The biblical Christ was
no pacifist. He had basically a defeatist attitude. He could not do much as he was too weak.
He came with nothing new, brought nothing new, did nothing and his mission flopped and failed. The legacy he left comprising of 'Jesus said this and the Jews said that' resulted in the treatment of Jews, which no people received at the hands of the Christians for centuries.
Yeah, exactly as Martin Luther King was a defeatist. Don't mistake moral superiority & capacity to forgive for defeatism. The legacy of Jesus' immediately stopped stoning amongst people who adopted his faith, while Muhammad's followers' still continue with it. Christ also asked his followers not to divorce their spouses except for adultery, whereas Jews could easily divorce their wives for any reason & for no reason, without so much as an explanation. Divorced woman would find herself on the streets, following a sudden & arbitrary repudiation of the marriage by the husband. Muhammad's followers still divorce their wives by uttering Talaq three times, or lately by cellphone messages.
Incidentally, Christ & Buddha are
not defeatists, both chose not to be violent. The Buddha was a prince, he could've marched an army and destroyed other faiths, he chose not to do so. Similarly for Christ, he kept telling his followers to spare others & forgive them, instead of slaughter them.
That Jesus' followers' chose to ignore his teachings is certainly not his fault. By the way, I'm well aware of the treatment Muslims have given to Zoroastrian Iranians, Buddhists & other idolaters in the sub continent too, so what Christians did in the past doesn't make Islam's past any less vile. The fact that Christians' even in poorer nations have stopped their violent ways' does require an inquiry into why Muslims' couldn't do likewise.
The democracy and freedom of speech that we see now is a remarkable effort by the educated men. Credit does no go to Christianity.
Muslims have the same problem and millions of the masses are illiterate and uneducated.
Education will change that. Credit does not go to religion. It will take time. It took more than 1800 years to tame Christianity and teh Christians.
Muslims with the modern world may take another hundred years or so.
Strawman, the worst of Muslim terrorists are the best educated. The guy who killed Daniel Pearl had a degree from the London School of Economics, the 9\11 pilots all came from very well educated, prosperous homes, Osama himself is a millionaire, his second in Command Zawahiri is a surgeon. Saudi is rolling in riches, & rolling in homegrown terrorists & jihadis.
If poverty & illiteracy caused terrorism, where are the Colombian, Peruvian, Chilean terrorists? Where are the Filipino terrorists, except the Filipino Muslims? Why lets focus on the same situation. Where are the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers? Both people suffer oppression, why are Christians more peaceful?
I'm planning to get hold of Martin Luther King's book, but what Christianity did in the past or Christian Priests preached certainly doesn't exonerate Islam of its genocide in Iran, the sub Continent & other locations. Both Christianity & Islam have violent pasts.
Cut to the present date. Even comparatively poor Christian nations like Latin America countries & Phillipines are religiously peaceful, no Crusades originate from there- while oil rich Saudi creates dozens of terrorists.
Why? Simple. All religions' might've been fertile sources of intolerance, yet there're gradations of violence.Christianity wasn't founded by a forced proselytizer or iconoclast, as Islam is. Christianity might've been violent, yet there're huge chunks in their Holy Books which promote peace, most importantly the founder was peaceful. Muhammad was personally a forcible proselytizer, hence his followers are likewise.
Christian treatment of the Jews' was a frank violation of Jesus' attitude, Muslim treatment to idolaters, Zoroastrians or the Bamiyan Buddhas was exactly as Muhammad preached
& personally practiced.
This is why Islam lags behind even Christians in Latin America, because there's little in the reservoir of Islam which can cause its followers to be peaceful, even if they acquire the ability to read the Quran. The Quran's message is- be peaceful when you have no other option like Muhammad was in his early career, then immediately slaughter your enemies & forcibly convert them when you get the military might to do so. As education & wealth increase, there'll probably be more rich, literate Osamas & 9\11 pilots, emulationg Muhammad's example, rather than the religion's followers giving up their violent ways-like literacy & personally knowing Christ's example did to His followers.
Topic: Ex-Muslim Liberals, Please Wait a Minute!!