Wiploc

Archeologist has been suspended. Don't respond to his posts. Stay on topic.

steve_bnk

There are enough hints in the NT to see a possible mlitant tadical.

spamandham

It's difficult to say which religion inspires more violence. Historically, I'm guessing Christianity has inspired more religious killings than Islam has. It'd be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison of the cubic kilometers of blood each of these particularly nasty religions has spilled over the eons.

ApostateAbe

It would be an interesting study, no doubt, but not at all easy. Motivations for a single act of violence can be diverse and ambiguous, quantities of death must be proportioned with the total populations of societies, you must factor in the differences in the technical ease of killing, and of course history is filled with ambiguity about how many people were killed by whom. Such overlooked pitfalls lend themselves to the popular conclusion that atheism is much more prone to violence than Christianity, based on the killings by Communist states.

mountainman

I agree with avi. The bible appears to condone genocide, and should be banned.

Yes, but even more serious were the humorless military supremacists who found themselves and their authoritative "Holy Writs" the object of that satire.

metacristi

With a premise like 'Violence in the Quran, he and others say, is largely a defense against attack' (actually islam is definitely not like the other major religions, jihad is probably 90 percent attack against infidels and only 10 percent 'inner struggle') and downplaying the fact that, unlike the situation in Christianity*, the qur'an is considered by muslims as the eternal and exact word of God (so says the qur'an itself) I can only conclude that we deal with just another 'turban of the mind' (to quote ibn Warraq)...Finally if we take in account the length of the holy books and reject the obvious 'turbans of the mind' the qur'an is definitely more violent than the Bible (although many try to downgrade, dishonestly, Christianity at the level of islam only to confirm their previously held, apriori, view that all abrahamic religions are equally violent).

*it's far less about 'holy amnesia' as 'a basic component of religious development' it's more about the fact that in Christianity there is plenty of place for fallibilism and symbollic interpretation (many Christians agree that the bible was written by fallible humans although influenced by higher powers; basically no modern Christian or Jew would advocate the severe punishments from the old Testament, the destruction of the ennemies by the Jews is seen as valid only in that historical context, but not today etc). Not so with islam where there is very little place for fallibilism.

Games muslims play and The Myths of islam - refute the most common myths propagated by muslims that islam is 'peace' (some muslims are well intended and honest in their beliefs, unfortunately unaware of the real nature of their religion)
The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex

metacristi

Yes they are. But whilst there are very few reasons to think that the values of Enlightenment will ever be lost in the 'Christian world' there are plenty to believe that islam will never produce an islamic Enlightenment (strictly from inside). The whole notion that Christianity is more or less like islam is totally misguided, in fact we owe modernity exactly to the fact that they are quite different at the level of doctrines.

avi

1. how different;
2. how is this "fact" ascertained?
3. Who or which body has validated your claim?

avi

DCHindley

The Quran is not very violent at all. The historical situations that existed when most verses were uttered are fairly well documented, making interpretation easier.

Muhammad was mainly an alliance builder. If the tribe he sought alliance with, or which sought alliance with him and his followers, was willing to come to agreeable terms, he respected those terms. He respected those who had their own holy scriptures, calling them "people of the book," and even allied himself to Jewish tribes. He wouldn't ally himself with pagans, though, and if they sought his alliance, he would require them to convert to Islam.

Islam, though, arose in a desert tribal context in which warfare was common, and it often was spread by means of Arab conquests. And Christianity wasn't spread by war and conquest? Now the "chivalry" exhibited by Muhammad and many of his followers through the medieval period, has given way to the radicalism seen in some cases today. That is a socio-economical problem related to Islam's adaptation to modern circumstances.

Has Christianity done any better? When times were good, there was a willingness to modernize Christian worship and world-view (I call it "Christianity as a social gospel" emphasizing the higher moral or ethical qualities associated with Jesus), but now that the world is becoming "smaller" and more economic pressures fall on the layperson, Christians are reverting to a defensive position that isn't so progressive or liberal.

DCH

Solo

I don't know if you are aware but when the Salman Rushdie fatwa was declared by Khomeini, the fairly liberal Al-Azhar islamic legalists protested that this attack on artistic expression was un-Islamic and lacked scriptural foundation. Khomeini issued a cynical retort denouncing the Egyptian infidels and quoting from the Sirat Rasul Allah (the Life of the Prophet of Allah by Ibn Ishaq, which is considered sacred history by all islamic legal schools) an incident in which Muhammad himself ordered the killing of a poet (Ka'ab bin Al Ashraf) who mocked him. Actually, there were more such incidents, as Muhammad was by all accounts sensitive to any form of criticism, lampooning included. Nothing further was heard from Al-azhar concerning Rushdie.



Jiri