The Barbarity of Christianity (as compared to Islam)

So I'm sure you'll agree it's equally wrong to smear all of Islam in response to the actions of extremist Wahhabis, yes?

Most of what you wrote was pure drivel, but exactly how is the religious right "oppressing" you or anyone?You guys seem to think disagreeing with you politically is the same as oppressing you, and that's part of the problem. This nation was founded on the idea of factionalism, that different factions could disagree amicably and with the full right to do so and press for their views to be represented in Congress.You seem to think that those that disagree with you should not have that right, and if they do exercise that right, they are oppressing you or someone.

If it was just the Wahhabis, sure. But reviewing mainstream Islam, we see among various Sunnis and Shiites a pattern emerging.Some places you might want to look so you can see this pattern.the Sudan
Yemen
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Iran
the PA held areas
Nigeria
Afghanistan
etc,....

I was struck by this. Over 1000 years would be 900 CE? I'm wondering who you are speaking of at the inception at that time? That is who and where was the separation of Church and State and religious liberty being advocated? Where did this happen and who did the killing?thank you,
lfen

Hmm, so to smear Islam in general because of what the Arab theocracies did is wrong? Or is that OK?In the end Christianity has been a persecuting force, regardless who it persecuted. You cannot write the Catholics off, nor the Protestants, just because you don't agree with them without doing likewise with regard to Islam. Catholics and Protestants make up the vast majority of Christianity.So either Christianity can be shown to have been historically barbaricorIslam cannot be shown to have historically barbaric (since we can just ignore the barbaric sects).Religiously speaking Islam is comparable to Judaism from a 'barbaric' point of view, whereas Christianity is totally pacifistic and anti-barbaric. Historically speaking we see something else: any religion where power becomes mingled with faith fiercely protects its powerbase using various methods of brutality.Christianity is not inherently barbaric, its inherently pacifistic. Rituals and practices have been added that were not given the green light by Christ. Barbaric acts have been committed in its name: 'Kill them all, God will know his own'.Islam is not inherently barbaric. It does justify violent acts in much the same way as Judaism does (eye for an eye, stoning women for not marrying as a virgin (or rather not bleeding on the honeymoon) etc etc). Islam preaches peace unless oppressed, and if the transgressors cease, then peace should be resumed. Plenty of barbaric acts have been committed in its name and rituals and traditions have been added that were not cleared by Allah (indeed all of them were expressly forbidden by Allah from becoming part of Islam).Many people seem to be convinced that Islam is inherently violent and barbaric. They use three prongs for this concept:1) Mohammed was a warlord.Is problematic since in Islam Mohammed is not a perfect Muslim (he his chastised several times by Allah in the Qur'an).2) The cultural laws and traditions that Muslims passed have become integral to the religionExpressly forbidden in the Qur'an (the Qur'an states that it is complete and nothing else should be added), this is more likely an overthrow from Arab culture that the religion wasn't able to entirely overcome.3) Muslims have been historically violentSo have Christians, Buddhists and Jews.The bottom line is simple: integrate a religion into a power system and corruption follows. It doesn't matter what the principles of that religion are. If it is a retaliatory religion (Islam, Judaism), or a pacifistic one (Buddhism, Christianity) they will fall and become barbaric. Even individual leaders who are religious can soon neglect the important teachings of their religion in favour of temporal power - followers of pacifistic religions going to war being an obvious example, less obvious would be a follower of a 'complete' religion adding principles to that religion. One cannot serve two masters, power and God or money and God. Doesn't work.What really gets people's goat though, is when Christians point at Islam and shout 'Barbaric', but refuse to accept that the majority of Christianity was involved in barbaric acts and persecution. Be they against Jews, Christians, Gypsies, women or Zoroastrians. Like randman here, they play variants of the 'no true Christian' (ie, Catholics were heretical, Evangelicals were/are true Christians), but refuse to accept that the same applies to Islam.

This is a wrong analysis since Protestants today follow Anabaptist theology and have for 200-300 years, and so early Protestants would have had today's Protestants killed. You are missing the point of the ideas and theology that brought to the forefront the concepts of individual liberty were decidedly Christian, but not Catholic or early Protestant.To say blithely, that most Christians today are Protestant or Catholic is a misnomer. One could argue that nearly all non-Catholic and most Catholic Christians today are actually Anabaptist, as even Catholics have eschewed open persecution. My point exactly though perhaps not "totally pacifistic." I guess I am not so sure Islam isn't inherently barbaric, but then again, Judaism changed. Perhaps Islam will too. Notably though, Judaism changed in large part due to being conquered and their prophets stating they needed to change.It seems that when Islam prevails in a nation, it becomes more oppressive over time. Islam seems though to be inherently legalistic and political, and that is part of the problem, imo.

they have the right to disagree with me. they don't have the right to pass laws to restrict my freedoms based on their misinformed view of both scripture and the constitution.

I don't care which flavour of Christianity you're a part of. Christian history is Christian history. Anyway, lets have a brief look at some of the proud moments of Christianity in North America (a particularly succesful breeding ground for Evangelicalism):1.) Genocide and ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.
2.) Slavery
3.) Institutionalised persecuation and oppression of racial minorities till the latter parts of the 20th Century (the persecution of African Americans had a religious justification) blablabla.... More of the same argumentative fallacy. Catholics are in fact Christians, whether you agree with their beliefs or not. Your personal incredulity and ignorance is no argument. Reform will come, its unavoidable. Christianity has been effectively neutered in the West (Europe mainly), by Secularism, and this has been the real catalyst for the development of the modern liberal societies here. Where was this idea of religious freedom in Dark Age Europe? Have you tried comparing the religious freedoms in the Muslim World at the time compared to Europe? Pretty much debunks this senseless thesis of your. I find it amusing that the Americans who love trumpeting about freedom the most are themselves the biggest threat to freedom in your country (yes, thats the bible belt fascists). The problem with your entire case against Islam is that it depends on a purposeful and conspicuous contortion of Islamic history. I fully admit that the Muslim World is behind on many levels, but the real threat to progress and reformation in the Muslim world at the moment is the inequitable American interference as its a boon to the extremist elements. But regardless there are few Muslim Democracies that need to be mentioned (I've listed the populations as well):1.) azerbaijan - 8 million
2.) Bangladesh - 148 million
3.) Indonesia - 245 million
4.) Malaysia - 70 million
5.) Mali - 12 million
5.) pakistan - 165 million (Pakistan is currently under a secular , miltary dictatorship, but I mention it as it has an extensive history of democracy)
6.) Turkey - 70 millionAdd that up and you get around 720 million, more than half the entire Muslim population in the World. I agree that they cannot be compared to your average western democracy, but they're still young and I'm hopeful. The problems is fear and injustice are valuable comodities to the Religious demagogues, and any kind of widespread, significant reformation cannot take place in such conditions. Edited by Isana Kadeb, : No reason given.Edited by Isana Kadeb, : No reason given.Edited by Isana Kadeb, : grammarEdited by Isana Kadeb, : No reason given.Edited by Isana Kadeb, : added a bit

I didn't say 'today'. I was talking generally (including the time dimension) and not about specific numbers but as proportions throughout time. Only where it becomes a theocracy. The same happens when Christianity prevails in a nation (as a theocracy), or any other religion. Only the heretical parts of Islam (which is a good deal of it). Those that actually follow the words of Allah as spoken by Mohammed via Gabriel (which is an increasing amount) reject such Dark Ages nonsense.

lfen, I mentioned various medieval sects and sects earlier that were persecuted by the Papists. The Donatists, in fact, never accepted Roman Catholicism.some references Donatism - Wikipediathe WaldensiansWaldensians - Wikipediathe AlbegensiansCatharism - WikipediaEdited by randman, : No reason given.

OK, but I don't think that is accurate. It's an idea falsely promoted, usually indirectly, in historical survey courses, but there is absolutely no reason to think Catholics and Protestants comprised most of Christianity.As far as today, I would say that the form of Christianity spreading the fastest and arguably the most dominant, is Pentecostalism/Charismatic evangelicalism, but it can coexist with both Catholic and Protestantism, but does not coexist with the forms of early Protestantism and Catholicism generally. In other words, they eschew persecution.In the past, there were always large numbers of non-Catholics, and even some "Catholics" were Anabaptist, Cathar, etc,...as we see bishops and priests complaining that these other Christians (so-called heretics) merely came to their services to avoid persecution.For example, in the south of France, the Cathars were dominant until the papal genocidal crusade against them, and certainly churches like the Coptics were neither papal or protestant.Catharism - WikipediaEdited by randman, : No reason given.

The persecutions are well documented. Most importantly I question the relationship these groups had to the modern day evangelic churches.And I didn't read anything in the Wikipedia articles that said they were killed because the advocated they separation of church and state. You might say that is implicit but some of the protestant groups who left England to found the colonies did it for religious freedom for their sect alone. Certainly they differed from the state religion and were persecuted and killed for that but the Cathars for example held gnostic beliefs that would be unacceptable to almost all modern mainstream churches, though of course nobody is killed for that now.I think you went too far in your claim. Had you said the Catholic church violently stamped out attempts to found christian churches that didn't accept their authority, no problem, I knew that.lfen

Well, that may be true within the very thinly populated US, but around the world Catholicism is the big daddy by a long way. These figures are a little out of date:

Branch	Number of Adherents
Catholic	1,050,000,000
Orthodox/Eastern Christian	240,000,000
African indigenous sects (AICs)	110,000,000
Pentecostal	105,000,000
Reformed/Presbyterian/Congregational/United	75,000,000
Anglican	73,000,000
Baptist	70,000,000
Methodist	70,000,000
Lutheran	64,000,000
Jehovah's Witnesses	14,800,000
Adventist	12,000,000
Latter Day Saints	12,500,000
Apostolic/New Apostolic	10,000,000
Stone-Campbell ("Restoration Movement")	5,400,000
New Thought (Unity, Christian Science, etc.)	1,500,000
Brethren (incl. Plymouth)	1,500,000
Mennonite	1,250,000
Friends (Quakers)	300,000

But certainly - the denominations you mentioned do look like they are (or at least were) the fastest growing. It's all beside the point. Whatever way you want to read it, a considerably large section of Christianity has engaged in persecution. It is inescapable, and today's Christians are right to condemn these acts. What is not excusable is pretending like they weren't true Christians. They were: but they erred greatly by becoming tempted with the lust for power. They failed their test, hopefully today's Christians can do better, and hopefully tommorrow's Muslims will do better too.

Actually, it's not in the US that I was referring to. Some scholars have called the current Pentecostal/Charismatic expansion of Christianity in the world a Third Wave of Christianity, after the first expansion, then the Protestant expansion and then now.Imo, that's not the best description, but there is a major expansion of Christianity in the world today, but not so much in the West, though here too. In fact, Christianity is expanding at a greater rate than at any point in history.On those numbers, I don't think they are accurate. I'd go as far as to say the house church movement in China alone probably numbers at least 50 million people.Roman Catholics though, I admit, are sizeable bloc, but even there, there is some ambiguity with those numbers. Are people practicing RCs or just people with some catholic heritage?I suspect a great many atheists are "Catholic" on that basis but not really.

Well, what do you think they were persecuted for?You need to have some basic theology on these groups to understand the issue. Take the term "Anabaptist" which means to rebaptize. Now, not all Anabaptists actually advocated rebaptism believe it or not, but the issue of baptism itself was not the crux of the issue.The issue was whether the church consists of regenerate believers that willingly chose to follow Christ (Anabaptist and Donatist view) or just all the citizens of a certain area. Beginning with Augustine and other Catholic theologians, they began to argue that the Great Commision was largely fulfilled, the gospel having gone to the ends of the earth (as they saw it) and now there needed to be a dispensation of Christendom where Christian law and principles were codified into law and specifically everyone in Christendom was automatically a Christian.The implication should be obvious. If everyone in a locale is a Christian, part of the Church, then the State is acceptable as a means of compelling religious obedience, but if just those that are born-again are part of the Church, then using the State to compel religious obedience is wrong.So the heart of the issue really stemmed from one's view of the Church. Is soceity as a whole the Church or is the Church a voluntary group within society as a whole?The latter group were the original Christians, the medieval "orthodox heretics", so-called because they were considered orthodox on most other points, and of course other so-called heretics, and almost all Christians today.Almost all Christians today would have been heretics to the Roman Catholics and early Protestants.