Islam is a peaceful religion is it..

[KrazyHorse]

My theory remains, as it always has, that even visiting any site in the Middle East instantly makes you insane.

[Gangerolf]

Originally posted by molly bloom


If only.


St Jerome:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08341a.htm

Tertullian:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm

St Paul: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11567b.htm

Thomas Aquinas:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14663b.htm

all key figures in early and mediaeval Christianity.

All with, ah, 'issues', about women.

Pat Robertson is a national religious and political figure in the United States. Doesn't mean he's credible, but he has a national profile and a network of followers and fellow believers.

I ment exceptions as in very few Christians think like that today. Why do you keep bringing up all these old Christian nuts? How is it relevant?

I think I'll just quote Dissident:

we cannot deny the horrors of christianity in the past. truelly disgraceful.

but the fact is some people have become more civilized, and others haven't.

[GePap]

What a dumb thread, but with its kind of origins, what can you expect?

As a universalistic religion Islam, like Christianity, has to adapt to local norms to take hold. If many Islamic parts of the world are anti-women it is not solely if at all becuase of the teachings in the book, BUT becuase the cultures to which it spread were chauvanistic ones. Christianity in Africa is no less chauvinistic. You don;t seem Islamic states in which large numbers of people abort the girls cause they are less valuable than boys, like you see in China....

The problem of course is thinking words written in 680 ad. in terms of social value are relevant in 2004 ad.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Gangerolf


I ment exceptions as in very few Christians think like that today. Why do you keep bringing up all these old Christian nuts? How is it relevant?

I think I'll just quote Dissident:

Because you don't bring up any modern Muslims like for instance my friend Shirin, who doesn't wear a veil, or a burqa, or an aba, has her own job, her own car and doesn't espouse the violent overthrow of the United States or Great Britain.

It's very easy to say all Muslims are like this, or like that, but not actually provide any evidence.

I bring up the ancient and mediaeval Christians to show how little the thinking of some modern day Christians has changed with respect to the status of women.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have been brought up in a tolerant Lutheran Scandinavian country.

You only have to see what some of those modern day Christianistas have to say about homosexuality for instance, to see how very much in touch with the spirits of Tertullian and St. Jerome they are.

And I don't mean that in a complimentary way, either.

How many Muslims do you know personally, Gangerolf?

How many countries with an Arab or Islamic culture have you visited, just out of curiousity?

[Urban Ranger]

Diss,

There's always the Lord's Resistance Army

The LRA continued to kill, torture, maim, rape, and abduct large numbers of civilians, virtually enslaving numerous children. Although its levels of activity diminished somewhat compared with 1997, the area that the LRA targeted grew.

Surely Christian crackpots are still alive and kicking, unfortunately.

The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. They are notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Male paradise

I think they need some more fem-power.

All muslim women could try withholding sex until they get equal rights.

[Dinner]

There is a serious problem which those of use who dismiss the radical nature of Islam are not dealing with. There are large numbers of radical Islamic militants and the scariest thign is that they are right. Yes, if one really reads the Koran it explicitely tells muslims to kill nonbelievers and to continue attacking them until the agree to convert. This is the religion as written in it's holy book. This problem is not going to go away; Islam itself is the source of the problem.

[Vince278]

I suppose you are seeing that first hand right now... Be careful.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
There is a serious problem which those of use who dismiss the radical nature of Islam are not dealing with. There are large numbers of radical Islamic militants and the scariest thign is that they are right. Yes, if one really reads the Koran it explicitely tells muslims to kill nonbelievers and to continue attacking them until the agree to convert. This is the religion as written in it's holy book. This problem is not going to go away; Islam itself is the source of the problem.

That's your interpretation, Oerdin. Many Islamic believers and clerics hold it otherwise.

[Robert]

A

The laws of the Bible are given to the Jews about 3000 years ago. It was the constitutional law for them. It was a very very civilized law for those days.
The bible doesn't put this law on todays society. Pete even says in the bible that we should obey todays laws.

The laws of the bible are not given to todays christians.
That there are christians who claim so doesn't mean this is what the bible teaches.

If someone disagrees: tell me in this thread were in the Bible the christians are commanded to keep the laws of Moses?

Acts 15:10
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Romans 7:6
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the letter.

Galations 5:13-14
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

in short: the laws of the Old Testament are given to the jews who lived 3000 years ago. Not to us.
NEITHER does the Bible tell the christians to force others to live to these laws. Neither by converting them nor by killing them or pushing them by force.

B
A christian who's a murder because he hates someone isn't a murder because he's a christian.
There have been and still are millions of murders who are christians. They do not murder because they're christians, they murder despite they're christians. The Bible says that christians are not better then non-christians. We are murderers as well

If an anti-abortion terrorist kills abortion-doctors, he's mainly murdering because he's against abortion.
Not because he's a christian. Of course his anti-abortion idea comes from his christian background. But the Bible doesn't tell people to kill abortion-doctors.
The Bible even says to not kill at all but love the other men.

There have been millions of christians, mainly in the past, who have killed in name of christianity though.
Unfortunately indeed. I'm really sorry for that.
But it is clear to everyone who reads the bible that they did not have any biblical right to do so.

They didn't follow the teachings of the bible when they murdered those people.
People who don't do what the bible tells them to do can hardly be named christians. Even if they call themselves christians.

You can't compare christianity for that reason with the islam.
The islam does call for jihad. There are different interpertations on what jihad means. but a large ammount of the muslims does support the terrorists in these days.
People were cheering, even here in Holland, on 9/11.

I am aware that the majority of the muslims, for sure in western countries, is against these terrorists.
But no-one can deny that a lare piece of the muslims worldwide does support terrorism.

Only someone with an anti-christian background can seriously try to compare christianity and christians with muslims on this.
And sadly the group of these people is growing.

Oh well, that's what the bible already predicted 2000 years ago.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I am aware that the majority of the muslims, for sure in western countries, is against these terrorists.

If the peaceful majority doesn't do anything then they are complicit.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Vince278


If the peaceful majority doesn't do anything then they are complicit.

Pherhaps the peacefull majority can't do anything....
I wish I could do something about the North-Ireland situation....

speaking about the north-ireland situation, it's really not fair to put that on the 'christian plate'.
They are using catholicism / protestantism only to work out their differences. The real problem is a social class difference. They even use palestinian (roman catholic) and israelian (protestants) flags. Does that mean that the north-ireland situation involved jews and palestinians?

*if* the people in north-ireland would be christians they would stop the fight and be the least-person, as the bible tells christians to be. If they continue fighting they apparantly are not following their own religion, so that religion can't be blamed for it.

If I tell my friend not to murder, and he still murders, am I responsible for that?

[Vince278]

I guess it can be said then that those who are fighting in N. Ireland will be going to hell. Perhaps the same for those who just stand aside and do nothing. Perhaps the Pope can excommunicate the IRA and any Catholic involved and the Archbishop of Canterbury can pronounce some sort of anathema on any Protestants involved (assuming they are all Anglican). Both sides at the very least should follow the examples set by Jesus (render unto Caesar, turn the other cheek, and all that).

On the other hand, there is no Islamic pope-like figure. I believe whatever equivalent figures there are do have the responsibility to bring things under control or they too are complicit (and eventually by implication Islam itself).

If you tell your friend not to murder yet he does then you are not responsible for the murder. However, if you know he is a murderer and do not help to bring him to justice then you are complicit in that murder.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Vince278


If the peaceful majority doesn't do anything then they are complicit.

A majority might not be terrorist, but they appreciate what the hijackers on 11/9 did.

[Al B. Sure!]

Vince:

There is no leadership in the sunni muslim ummah (community of believers). the Caliphate was ended by Kamal Ataturk in 1922 so there is no leadership. The Sunnis have always been a congregationalist and individualistic faith so there is no priesthood in Sunni Islam... the closest thing to a religious leader are the mullahs, but these are just learned men who primarily teach religious schools and lead prayers at the mosque (though any muslim can lead prayers so the mullahs aren't exactly priests)

the most learned and respected of the mullahs are called imams. These are not to be confused with the Shiite imams which are messianic religious leaders. The Shiites also have Ayatollahs that are essentially prophets (though according to dogma, the last prophet, of course, was Mohammed)