Christianity and Islam

So I posted the below in the other thread

(05-23-2017 10:15 AM)kavi Wrote:  Boys, cannot throw out Islam and still entertain Christianity, two sides of the same coin.

The only real challenge to Islam can only come from Atheists and those who see the Monotheistic Dualistic wordview as the danger that it is.

A bit hypocritical to respect Christianity and call Islam names, there isnt too much difference in the two.

and got a lock of criticism

(05-23-2017 10:22 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  You're welcome to specify the parts of the New Testament where Jesus invites the disciples to cut off the heads of Samaritans who refuse baptism, or freely rape chicks from Siloam captured in battle. Maybe I missed that part of the Bible where it says "Line up and throw straight" instead of "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Fuck, dude, even Sam Harris concedes only idiots argue moral equivalence between Christanity and Islam. Wander back to your pantheistic corner of the belief spectrum and shut the fuck up already.

(05-23-2017 10:26 AM)HighSpeed_LowDrag Wrote:  That is the biggest load of nonsense I have ever seen posted on this forum, and that's saying a lot.

Degenerate, atheism-inspired decadence is the precise reason that we're in this mess to begin with. Do you think an unapologetically Christian and European society would tolerate its young children being torn apart by high explosives?

Look for one example where a declining, decadent society was able to defeat a tribal, "barbarian" one, I dare you. The answer isn't more decadence, but restoring the unapologetically Christian and European society that made the West great in the first place.

I think we're in this mess because some Roman ceasar decided he would do away with his (and Romes) ancestral religion and make new foreign upstart the official religion of the Empire.

(05-23-2017 10:31 AM)Repo Wrote:  Hell I'm not even Christian, but you definately can do that. Christians aren't blowing things up. And last I checked, athiests never went to war with muslims to stop the spread of their religion. You can definately be either an athiest or a christian and not let these people in. As an athiest, all I care is that christians aren't hurting anyone, so who cares what they believe.

No Atheists didnt, because the Christian Empire forcibly converted them in Europe, as did the Muslims in Asia.

(05-23-2017 10:39 AM)Horus Wrote:  Get outta here with that bullshit. To say that Islam and Christianity are even remotely similar shows that you are completely ignorant of the teachings in the Bible and the Koran. Spend a little time studying up on these books and then try to give us some solid examples of how "there isn't much different in the two."

Remotely similar? You follow pretty much the same God, have the same beliefs (Monotheism, Universality, Afterlife, Heaven/Hell, prophetic revelation) and the same stories and personalities etc.

(05-23-2017 02:43 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(05-23-2017 10:15 AM)kavi Wrote:  A bit hypocritical to respect Christianity and call Islam names, there isnt too much difference in the two.

You are absolutely wrong on this account.
There aren't any similarities between the two religions.

I challenge you to find the similarities.

And no, quoting the old testament as a claim doesn't count. Jesus came and did away with the old laws and as such are not an accurate representation of Christianity.

I cannot think of any two religions in the world that are more similar than Christianity and Islam. It is absurd that this claim is even being challenged. I do wonder to what extent people here actually believe what they're saying. Perhaps the Christians dont get it, but a Muslim will know what I mean. Islam is not mentioned in the Bible as it did not exist then, but Christianity is mentioned in the Koran. Muslims have a special place for Christians, as they belong to The People of the Book, a concept in Islam referring to adherents of Islam, Christianity and Judaism (maybe Zoroastrianism too).

I just cant be bothered going into all the similarities one by one in detail, as there are far too many and I think it is obvious to anyone what they are. I mean, just compare Islam and Christianity to any one of Greek Mythology, Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism and you will see that the two are relatively very, very similar.

I think the reason Christians and Muslims dont get this is that these religions are very dominant and most of the religious spectrum no longer exists or is very far away (India etc), therefore, there is little else to compare to hence the two can be made to look much more different than they are.

The most important point is that these are the only two religions in the world that proselytise and try to convert people into a religion where the most important thing is belief itself. This is really important. In Christianity and Islam, nothing is more important than belief in God and following his directions. Infact, the two religions are exclusive in the regard, and this is the defining characteristic of both faiths.

(05-08-2017 09:29 PM)Robert Rule Wrote:  Ive fell a few times and was lukewarm, but I keep coming back to Christ. The struggles of being poor and in difficult situations strengthened my trust in god. And he showed me I can only have joy and life through him.
Im on my own, just me and god, and he will judge me for my actions and my heart. So I'm staying pure before god and living my life for him.
It's difficult to not pursue sex, or comfort. Too not give up and be lukewarm.
I cant, ive had the joy, and peace of the lords fruit. My life will be to leave everything and live my life for god. This is not my home.

This is a post from another thread. Change the world God above and replace with Allah. Still works right? Now imagine our Manchester suicide bomber saying this before the act. Still works doesnt it. Look at the last line, how does that not sound like the last words of a suicide bomber.

Just because Christians dont do suicide bombs or terrorism, doesnt mean they're ideology is different.

Once you say your relationship and belief in God is the most important aspect in your life, and once you accept God as the ultimate thing, then your mind can be bent to accept any act of terrorism (or anything else). The reason is once you go into that frame you lose touch with reality and any real morality based on the real world.

Someone mentioned quranic quotes that tell the followers to kill infidels. But so what? Didnt the Christians persecute and forcibly convert European pagans to the faith with the full knowledge and support of the Church. So what if that is not sanctioned in Bible? Is it explicitly prohibited?

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"Just because Christians dont do suicide bombs or terrorism, doesnt mean they're ideology is different. "



Not murdering little girls vs murdering little girls is about as big of an idealogical difference you can have.

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You haven't read the Koran. I have. This is why you're talking typical "I'm so clever because I'm an atheist" dismissive hand-wavy arrogant bullshit.

Let's see your Christian terrorism list for the last 30 days, and we'll see if "there's not much difference between the two".
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attac...?Yr=Last30

Don't let your desire to be a super clever boy atheist edgelord get in the way of not being a dumbass, aye mate? You sperg fucks always pick a class time to pipe up. Let's use this kids-blown-to-bits opportunity to troll about how Christians are no better. The only reason you do so online is because if you did it in real life right now in your avatar's country in public earshot you know exactly what would happen to you.

Let's all buy him a ticket to Islamic State where he can say out loud "Islam and Christianity are exactly the same". I'll pay for the camera drone.

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Christianity and Islam are as similar as Jesus and Muhammad. This tells you all you need to know.

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I am with Kavi on this one. Religions are a superstitious vestigial organ that needs to be surgically removed before humankind can evolve further.

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(05-23-2017 08:49 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  I am with Kavi on this one. Religions are a superstitious vestigial organ that needs to be surgically removed before humankind can evolve further.

Removed by what? If you're so into science, have you not even considered where religion comes from? What its biological root is?

You won't be removing shit, they'll sooner be removing you. A million clever atheists spread about the internet cannot resist a million fanatics united by their god.

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(05-23-2017 06:30 PM)kavi Wrote:  ...

I cannot think of any two religions in the world that are more similar than Christianity and Islam. It is absurd that this claim is even being challenged. I do wonder to what extent people here actually believe what they're saying.
...

I just cant be bothered going into all the similarities one by one in detail, as there are far too many and I think it is obvious to anyone what they are.
...

Translated as "OMG it's [current year] I literally can't even!"

Quote:Someone mentioned quranic quotes that tell the followers to kill infidels. But so what? Didnt the Christians persecute and forcibly convert European pagans to the faith with the full knowledge and support of the Church. So what if that is not sanctioned in Bible? Is it explicitly prohibited?

The instruction manual for my toaster oven doesn't specifically forbid me to draw a bath, plug the toaster into the wall socket and then play battleships with it, right?

I've never seen someone take such an ass backward stance on an issue and then go to such great efforts to reinforce just how ridiculous they are.

Confirmed arrogant atheist.

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(05-23-2017 08:49 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  I am with Kavi on this one. Religions are a superstitious vestigial organ that needs to be surgically removed before humankind can evolve further.
...

By whom? A bunch of fedora wearing faggots?

Tell you what, you gather up all the fedora wearing faggots and "surgically remove" islam from the face of the planet first. Then you can move on to the rest.

Of course we all know that fedora wearing faggots only go after Christians because it's a zero risk act of chickenshit rebellion.

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Oh the silliness of thinking God is dead. Nietzsche correctly proclaimed God to be dead in the West and look what that has brought us.

Personally I am an agnostic but what have we used to feel godlessness? Can anyone give me an hypothesis that does not involve porn, adrenaline junkies, hypersexuality, made up pronouns? 60 genders? Or 70, excuse my blatant white cishet ignorance shitlordness.

If only one has the eyes to look at the rest of the world, God is alive and well, demographically speaking, it is US that are dying. Oh Nietzsche would have loved this, he pronounced God dead over 100 years ago and now we will die before Him!

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When Christians start regularly gang-raping girls in the street and driving trucks into crowds, I'll maybe consider Christianity and Islam being "two sides of the same coin."

Religion does not exist in a vacuum without its adherents, and a large, devoted component of Islamists are a death and rape-bringing plague, even if Uyghurs and Indonesian Muslims can generally go about their lives without a high degree of gang-rapes and live-action-GTA.

This belongs in the Everything Else forum. OP has not proffered anything profound or intellectually interesting and does not have a good grasp on apostrophes, common errors like they're/their/there, and not being a faggot.

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Christianity and Islam share a lot in common, many people will not acknowledge that because of the time we live in but both believe in the same God and in both religions Jesus plays an important role although Muslims don't believe in the concept of trinity but regard Jesus as a prophet nonetheless.

In my opinion, the most important difference between both religions is that in Christianity you have an institution that acts as an intermediary between God and the believers on Earth, the Church. The Church allows Christianity to be more progressive in some ways, whatever the Church said is what the believer does, all the interpretation are done by the Church... Also the Church can decide to allow some practices that are deemed no longer acceptable in the current society, an example that shows this is head scarfs in the church which were worn by all women but slowly started being tolerated inside the Church. In Islam, there is no such a thing as an institution that plays this role of intermediary between God and the believer on Earth. The result is that no institution has an authority over muslims, any interpretation is subject to the individual himself, more democratic in some way and the religion does not change over time. However, there is an issue because the interpretation can differ from one person to another and it can be dangerous when you have ill-intentioned individuals using them to back up any crazy acts and middle aged tradition with a verse... Acts done by terrorists and traditions in countries in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia show this.

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(05-23-2017 08:49 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  I am with Kavi on this one. Religions are a superstitious vestigial organ that needs to be surgically removed before humankind can evolve further.

That surgical procedure has been attempted a few times already, old boy. Hasn't been successful in any case.

They tried it during the French Revolution. It was officially atheist and had a grand old time ransacking Church possessions in France. They killed twenty to forty thousand of their own people - mostly middle class merchants and lower class peasants who had no more to do with Louis XVI's reign than you or I would have had to do with the reign of Hilary Clinton. The book/play/film Les Miserables is set in the aftermath of complete economic and societal destruction that resulted from the Revolution.

They also tried a couple of Great Resets in Cambodia under Pol Pot, Russia under Stalin, and China under Mao. I think Stalin won that competition, he killed about forty million of his own people in an officially atheist regime.

Nater Wrote:Christianity and Islam share a lot in common, many people will not acknowledge that because of the time we live in but both believe in the same God and in both religions Jesus plays an important role although Muslims don't believe in the concept of trinity but regard Jesus as a prophet nonetheless.

In my opinion, the most important difference between both religions is that in Christianity you have an institution that acts as an intermediary between God and the believers on Earth, the Church. The Church allows Christianity to be more progressive in some ways, whatever the Church said is what the believer does, all the interpretation are done by the Church... Also the Church can decide to allow some practices that are deemed no longer acceptable in the current society, an example that shows this is head scarfs in the church which were worn by all women but slowly started being tolerated inside the Church. In Islam, there is no such a thing as an institution that plays this role of intermediary between God and the believer on Earth. The result is that no institution has an authority over muslims, any interpretation is subject to the individual himself, more democratic in some way and the religion does not change over time. However, there is an issue because the interpretation can differ from one person to another and it can be dangerous when you have ill-intentioned individuals using them to back up any crazy acts and middle aged tradition with a verse... Acts done by terrorists and traditions in countries in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia show this.

Bullshit.

You appear to be a Muslim, and not terribly well-versed on either Christianity or Islam at large.

The Catholic Church holds that Jesus, being God, authorised one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. While it has sets of beliefs it requires its adherents to hold, it does not presume to stand as an intermediary between God and human beings. That is the role that Jesus Christ has.

Leaving that aside, a large chunk of Christianity -- grouped under the term "Protestantism" -- doesn't hold to that view. They do not hold that the Catholic Church has any authority over their personal relationships to God, and for some reason the vast majority of Protestants on God's green earth somehow get through their days without blowing themselves up with nail bombs (let alone Catholics, one might add).

Still, that's probably because unlike Islam, Christianity went through this thing called a Reformation roughly five hundred years ago, in which the religion at large also decided it probably wasn't a good idea to burn heretics at the stake, or behead them. And for the past five centuries or so it's been in essentially a co-evolutionary spiral with Western democracy.

Compare that to Islam, where the last big split in the religion was roughly ten seconds after Muhammad carked it and his followers started killing each other over whether they or Teh Prophet's immediate family were to inherit his power. Or, as we call it these days: the Sunni/Shia division, the primary driver of religious war within Islam until they decided it would be cooler to start killing Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs instead.

Christianity and Islam do not have anything in common at root. Christianity holds that Jesus Christ was the one and only Son of God, God himself that is. Show me a Muslim who's willing to believe that and I'll show you a guy who's due for beheading if he lives anywhere in the Middle East. That would include Afghanistan, by the way. As Dan Simmons puts it...

https://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_05.htm

Quote:While the April 2006 Message was posted on my web site, the world was treated to an interesting ongoing set piece showing the attitudes and power of "moderate Muslims."

In February of this year, because of a custody dispute over his daughters, the family of Afghan citizen Abdul Rahman reported him to the police. His crime? He had secretly converted to Christianity some years before. The police investigated, found that he had a Bible in his possession, and arrested him. (It is, of course, also against the law—and punishable in some cases by death—to possess a Christian or Jewish Bible in such nations as Saudi Arabia.)

What made this case unusual (and visible to the world) was the fact that Afghanistan, in its modern incarnation after the defeat of the Taliban, is the only Islamic state with a constitution that guarantees "freedom of religion" in any way.

Specifically, that constitution stipulates that Afghanistan "shall abide" by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights—which states that "everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief."

Except, of course, it does not. Since the constitution also defines Afghanistan as an "Islamic Republic," all crimes such as apostasy must be tried and punished under the Hanafi school of jursiprudence adhered to by the nation’s Sunni majority. Under Hanafi law, there is only one punishment for proven cases of apostasy—death.

Wikipedia reports the rest of the story—

Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Abdul Rahman, calling him a "microbe." Prosecutor Abdul Wasi demanded his repentance and called him a traitor: "He should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed." The Afghan Attorney General was quoted as saying that Abdul Rahman should be hanged.

Abdul Rahman’s judicial proceedings, which began on March 16 and became widely known in the international press on March 19, were overseen by three judges in the public security tribunal of Kabul’s primary court. Ansarullah Mawlawizadah, the chief judge in the case, said that Abdul Rahman would be asked to reconsider his conversion: "We will invite him again because the religion of Islam is one of tolerance. We will ask him if he has changed his mind. If so we will forgive him." The judge further noted that "The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back" and that even while this is so, "Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told [Abdul Rahman] if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him." The judge added more: "If [he] does not repent, you will all be witness to the sort of punishment he will face."

When facing a possible death sentence, Abdul Rahman held firm to his convictions: "They want to sentence me to death and I accept it...I am a Christian, which means I believe in the Trinity...I believe in Jesus Christ."

After his arrest, authorities barred attempts by the Associated Press news agency to see him, and he was unable to find a lawyer in Kabul willing to represent him.

There followed an international outcry with even the Pope asking for mercy for the condemned man (condemned by Islamic religious law even before the trial began), but to no avail.

Since constitutional Afghanistan and its freely elected government under President Karzai are perhaps the only bright spots in the Bush Administration’s War on Terror, the U.S. State Department pulled every string it had available to find some compromise before Rahman was found guilty and executed. For some weeks, the most hopeful sign was that the courts would find Abdul Rahman insane—and indeed, what kind of person other than a madman would admit to his Christianity in an Islamic Republic?—and thus release him.

But the Islamic clerics of Afghanistan—including many who are repeatedly referred to in the Western press as "moderate clerics"—would have none of that.

As Wikipedia continues the story—

After Abdul Rahman’s arrest and the subsequent outrage and criticism of the Afghan government, notable Afghan clerics spoke out against his possible release. Afghan clerics have denounced what they assert is interference by other countries and by President Karzai with the autonomy of the Afghan courts. Maulavi Habibullah told more than a thousand clerics and young people gathered in Kabul that "Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws. The prophet says, when somebody changes religion, he must be killed."Many clerics have spoken out to the media saying that Abdul Rahman should receive the death penalty for apostasy.

Cleric Enayatullah Baligh, speaking at one of Kabul’s main mosques said, "We respect all religions but we don’t go into the British embassy or the American embassy to see what religion they are following. We won’t let anyone interfere with our religion and he should be punished."

Ahmad Shah Zai, a prominent mujahideen leader and head of the Hizb-i-Iqtadar-i-Islami Afghanistan, and former acting prime minister in the government of Burhanuddi Rabbani before the Taliban came to power in 1996, said, "Regardless of the court decision [whether or not he is hanged], there is unanimous agreement by all religious scholars from the north to the south, the east to the west of Afghanistan, that Abdul Rahman should be executed. There is widespread dissent among the masses against the activities of Christian missionaries. These missions exploit the poverty of Afghan people and they pay them to convert. These activities will only translate into fierce reaction as Afghans do not tolerate anything against their religion. Since Abdul Rahman comes from Paktia, people of the area are coming down to Kabul to show their dissent against him and demand that the court execute him."

Muslim cleric Abdul Raouf, a member of Afghanistan’s main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, stated "Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die." Raoulf, who is described by the AP as "moderate", is quoted as saying: "Cut off his head!" and "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left." Raoulf said Abdul Rahman will only survive if he goes into exile. During his sermon at Herati Mosque on March 24, 2006, Raoulf told around 150 worshippers that Abdul Rahman deserved death since he had "committed the greatest sin. God’s way is the right way, and this man whose name is Abdul Rahman is an apostate."

Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, said "If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can too," he said. "We must set an example…He must be hanged." Nasri’s comments highlight what clerics view as another problem that could arise if Abdul Rhaman is set free, namely, the possibility that those who claim to have converted to Christianity from Islam could gain asylum in other countries.

Respected Muslim cleric Mohammed Qasim who resides in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, said: "We don’t care if the West drops its support for us. God will look after Afghanistan."

It should be noted that imam Abdul Radouf quoted above—considered the most "moderate cleric" in Afghanistan—was the one urging his followers in the central mosque of Kabul to cut off Abdul Raman’s head and then "pull him to pieces" no matter what the verdict or technical decision of the courts might be.

We all know the denouement of this little drama—the courts temporarily releasing Abdul Rahman, sans verdict, under great pressure from the United States, so the madman could be whisked away to Italy to receive asylum there.

As for moral equivalency arguments, again I'll defer to Dan from the same article:

Quote:In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lector tips off young FBI agent trainee Clarisse Starling (Jodie Foster) on how to find the serial killer Buffalo Bill ("he likes to skin his humps") by whispering to Starling—"What do we covet most, Agent Starling? We covet that with which we are familiar. We covet that which we see." And indeed, the murderer had lived next door to his first victim.

In our more prosaic intellectual life, we tend to hate and attack first that with which we are most familiar.

When the topic in the April Message was the great danger of the Universal Will to Believe as focused in a fantasy-ideology, a transformative belief that will—must—use other human beings as mere props in their transformative fantasies, dozens of people responded with near-rabid attacks on Christianity.

The impulse is common…but it is also puerile and calumnious.

Sam Harris’s purpose in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is to spare no fantasy-ideology, to excuse no faith revealed by Holy Books or revelation…he states quite baldly that the time for allowing large groups to make extraordinary claims on the nature of reality without putting forth extraordinary evidence is over, that groups’ permission to base their ideological or religious lives on fantasy and claims to divine authority can no longer be acceptable to a planet that must return to some foundation of reason if we are to surive. Such fantasy-ideology or fantasy-religion claims must not be the last word on behavior in a time of easily obtained nuclear bombs, homegrown bioweapons, and other weapons of mass destruction. Minimal planetary and species’ hygiene demands that we outgrow our primitive addiction to transformative beliefs and magic, no matter how pleasing and empowering such Universal Will to Believe has been over the course of our species’ sad history.

But to compare 21st Century Christianity around the world to the realities of radical and militant Islam, as dozens did on our forum and elsewhere, or to compare President George W. Bush to Iran’s President Ahmadenijad—to say that "Bush is worse" because of his Christian faith—is insane.

Even while saying that the time for religious fundamentalism is over everywhere, that it is a luxury we can no longer afford, Sam Harris acknowledges that Christianity has so incorporated tolerance into its faith and practice that the religion has become almost synonymous with tolerance. Perhaps more importantly, Christianity and humanist Enlightenment have been in a long, co-evolutionary spiral for so many centuries now that in most cases in Christian and post-Christian societies and in their institutions—science, free press, the courts, education systems, political systems—the secular and the religious remain essentially separate yet supportive.

Christianity remains a "transformative belief," but the transformation—as in the case of President George W. Bush, so frequently mocked by the sophisticated—is a private and internal transformation. It tends to breed more tolerance, not less. And I’ve been informed on good authority that even the strongest transformational-belief element in Christian theology required the blood of only one martyr—and that he was crucified long ago.

In America, still a "Protestant Christian nation" in a way that brings down the scorn and contempt of so many citizens of post-Christian Europe, even the most fundamentalist or evangelical Christian lives and works in a modern, scientific, secular society with little conflict. A born-again Christian not only can be a lawyer in perfectly secular courts, take his or her entertainment from secular sources, spend his workdays and social evenings comfortably with people from other (or no) faiths, and can marry outside the faith, but also can work as a NASA scientist or help others as a social worker or vote for politicians of other (or no) faiths without fear of losing his soul.

Those who equate Christian fundamentalism with Islamic fundamentalism choose to ignore that when a tsunami hits Indonesia or an earthquake ravages Muslim Pakistan, it is Christian charities that are often the first to respond. And no one need convert or submit to proselytizing to receive such help. And unlike Hamas or Hezbollah, which also include charities among their lists of organizations, Christian churches and relief agencies do not fund or carry out terrorism. Helping others, not jihad or suicide bombing, is hardwired into all modern Christian thought.

There is no reason that most of you reading this should have read my stories and novels, nor that you should know my stand on religion, but for the latter I could quote John Updike in "The Music School" when a character says—"I am neither musical nor religious. Each moment I live I must press my fingers down without confidence of hearing a chord."

To state it more simply when it comes to religion—or the belief in supernatural in any form—I agree with Groucho Marx and Woody Allen when they say, "I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member."

As for my writing, most of you reading this wouldn’t know that in my concern about UWTB fantasy-ideologies gaining temporal power, I have almost always followed the Hannibal Lector Dictum and focused on Christianity as the possible villain in my speculative fiction scenarios, ranging from such little-known short works as "Vexed to Nightmare by a Rocking Cradle" to "Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell" to longer forms of exploring concerns about an institution like the Catholic Church controlling literal resurrection—and thus all of us—in my Hyperion and Endymion novels.

But for all that caution—in my fiction and in my philosophy—I know that to equate modern Christianity to the worldwide violence arising in and around modern Islam is not only unfair but pathological. It is carrying the game of "moral equivalence" to immoral lengths of absurdity.

Finally, to equate America’s President Bush to Iran’s President Ahmadenijad—an extreme Muslim fantasy-transformative Mahdi fundamentalist who, in recent months, has denied the existence of the Holocaust, called for the destruction of Israel by nuclear fire, threatened Europe and the West with annihilation, and promised to give nuclear technology to the Islamist government of Sudan (which is currently carrying out a policy of genocide against the weakest non-Muslim citizens in its country)—is simply nuts.

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I would say Judaism and Islam are two sides of the same coin. Both are hell bent on ruling the world.

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(05-23-2017 06:30 PM)kavi Wrote:  

(05-08-2017 09:29 PM)Robert Rule Wrote:  Ive fell a few times and was lukewarm, but I keep coming back to Christ. The struggles of being poor and in difficult situations strengthened my trust in god. And he showed me I can only have joy and life through him.
Im on my own, just me and god, and he will judge me for my actions and my heart. So I'm staying pure before god and living my life for him.
It's difficult to not pursue sex, or comfort. Too not give up and be lukewarm.
I cant, ive had the joy, and peace of the lords fruit. My life will be to leave everything and live my life for god. This is not my home.

This is a post from another thread. Change the world God above and replace with Allah. Still works right? Now imagine our Manchester suicide bomber saying this before the act. Still works doesnt it. Look at the last line, how does that not sound like the last words of a suicide bomber.

Because Robert Rule expresses a desire to live his life for God. Not end it, which is what an Islamist suicide bomber does -- by definition. That's kind of a rather important quote from Jesus: "I came that you might have life, and have it to the full."

As I've said elsewhere: a fundamentalist Christian, following the literal words of Christ as expressed in the New Testament, is more likely than not to end up with an existence looking a lot like that of Francis of Assisi: no earthly possessions, giving all he has to the poor, praying to God, loving his neighbour as he would himself.

As we have seen even today, a fundamentalist Muslim, following the literal words of Mohammed as expressed by the Quran, is likely to end up killing a lot of people and then himself in the process ... with the option of having raping women "gained by his right hand", i.e. captured in battle.

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Quote:Christianity and Islam share a lot in common, many people will not acknowledge that because of the time we live in but both believe in the same God and in both religions Jesus plays an important role although Muslims don't believe in the concept of trinity but regard Jesus as a prophet nonetheless.

This really depends on what you mean by "God." If your conception of God is one traced backwards via a literal interpretation of religious scriptures, then you might be right. But a rote trace like that is not particularly meaningful. What matters is how faith translates into behavior.

A more useful conception of God is one derived from an analysis of how faith motivates behavior. I believe this is known as a Jungian interpretation.

You may have heard the phrase "watch what women do, don't listen to what they say" It's the same idea. Imagine you were a cultural anthropologist analyzing the "Manosphere" circa 2010-2015. You would find men making literal references to a mythological creature called the Rationalization Hamster, a supernatural being that possesses women and motivates their behavior. Does it mean that these men actually believe women have a literal hamster inside of them? Of course not, it's an abstraction of psychological phenomena. Using that abstraction to improve a man's game is a form of faith. Men act as if they believe it, even if their rational minds know the metaphor is imperfect and scientifically absurd, because it gets results. Observing all this, you could trace the concept of the rationalization hamster to the popular Manosphere blogs (I think Heartiste used it first).

The manosphere was not a religion. But the analytical process to derive a conception of God from a religion is similar. Instead of studying a small population over a 5 year period interested in one narrow aspect of human behavior, you'd have to cover thousands of years and trace social behavior to the articulated religious beliefs.

In that light, it seems fairly obvious that Jews, Christians, and Muslims do not share the same conception of God.

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Read the Hadiths on what the muslims plan on doing to the Christians and Jews during the "end times" . Jews will be slaughtered, Christians given the opportunity to convert, and if Christians don't convert well, off with ye head.

Like a typical atheist, you've failed at the one thing you think you're good at: intellectual debate. Your lack of curiosity and ability to cite relevant doctrine from either religion is intellectual laziness which will not get you far here.

Again, i challenge you to find doctrine that is similar between the two to make a fair comparison. Until then, get out of here with your laziness.

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OP - Your statements are honestly on autism level.

Christianity is a monotheistic faith just as Islam is, Mohammed copied a lot from Jews and Christians, he transcribed entire stories, ergo it must be very similar. Yeah - about as similar as we are in DNA to the gorilla - 99%.

By that same characteristic Satanism is identical to Christianity.

Let me put this clear: It does not fucking matter in real life whether you believe in a God, Easterbunny or Santaclaus. If that Easterbunny demands the slaughter of unbelievers, the killing of your unruly daughters, the slaughter of dogs, the subjugation of all non-Muslims, the dying in the name of Allah while driving over toddlers - then that religion has nothing in common with any big religion existing.

Belief in a God do not make the similarity, though to the average radical atheist this may be the most important point. Nah - it should be more important that your Muslims would want to kill you while Christians and Buddhists won't care too much. And as you are getting burned alive in Pakistan, you may think back to my words.

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In my experience the levels of sanity in people are usually loosely correlated like this in decreasing order:

Agnostic --> Christian --> Atheist --> Muslim -->Communist

The usual thought pattern of these groups are:

Agnostics - usually value good virtues and despise degeneracy but in the same time don't want to be suckers for any superstition and blind faith.

Christians - value good virtues and despise degeneracy but compromise to follow a superstition and blind faith to better justify these virtues.

Atheists - hate good virtues and love degeneracy therefore verbally attack God as ultimate justification for virtues.

Muslims - value good virtues and despise degeneracy but compromise not only to follow a superstition and blind faith to better justify these virtues but also to violence, lies, slander, brute dishonesty, conscious ignorance and Orwellian doublespeak.

Communists - hate good virtues and love degeneracy therefore verbally attack God as ultimate justification for virtues, but do not stop with mere verbal attacks they also pursue political systems where virtuous living is persecuted by violence, lies, slander, brute dishonesty, conscious ignorance and Orwellian doublespeak.

So yeah there is a huge gap between Christians and Muslims - all the non-commie atheists fill that gap. Every non commie atheist is located between them and therefore is able to recognize that Christianity is levels above Islam like Dawkins for instance who recognized that Christianity is much more tame than Islam although he dislikes both.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-securi...ing-worse/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNv8kvd2H8

But if you are a leftist/commie type atheist then everything else is on the same side of spectrum to you and Christianity and Islam seem the same to you.

This is only an approximate model but I can bet that 80-90% of time it will fit to individuals of that group.

(05-23-2017 06:30 PM)kavi Wrote:  I cannot think of any two religions in the world that are more similar than Christianity and Islam

Judaism and Islam share much more in common than Christianity. Jews can pray in mosques (if Muslims ever allow it) and Muslims can pray in synagogues but both consider churches to be houses of idolatry. Also both Judaists and Muslims consider that God loves the chosen believers but hates unbelievers, who are therefore to be subjugated while no Christian would say that and would say that God loves everybody. Both Judaists and Muslims are supremacist groups, one advises economic subjugation of unbelievers, other advises violent subjugation of unbelievers. One assumes being chosen by God by nationality and other assumes being chosen by belief. Christianity is very different in that it claims that God loves all and in this world there is to be no political domination of unbelievers by believers.

You can listen to Rabbis explaining why Islam and Judaism is closer to each other then Christianity in these videos and many others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjQUSK12tTo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdsVGoGbbqI

Don't forget that Muhammad had much more contact with jews rather than Christians and therefore the influence of Judaism is bigger than Christianity.

Christianity on the other hand has influences from European paganism and therefore is considered idolatrous by Judaism and Islam. Catholicism is like 80% paganism covered in Biblical terms. Later protestantism tried to return to Biblical roots and abandon all pagan influenced tradition, but there is still a lot paganism left.

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(05-23-2017 09:21 PM)LEMONed IScream Wrote:  Can anyone give me an hypothesis that does not involve porn, adrenaline junkies, hypersexuality, made up pronouns? 60 genders? Or 70, excuse my blatant white cishet ignorance shitlordness.

Exactly. It seems that humans have a fundamental need to believe in something greater, whether it's God or communism or feminism or whatever.

The liberal fedora autists who have populated the western world claim to be atheist and yet religiously follow science because, well duh, it's science and it can't have an agenda or be questioned!

It's also the same people who claim that society would be better off without religion (that seemed to work well in Soviet Russia) and that ignore how also parts of science have been developed from a belief in something higher (Astrology/Astronomy, Alchemy/Chemistry, Pythagoreanism/Math) not to mention art (classical music, architechture etc.)
But hey, now we have Pornhub and Bill Nye!

I consider myself agnostic but the more I delve into it the more I believe that there is something spiritual in this world beyond our understanding.

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Relevant. Greatest sermon ever highlighting the differences between the two faiths and the scriptures. If interested in religion, definitely worth two hours of your time.

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(05-24-2017 05:26 PM)Mage Wrote:  Christianity on the other hand has influences from European paganism and therefore is considered idolatrous by Judaism and Islam. Catholicism is like 80% paganism covered in Biblical terms. Later protestantism tried to return to Biblical roots and abandon all pagan influenced tradition, but there is still a lot paganism left.

Please elaborate. Luther's reformation was about grace in Jesus and grace alone will save.

The remaining paganism I see is the virgin birth story and the odd tradition of celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25th.

Fun fact: The wise men were Persian Astrologers who had noticed that there was a grand collection of all of the planets gathering in a single conjunction in Pisces. If you play with a astrological chart of the night sky during that time, you'll notice all of the planets align to that very point. The bible leaving us clues to Jesus' birth date!

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(05-24-2017 08:01 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(05-24-2017 05:26 PM)Mage Wrote:  Christianity on the other hand has influences from European paganism and therefore is considered idolatrous by Judaism and Islam. Catholicism is like 80% paganism covered in Biblical terms. Later protestantism tried to return to Biblical roots and abandon all pagan influenced tradition, but there is still a lot paganism left.

Please elaborate. Luther's reformation was about grace in Jesus and grace alone will save.

Everything from veneration to saints and putting flowers to graves is paganism.

If you didn't knew, Jews put stones on graves, fundamentalist muslims also scorn flowering graves.

Praying for the dead is paganism.

Not only Christmas but also Easter and other major festivities are pagan in origin, way of celebration and date.

Do your own research - this info is widely available.

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If Christianity and Islam are so similar, why are so many Muslims trying to move to Christian majority countries?

Kavi, do you remember this comment you made about the caste system? I think it gives an indication of what we're dealing with here:

(01-27-2017 01:40 AM)WalterBlack Wrote:  

(01-25-2017 04:08 PM)kavi Wrote:  This is what we see in India with the caste system and is why the caste system does not exist in the Punjab.

I'm Punjabi and that's totally incorrect.

Punjabi Hindu Castes

Quote:Most Punjabi Hindus come from Brahmin, Arora, Rajput, Khatri, Agarwal, Bhatia, Chamar, Kumhar, Chhimba, and Saini communities.

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(05-25-2017 04:17 AM)Mage Wrote:  

(05-24-2017 08:01 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(05-24-2017 05:26 PM)Mage Wrote:  Christianity on the other hand has influences from European paganism and therefore is considered idolatrous by Judaism and Islam. Catholicism is like 80% paganism covered in Biblical terms. Later protestantism tried to return to Biblical roots and abandon all pagan influenced tradition, but there is still a lot paganism left.

Please elaborate. Luther's reformation was about grace in Jesus and grace alone will save.

Everything from veneration to saints and putting flowers to graves is paganism.

If you didn't knew, Jews put stones on graves, fundamentalist muslims also scorn flowering graves.

Praying for the dead is paganism.

Not only Christmas but also Easter and other major festivities are pagan in origin, way of celebration and date.

Do your own research - this info is widely available.

I already have hence why I am asking. Saint veneration is strictly a catholic and orthodox thing. In my time in Baptist and Lutheran churches, the only mention is Jesus, the original disciples, and Saint Paul. With that said, i've never said a prayer to any of the saints nor is it asked to be done in any western protestant tradition.

As for religious holidays, I will agree with this especially for Christmas. Hence my own distaste for the Christmas holiday.

Easter on the other hand follows the Jewish holiday for passover. Not sure of the pagan influence here.

Considering Christianity's roots at the height of Roman rule, it makes sense there's some pagan influence in it. Catholicism and the early church's attempts at evangelizing can be blamed for that one.

Praying for the dead is a universal thing that predates roman paganism. Otherwise, why would we find early graves of people with flowers and other trinkets?

Your claim is a loose one. I get where you're coming from, but the influence isn't as strong as you might think especially in protestant church communities.

If we want to talk about pagan symbolism, let's talk about Islam and their selection of the crescent moon and star!

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Pagan Origins of Easter

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