Compulsory military service
Apr 12, 2017 01:39:49 #
You are fighting a losing battle. The Old Testament covered how long ago?
Islam is killing.non believers today. There is no way you can compare Christianity to Islam. Christianity is based on love. Sure it has had its bloody history. A chunk of it comes.from finally taking the fight to Islam after hundreds of years of being raped and murdered by Islamics and their crime was two fold. The only way to not be killed was to kill them. You don't like it? Blame Islam. It caused it. You must feel that being a Christian means laying down and allowing oneself to be walked on and even murdered. Big mistake. A Christian will try to help anyone in need, but threaten them or their family.....you will reap what you tried to sew.
Why after hundreds of years did Christians fight back ?
1. Christians refused to reject Christ and convert to Islam.
2. Christians were being murdered because of it and fought back.
You want to defend muslims? Tell them to turn in all their known radicals for investigation and tell them that if they want to be separated from those radicals in the public eye, they need to loudly denounce those radicals and show us how to separate the killers from the peacefuls.
The bottom line that you refuse to address is that Christianity does not teach nor order any Christian to murder any non Christian. The Qur'an does.
You can talk all day long about the Muslims you've known and what fine peaceful people they are.
I'm telling you that as long as they are muslims, no matter what you think, their holy book orders them to lie to you and at the time of their choosing...kill you. If they refuse to obey the Qur'an, they cannot be Muslims.
If the Islamics ever get a foothold strong enough to try to declare against non muslims in America, and you think those you know will choose you over their holy book,...you're dead.
Islam is not a religion. No religion is based on killing anyone who will not convert to it. Islam is totally based on converting everyone or killing them. It is its absolute consistent history all the way back to its paedophile prophet. It is not a religion but rather it is a ideological political movement aimed at world domination.
Islam is killing.non believers today. There is no way you can compare Christianity to Islam. Christianity is based on love. Sure it has had its bloody history. A chunk of it comes.from finally taking the fight to Islam after hundreds of years of being raped and murdered by Islamics and their crime was two fold. The only way to not be killed was to kill them. You don't like it? Blame Islam. It caused it. You must feel that being a Christian means laying down and allowing oneself to be walked on and even murdered. Big mistake. A Christian will try to help anyone in need, but threaten them or their family.....you will reap what you tried to sew.
Why after hundreds of years did Christians fight back ?
1. Christians refused to reject Christ and convert to Islam.
2. Christians were being murdered because of it and fought back.
You want to defend muslims? Tell them to turn in all their known radicals for investigation and tell them that if they want to be separated from those radicals in the public eye, they need to loudly denounce those radicals and show us how to separate the killers from the peacefuls.
The bottom line that you refuse to address is that Christianity does not teach nor order any Christian to murder any non Christian. The Qur'an does.
You can talk all day long about the Muslims you've known and what fine peaceful people they are.
I'm telling you that as long as they are muslims, no matter what you think, their holy book orders them to lie to you and at the time of their choosing...kill you. If they refuse to obey the Qur'an, they cannot be Muslims.
If the Islamics ever get a foothold strong enough to try to declare against non muslims in America, and you think those you know will choose you over their holy book,...you're dead.
Islam is not a religion. No religion is based on killing anyone who will not convert to it. Islam is totally based on converting everyone or killing them. It is its absolute consistent history all the way back to its paedophile prophet. It is not a religion but rather it is a ideological political movement aimed at world domination.
Apr 12, 2017 01:52:38 #
Super Dave wrote:
Are you being purposely dense? br br Of the 1.6 B... (show quote)
The point here is that no matter what you or I think about what they think, the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, the law of Islam, the book that must be obeyed.....orders them that at a time of their choosing to kill you...
and to lie about it until the time of your death.
If a Christian denies Christ, they cannot be Christian.
If an Islamic denies the Qur'an therefore their prophet, they cannot be Islamics.
The Qur'an orders your death.
Apr 12, 2017 14:10:49 #
doc,
No sir, I'm not fighting a losing battle. You are. You're the one who doesn't either read my comments or has a reading comprehension disability. I've addressed MODERN Christian atrocities, before, in earlier posts. Also, how can you say that the violence of the Old Testament has no relevance to today's issues? As a Christian, you're supposed to believe that the Old Testament is just as holy and relative as is the New Testament. Your comments are the same as saying that the 10 Commandments are no longer relevant because they're so old.
But, I'll reiterate. Previously, I wrote a post about how we use cherry-picked verses from the Quran to condemn all Muslims rather than being rightfully angry at particular groups like ISIS who also use cherry-picked verses from the Quran to sanctify their atrocities.
The point of that post was two-fold: to demonstrate how the Bible can be used to sanctify atrocities in the same way groups like ISIS use the Quran AND to remind us all of our shared call as Christians to extend love and grace to neighbor and enemy alike, no matter what their faith might be.
Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long before you responded to express your utter dismay that the Bible would ever be compared to the Quran or Christians to Muslims. In a very small way it mirrored the outrage that greeted President Obama when he had the audacity to point out the historical fact that Christians have blood on our hands, too.
One refrain I continue to hear in response to both the President’s comments and my own post is something to the effect of “When was the last time Christians committed an atrocity?” The implication being that the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch trials, slavery, and Jim Crow segregation are too far in the past to be irrelevant to the current discussion of religion fueled violence in the Middle East. BULL CRAP!
I think it’s an important question to ask, particularly in light of what seems to be the popular narrative of rational, peaceful Christians who cherish freedom and just want to go about living their lives versus the crazy, hateful Muslims who want to take over the world and impose Sharia Law. If violence and oppression in the name of Jesus really is in the Church’s past, then perhaps we can claim a superior position of religious sophistication, even as we deny the lingering effects of history. So, when was the last time Christians perpetrated an unholy atrocity?
Again, I've mentioned this before because it’s happening right now. Since 2012, a civil war has been raging in the Central African Republic, though like most things happening in sub-Saharan Africa, you probably haven’t hear much about it.
In 2012, the president of Central African Republic was deposed by a group of Muslim militias, elements of whom tried to form a new government. However, Muslims are a minority in Central African Republic. The majority of the country is Christian, some of whom formed their own militias to take back control of the country.
Not surprisingly, this conflict sparked a civil war that unfortunately continues to rage to this day.
Like most civil wars, this war has been anything but civil. As the Christian militias began to regain some of their lost power, replacing the Muslim government with a Christian one apparently stopped being enough. Within a year of the war breaking out, rumors began to leak out that the Christians in Central African Republic weren’t just fighting back. They were committing the worst kind of atrocity.
In December 2013, the United Nations launched an inquiry to investigate these rumors and two months ago the panel handed in their report. The verdict was clear: the Christian militias were guilty of ethnic cleansing.
In their effort to rid Central African Republic of Islam, the Christian militias have so far slaughtered some 6,000 of their Muslim neighbors; a number that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of people who have been driven from their homes.
As ANOTHER example, how about the " ethnic cleansing" that occurred in Serbia from 1992-1995? In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.
Bosnia is one of several small countries that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia, a multicultural country created after World War I by the victorious Western Allies. Yugoslavia was composed of ethnic and religious groups that had been historical rivals, even bitter enemies, including the Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics) and ethnic Albanians (Muslims).
During World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany and was partitioned. A fierce resistance movement sprang up led by Josip Tito. Following Germany's defeat, Tito reunified Yugoslavia under the slogan "Brotherhood and Unity," merging together Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, along with two self-governing provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Tito, a Communist, was a strong leader who maintained ties with the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, playing one superpower against the other while obtaining financial assistance and other aid from both. After his death in 1980 and without his strong leadership, Yugoslavia quickly plunged into political and economic chaos.
A new leader arose by the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist who had turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain power. He began by inflaming long-standing tensions between Serbs and Muslims in the independent provence of Kosovo. Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority and claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss of independence and domination by Milosevic.
In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia soon resulting in civil war. The national army of Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbs controlled by Milosevic, stormed into Slovenia but failed to subdue the separatists there and withdrew after only ten days of fighting.
Milosevic quickly lost interest in Slovenia, a country with almost no Serbs. Instead, he turned his attention to Croatia, a Catholic country where Orthodox Serbs made up 12 percent of the population.
During World War II, Croatia had been a pro-Nazi state. Serbs living in Croatia as well as Jews had been the targets of widespread Ustasha massacres. In the concentration camp at Jasenovac, they had been slaughtered by the tens of thousands.
In 1991, the new Croat government, led by Franjo Tudjman, seemed to be reviving fascism and also enacted discriminatory laws targeting Orthodox Serbs.
Aided by Serbian guerrillas in Croatia, Milosevic's forces invaded in July 1991 to 'protect' the Serbian minority. In the city of Vukovar. After Vukovar fell, the Serbs began the first mass executions of the conflict, killing hundreds of Croat men and burying them in mass graves.
The response of the international community was limited. U.S. President George Bush chose not to get involved militarily, but instead recognized the independence of both Slovenia and Croatia. An arms embargo was imposed for all of the former Yugoslavia by the United Nations. However, the Serbs under Milosevic were already the best armed force and thus maintained a big military advantage. By the end of 1991, a U.S.-sponsored cease-fire agreement was brokered between the Serbs and Croats fighting in Croatia.
In April 1992, the U.S. and European Community chose to recognize the independence of Bosnia, a mostly Muslim country where the Serb minority made up 32 percent of the population. Milosevic responded to Bosnia's declaration of independence by attacking Sarajevo, its capital city, best known for hosting the 1984 Winter Olympics. Sarajevo soon became known as the city where Serb snipers continually shot down helpless civilians in the streets, including eventually over 3,500 children.
Bosnian Muslims were hopelessly outgunned. As the Serbs gained ground, they began to systematically roundup local Muslims in scenes eerily similar to those that had occurred under the Nazis during World War II, including mass shootings, forced repopulation of entire towns, and confinement in make-shift concentration camps for men and boys. The Serbs also terrorized Muslim families into fleeing their villages by using rape as a weapon against women and girls.
The actions of the Serbs were labeled as 'ethnic cleansing." Despite media reports of the secret camps, the mass killings, as well as the destruction of Muslim mosques and historic architecture in Bosnia, the world community remained mostly indifferent.
Throughout 1993, confident that the U.N., United States and the European Community would not take militarily action, Serbs in Bosnia freely committed genocide against Muslims. Bosnian Serbs operated under the local leadership of Radovan Karadzic, president of the illegitimate Bosnian Serb Republic. Karadzic had once told a group of journalists, "Serbs and Muslims are like cats and dogs. They cannot live together in peace. It is impossible."
On February 6, 1994, attention turned completely to Bosnia as a marketplace in Sarajevo was struck by a Serb mortar shell killing 68 persons and wounding nearly 200. President, Bill Clinton, issued an ultimatum through the NATO, demanding that the Serbs withdraw their artillery from Sarajevo. The Serbs quickly complied and a NATO-imposed cease-fire in Sarajevo was declared.
The U.S. then launched diplomatic efforts aimed at unifying Bosnian Muslims and the Croats against the Serbs. However, this new Muslim-Croat alliance failed to stop the Serbs from attacking 6 Muslim towns in Bosnia which had been declared Safe Havens by the U.N.
Bosnian Serbs not only attacked the Safe Havens but also attacked the U.N. peacekeepers. NATO forces responded by launching air strikes against Serb ground positions. The Serbs retaliated by taking hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers as hostages and turning them into human shields, chained to military targets such as ammo supply dumps.
At this point, some of the worst genocidal activities of the four-year-old conclict occurred. The Serbs slaughtered nearly 8,000 men and boys between the ages of twelve and sixty. The Serbs, also, continued to engage in mass rapes of Muslim females.
By the time the treaty ending the conflict was signed at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, on 11-1-95, over 200,000 Muslim civilians had been systematically murdered. More than 20,000 were missing and feared dead, while 2,000,000 had become refugees.
Now, let me be clear: this in no way negates or even diminishes the atrocities committed by ISIS, Boko Haram, or any other fanatically violent group. We should absolutely be angry and appalled by what they have and are continuing to do.
But what the events taking place in Central African Republic and Bosnia do demonstrate is the fact that violent extremism isn’t anymore fundamental to Islam than it is to Christianity. (And before you point to the violence committed by Mohammed somehow differentiating Islam from the Judeo-Christian tradition, allow me to point you to the Old Testament’s description of the genocide involved in conquering the Promise Land; a story which is intractable from history of the Christian faith AND the history of it still used by Islamic militants as a reason for their hatred of Christians.)
The reality of present day Christian violence, in contrast to our claims that only Muslims do such things, also demonstrates a dangerous and willful ignorance. That's to say, our willingness to ignore inconvenient facts about our own religion detract from our sanctified hate, mistreatment, and oppression of Muslim neighbors. Again, we should be outraged by the actions of ISIS, but our comparative silence towards the violent actions of our fellow Christians in Africa speaks to our willingness to ignore the truth when it complicates our claim that we’re the good guys and Muslims are the bad guys. (A practice that can be clearly seen in the mental gymnastics you're doing to wash your hands of complicity in the Church’s past atrocities).
Though I think the reasons the Church has such messy relationship with the Muslim world are varied and complicated, it seems to me that one fundamental issue that drives a wedge between the two of us is a warped understanding of truth and goodness that many of us in the American Church, particularly in evangelicalism, share. That is to say, rather than simply believing that truth and goodness find their source in Christ, we believe that truth and goodness are exclusively Christian.
It’s this mentality that drives fundamentalists to reject the reality of evolution, but it’s also this mentality that fuels a much broader and seemingly never-ending holy war to prove Christians are right and everybody else is wrong. Though Muslims are the enemy at the moment, it’s within the context of this "holy war" that we find the justification to mistreat and marginalize all sorts of people. While, thankfully, we do not behead our enemies in the United States, we are just as quick to damn them to hell and deny them the same rights we enjoy – and we do it all in the name of "religious freedom," a.k.a. God.
Which means, though it can be incredibly difficult to admit, and though our holy war in the States is admittedly far less violent (at least in the physical sense) than holy war ISIS is waging in the Middle East, we do share something in common with our foes: we’re both convinced that we’re right, everyone else is wrong, and God has called us to prove it to the world.
But, in that shared mentality something else becomes clear, or, at least, it should be, if we can find the courage to be honest with ourselves.
The problem isn’t Islam. Or Christianity. The problem is hate, intolerance, and fanaticism.
And those sins transcend religion.
So, consider this: none of the Christians that I know and I’m guessing none of the Christians you know would say that the militias in Central African Republic represent true Christianity. Conservative and liberal, mainstream and evangelical, Catholic and Protestant, we would denounce their actions in unison as fundamentally opposed to the gospel and the life and teaching of Jesus.
But, if that’s true, and we believe it’s true, because, as Christians, we’re the ones that know Christianity best, then, when our Muslim neighbors, who know their faith best, DO, in fact, denounce, in unison, the actions of groups like ISIS as having nothing to do with true Islam, then, we must listen to what they have to say and accept it as truth.
Otherwise, we’re the worst kind of hypocrites who ignore the truth to sanctify our hatred of others.
TAG!! You're it!
No sir, I'm not fighting a losing battle. You are. You're the one who doesn't either read my comments or has a reading comprehension disability. I've addressed MODERN Christian atrocities, before, in earlier posts. Also, how can you say that the violence of the Old Testament has no relevance to today's issues? As a Christian, you're supposed to believe that the Old Testament is just as holy and relative as is the New Testament. Your comments are the same as saying that the 10 Commandments are no longer relevant because they're so old.
But, I'll reiterate. Previously, I wrote a post about how we use cherry-picked verses from the Quran to condemn all Muslims rather than being rightfully angry at particular groups like ISIS who also use cherry-picked verses from the Quran to sanctify their atrocities.
The point of that post was two-fold: to demonstrate how the Bible can be used to sanctify atrocities in the same way groups like ISIS use the Quran AND to remind us all of our shared call as Christians to extend love and grace to neighbor and enemy alike, no matter what their faith might be.
Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long before you responded to express your utter dismay that the Bible would ever be compared to the Quran or Christians to Muslims. In a very small way it mirrored the outrage that greeted President Obama when he had the audacity to point out the historical fact that Christians have blood on our hands, too.
One refrain I continue to hear in response to both the President’s comments and my own post is something to the effect of “When was the last time Christians committed an atrocity?” The implication being that the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch trials, slavery, and Jim Crow segregation are too far in the past to be irrelevant to the current discussion of religion fueled violence in the Middle East. BULL CRAP!
I think it’s an important question to ask, particularly in light of what seems to be the popular narrative of rational, peaceful Christians who cherish freedom and just want to go about living their lives versus the crazy, hateful Muslims who want to take over the world and impose Sharia Law. If violence and oppression in the name of Jesus really is in the Church’s past, then perhaps we can claim a superior position of religious sophistication, even as we deny the lingering effects of history. So, when was the last time Christians perpetrated an unholy atrocity?
Again, I've mentioned this before because it’s happening right now. Since 2012, a civil war has been raging in the Central African Republic, though like most things happening in sub-Saharan Africa, you probably haven’t hear much about it.
In 2012, the president of Central African Republic was deposed by a group of Muslim militias, elements of whom tried to form a new government. However, Muslims are a minority in Central African Republic. The majority of the country is Christian, some of whom formed their own militias to take back control of the country.
Not surprisingly, this conflict sparked a civil war that unfortunately continues to rage to this day.
Like most civil wars, this war has been anything but civil. As the Christian militias began to regain some of their lost power, replacing the Muslim government with a Christian one apparently stopped being enough. Within a year of the war breaking out, rumors began to leak out that the Christians in Central African Republic weren’t just fighting back. They were committing the worst kind of atrocity.
In December 2013, the United Nations launched an inquiry to investigate these rumors and two months ago the panel handed in their report. The verdict was clear: the Christian militias were guilty of ethnic cleansing.
In their effort to rid Central African Republic of Islam, the Christian militias have so far slaughtered some 6,000 of their Muslim neighbors; a number that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of people who have been driven from their homes.
As ANOTHER example, how about the " ethnic cleansing" that occurred in Serbia from 1992-1995? In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.
Bosnia is one of several small countries that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia, a multicultural country created after World War I by the victorious Western Allies. Yugoslavia was composed of ethnic and religious groups that had been historical rivals, even bitter enemies, including the Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics) and ethnic Albanians (Muslims).
During World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany and was partitioned. A fierce resistance movement sprang up led by Josip Tito. Following Germany's defeat, Tito reunified Yugoslavia under the slogan "Brotherhood and Unity," merging together Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, along with two self-governing provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Tito, a Communist, was a strong leader who maintained ties with the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, playing one superpower against the other while obtaining financial assistance and other aid from both. After his death in 1980 and without his strong leadership, Yugoslavia quickly plunged into political and economic chaos.
A new leader arose by the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist who had turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain power. He began by inflaming long-standing tensions between Serbs and Muslims in the independent provence of Kosovo. Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority and claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss of independence and domination by Milosevic.
In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia soon resulting in civil war. The national army of Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbs controlled by Milosevic, stormed into Slovenia but failed to subdue the separatists there and withdrew after only ten days of fighting.
Milosevic quickly lost interest in Slovenia, a country with almost no Serbs. Instead, he turned his attention to Croatia, a Catholic country where Orthodox Serbs made up 12 percent of the population.
During World War II, Croatia had been a pro-Nazi state. Serbs living in Croatia as well as Jews had been the targets of widespread Ustasha massacres. In the concentration camp at Jasenovac, they had been slaughtered by the tens of thousands.
In 1991, the new Croat government, led by Franjo Tudjman, seemed to be reviving fascism and also enacted discriminatory laws targeting Orthodox Serbs.
Aided by Serbian guerrillas in Croatia, Milosevic's forces invaded in July 1991 to 'protect' the Serbian minority. In the city of Vukovar. After Vukovar fell, the Serbs began the first mass executions of the conflict, killing hundreds of Croat men and burying them in mass graves.
The response of the international community was limited. U.S. President George Bush chose not to get involved militarily, but instead recognized the independence of both Slovenia and Croatia. An arms embargo was imposed for all of the former Yugoslavia by the United Nations. However, the Serbs under Milosevic were already the best armed force and thus maintained a big military advantage. By the end of 1991, a U.S.-sponsored cease-fire agreement was brokered between the Serbs and Croats fighting in Croatia.
In April 1992, the U.S. and European Community chose to recognize the independence of Bosnia, a mostly Muslim country where the Serb minority made up 32 percent of the population. Milosevic responded to Bosnia's declaration of independence by attacking Sarajevo, its capital city, best known for hosting the 1984 Winter Olympics. Sarajevo soon became known as the city where Serb snipers continually shot down helpless civilians in the streets, including eventually over 3,500 children.
Bosnian Muslims were hopelessly outgunned. As the Serbs gained ground, they began to systematically roundup local Muslims in scenes eerily similar to those that had occurred under the Nazis during World War II, including mass shootings, forced repopulation of entire towns, and confinement in make-shift concentration camps for men and boys. The Serbs also terrorized Muslim families into fleeing their villages by using rape as a weapon against women and girls.
The actions of the Serbs were labeled as 'ethnic cleansing." Despite media reports of the secret camps, the mass killings, as well as the destruction of Muslim mosques and historic architecture in Bosnia, the world community remained mostly indifferent.
Throughout 1993, confident that the U.N., United States and the European Community would not take militarily action, Serbs in Bosnia freely committed genocide against Muslims. Bosnian Serbs operated under the local leadership of Radovan Karadzic, president of the illegitimate Bosnian Serb Republic. Karadzic had once told a group of journalists, "Serbs and Muslims are like cats and dogs. They cannot live together in peace. It is impossible."
On February 6, 1994, attention turned completely to Bosnia as a marketplace in Sarajevo was struck by a Serb mortar shell killing 68 persons and wounding nearly 200. President, Bill Clinton, issued an ultimatum through the NATO, demanding that the Serbs withdraw their artillery from Sarajevo. The Serbs quickly complied and a NATO-imposed cease-fire in Sarajevo was declared.
The U.S. then launched diplomatic efforts aimed at unifying Bosnian Muslims and the Croats against the Serbs. However, this new Muslim-Croat alliance failed to stop the Serbs from attacking 6 Muslim towns in Bosnia which had been declared Safe Havens by the U.N.
Bosnian Serbs not only attacked the Safe Havens but also attacked the U.N. peacekeepers. NATO forces responded by launching air strikes against Serb ground positions. The Serbs retaliated by taking hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers as hostages and turning them into human shields, chained to military targets such as ammo supply dumps.
At this point, some of the worst genocidal activities of the four-year-old conclict occurred. The Serbs slaughtered nearly 8,000 men and boys between the ages of twelve and sixty. The Serbs, also, continued to engage in mass rapes of Muslim females.
By the time the treaty ending the conflict was signed at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, on 11-1-95, over 200,000 Muslim civilians had been systematically murdered. More than 20,000 were missing and feared dead, while 2,000,000 had become refugees.
Now, let me be clear: this in no way negates or even diminishes the atrocities committed by ISIS, Boko Haram, or any other fanatically violent group. We should absolutely be angry and appalled by what they have and are continuing to do.
But what the events taking place in Central African Republic and Bosnia do demonstrate is the fact that violent extremism isn’t anymore fundamental to Islam than it is to Christianity. (And before you point to the violence committed by Mohammed somehow differentiating Islam from the Judeo-Christian tradition, allow me to point you to the Old Testament’s description of the genocide involved in conquering the Promise Land; a story which is intractable from history of the Christian faith AND the history of it still used by Islamic militants as a reason for their hatred of Christians.)
The reality of present day Christian violence, in contrast to our claims that only Muslims do such things, also demonstrates a dangerous and willful ignorance. That's to say, our willingness to ignore inconvenient facts about our own religion detract from our sanctified hate, mistreatment, and oppression of Muslim neighbors. Again, we should be outraged by the actions of ISIS, but our comparative silence towards the violent actions of our fellow Christians in Africa speaks to our willingness to ignore the truth when it complicates our claim that we’re the good guys and Muslims are the bad guys. (A practice that can be clearly seen in the mental gymnastics you're doing to wash your hands of complicity in the Church’s past atrocities).
Though I think the reasons the Church has such messy relationship with the Muslim world are varied and complicated, it seems to me that one fundamental issue that drives a wedge between the two of us is a warped understanding of truth and goodness that many of us in the American Church, particularly in evangelicalism, share. That is to say, rather than simply believing that truth and goodness find their source in Christ, we believe that truth and goodness are exclusively Christian.
It’s this mentality that drives fundamentalists to reject the reality of evolution, but it’s also this mentality that fuels a much broader and seemingly never-ending holy war to prove Christians are right and everybody else is wrong. Though Muslims are the enemy at the moment, it’s within the context of this "holy war" that we find the justification to mistreat and marginalize all sorts of people. While, thankfully, we do not behead our enemies in the United States, we are just as quick to damn them to hell and deny them the same rights we enjoy – and we do it all in the name of "religious freedom," a.k.a. God.
Which means, though it can be incredibly difficult to admit, and though our holy war in the States is admittedly far less violent (at least in the physical sense) than holy war ISIS is waging in the Middle East, we do share something in common with our foes: we’re both convinced that we’re right, everyone else is wrong, and God has called us to prove it to the world.
But, in that shared mentality something else becomes clear, or, at least, it should be, if we can find the courage to be honest with ourselves.
The problem isn’t Islam. Or Christianity. The problem is hate, intolerance, and fanaticism.
And those sins transcend religion.
So, consider this: none of the Christians that I know and I’m guessing none of the Christians you know would say that the militias in Central African Republic represent true Christianity. Conservative and liberal, mainstream and evangelical, Catholic and Protestant, we would denounce their actions in unison as fundamentally opposed to the gospel and the life and teaching of Jesus.
But, if that’s true, and we believe it’s true, because, as Christians, we’re the ones that know Christianity best, then, when our Muslim neighbors, who know their faith best, DO, in fact, denounce, in unison, the actions of groups like ISIS as having nothing to do with true Islam, then, we must listen to what they have to say and accept it as truth.
Otherwise, we’re the worst kind of hypocrites who ignore the truth to sanctify our hatred of others.
TAG!! You're it!
Apr 12, 2017 14:28:27 #
Docadhoc wrote:
The point here is that no matter what you or I think about what they think, the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, the law of Islam, the book that must be obeyed.....orders them that at a time of their choosing to kill you...
and to lie about it until the time of your death.
If a Christian denies Christ, they cannot be Christian.
If an Islamic denies the Qur'an therefore their prophet, they cannot be Islamics.
The Qur'an orders your death.
and to lie about it until the time of your death.
If a Christian denies Christ, they cannot be Christian.
If an Islamic denies the Qur'an therefore their prophet, they cannot be Islamics.
The Qur'an orders your death.
Ok
Apr 12, 2017 22:34:11 #
You are too long winded and fail to pay attention.
Your.argument is irrelevant.
Why? Because you are talking about atrocities committed by Christians. Understand? I doubt it. PEOPLE! Do you see yet? No? Wow.
Okay. Let's pretend you can read.
When Christians do these things, even if they think it is right according to their perception, they are still acting on their Interpretation of their bible.
No where, NO WHERE, does the Christian bible order any Christian to kill anyone for refusing to be Christian.
When a Muslim commits murder upon a non Muslim, they kill because THE QUR'AN ORDERS IT!!
.It is not up to interpretation. The order is in black and white including details.
The Christian bible does not order the murder of non believers.
THE QUR'AN DOES!
Don't tell me what individuals do.
Tell me what the 2 respective holy books order.
YOUR TURN!
Your.argument is irrelevant.
Why? Because you are talking about atrocities committed by Christians. Understand? I doubt it. PEOPLE! Do you see yet? No? Wow.
Okay. Let's pretend you can read.
When Christians do these things, even if they think it is right according to their perception, they are still acting on their Interpretation of their bible.
No where, NO WHERE, does the Christian bible order any Christian to kill anyone for refusing to be Christian.
When a Muslim commits murder upon a non Muslim, they kill because THE QUR'AN ORDERS IT!!
.It is not up to interpretation. The order is in black and white including details.
The Christian bible does not order the murder of non believers.
THE QUR'AN DOES!
Don't tell me what individuals do.
Tell me what the 2 respective holy books order.
YOUR TURN!
Apr 13, 2017 07:50:59 #
You answered one of your own original questions, doc, when you wrote, "When Christians do these things, even if they think it is right according to their perception, they are still acting on their Interpretation of their bible."
As coorboration toward my position, I reiterate, for the 3rd time, by offering Deuteronomy 17 and 13:
From Deuteronomy 17:
"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die."
Or, from Deuteronomy 13:
"6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
"12 If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt."
Oh, and your "irrelevant" comment, earlier, about these being so old, or words to that effect, exactly how long ago was the Koran written? It was written in 632AD. When was the Holy Bible put together for Christians? In 325AD. I'd say BOTH books are rather old.
Besides, it DOES NOT MATTER how old the books are. What matters IS how they're interpreted by those who read the books, and, who believe in the books and their respective messages. (You admitted to that above!) Just don't delude yourself into thinking our Bible doesn't command the death of non-believers when I've just PROVEN it DOES; for the 3RD TIME!
Put your glasses on or, hold your tablet at arms-length and actually read what I've written. Either that, or get someone to read to you. Which ever avenue works best for you. Surly, you can't be as freaking dense as you seem.
I am long-winded, but, I provide verifiable facts with my comments. I just don't spit-out random and inconsistent comments, like you do.
Short enough for you? Can I make this any more simple or plain for you?
As coorboration toward my position, I reiterate, for the 3rd time, by offering Deuteronomy 17 and 13:
From Deuteronomy 17:
"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die."
Or, from Deuteronomy 13:
"6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
"12 If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt."
Oh, and your "irrelevant" comment, earlier, about these being so old, or words to that effect, exactly how long ago was the Koran written? It was written in 632AD. When was the Holy Bible put together for Christians? In 325AD. I'd say BOTH books are rather old.
Besides, it DOES NOT MATTER how old the books are. What matters IS how they're interpreted by those who read the books, and, who believe in the books and their respective messages. (You admitted to that above!) Just don't delude yourself into thinking our Bible doesn't command the death of non-believers when I've just PROVEN it DOES; for the 3RD TIME!
Put your glasses on or, hold your tablet at arms-length and actually read what I've written. Either that, or get someone to read to you. Which ever avenue works best for you. Surly, you can't be as freaking dense as you seem.
I am long-winded, but, I provide verifiable facts with my comments. I just don't spit-out random and inconsistent comments, like you do.
Short enough for you? Can I make this any more simple or plain for you?
Apr 13, 2017 21:52:32 #
alabuck wrote:
You answered one of your own original questions, d... (show quote)
Last time I'll waste time with an Islamic spokesperson.
When a Christian does something heinous in the name of God, they do it because they interpret the bible incorrectly. INTERPRET.
When a Muslim does it, it is because their Qur'an ORDERS IT in black and white. It is not, NOT, open for interpretation.
You have either read the Qur'an or you haven't. If you have not, do so. If you have, stop playing.
Any further discussion only labels you.
Apr 13, 2017 23:04:30 #
Docadhoc wrote:
Last time I'll waste time with an Islamic spokesperson.
When a Christian does something heinous in the name of God, they do it because they interpret the bible incorrectly. INTERPRET.
When a Muslim does it, it is because their Qur'an ORDERS IT in black and white. It is not, NOT, open for interpretation.
You have either read the Qur'an or you haven't. If you have not, do so. If you have, stop playing.
Any further discussion only labels you.
When a Christian does something heinous in the name of God, they do it because they interpret the bible incorrectly. INTERPRET.
When a Muslim does it, it is because their Qur'an ORDERS IT in black and white. It is not, NOT, open for interpretation.
You have either read the Qur'an or you haven't. If you have not, do so. If you have, stop playing.
Any further discussion only labels you.
-------------
Islamic spokesperson? Shirley, you jest!
Hardly am I an Islamic spokesperson. But, I am a Christian who doesn't like a person who pretends to be a Christian and demeans the love and Spirit of Christ, yourself, by being so self-righteous and WRONG about so many aspects of the religion you claim to be a part of.
Your protracted, childish obstinance in denying what I've proven to you the Bible, clearly states, is the proof that you don't know much about either religion. For you to claim the Koran demands that infidels be killed, and, at the same time, denies the same demands as identified in Deuteronomy 13 and 17, of your own Bible, is simply dumbfounding. That, "religion-breath," puts the onus on you. The undeniable fact, that MILLIONS of Muslims have fled the ravages of sectarian warfare in the Middle East should tell you that they don't want to be around the extremists any more than we do.
That the vast majority on Muslims refuse to participate in atrocities against others is proof that they, too, have the ability to INTERPRET their holy book, just like we do ours. If ⅓ of the world's population (which is what the Islamic religion encompasses) actually did what you seem to think they SHOULD do to prove they're good Muslims, chances are, we'd all be dead. That we aren't should give you pause to reconsider just how ignorant, dumb and stupid your stance actually is.
If you're such a good Christian, why didn't you stone your own kids when they sassed you? The Holy Bible ORDERES parents to do that very thing! Have you ever worked on the Sabbath? Has your wife ever worked, preparing meals to doing other household chores on the Sabbath? If so, YOU and SHE need to be killed, too! The Holy Bible COMMANDS that you, both, be punished in the same way for not keeping the Sabbath holy. If you don't, then you're not good Christians! How dare you complain about others not being good Muslims and following the commands of their holy book, when you're not a good Christian, yourself. HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE!
You keep your head up the tails of your fellow haters. You keep on pretending to be something you're not - a Christian. You're a CINO. I'm sure you can figure out what "CINO" means. Good luck convincing God that you had really good reasons and intentions when you mocked Him and make a fool of yourself, in His name. I'm sure He appreciates all of the sins you committed in His name.
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