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[Maya3]

ccc,
you know that Allah and God means the same thing right?

Yes, but the way Christians and muslins understand God is vastly different.

How do you know that?

Christian missionaries have their share in destroying cultures and religions all over the world.

The Christian faith does not seek the conversion of the world by the sword. While there are radicals in all faiths, there is something distinct about islam that makes it violent. That is not present in Christianity.

that is the distinction to which I am referring to.

[/quote]

Hmm, have heard of the inquistion?

[CCC460]

Maya,

the expansion of islam was through conquest in which those who resisted conversion were put to death. that is the plain fact of the matter.

As for the Inquisition, it is not really a valid parallel. As wrong as the inquisition was, it was not a universal doctrine of the Church, but was present where Church-state interests wanted to remove political factions that just happened to also be heretics.
I am not excusing the mistakes and sins of the Church in the inquisition's actions, but they are a bit different than islam.

[Howiedds]

Kwd:

But I believe we can all agree that the Islamic position currently is the greatest threat to peace on earth.

If you would qualify that with the position of the Muslim extremists who represent a minority among the 1 billion Muslims in the world is threat to peace on earth[/quote]

I meet with Muslims, mostly African American Muslims, with Christians and fellow Jews in Synagogues, Churches, and Mosques every 3 months; we discuss Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses. They would be appalled at the assumption that they are a threat to world peace.

[kwd111]

Kwd:

But I believe we can all agree that the Islamic position currently is the greatest threat to peace on earth.

If you would qualify that with the position of the Muslim extremists who represent a minority among the 1 billion Muslims in the world is threat to peace on earth

I meet with Muslims, mostly African American Muslims, with Christians and fellow Jews in Synagogues, Churches, and Mosques every 3 months; we discuss Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses. They would be appalled at the assumption that they are a threat to world peace.

[/quote]

qualified in post #13

[Maya3]

My quote button doesn´t work, it blinks and I cannot see what I´m writing if I try it.

CCC,
(just realized that I can copy and past from underneath)

As for the Inquisition, it is not really a valid parallel. As wrong as the inquisition was, it was not a universal doctrine of the Church, but was present where Church-state interests wanted to remove political factions that just happened to also be heretics.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry..."also happened to be heretics"
!!!!
I dont think that this is a term that should be used in todays language.

So are you saying if the church felt that they needed to remove certain political factions, it didn't matter so much if they tortured people to death because they were heretics anyway?

Do you realize that the inqusitioners tortured hundreds of thousands of people to death, possibly milljons? Did you know that the Inqusion lasted into the 1860;ies??

Maya

[CCC460]

I dont think that this is a term that should be used in todays language.

Ok. I was just using it in the context of the time.
Heresy is really a technical term, but I know it carries a lot of baggage with it as well. Some now use the term heterodox since it carries the same terminology of holding to false doctrines, but doesn't carry the same negative connotation.

So are you saying if the church felt that they needed to remove certain political factions, it didn't matter so much if they tortured people to death because they were heretics anyway?

No, i didn't think i was saying that at all.
There was nothing right with the tactics of the inquisution. at that time, there was little separation between church and state so that doctrinal matters and civil law were blurred quite heavily. "Heresies" that arose were a big threat to the civil order as well as to the civl leadership. and because of the close relationship between the clergy and the government, it became a peculiar marriage between the two. I am not excusing any of that. but it is also true that the inquisition was not universal. it was only in a few places.
Also, the problem with the inquisition only affected the west. Eastern Orthodox Christendom did not see this type of thing.

My only point in explaining this is to say that comparing the militant conquest of islam really doesn't have a parallel anywhere in Christendom, even with the Inquisition. The point is that muslim conquest is seen as a mandate from God. Christianity has no parallel.

But no one denies the checkered past of Christianity.

Do you realize that the inqusitioners tortured hundreds of thousands of people to death, possibly milljons? Did you know that the Inqusion lasted into the 1860;ies??[/qote]
Yes. However, the inquisition's that did this were only in certain areas, not universal. The muslim conquest was different.

[Maya3]

CCC,

Ok. I was just using it in the context of the time.
Heresy is really a technical term, but I know it carries a lot of baggage with it as well. Some now use the term heterodox since it carries the same terminology of holding to false doctrines, but doesn't carry the same negative connotation.

There are no false doctrines.

My only point in explaining this is to say that comparing the militant conquest of islam really doesn't have a parallel anywhere in Christendom, even with the Inquisition. The point is that muslim conquest is seen as a mandate from God. Christianity has no parallel.

First of all, it's only a minority of muslims that are militant radicals (that does not mean that we should't do something about this).

Christians also see it as a mandate from God to go out and prozelytize and convert people.
Christians HAVE gone to war to do this.

Maya

[Howiedds]

CCC:

The Christian faith does not seek the conversion of the world by the sword.

That is not historically correct. That may be true of both Judaism and Christianity in the modern world, but it has not been true throughout Jewish and Christian history.

the expansion of islam was through conquest in which those who resisted conversion were put to death. that is the plain fact of the matter.

The expanding Arab empire of the 7th and 8th centuries was a spread of civilization out of the Arabian Peninsula. As was true in Jewish and Christian history, the spreading of empire is often accompanied by the push for uniformity within the empire to the conquering culture and its leadership. It can take the form of economic, political, or military repression to conform to the conqueror as a sign of loyalty.
This happened in Jewish history ca 140 BCE as the Hasmoneans spread from their Jerusalem base to the north, south, and east. (We ended up with Herod thanks to the forced conversion of the Idumeans.)

When Christianity became the official state religion of Rome, ca 350 CE, all manner of political, economic, and life threatening measures were ensconced in it's legal code to push Christianity throughout the Empire. It is often misunderstood as a religious persecution, just as you are misunderstanding the forced conversion that occurred in the spread of the Arab Empire. It was actually, as is so often the case, a drive to political uniformity and conformity. Loyalty to the Empire often meant religious conformity.

Visigothic Iberia, ca 600 CE,  is another good example of Christianity being spread by the sword. Kidnapping, murder, and all forms of atrocities were committed by the Christian Visigoths when they converted to Roman Christianity (from Arian Christianity). Again, some will focus on the religious aspects of this persecution when in fact it was a drive to unifying the Iberian Peninsula in the face of the threat to re-establish the western Roman Empire by the eastern Roman Emperor, Justinian, who was moving in conquest across the Mediterranean.

No Jew would accept that Christianity wasn't spread by the sword. I  always, however, point out that focusing on the ancillary religious aspect as the goal misses the geopolitical ones.

All three testaments can be excerpted to provide quotes of militancy that would embarrass its adherents.

There is certainly a world wide problem with militant, extremist, Islam today, but the stones you are picking up to throw at their glass house ignores your own. This may be the one we are dealing with today, but in other times and places...

As for the Inquisition, it is not really a valid parallel. As wrong as the inquisition was, it was not a universal doctrine of the Church, but was present where Church-state interests wanted to remove political factions that just happened to also be heretics.

The inquisition was a church institution that was used in western Europe (Italy, France, and Spain) to eradicate heresy from ca 1200 on. You are right to point out, however, that the religious motivation and institution was overtaken by political and economic motivation and made into the first all Spanish institution for the unification of Iberia.

It is not wrong to use that as an example, however, because the "spread of Islam by the sword" was also a religious tenet that was eclipsed by the spread of Empire.

I am not excusing the mistakes and sins of the Church in the inquisition's actions, but they are a bit different than islam.

There are many distinctions in how each faith was used to spread political hegemony using religion as a hook on which to hang the motivations, but there is a pattern that emerges over the course of western history as to the role of the religious excuse that is used for political, economic, and social motives.

[Howiedds]

kwd:

qualified in post #13

Not soon enough. It should have been in your original post if you didn't want to be misunderstood.

[Howiedds]

CCC:

The point is that muslim conquest is seen as a mandate from God. Christianity has no parallel.

I don't want to beat this to death, because you are not a Christian apologist as some here are who would offer the "good side of slavery" argument to any criticism of Christianity's history. I think an argument could be made, however, that Christianity's violent spread in Europe often was excused with what some thought was a mandate from God.

[Acumen]

Anybody who thinks that kind of fanaticism is unique to one group or another, not theirs of course,  is blind to the extremes in their own camp.

I agree.  There are levels of fanaticism, however.  If a Christian straps himself to a bomb and blows up a Jewish cafe in Israel, more people will scratch their heads rather than say, "Yep, those fanatical Christians."

Even the ever-popular liberal response about Christians bombing abortion clinics relies upon such rare occurrence that it can be explained as a psychological imbalance rather than religious extremism. 

[CCC460]

There are no false doctrines.

I disagree, but perhaps that is for another discussion.

First of all, it's only a minority of muslims that are militant radicals

I'm not disagreeing with this.
 

[CCC460]

Howie,

fair enough.

I don't know if I would exactly agree in all parts, but the disagreement is  in the minutae.

[Howiedds]

acumen:

I agree.  There are levels of fanaticism, however.  If a Christian straps himself to a bomb and blows up a Jewish cafe in Israel, more people will scratch their heads rather than say, "Yep, those fanatical Christians."

Not in today's world, but in Medieval Europe, the equivalent fanaticism of the crusading mob under Peter the Hermit of the 1st Crusade had that very response. One of the lingering aftermaths of the Crusading era for Jews was that no Christian could be trusted not to be a murderer. The entire Christian world was painted with what I acknowledge to be an exaggerated brush that continues down to our own day in some circles of Jews. I can't remember the name of the Canadian Jewish comedian on Johnny Carson, David someone,  who made the joke regarding his European grandparents feelings about Christians.

"It's not that they hated Christians, they just know that they kidnapped our children and sold them for whiskey."

My own grandfather used to say, a man who spent his childhood in 1900 Ukraine,  that if you wanted to know what a Christian really thought of you, get him drunk.

Even the ever-popular liberal response about Christians bombing abortion clinics relies upon such rare occurrence that it can be explained as a psychological imbalance rather than religious extremism.

Just as no one should suggest that murdering, abortion protesters is sanctioned in Christianity, no one should make the assertion that suicide bombing is a tenet of Islam.

[dadman]

Even the ever-popular liberal response about Christians bombing abortion clinics relies upon such rare occurrence that it can be explained as a psychological imbalance rather than religious extremism.  

I would agree .. If Christians had even the slightest tendency the Islamic faith has .. "dr" George Tiller would have been dead 30 years ago . . . the fact that he has remained so long is a testimony to the long suffering and adherence to the rule of law ..
but I thank God that his million dollar $$$ murder for hire has come to an end.

but on the topic at hand . . .
How about that Islamic religion of peace ??

In 2007 Islam and Judaism's holiest holidays overlapped for 10 days.
Muslims racked up 397 dead bodies in 94 terror attacks across 10
countries during this time.

while Jews worked on their 159th Nobel Prize.

Genesis 16:
And the angel of the LORD said unto her ( Hagar ), Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael ( Father of the Arab Nation/s ); because the LORD hath heard thy affliction . . . And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.

Man !! is this ever true

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