The Anti-Muslim predjudice on A2K is wrong.

georgeob1 wrote:

Well Christanity is a religion that calls on its adherants to avoid injury to others, to turn the other cheek, and to be meek. Despite this Christian nations have fought many wars, some quite unprovoked and even unjust. I don't think anyone would infer from this that all Christians are meek and inclined always to turn the other cheek.

Islam on the contrary was initially spread by force of arms and the Prophet himself participated in the first campaigns. Moreover Islam calls for a continued "struggle" with non-believers as an article of faith. I don't think anyoue would infer from this that all Moslems are violent and murderous.

Your use of the term "on the contrary" suggests that Christianity was not spread by force of arms. To believe that it is necessary to ignore some huge, ugly facts. Anselm, the contemporary biographer of Charlemagne, raised in his court, proudly recounts that for forty years of his reign, the Franks went out every campaigning season and killed thousands of Saxons, who were then "pagans." It is necessary to ignore the Knights of the Teutonic Order, who used to hunt down Letts and Balts like wild animals, because they were pagans. It is necessary to ignore the Hussite Wars; it is necessary to ignore the Spanish inquisition; it is necessary to ignore the witch-burning frenzy in Protestant central Europe, which made the Inquisition look like amateurs; it is necessary to ignore the slaughter of Anabaptists by other Protestants; it is necessary to ignore the Wars of the Reformation; it is necessary to ignore the origins of the Thirty Years War.

There can be no more ludicrous contention than that Christians are meek lambs by comparison to Muslims, and that nothing in the Christian credo authorizes violence. For that, it is necessary to ignore long passages of the Old Testament. When the United States had beaten up the Spaniard in 1898, Kipling wrote one of his turgid poems to apprise them of their Christian duties, which he named "the white man's burden." When McKinley told reporters that they must bring Christianity to the Filippinos, the reporters pointed out to him that they were Catholic, to which he responded: "Exactly." This is really an hilarious post, but of course, to be amused, one need ignore millions of murdered innocents.

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Did we call it Christianity before Christ?

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What?

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Do you suggest that Christians do not refer to the Old Testament for their credo? Every reference i made was to the period after the alleged "Christ" supposedly lived.

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I am not anti-Muslim, nor am I anti-Christian, but I AM anti-fundamentalism in any religious version.

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There ya go.

Me too.

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Hmmm. The Christ part makes it Christian. I don't know what all those other people think they're doing. Christ didn't advocate any of that mean stuff.

I shall rally a separation of the bad bits of the Bible.

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EB, I havn't read all the thread yet, but I agree with your condemnation of terrorism. But I lump the atrocity of 9/11 with that of Dresden, Shock and Awe and Nagasaki. They are all atrocious unacceptable behavior. What bothers me most is how people apply double standards in glorifying their own atrocities and condemning those of others. Terrorists are monster individuals and must be suppressed, but national wars are conducted by monster states and must also be suppressed, but not by means of war and conquest. How is the latter to be done? I guess it must be from within, by means of civil disobedience and education.

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And precisely what has the alleged "Christ" to do with Christianity? Not only can the existance of such an individual not be historically demonstrated, but the philosophy expounded is a distillation of the Essene mysticism prevalent in Palestine in that time period. Before the rise of Saul of Tarsus, we have no historical evidence that the specific teachings alluded to were produced by a single, discreet individual. Referring to a rabbi named Joshua in Palestine 2000 years ago is laughable--if one had taken a handful of stones and thrown them into a crowd in Jerusalem on a market day two thousand years ago, the odds of hitting several men named Joshua are very high. Eusebius intentionally edited and "corrected" the current cannon, and asserted that only four of the at least thirteen then-existant "gospels" were the holy word. A great power struggle raged in the church between the orthodox and the Arian adherents who denied the divinity of the alleged "Christ." The point of all of which is that what exists today as Christianity is not necessarily what was intended by the Rabbi Joshua, if he ever existed as currently portrayed. Even more, the actions of people with as much claim to Christianity as yours have never been much constrained by the teachings of the alleged "Christ." When you slur all Muslims, is that a Christian act? When you speak of Saudia Arabia and its putative crimes, is that supposed to stand as exemplary of the lives and behavior of a billion Muslims? It is very easy to find evidence for hateful characterizations, while ignoring anything which does not support your argument--it's called the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances. Muslim-haters apply it with a vengeance.

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So....Christ has nothing to do with Christianity...?

Do you deny that Saudi Arabia trafficks in sex slaves?

How can I be ignoring anything that doesn't support my argument? What is my argument?

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Human trafficing for various reasons was a subject addressed by the US Gov in 2005. Countries were broken down into tiers:

Quote:

TIER 1: Countries whose governments fully comply with the Act's minimum standards.

TIER 2: Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Act's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

TIER 2 SPECIAL WATCH LIST: Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Act's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards, and:

1. The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing; or
2. There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or
3. The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.

TIER 3: Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Countries listed under tiers 1-3:

Quote:

TIER 1

AUSTRALIA DENMARK LUXEMBOURG POLAND
AUSTRIA FRANCE MOROCCO PORTUGAL
BELGIUM GERMANY NEPAL SOUTH KOREA
CANADA HONG KONG THE NETHERLANDS SPAIN
COLOMBIA ITALY NEW ZEALAND SWEDEN
CZECH REPUBLIC LITHUANIA NORWAY UNITED KINGDOM

TIER 2

AFGHANISTAN EGYPT LAOS SENEGAL
ALBANIA EL SALVADOR LATVIA SERBIA-MONTENEGRO
ALGERIA EQUATORIAL GUINEA LEBANON SINGAPORE
ANGOLA ESTONIA LIBYA SLOVENIA
ARGENTINA ETHIOPIA MACEDONIA SRI LANKA
BANGLADESH FINLAND MADAGASCAR SWITZERLAND
BELARUS GABON MALAWI SYRIA
BOSNIA/HERZ. GEORGIA MALAYSIA TAIWAN
BRAZIL GHANA MALI TAJIKISTAN
BULGARIA GUATEMALA MAURITANIA TANZANIA
BURKINA FASO GUYANA MOLDOVA THAILAND
BURUNDI HONDURAS MONGOLIA TURKEY
CHAD HUNGARY MOZAMBIQUE UGANDA
CHILE INDONESIA NIGERIA URUGUAY
CONGO (DRC) IRAN OMAN VIETNAM
COSTA RICA ISRAEL PAKISTAN YEMEN
COTE D'IVOIRE JAPAN PANAMA ZAMBIA
CROATIA KAZAKHSTAN PARAGUAY
CYPRUS KENYA PERU
EAST TIMOR KYRGYZ REPUBLIC ROMANIA

TIER 2 WATCH LIST

ARMENIA DOMINICAN REP. MEXICO SLOVAK REPUBLIC
AZERBAIJAN THE GAMBIA NICARAGUA SOUTH AFRICA
BAHRAIN GREECE NIGER SURINAME
BELIZE GUINEA PHILIPPINES UKRAINE
BENIN HAITI RUSSIA UZBEKISTAN
CAMEROON INDIA RWANDA ZIMBABWE
CHINA (PRC) MAURITIUS SIERRA LEONE

TIER 3

BOLIVIA ECUADOR QATAR UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
BURMA JAMAICA SAUDI ARABIA VENEZUELA
CAMBODIA KUWAIT SUDAN
CUBA NORTH KOREA TOGO

US D of S

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Lash wrote:

Towelhead-- A person who wears a towel on his head.

that's just inviting someone to redefine a certain slur as a person whose neck is red. it's also not Christian either, as in do unto others, and hypocritical for anyone that claims Christendom is more spiritually advanced than Islam. i'm not saying you have claimed this, but simply observing that name-calling is not compatible with the golden rule.

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Thank you for doing the leg work.

They aren't complying and aren't making an effort to comply.

Because the Saud Princes are the worst offenders in the Kingdom.

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Just note that there are plenty of other countries in that third tier lsit, and not all are muslim.

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Also note that they don't rate our own country in that report.

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littlek wrote:

George, my point is that there isn't much difference between the religions as to ways and means of getting out the word. In my theologic arm-chair perspective.

littlek,
While a degree of force was present in a few situations in the spread of Christianity, it was the exception to the rule. The explosion if Islam in the 7th & 8th centuries was almost exclusively by force and conquest. This includes the Moslem conquest of Spain. Later various sects and rulers of some Moslem provinces behaved with admirable tolerance and cultivation of learning and the arts. but this was no more universal in the Moslem world than in the Medieval Christian world. I believe that was the difference that was in mind.

for all,

It is interesting to me to note the strange correlation between extreme sensitivity to any direct or even implied criticism of Islam on the part of some very prolific posters here and their evident willingness to write very scornfully about Christianity. Also interesting to note rather extensive off subject riffs by the same stoout defenders of strict adherence to their concepts of "the topic" by others.

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yitwail wrote:

Lash wrote:
Towelhead-- A person who wears a towel on his head.

that's just inviting someone to redefine a certain slur as a person whose neck is red. it's also not Christian either, as in do unto others, and hypocritical for anyone that claims Christendom is more spiritually advanced than Islam. i'm not saying you have claimed this, but simply observing that name-calling is not compatible with the golden rule.

A person may define a redneck however they choose. I've been on the recieving end of that slur here a couple of times and it is bandied about liberally. People generally get over name-calling in grade school.

In case anyone has missed this tidbit, I am not holding myself up as an example of Christian behavior, nor have I claimed Christendom to be more spiritually advanced than Islam--though now that you mention it, I think it is--judging them, if I were to, by their current positions. Certaibnly all the religions I can think of have had bad moments in history. Islam's has lasted a bit long.

Little K-- I didn't say Muslim countries are worse at Human Trafficking. Just Saudi Arabia.

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lash, an interesting note by me, of course, is that the mormons continue to practive a strange sort of slavery themselves overlooked by US of A christians. They continue to "harvest" their daughters in their early teens as "brides" to friends and associates in the "church". Officially, of course, this practice is not condoned but it is rampant in parts of Utah, Northern Arizona and surrounding areas. Often including local political leaders (every jack man of them republican voicing "family values") not a one of them is "towel head," mostly wearing polyester suits and Nike shoes driving Chevy Suv's.

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Racial slurs are never a good idea, but in times of hostility and political upheaval, those slurs are incendiary. Tto indulge in name calling during periods of instability is foolish and dangerous.

BTW, I can't think of one liberal who defends or supports terrorism or terrorists. Had to get that off my chest.

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Diane wrote:

...BTW, I can't think of one liberal who defends or supports terrorism or terrorists. Had to get that off my chest.

Can you think of any liberals who criticize various aspects of the fight against terrorism so much that it undermines the effort?

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The Anti-Muslim predjudice on A2K is wrong.

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