Jihad 101

[Plane]

I'm not impressed that some Christians persuaded other Christians not to own slaves.  If the Christian religion was any good in the first place, there would not have been any Christian slave owners and there would have been no need for other Christians to tell them to stop it.  Sure as hell took them long enough.  Christianity was around since the year 1 and the Christians finally give up slavery 1,732 years later?  Whoopee doo.

The early Christians were the slaves , a lot of spoilage occured when the Emporer took it up. The people were much more receptive at the lower levels

Slave owning was pretty much universal with no large kingdoms free of it . War was and is totally universal.

I doubt that your numbers are carefully researched , can you really say that you know that the Crusades killed more people than died in Stalins purges? Or that Islam has killed one fewer person in its time?

By the way do you suppose that Christianity will kill more Jews than Islam this year? I wonder if we should be slacking while they are trying so hard to catch up?

[Plane]

<<Kings have always been bloody handed things and Christinity didn't change that much , but it wroughta change from the bottom up so profound that we really take it for granted.>>

Oh yeah, I can really see that.  BIG difference between the days of the Crusades and the Inquisition and the days of the Holocaust.  HUGE difference from the bottom up.  Profound.

True , in the time of the Inquisition no one was prepared to come to the rescue . With out Christianity who ever would have been?

[Plane]

<<Plane makes a good point here.  Many who wish to bash Christianity as some religion of killing, are actually referencing in large part people using Christianity & Christ's teachings as their supposed reason for killing, when in actuality, they're not acting as Christians in any way shape or form.  Just because someone kills in the name of the Christian God doesn't make them Christian.  It generally makes them evil>>

OK.  So the Inquisitors and the Crusaders weren't really Christians.  The Germans who conducted the Holocaust weren't really Christians.  Really fooled me.  They went to Church, got baptised in church, got married in church, got buried in churchyards, had crosses put on their graves  - - but they were not Christians.  The Inquisitors were all priests of the RCC but I guess you can be a priest of the RCC without being a Christian.  The Crusades were preached by priests and monks, but the priests and monks weren't Christians.  I got it!!  NOBODY who claimed he was a Christian was a Christian.  They were evil-doers.

So what if I said that none of the people who killed in the name of Allah were Muslims?  THEY were just evil-doers too.

Won't work.  THEY were MUSLIMS.  Got it.

They were a fit for their times, few of these you mention would fit in our times witout accepting Islam.

No ,only Jesus can decide who measures up , think he looks for intent and sincerity .

Jesus mentions that some people will misuse his authority and his name : http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=7&verse=23&version=31&context=verse.

Matthew 7:23 (New International Version)
23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

It is quite possible that he is offeded with some of the same people you are , I suppose I could commit ome vile atrocity and claim that MT told me to , but would this endear me to you ?

[Michael Tee]

<<The early Christians were the slaves , a lot of spoilage occured when the Emporer took it up. The people were much more receptive at the lower levels>>

That's ludicrous.  None of Jesus or the Twelve Apostles were slaves and their first cult members were all Jews, none of them slaves.

<<Slave owning was pretty much universal with no large kingdoms free of it . War was and is totally universal.>>

Well if you're claiming that Wilberforce is a triumph of Christianity, you have to admit given the time taken that it's a pretty insignificant accomplishment.  I don't buy that Wilberforce did this singlehandedly, there was a lot of anti-slavery mobilization, Christianity played a part only because the biggest slave-holding societies were Christian, so the opposition to slavery would have concentrated in the only organization within the slave-holding society that had moral influence.  If the biggest slave-holding societies had been Buddhist, it would have been Buddhist activists who ended it.

<<I doubt that your numbers are carefully researched , can you really say that you know that the Crusades killed more people than died in Stalins purges? >>

Probably did.  Stalin's purges were greatly exaggerated, and a lot of the victims were enemies of the Revolution, fascists and anti-Semites.  They deserved to die.  Besides which, what do Stalin's purges have to do with this?  Was he a Muslim?  The subject seems to be the slanderous accusations that some Christians and Jews are directing at Islam as a religion of violence, and my allegation that Christianity has way more blood on its hands than Islam.  I don't know of any Islamic massacres that claimed anywhere near as many innocent lives as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the pogroms (including the Ukrainian Peasant Revolt) and the Holocaust, let alone the extermination of the American Indians.  Sorry, but if you want to convince me that Islam is as violent as Christianity, you'll have to come up with some facts in support.  I will tell you right now that I don't know of any of them. 

<<Or that Islam has killed one fewer person in its time?>>

Go ahead.  Find me one Islamic massacre that matches the Holocaust or the extermination of the American Indians.

<<By the way do you suppose that Christianity will kill more Jews than Islam this year? >>

NO, they teamed up against the Muslims.  I bet their team will kill a lot more innocent Muslims than Muslims will kill innocent Christians and Jews.

<<I wonder if we should be slacking while they are trying so hard to catch up?>>

That's why Israel has 400 nuclear weapons.  Anyone who wants to try is welcome to step up to the plate.

[The_Professor]

Plane:

"Wars were happening without Christianity and religions have always been a part of it  , but even a misused Christianity can recover the good of Christs teaching ."

Superb and thoughtful comment. No one, even the Church, is above repentence.

[Henny]

I'm taking BT's suggestion, I suggest you do as well.

How was Jordan as far as radical Islam? What is the position of their government in this arena? Was there a diversity of opinion on this issue there? What did the average guy on the street think in this regard?

Sigh. I figured it out anyway. And while what you suggest is not true in my particular circumstance, it does happen. But as an aside to illustrate the point, when my parents married, my father was a Catholic, my mother a Methodist. He gave her an ultimatum - the kids will be Catholic, or no kids. I guess she didn't have a choice.

About Jordan - the government is obviously a strong ally for the U.S. in the region. Officially, terrorism is condemned and they have amazing anti-terrorism forces at work, and they work hand-in-hand with American intelligence to prevent terrorism. You frequently hear of terror plots being thwarted.

But when you step outside of the official stand, there are some problems. Most of the problems are now coming from Iraqi refugees, and I suspect we'll here of more problems as the refugee crisis gets worse - in other words, sectarian violence will begin to spill over the borders. And of course there was Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi who was from Zarqa, a small town just outside of greater Amman. (I heard on the news that people here thought that the town Zarqa was named after Zarqawi - not true. Zarqawi means "from Zarqa," and he changed his name to Zarqawi as an adult to reflect where he was from.) If you talk to the people on the street, there is some anger, but the people I personally knew - and heard of from others - denounced terrorism in all of its forms as cowardly acts.

[The_Professor]

I'm taking BT's suggestion, I suggest you do as well.

How was Jordan as far as radical Islam? What is the position of their government in this arena? Was there a diversity of opinion on this issue there? What did the average guy on the street think in this regard?

Sigh. I figured it out anyway. And while what you suggest is not true in my particular circumstance, it does happen. But as an aside to illustrate the point, when my parents married, my father was a Catholic, my mother a Methodist. He gave her an ultimatum - the kids will be Catholic, or no kids. I guess she didn't have a choice.

About Jordan - the government is obviously a strong ally for the U.S. in the region. Officially, terrorism is condemned and they have amazing anti-terrorism forces at work, and they work hand-in-hand with American intelligence to prevent terrorism. You frequently hear of terror plots being thwarted.

But when you step outside of the official stand, there are some problems. Most of the problems are now coming from Iraqi refugees, and I suspect we'll here of more problems as the refugee crisis gets worse - in other words, sectarian violence will begin to spill over the borders. And of course there was Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi who was from Zarqa, a small town just outside of greater Amman. (I heard on the news that people here thought that the town Zarqa was named after Zarqawi - not true. Zarqawi means "from Zarqa," and he changed his name to Zarqawi as an adult to reflect where he was from.) If you talk to the people on the street, there is some anger, but the people I personally knew - and heard of from others - denounced terrorism in all of its forms as cowardly acts.

Jordan sounds like a place where more radical Islam should look to for inspiration on how to get along in this complex world we live in.