Paragon of Intolerance
Islam is probably the most intolerant of all religions on earth. Salman Rushdie, a British writer, is now in hiding because the Ayatohlahs of Iran have sanctioned a death warrant for his execution after Rushdie published a book called "The Satanic Verses," which is critical of Islam. When Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh's "Submission," a film critical of the treatment of women in Islam aired last year on Dutch TV, a Muslim terrorist shot Van Gogh near his home, slashed his throat, and pinned a threatening note to his body. Closer to home, Hossam Armanious, a professing Christian, along with his wife and two daughters, were found stabbed to death in their Jersey City home last month. Police investigators found that Armanious regularly debated religion in a Middle Eastern chat room, where witnesses say that he was threatened for making anti-Muslim remarks online. The gruesome slayings may have been hateful retaliation, according to The New York Post's sources.
A religion of peace? You shall know a tree by its fruit.
A religion of peace? You shall know a tree by its fruit.
posted at 6:58 PM PermaLink
8 Comments:
You can't say "a religion is intolerant". Only people are intolerant.
Intolerance is not written in the Bible or in the Coran. It arises from the personal interpretations and their application in allday life.
You should read some history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin
Also, it is easy to cast aspersions on others, I say let those without sin cast the first stone.
reaching any conclusions about the nature of islam is best done by examining the written doctrines. that can be labourious. next, you can look at the behaviour of the followers.
wyat you have pointed out here is valid...
While alll major religions have radicalism adn violence associated with them, none so much as islam. period. fact. no amount of mushy talk and syrupy feeling can get around the facts of history on this point...
Another way to "distinguish" between groups is to look not just at what is written (and there is a bit of overlap between Christianity and Islam), but what history shows. Over 2000 years of Christianity and around 1500 years of Islam, the record is considerable. If you were a disinterested party you could look objectively at the Crusades, Pograms, Holocaust, Inquisition, Northern Ireland and many other examples and see them "evidence" of brutality of Christian societies. However it is easier to gloss over what has been done by the group one belongs to, than to reach out to ones neighbor with love and understanding and a hand of friendship. No group is guilty or innocent, but each person is only responsible for what he or she does.
It is true that people are responsible for their actions, but people are motivated by ideas and beliefs. There is a reason for their actions. To deny the influence of beliefs on human beings is like saying that a car runs because it has tires that spin, and not because there is a gas engine and a driver that can cause the car to run down the highway or crash into other cars.
I like Norm's analogy of the cars. It's religion which motivates human beings just as it's the driver of the car which causes the car to crash or to avoid accidents.
As expected, the apologists for Islam have pointed to the Crusades, and the Holocaust, among others, as failings of Christianity in order to reduce it to the moral equivalent of Islam. The two religions are hardly equivalent. For one, Islam's founder is dead and remains dead, while Christianity's founder is alive and will never die. Christianity is a fruit tree which gives life and healing to individuals and nations. People have tried in vain to ascribe the evil in the world such as the Crusades and the Holocaust to Christianity, but it won't stick. Christ never sanctioned the racism of the Nazi's or the legalism of the Crusades, or the evils of any nation. Islam is like an oil well. It can make people and nations rich but you can't drink oil, and Islam cannot give life.
Interesting argument you make. You gloss over anything bad that happens in Christian societies by saying anything bad could not be Christian. Yet things that are bad in Islamic are caused by something inherent in Islam. In other words we have to take on faith that what you say is true, as opposed to having any evidence. You might at least realize that you share the same arguments that some Muslim make about their own religion.
I will accept your belief that the Christian faith was perverted by the Nazis, those who led the Crusades, and those who kept slaves (and forced the slaves from studying the Bible) while attending church regularly. But to an outsider, it appears the Christian faith claimed by those who took part in those evil acts say and act much like others who also claim to be of Christian faith. Tell us how to distinguish the two. Or may be we should all judge each other by our acts and not by faith as it is impossible to determine by other people.
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