Islam: Religion Of Peace?

[NotreDame]

The simplest litmus test is this...

 

Is there a single Christian country where a muslim needs to be nervous about practicing his faith?  Or where someone should fear converting to Islam?  The honest answer is no.  

 

Now is there a single muslim country where a christian doesn't need to be nervous about practicing his faith?  Or where one can convert to Christianity without fear of attacks?   I dunno... Turkey?  Bosnia?  Maybe Malaysia?

 

Is the root culture or is it Islam or does it matter?  To say there isn't an issue there and to try to compare Christianity to Islam and say "there are fundamentalists everywhere" is pretty disingenuous.

 

[NotreDame]

That is probably the most morally offensive, and stupid, thing that I've heard in a while.  

 

Not at all.  It's human nature that people will step in and react if their authorities don't protect them and that they will do so poorly, which is what I said. 

[Luigi]

I'm pretty sure I never said that.  I'm not implying that we should act unwisely.  For instance, I wouldn't go to a country with a Muslim majority where there would be a real threat of violence against me as a Christian.  I'm just saying that I prefer to get to know people as individuals before making any rash judgments.

 

Duly noted. I know good people who are Muslims; lots of Muslims are good people. But the problem - and this is just part of the human condition - is that we can't get to know all of the people before we have to make some kind of decision.

 

Another part of the problem - and I don't know if this is part of the human condition or if it's just the way the media works - is that only bad news gets reported. Bombings, attacks, murders, burnings - that's what gets into the news. They never (or at least, very seldom) report stories such as "Muslim couple decides not to let their daughter become a suicide bomber," or "Christians and Muslims work peacefully together for years," or that kind of thing. The only one I can really remember is a picture that circulated on FB showing Muslims and Christians holding hands and standing around a Coptic church to protect it from attack.

 

Even if the media reported that kind of good news, what we would remember is the horror stories. That's just the way the human mind works. Which adds a kind of cumulative effect to the horror stories - once you've got the "Muslim terrorists attack X without provocation" category in your head, you just add one more tick to that file with every new story. So the negative impression is always stronger than the positive improession.

 

And the fact remains that I don't remember any recent horror stories, other than Bosnia, of unprovoked attacks by Christians on Muslims.

[Luigi]

Islam, a religion with a billion adherents of a dizzying variety of sects and beliefs, is really not comparable to the Third Reich in any way. But congrats on winning that award they give to whoever first drags the Nazis into an internet thread.

 

You can substitute any two opposed groups - Union and Confederacy in the US, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, French and English in Canada, civil rights demonstrators and law enforcement in Selma, Alabama.

 

You may be sick of hearing about the Nazis, but it's still a valid example - clear, known to everybody. The point is that there can be good individuals within a bad group, and the good individuals can't/don't stop the bad group's actions.

[Didacus]

 

 

The very first point announces, "18,000 deadly terror attacks committed explicitly in the name of Islam in just the last ten years. (Other religions combined for perhaps a dozen or so."

 

How can you consider this a well-explained reason? Where do these numbers even come from, and what counts as 'a terror attack'? Do you really believe that adherents of all the world's many other religions - billions of people - have only committed 'perhaps a dozen or so' such crimes between us in ten years? Think about that. A dozen attacks among billions of people. Or is it more likely that the author is ignorant of any violence outside the community that he chooses to zoom in on, and also possesses the not-uncommon tendency to assume that any killing committed by a Muslim must be religiously motivated?

 

The other points are similarly logically unsound (if violent infighting is proof of a religion's lack of peacefulness, for example, then Christianity is in serious trouble - we've certainly done a good line in burning and beheading each other and God knows what else...). They're also factually inaccurate (i.e. the idea that 'none of these other religions are at war with each other' - he obviously has never paid attention to what supporters of the BJP have done to Christians in India in the name of Hinduism, to give just one example.) But lack of logic is not the real problem with that list.

 

As a Christian, Jesus is the source of all peace, 'the peace the world cannot give'. No one has peace except from Christ. I have to ask, how exactly do such websites - which seem to single out Muslims as specially violent in the way other people aren't - further that peace? If I want to know a person, I go and sit with him or her face to face. I don't go to a website that will tell me all about how violent they are. There are many sites that do this, some of which do it to us. A quick Google search will bring up pages of anti-Catholic stuff listing everything from paedophilia to the Inquisition to the Magdalen laundries as proof of the inherently vicious nature of this faith, with plenty of biblical quotations and sayings from saints to 'prove' what they're saying is true. I don't want people to treat that sort of dehumanising thing as representative of me, so why would I do it to other people?

 

I know that some people will be very quick to jump to the caveat, "But we aren't criticising the people, we're criticising the religion!" - even though this is also a logically unsound argument, because if the religion makes people violent, then their behaviour should be criticised. I have come to see the flimsiness of that caveat through my own experiences in the Holy Land, where I live for much of my time. I live in Bethlehem, a mixed Muslim and Christian city, with Muslim and Christian neighbours. When I talk about those neighbours to people who feel that the best way to approach fellow human beings is through sites like religionofpeace.com, I hear a dismissive, "Oh, if they're peace activists, they're not really Muslims, they don't know what their religion teaches" - apparently without any sense of how arrogant and even dehumanising it is to tell someone whose faith is the wellspring of their peace activism that their understanding is not 'real'. That you know who they are better than they know themselves and you know their faith better than they do because you copied and pasted some bullet points from the Internet.

 

I am a candidate with the Jesus Caritas Fraternity, a secular institute founded in the tradition of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, like the Little Sisters of Jesus and the Little Brothers of Jesus. It is a special responsibility of all the members of the wider Jesus Caritas community to pray for Muslim people daily. A third of the Little Sisters and Little Brothers are constitutionally bound to serve in Muslim countries, because Brother Charles began his work in the Sahara and he felt a particular affinity with the people there. They were in part responsible for his conversion from agnosticism. A big part of our spirituality, no matter whether we're in Muslim countries or somewhere else entirely, is simple neighbourliness: our prayer involves being present with people in their ordinary lives. The people who compile sites like religionofpeace.com are not present with the people they're writing about, in any sense - they aren't talking to Muslims, they're talking about them. There's no compassion in that and no peace. I think it is a better use of time, instead of asking whether this religion or that philosophy is peaceful, for us to ask whether we ourselves are.

 

 

 

The points may be flawed but they do demonstrate a point.  So the 18,000 number may not be the exact number - I for one do not care for the precise number.  The point is that islam around the world is at the source of far more violence than any other group.

 

I've seen videos, taking by faithful muslims, of stoning women.  Huge crowds gather to stone women (and sometimes young girls) for 'crimes' as simple as refusing to marry a certain man.  What astonishes me the most is the smiles on the crowd's faces, their monkeying around and joking throughout the ordeal.  Hundreds of faithful muslims having fun while slaughtering an innocent life - when seeing something like that, don't tell me that those who commit these acts are merely the minority of muslims.  If anyone would do something like this in a Christian country there would be investigations, charges, prisons sentences and outcry throughout the general population (and indeed, circumstances similar to this has happened several times Canada); but in the muslim dominated countries people line up to watch the show, film it on their cell phones, distribute the footage on the internet and hundreds who took part are not held to task; such a circumstance would be impossible without the support of the majority within a nation.  The fact these murders occur in muslim dominated nations on a regular basis with such gull to me is proof that majority of muslims support these acts.
 

[Didacus]

The idea of Islam as "the religion of peace" refers to the word, Islam, an Arabic word denoting submission to the Divine Will. In Islamic theology this submission of will and intellect is the only source of authentic peace. Hence Islam as "the religion of peace." The peace refers to inner tranquility of the soul.

 

Mohammad was a warrior and made war as his profession. In this he was not unlike the Kings of Israel.

 

Ahab, considered as the worst king of Israel, was never accused of atrocities similar to what committed Muhamed.

 

Furthermore, no one to my knowledge follows the kings of Israel's examples as infallible example of a prophet who proclaimed the orders of God on a word per word basis and follow these instructions as beyond reproach, perfect, beyond criticism.

 

I am familiar with the version of 'religion of peace' you iterate, and it is a mighty nice ideology.  One I can agree to.  Now if you don't like the wording in the title then what would you prefer then?  Something in the line of 'Muhamed's inspired philosophy as written in the Koran dictates violence and oppression on non-muslims?'    Let me know the wording you want, but please don't hide behind mere terminologies to avoid the real issues or the debate all together.  If you don't want to discuss it, then don't post; plain and simple.

[Didacus]

Of course you wouldn't be interested in getting into it, lol. 

 

And you call assertions racist and your in explaining why you go on to call them ignorant, all without addressing any of them.   There's no substance there in your reply and don't try to pretend there is. 

 

This is becoming a bad habit with you.  You smear someone by calling their assertions racist and/or ignorant (or some other personal assertion), then you start getting evasive and if things don't go your way you just leave the thread. 

I'm going to mass.  I hope by the time I'm back you've managed to start playing nice.

 

NotreDame; don't bother with Hassan.  Just don't feed the troll.

 

To be honest, after reading up on this matter for more than 10 years and discerning it, the more I learned the more I rejected any amicable vision of islam, to the point where I don't care who I offend anymore and if they call me racist or any other associated names.  Coming from someone like hasan I take it much more as a compliment than anything else these days - truth is he is either far more ignorant than I am, or he is outright dishonest and I don't care which.

[NotreDame]

That's a pretty flopping big caveat.  

"Christians never attack Muslims.  The one exception being the worst campaign of genocide in Europe since the Holocaust"

 

Another thing... Was kosovo even a genocide?  I thought prevailing opinion was that it was a brutal 3-way war, but the genocide angle was trumped up a bit by NATO to justify the bombings and invasion, and hasn't been borne out since:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1530781.stm

 

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/pearl123199.htm

 

Do you have information stating otherwise?  

 

Interesting that Daniel Pearl co-authored that last article.  Maybe we could reach out and ask him his opinion?  Oh, wait...

 

[4588686]

Another thing... Was kosovo even a genocide?  I thought prevailing opinion was that it was a brutal 3-way war, but the genocide angle was trumped up a bit by NATO to justify the bombings and invasion, and hasn't been borne out since:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1530781.stm

 

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/pearl123199.htm

 

Do you have information stating otherwise?  

 

Interesting that Daniel Pearl co-authored that last article.  Maybe we could reach out and ask him his opinion?  Oh, wait...

 

 

Kosovo is not/was not in Bosnia.  That is an entirely separate, and much more complicated, conflict.  

Edited March 23, 2014 by Hasan

[NotreDame]

Kosovo is not/was not in Bosnia.  That is an entirely separate, and much more complicated, conflict.  

 

Oh.  So in that case, the tie to christianity there seems tenuous, especially considering the General in charge was a Communist :-/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratko_Mladi%C4%87

 

I'm not all that familiar with the yugoslavia drama, so genuinely curious. 

 

 

[Didacus]

Traitor.

 

What exactly do you mean by that?

 

Seriously, that's sound like something from MeinKeinpf.

[Didacus]

No need to explain Hasan.  It's quite clear what you are doing - it's not like you haven't done it before.  You want to call somebody a bigot, then change the subject. 
 

 

Hasan always hijacks threads - just don't feed the troll.

[Didacus]

I don't know that all members of a religion, including those alive today, can be held responsible for what the founders of the religion did long years ago. 

 

But I will say that you can know the tree by its fruits. And all that violence (involving Mohammed, his favorite daughter, his favorite grandsons, his favorite wife, and all the early caliphs) stands in pretty stark contrast to Jesus being unjust crucified, eleven out of the twelve apostles being crucified, and a few centuries of martyrs. The early Christians never took up arms, never invaded other countries, and never converted people at the point of a sword. 

 

Neither did the main missionaries - Cyril & Methodius, Patrick, Augustine of Canterbury, Boniface, and a lot of others went unarmed into their mission lands. And when the Christian countries of Europe were invaded by the Goths & Company, the Goths & Company eventually converted to Christianity, but it wasn't at the point of a sword - they were the victors, not the victims. 

 

Now, eventually, the Christian countries did do some converting at the point of a sword - but that didn't happen until after the spread of Islam. Maybe they figured they had to fight fire with fire - adopt the methods of the opposition, that kind of thing. St. Ferdinand used the sword to drive Muslims out of Spain, but only after the Muslims had invaded it and stayed for 500 or 600 years. Muslim invasions of Europe were repulsed by Martin of Tours in France, by others at the Battle of Lepanto (the victory there was attributed to the rosary), by St. Stanislaus, and a number of others. 

 

Christianity has plenty to be ashamed of in its history, but most of that emerges after the religion had become so thoroughly ingrained in the cultures of the countries, at which point the politicians perverted it to their own use, as it were.

 

 

As for modern times, I think the strongest - and truest - accusation in the original post is the first one - 18.000 attacks in the last ten years. And I don't care if they're labeled terrorist attacks or not. If you follow the news at all, you've heard of Muslims locking Christians inside churches in Nigeria and slitting the throats of all the believers - invariably mostly women and children. But I don't read of Christians locking women & children in mosques and slitting their throats. You read about nuns in Damascus being attacked in their convent, but you don't read about nuns attacking Muslims at prayer. You read about Muslims attacking and burning Coptic churches in Egypt, but you don't read about Coptic mobs attacking Egyptian mosques. You read about Muslims mobs attacking churches in Indonesia, but you don't read about Christian mobs attacking Muslim mosques. You read about Muslims gangs terrorizing villages in the Philippines, but you don't read about Christian mobs terrorizing Muslim villages. You read about Muslims beheading a Jewish reporter in Pakistan - they even filmed that one and put it on the Internet. They also cut his body into ten pieces, although they didn't film or post that part. You read about two attacks on the Twin Towers - when the first one didn't work, they came back for seconds. You read about the Boston Marathon bombing. 

 

Whether the attackers should be labelled terrorists or not is the least significant detail of these events. The recurring pattern here is that the attacks are by Muslims on non-Muslims, whereas you don't read about non-Muslims attacking Muslims. The traditionally Christian countries have accepted any number of Muslim immigrants, whereas the traditionally Muslim countries accept only limited numbers of non-Muslims - usually for the economic development they can provide. Muslims are allowed to build mosques in non-Muslim countries, but Christians are not allowed to build churches in Muslim countries (that may hold true to varying degrees, I guess; Saudi Arabia is the strictest in that regard, but I should think it's pretty much the same in many if not all Muslim countries). The only instance of Christians attacking Muslims that I can think of in modern times was in Bosnia. 

 

So I find at least Item 1 the original post convincing. Not because it's ignorant or racist, but because I read it in the news. 

 

Never mind then what the founders did a long time ago - what lessons are being applied today from the founder's teachings?  Much per your subsequent comments.

 

 

And yes, Christianity did do some 'converting with the sword', but one should compare, if they insist on comparing, the first 500 years of Christianity and the first 500 years of islam.  Islam has ALWAYS tried to convert by the sword.  Actually, many muslim dominated nations today are committing what would fit the UN definition of genocide by preventing Christians from repairing their churches, preventing them from practicing their faith in public, preventing them from printing material like the bible, preventing them from teaching their faith to their own adherents within their community in any formal manner what so ever, forcing Christians and any non-muslims to pay extra taxes and making them second class citizens...  in fact everything within sharia law is designed to obliterate any non-muslim community being dominated by muslims.

 

 

Also, I do not believe Christianity had any concept of 'holy war' until after being invaded by muslims for centuries they finally called a crusade in order to defend themselves.  The concept of holy war is the one most influential contribution of islam to Christian faith.

 

 

 

And yes - we do indeed have plenty of reasons to repent within the Christian faith - however, we DO repent.  Islam as a rule never repents for its outright murders and oppression; why would they, its commanded directly in their Koran.

 

 

I agree full heartedly with your final paragraphs; does not matter if the 18,000 figure is accurate or not, the general tendency of muslims is clear.  Just look at the manifestations in Britain where muslims call for sharia law, death to police and British soldiers wishing them to go to hell, calling for death of anyone who insult islam and etc...  and this is in western nations where muslims are the minority - what should we expect if ever they become the majority?   

 

  'religion of peace my a***'!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[4588686]

Oh.  So in that case, the tie to christianity there seems tenuous, especially considering the General in charge was a Communist :-/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratko_Mladi%C4%87

 

I'm not all that familiar with the yugoslavia drama, so genuinely curious. 

 

 

The tie is actually extremely very strong.  In the Balkans religious and ethnic identity are intertwined and the Orthodox Church is central to Serbian national identity.  The whole point of the killing was to 'ethnically cleanse' (that phrase actually was coined by the Bosnian Serb leadership) what was sen as 'Greater Serbia' of Croats and Muslims.  The religious component to that was extremely clear in propaganda.  For example, a common trope in Bosnian Serb nationalist propaganda was to refer to Bosnian Muslims as 'backward Christians' (a reference to the fact that Bosnia's non-Turkish Muslim population arose with the late scale conversion from Bogomil Christianity).  

[Didacus]

I agree with you. I worked with a devout Muslim for a long time - he was a good guy in a lot of ways. One day he came into the production area saying, "I want to kill some Jews..." I knew he was joking, but I can't imagine devout Christians in the post-Holocaust US making that same joke. 

 

On the other hand, we often make broad assertions because they keep us alive, Ms. Why-Can't-We-All-Just-Get-Along. Recognizing patterns, knowing where to expect the next outbreak of violence, or the next type of violence (will it be car bombs, improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, tennis shoe bombers, underpants bombers) can help us prepare to defend ourselves. 

 

I'm sure there were French-Dutch-Austrians-Hungarians in Germany who knew and personally liked individual Nazis, and those Nazis may not even have been directly involved in any war-machine activities. But that didn't stop their countries from being invaded. 

 

I work with several muslims.  Actually, as a professional engineer, I am mentoring junior engineers, and all the juniors I am mentoring happen to be muslims!  As individuals, I have absolutely no problem with these guys.  We talked about ethics (as is needed as a mentor in the context of professionalism), we discussed religion and politics and scores of topics.

 

Whever I ask some 'hard questions' about their religion however, they only shy away and don't offer any real response.  I don't push the questions too hard if I see they don't want to reply.  Like I asked one once 'isn't smoking against your religion' because he was a smoker.  He only laughed it off. 

Another time I asked 'I thought your religion did not tolerate democracy?' and he only said that he 'kinda disagreed with that' but 'did not want to explain' which leads me to think that he knows the teachings of islam, but does not want to apply them and cannot make excuses for them because he knows them too well.  In my opinion, and I know this was mentioned in the thread before but it still rings true; this pro-democratic muslim is of islamic heritage, but does not adhere to Islamic teachings and hence is not truly a faithful of islam. 

 

 

And by the way; I have tried time and time again to discuss with message boards with muslims (and you would be genuinely offended by what they post - much of it is borderline legal!  Just search it for yourselves), but I only get kicked out and banned.  All I do is respectfully ask the questions but islam cannot tolerate even that apparently.  the more I am learning about islam, the more I am looking into the facts, the more I find reasons to take a stand against islam (the religion).