Is it fair to say Islam is a peaceful religion?

[Autumnleaf]

From cutting people's heads off on the internet to crashing planes into buildings it seems like lots of Muslims think killing in the name of Islam's God is the right thing to do. Are these guy just errant nutters or is there a significant portion of Islam that is not peaceful.

 

[Jase]

Christianity had the exact same past - slaughtering thousands of muslims in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the attacks on science, witch burning, slavery.

What's the difference?

 

[Supernaut]

I believe that it can be. It seems to have had a rocky start....but admitedly I am no scholar with regard to Islam. I am sure that the majority of adherents to this faith want peace and will eventually shape Islam into a more peaceful faith. Christians have had the same struggles and still do....seems that many faiths have had to endure this growth from adolesence into maturity.

 

[mpok1519]

Ideas are incapable of causing violence; people cause violence.

 

[kharisym]

The religion itself is perhaps only slightly more barbaric than Christianity can be. That said, the people themselves need not be. It's my opinion that the majority of Muslims and Christians who grew up in first world nations are children of modern thought and ethics. The average 1st worlder pays only slightly more than lip service to their religion of choice, and instead uses modern ethical constructs such as social contracts to temper the seething hatred and backwards nature of their chosen holy-text.

So, is Islam barbaric? Sure, but so is Christianity. Are Muslims barbaric? No less than Christians- that is to say the majority are not. The people are not the religion in either respect.

disclaimer: Opinion.

 

[onemorequestion]

Christianity had the exact same past - slaughtering thousands of muslims in the Crusades,

The Crusades were IN RESPONSE to a violent attack FROM Muslims on innocent and unarmed Christians living in Jerusalem. What part of "starting a war" doesn't register with the "Christians and the Crusade crowd?"

the Inquisition,

Christians versus Christians. How many people as in numbers of people suffered in all the other countries of earth because of the Inquisition in Spain?

And if you would, please total up the number of nations that now are declared to be "Christian Nations" and compare them to countries that are NOW called Muslim nations?

the attacks on science,

Please provide evidence? Many of the finest Universities were founded by Christians.

witch burning,

How many witches went to th flames please? Numbers please?

slavery.

Started by Muslim and African slave traders and ended by Christians. You know the facts of history.

What's the difference?

Today's date.

Your canards have little weight these days.

Now, how about dealing with "The Islamic world" which TODAY numbers the most restrictive and anti-freedom and violent COUNTRIES on earth.

If you would please?

 

[onemorequestion]

The religion itself is perhaps only slightly more barbaric than Christianity can be.

History makes mincemeat out of that opinion. Where Christians go, modernity grows. Hospitals and Universities prove that. And Inner-City Churches where all find help.

That said,

Wildly wrongly.

. . . the people themselves need not be.

Christians have proven that all over the world. Even in Afghanistan where, even though doing no wrong they are beheaded. As in LAST WEEK by MUSLIMS.

It's my opinion that the majority of Muslims and Christians who grew up in first world nations are children of modern thought and ethics.

Educated in all of those Christian founded Universities you mean?

The average 1st worlder pays only slightly more than lip service to their religion of choice, and instead uses modern ethical constructs such as social contracts to temper the seething hatred and backwards nature of their chosen holy-text.

What an outright fabrication. Please show us all the outright violent statements IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?

I must demand RIGHT NOW.

So, is Islam barbaric? Sure, but so is Christianity.

But so IS Christianity? BARBARIC? Prove that right now 8-12-10.

Are Muslims barbaric? No less than Christians- that is to say the majority are not. The people are not the religion in either respect.

disclaimer: Opinion.

PROVE THAT YOUR DISCLAIMER/"OPINION" IS LITTLE MORE THAN SLANDER ON CHRISTIANS TODAY. And of course through history as well.

In fact, let us follow your opinion through history and through all of the countries "blessed" by Christians interacting with them.

What happened to the entire world AFTER the Enlightement? After the Declaration of Atheism . . .? FROM the European countries that kicked off their Christian rule for one based on naturalism and humanism?

Communist Soviet Union, World War I, Il Duce's Itlay and World War II. Abortion on demand and immense violence in the cities all over the earth.

Hundreds and hundreds of millions of human beings slaughtered in one manner or another. So many people, that our minds cannot comprehend the horror. It is now commonplace to see the Atheism of Communist China and SE Asia as just a blip on history. The MILLIONS slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge are now just ashes to a new Vietnam. Where, once again, ONLY the Christians are going to help the slaves and downtrodden.

Even Islam can't come close to the utter carnage of the very short history of Atheism.

"Christians?" They are STILL going all over the world in peace bringing hope and healing to NON Christians every single day.

Time for the comparison of Christians to violent peoples be undertaken with more than just opinions that facts show are less than valid.

 

[kharisym]

History makes mincemeat out of that opinion. Where Christians go, modernity grows. Hospitals and Universities prove that. And Inner-City Churches where all find help.

Christians have proven that all over the world. Even in Afghanistan where, even though doing no wrong they are beheaded. As in LAST WEEK by MUSLIMS.

Educated in all of those Christian founded Universities you mean?

What an outright fabrication. Please show us all the outright violent statements IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?

I must demand RIGHT NOW.

But so IS Christianity? BARBARIC? Prove that right now 8-12-10.


PROVE THAT YOUR DISCLAIMER/"OPINION" IS LITTLE MORE THAN SLANDER ON CHRISTIANS TODAY. And of course through history as well.

In fact, let us follow your opinion through history and through all of the countries "blessed" by Christians interacting with them.

What happened to the entire world AFTER the Enlightement? After the Declaration of Atheism . . .? FROM the European countries that kicked off their Christian rule for one based on naturalism and humanism?

Communist Soviet Union, World War I, Il Duce's Itlay and World War II. Abortion on demand and immense violence in the cities all over the earth.

Hundreds and hundreds of millions of human beings slaughtered in one manner or another. So many people, that our minds cannot comprehend the horror. It is now commonplace to see the Atheism of Communist China and SE Asia as just a blip on history. The MILLIONS slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge are now just ashes to a new Vietnam. Where, once again, ONLY the Christians are going to help the slaves and downtrodden.

Even Islam can't come close to the utter carnage of the very short history of Atheism.

"Christians?" They are STILL going all over the world in peace bringing hope and healing to NON Christians every single day.

Time for the comparison of Christians to violent peoples be undertaken with more than just opinions that facts show are less than valid.

It's nice to see you've got that whole righteous rage thing going on. In case you missed it, the question was "Is Islam a peaceful religion" not "Who's got a bigger one- Atheism or Christianity?" To that extent...

Demanding things in 'shouting text' isn't a good way to hold a debate. I DEMAND!!!111!one! you be a bit more civil, then we can discuss these things like adults. Or in a more civil tone- Please show a bit of respect when debating, pithy squealing undermines your own argument.

Show me proof right now! 8/12/2010 that green rage is good debating! //Not a very good tactic- in my case, makes me contrary and choose not to do anything you 'demand' from me. The only people you can make demands from are McDonalds workers and your Biblically professed slaves.

 

[SithDoughnut]

Religions are religions. They are neither peaceful or violent.

 

[onemorequestion]

It's nice to see you've got that whole righteous rage thing going on. In case you missed it, the question was "Is Islam a peaceful religion" not "Who's got a bigger one- Atheism or Christianity?" To that extent...

Demanding things in 'shouting text' isn't a good way to hold a debate. I DEMAND!!!111!one! you be a bit more civil, then we can discuss these things like adults. Or in a more civil tone- Please show a bit of respect when debating, pithy squealing undermines your own argument.

Show me proof right now! 8/12/2010 that green rage is good debating! //Not a very good tactic- in my case, makes me contrary and choose not to do anything you 'demand' from me. The only people you can make demands from are McDonalds workers and your Biblically professed slaves.

So I'll take it that ALL of my facts are correct.

Which of course, they are.

 

[Zaac]

From cutting people's heads off on the internet to crashing planes into buildings it seems like lots of Muslims think killing in the name of Islam's God is the right thing to do. Are these guy just errant nutters or is there a significant portion of Islam that is not peaceful.

It is indeed fair to say if you're naive. Liberalism and free thinking in the United States seems to pull the scales over the eyes of many. So much so that they can't see the big white elephant in the room with a bomb strapped to its chest.

32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

 

[Archer93]

How many witches went to th flames please? Numbers please?

Do you mean 'How many people accused of witchcraft went to the flames'?
Around 40,000 to 60,000 between the 14th and 18th centuries.
Witch trials in Early Modern Europe and North America - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not all accused witches were burnt- that was generally the penatly in Scotland and continental Europe as witchcraft was seen as a form of heresy, and hence a religious crime.
In England, it was a civil crime so the penalty was generally hanging.

It's hard to get a definitive figure, but the one above from the Wiki article has a lot of support.

One interesting thing- the country with far and away the largest number of executions for witchcraft, with about 2/3rds of the recorded executions and nearly half of the estimated ones, was (what is now) Germany.
I think it's interesting because Germany was pretty much the centre of Protestantism at the time.

Please ignore any claims that the death toll was around 9,000,000.

 

[Aimiel]

I believe that the fiasco with Mohammad cartoons and worldwide violent protests prove that Islam isn't a peaceful religion at all; and allowing Iran to gain a nuclear weapon may prove what I believe the hard way.

 

[Mystman]

It's not so much about the religion, it's about the adherents.

Take.. Judaism. The Old Testament contains some really nasty stuff. Now, the Christian defense to that nasty stuff is always something like "yeah but then Jesus came along and all that stuff about stoning people from other religions and disobedient children etc doesn't count anymore".

Very nice and all.. but that means that all the nasty stuff is still in effect for modern day Jews. For example, as far as they are concerned, the only instructions/examples that they've been given for dealing with other cultures and countries is "massacre them all! Don't forget to kill all the livestock and the male children! Oh yeah, and keeping the virgin girls for yourself is ok".

But the majority of Jews don't actually live don't like that (some do, although you might not hear about them a lot, but they are certainly a large part of the reason why the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is as bad as it is. Settlers that really believe that all the Palestinians should just be slaughtered, as per Biblical example). Should we hold the perfectly civil Jews accountable for some of the things that their ancestors and extremist fellows did/believed?

So yeah, extremist Judaism is a really nasty religion, as nasty as or even worse than extremist Islam. But for some reason, many want to cuddle with the Jews while calling the entirety of Islam an evil religion blablabla.

I'd say: evaluate every person's specific beliefs. Cuddle those that are cuddle worthy, and condemn those that are condemnation worthy. Just blanket judgments based on which holy book people happen to use as an excuse for their views is a bad idea. =)

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

I believe that the fiasco with Mohammad cartoons and worldwide violent protests prove that Islam isn't a peaceful religion at all; and allowing Iran to gain a nuclear weapon may prove what I believe the hard way.

From what I understand the majority of that cartoon fiasco was caused by a file of lies that was being spread by a group of imams that where preaching that muslims where being persecuted in the westernworld and containing several pictures that had nothing to do with islam but where presented as if they did.

So the lesson here is that essentially that people should be taught to think critically. Which they obviously failed to do. But how many people think critically of what their priest tells them? Most people in the world should be taught this skill. Probably solves alot of future problems like this.

 

[Aimiel]

Obviously, Islam isn't about teaching critical thinking, or there would be no Muslims.

 

[SithDoughnut]

Obviously, Islam isn't about teaching critical thinking, or there would be no Muslims.

Hello pot, I see you've met kettle.

 

[Robinsegg]

I don't see evidence that Islam was *intended* to be a peaceful religion. It also seems to *lend itself* towards being used for violence.

That said, I believe there are people who have found ways to interpret Islam in such ways that allow them to live peacefully within it.

Rachel

 

[lux et lex]

Obviously, Islam isn't about teaching critical thinking, or there would be no Muslims.

HAHAHAHAHA. And people say the same about Christians. You (a general you) get upset about "persecuting the Christians" and in the same breathe turn around and say stuff like this. That isn't what a Christian is supposed to do.

 

[keith99]

I count The Society of Friends as peaceful. Surely there are people of faith who as individuals are peaceful and there may be other sects that are peaceful that I am not familar with.