreading the word" do islam and xianity have a history of very agreesive tactics .islam suffers in that it is the religion of many nation states that are still emerging from the shadow of colonial and empiral pasts , iraq is a artificial state created by the western powers , the whole israel lebenon isssue is fall out from western action / inaction and historic interrferance ... islam in many cases is the only glue that holds the people together as a " nation " when in fact they may be ethnically diverse ...and as is allways the war those who seek power will use any political , religious creed to rally the troops ....oddly many of the so called arabic fundermentalist islamic clerics are well travelled and have visisted the west as part of the world wide islam community .. the fact that they then reject the values of the west is prehaps worth noting ..Edited by ikabod, : quote marks

ikabod, there was more than a small tax to be a non-Muslim. Under most of these lands, the people were Christians or Jews, but over the centuries, the Muslim conquerers imposes a system of discrimination that encouraged others to become Muslim but strictly persecuted any Muslim from becoming non-Muslim in a violent manner.So you have a curious situation in places like Egypt where the Coptics are severely persecuted, but you may have some prominent Coptics rise up to prominence nevertheless. It's sort of like how you had a few black slave-owners in the South except the prominent Coptics are not engaging in the oppression. The fact some can find a way to prosper does not change the oppressive systematic discrimination and persecution that was instituted under Muslim rule.That's why areas that were predominantly Christian are predominantly Muslim now, and only a pockets of Christians in these areas.Of course, some Muslim states like Saudi Arabia do not permit open Christianity at all, and you cannot even take a Bible in there without risking arrest.

Nonsense and mostly baseless. In fact initially the Arabs didn't want mass conversions to Islam in their conquered territories because of the prospect of losing money from the taxes (which many Jews, as you might know, felt was a fair price to pay compared to the barbarous inquisitions of Christianity). As has been mentioned, the Arab conquest was heartily welcomed by the Christians of the mid-east due to the tyrannical Byzantines (who tried to ruthlessly wipe out the Arian heresies,among others, in the region - so much for tolerance) and Persians. Christian Europe has a long and fruitful persecution of religious minorities, and in fact puts the Muslims to shame here. I like the way how you totally avoid this. One wonders what happened to all those Pre-christian Pagans in Europe. They are heretics, deviating from the real teachings of Islam (see its that easy). Edited by Isana Kadeb, : SpellingEdited by Isana Kadeb, : Added a bit

The fact that persecution by some churches helped alleviate opposition from local Christians to the Arab conquest makes no difference at all in changing the fact over the centuries the Muslims have persecuted others, making them 2nd class citizens and at times burning down their churches and outlawing their faith. Just look at Egypt, as the moderate persecutors, and Saudi Arabia as the radical ones, and you get a fair picture of the historical reality of Islamic persecution.Now, no one is ignoring that Evangelicals were also persecuted by Catholics in Europe and early Protestants, but it seems a bit odd to blame the victims for their own persecutions.Do we say the Jews, for instance, were guilty of gassing themselves because they were also German?

I don't deny this may have happened. What I object to is your specious obliviousness of the fact that Christianity has in reality an awe-inspiring record of all the things you accuse Muslims of doing. In fact a brief examination of European history should make it succinctly clear, that Christianity when it comes to Religious Persecuton throughout history, tops the table. Until modern times, the situation in Europe was no different. So I cannot see the point. Wahhabism is a relatively modern phenomena in Islam, and the spread of extremist heresies in the Muslim world was in a large part a direct response to Christian colonialism and oppresion of large swathes of the Muslim World which only ended around 60 years ago (and one may argue the subjugation is still going on today). Not sure what point you're trying to make here. Sorry, come again?Edited by Isana Kadeb, : spelling Edited by Isana Kadeb, : added a bit

Evangelical Christianity has no record of persecutions in Europe whatsoever. That's just blatantly false. They were the victims, not the persecutors, and over the centuries, the Evangelical and Anabaptist view as well as that of the original Christians in the first 300 years have become the norm for everyone in this area, and the Catholic heresy of persecutions as justifiable has faded away.Can you say there is something similar within Islam for us to hope for reform? Were the original Muslims eschewing state religion and advocating freedom of religion, even to convert from Islam?Is that sort of acceptance of personal liberty something that has a strong root in Islam such that there is a clear wing within Islam from it's first leaders to the present whereby we can expect reform?

you probably have some bizarre concept of evangelical that keeps your "kind" free of stain.
however, he never said the word evangelical.
and christianity as a whole has one of the longest histories of oppression of others ever. they even had issues killing themselves. oh england has a catholic king now... lets kill some protestants and of course burn some quakers. oh england has a protestant king now. let's kill some catholics and burn a few more quakers. and don't even get me started on the mess in spain with catholics, protestants, jews, muslims, fucking everybody.

brenna, it's not bizarre. You are just ignorant of the types of Christianity that existed throughout history. Catholic forms of Christianity did not emerge until centuries later, and besides Catholics and Orthodox churches, there were many various churches and sects, such as the Coptics, the Assyrian church, the Donatists, Cathari, and later medieval sects like the Albingensians, Waldensians and the Anabaptists. This list doesn't even include the Arian churches.At the time of the Reformation, there were 3 main divisions within Europe, all 3 with distinct theologies. There were the Anabaptists who really held onto evangelical beliefs that the church consists of willing converts only, that men must be born-again, and hence the rebaptism event (though not all practiced that). This group held onto the same beliefs as the early Christians as far as separation of Church and State, and the same beliefs as the Waldensians and other medieval sects in this area (and the Donatists before them).The other 2 groups were the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. Nearly if not all Protestants today have accepted Anabaptist theology in the area of persecution and the use of the State to enforce obedience to the gospel, but the early Protestants held onto the same beliefs in this area as the RCs but minus the need for the Pope.The Anabaptist groups (with the exception of the crazies at Manz) eschewed violence and were bitterly persecuted and slaughtered, as were the Waldensians, Albingensians and various Cathari sects before them. But despite this, they maintained a belief in religious freedom and so really paved the way with their blood for the freedoms you enjoy today. it is a heinous injustice to blame them, the heros of liberty, for the persecutions by their enemies towards them, but that tends to be what the poorly educated do in this area.We don't blame German Jews for their persecution, despite a nearly analogous situation.So in the areas of religious persecution, evangelical Christianity has not played a large role and certainly played virtually no role whatsoever in Europe. The whole basis for evangelicalism is that a voluntary choice must be made in order to be saved and so trying to coerce people via the law to be Christians is inconsistent with it.

i'm not ignorant of the types of christianity that have existed. he said nothing about evangelicals and you're splitting ass hairs.

splitting hairs? what the heck?One group for well over 1000 years advocated religious liberty and separation of Church and State, paid with it via their own blood, and eventually prevailed, and that is Evangelical Christians.That's not splitting hairs, but reality.

that may well be, but he was talking about how for just under two thousand years christians of all strokes have been killing and oppressing those of different faiths. for you to bring in some special little difference that somehow separates your happy little group from the rest means dick all.and btw. find me one evangelical that supports the separation of church and state today.

Yea, and that was a lie (though probably honestly believed) because obviously Christians of all stroked have not been killing and oppressing those of different faiths, and specifically Christians from year 33 AD to 350 AD or thereabouts did not persecute other faiths, and Christians today and for the past several hundred years have not persecuted other faiths in general, except for some minor aberrations like Ireland and even there it was not exclusively religious in nature.Moreover, during the time of Catholic persecutions, it was Christians mostly being persecuted, and the Christians being persecuted continued to hold the same beliefs in this area as the Christians before Catholicism and Christians today. So it's not some small sect, but the great majority of Christians and Christianity throughout history.To smear "Christianity" in general because of what the Roman Catholics and early Protestants did is wholly wrong. One sect of Christianity resorted to persecution after becoming allied with the Roman Empire. Considering Rome's past behaviour, it was not that surprising.Let me add that all evangelicals support the original idea of separation of Church and State. The new idea is actually a perverse argument that we should have a joining of church/ideology and State and create a secular nation with secularism as the national ideology. The term separation of Church and State coined by the Donatists and the Anabaptists centuries later is not the same as separation of God from the State in the sense that the State must pretend that God does not exist and enforce a secularist or atheist ideology.Recognizing God in general is in harmony with the concept of separation of Church and State, but it means that religious rules are the exclusive domain of religion and not the law. It was never meant to be used to try to denigrate any official recognition, mention, etc,...of God or official public participation in a religious ceremony. It just means there are 2 spheres of rule; one is coercive and has the power and law of the State, and one does not.Edited by randman, : No reason given.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

you mean like catholics in rwanda that supported the german-made mythology of the superiority of tutsis and eventually led to the genocide of such?or the german christians who supported the nazi regime?or the american christians who still support the oppression of non-whites?or south american catholics who are still oppressing the indigenous peoples?or american christians who are oppressing anyone who claims christ but doesn't have his head up the religious right's ass?or christians worldwide who are calling for the destruction of all things islam?or christians worldwide who are participating in the aids genocide in africa because jesus doesn't love people who use condoms? particularly evangelicals.now i am the first person to say that it is not the christian faith that causes this, but the crazy peple who profess it. but that doesn't change the reality that christians have been and will continue to be a driving force of hate and intolerance worldwide.