The Barbarity of Christianity (as compared to Islam)

I'm sure all of us God fearing loyal Americans have a tear in our eye and a lump in a our throats. But it doesn't really address the specific issue here, does it? The specific issue which we are discussing (in order to be able to decide who is or is not "barbaric") is as follows:Group A which intentionally targets civilians in acts of violence in order to further its goals, andgroup B which engages in acts of violence which they know before hand will result in the deaths of innocent civilians, though the killing of civilians is not the intended result, in order to further its goals.Now there are two questions:(1) Is there a moral distinction between group A and group B?(2) If so, is this moral distinction enough to warrant the application of the word "barbaric" to one group and not to the other?So far, gene90 has been the only one to actually discuss the issue and give reasons for his opinions. If I am reading his posts correctly, he answers "yes" to (1) and "no" to (2) (indicating that the ultimate goal is also important before we can assign labels like "barbaric").I really don't see what your letter has to do with the issue, unless you are admitting, like gene90, that simply not deliberately targeting civilians is not sufficient to differentiate barbarians from civilized peoples.Edited by Chiroptera, : clarity

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

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What I want to argue is that the only rational way to make sense of this is with a cost-benefit analysis.

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I guess if it were on topic we could discuss whether "a cost-benefit analysis" really justifies killing people.Hell, if it were on topic we could also discuss whether simply asserting without evidence "If we don't invade Iraq, Al Qaeda will blow up America with nuclear bombs!" really constitutes "a cost-benefit analysis".Good thing these wouldn't be on topic here. Tal might be provoked into posting more letters that make me weepy.

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

It started roughly here. Sorry that we've been off-topic.

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

1. Sure. And in real life, looking at real life Christianity and real life Muslims, there are no fundamental doctrines, or they simply are not clear. That much is obvious. I can't you, either, if you are simply going to cherry-pick your verses to give "true doctrine".2. Only the past few centuries? This is pretty self-serving. Go back the past few millenia. Christian societies have been violent and comparable Islamic societies have not. It's a waste of my time, too, if all you are going to do is cherry-pick your examples of "true Christians".3. What facts am I skating around? I am merely looking at the actual historical record as well as actual individual people that I have known. This is the problem with "true Christian" -- you are so determined to prove how superior you are to everyone else that you can't even be honest with yourselves.-

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it's a waste of my time trying further to show you.

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Then why the hell do you start topics like this? Everytime this has come up, the conversation has proceeded exactly the same way. Your arguments have been shown to be self-serving and lame every single time, consisting of cherry-picking your examples and pretending that your own particular interpretation (of not only your sacred scripture, but other peoples' as well!) is the authentic one. If you can't use actual facts or logic to demonstrate your point, then quit wasting your time.

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

Hi, Tal.

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At any rate, which Islamic society do you believe has been peaceful?

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Ouch. Yeah, I did mispeak, didn't I? I meant that line to be a repeat of the point I made in a previous post.I certainly can't think of any Muslim societies that were particularly peaceful -- at least no more than I can think of any Christian peaceful societies. I meant to say that Islamic societies were no more violent than comparable Christian ones. Sorry for the mispeak.Certainly, in my personal experience, in secular societies Muslims were as peaceful and tolerant as their fellow Christians.

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

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How many times do I need remind you that the originators of the NT, Jesus and the apostles all advocated suffering rather than reprisal, revenge or any other violence for advancement of the kingdom of God?

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A lot, evidently. I'm not sure why someone who repeats himself so much is complaining about wasting his time.-

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That my points are weightier than yours is not a fault of mine. You need to reassess your position as to whether it may need some adjustments.

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Well, this is better than complaining how I am wasting your time.

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

Actually, the purpose of any war is to meet the social/political/economic goals of those who engage in the war. Enemies and civilians will be killed and destroyed if that will help meet these goals. If the political situation changes so that either killing and destroying will not meet those goals (or even be counter-productive to those goals), or if the goals themselves change, then the parties waging war will disengage.- Because they are seen by some as the most efficient means (or perhaps the only means) to meet the political goals that they advocate.To quote Clauswitz, "War is the continuation of politics by other means."

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

When I was in the Peace Corps, I served in a country that was about half Christian and half Muslim. Everyone pretty much got along, and I didn't notice any signs of any sort of religious-based tensions.So, just based on my experience, Islam isn't fundamentally a violent religion. I guess it can be for some, but not for the folks among whom I lived.In fact, I knew of one Muslim that kept his tea shop open during the day during Ramadan for the Christians -- he told me that closing it would be imposing his religion on others, and that would be un-Islamic.

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

No surprise there. That's the same way that these radical Christians go about reading their own sacred texts.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr