Philosophy Discussion Forums

Whenever I asserts Islam has loads of evil elements in its holy texts, the usual counter is 'What about the Bible' which is worst.

Here is an explanation on the position in terms of the undeniable loads of evil elements in the OT, BUT..;

Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?
By: Raymond Ibrahim
...
Old Testament violence is an interesting case in point. God clearly ordered the Hebrews to annihilate the Canaanites and surrounding peoples. Such violence is therefore an expression of God's will, for good or ill. Regardless, all the historic violence committed by the Hebrews and recorded in the Old Testament is just that—history. It happened; God commanded it. But it revolved around a specific time and place and was directed against a specific people. At no time did such violence go on to become standardized or codified into Jewish law. In short, biblical accounts of violence are descriptive, not prescriptive.

This is where Islamic violence is unique. Though similar to the violence of the Old Testament—commanded by God and manifested in history—certain aspects of Islamic violence and intolerance have become standardized in Islamic law and apply at all times. Thus, while the violence found in the Qur'an has a historical context, its ultimate significance is theological.

....

In fact, far from suggesting anything intrinsic to Christianity, the Crusades ironically better help explain Islam. For what the Crusades demonstrated once and for all is that irrespective of religious teachings—indeed, in the case of these so-called Christian Crusades, despite them—man is often predisposed to violence. But this begs the question: If this is how Christians behaved—who are commanded to love, bless, and do good to their enemies who hate, curse, and persecute them—how much more can be expected of Muslims who, while sharing the same violent tendencies, are further commanded by the Deity to attack, kill, and plunder nonbelievers?

Read full article at;
http://www.meforum.org/2159/are-judaism ... t-as-islam

Agree?
Views?

Spectrum I was thinking to myself who has the most unreasonable views. You or Dark Matter. I find DMs views crazier but more reasonable. After all there are many good reasons to believe in a deity ( note there are no good reasons to believe a deity exists). But what good reason is there to believe Islam is both made up and immutable ( by power of God) and then hold Muslims to your personal interpretation while claiming yours is the one true interpretation (that is a mystical claim).

Eduk wrote: ↑March 7th, 2018, 4:44 am Spectrum I was thinking to myself who has the most unreasonable views. You or Dark Matter. I find DMs views crazier but more reasonable. After all there are many good reasons to believe in a deity ( note there are no good reasons to believe a deity exists). But what good reason is there to believe Islam is both made up and immutable ( by power of God) and then hold Muslims to your personal interpretation while claiming yours is the one true interpretation (that is a mystical claim).

Fanman posed a similar question;

Fanman wrote: What about the positive aspects of theism? Should we just ignore them as though there aren't any?

I have NOT denied nor ignored the positives from religion.
Note my signature below in anticipation of your question - religion is a critical necessity for the majority at the present. At present there is a net-pro over cons but I believe [as justified elsewhere] the trend is the cons are outweighing the pros towards the future.

Note his trend;



which is critical since there is also a trend of the increasing easy availability of nukes and the Islamists has a lot of oil money. Also note despite the preventive measure, North Korea managed to slip through to be a nuclear nation. There is also a widening black market to get cheap WMDs.
The cocking of the trigger is Islamists are in a win-win position because MAD will not deter them as even if the Earth is destroyed totally, ultimately they will end up in paradise with eternal life [for some with 72 virgins].

The difference is while DM and other theists cling to theism for their personal selfish reason to deal with their internal inherent unavoidable existential crisis, I have a concern for the existing real threat against humanity at present and in the future.

I understand theists like DM who are into panentheism and many others posed no problem/threat to humanity, the only effective way to deal with the evils and violence is we need to deal with theism-as-a-whole and not the individual theistic beliefs.
Since there are already existing non-theists who handle the same existential problem without a God based on evil-free ideology, people like DM [not DM] can easily shift to similar non-theistic evil-free ideology.

This has probably been done to death elsewhere, but:

If I was Christian or Jewish one thing that might trouble me would be that I've been taught that God is immutable. He does not change His mind. So if (as expressed in the OT) He once thought violence by His tribe against a rival tribe was a good idea, he must still think it.

Steve if you were a Christian it is highly unlikely, in my opinion, that you would draw that conclusion. I'm not saying your conclusion doesn't make sense but I am saying that one illogical belief can lead to another. So I suspect you would be not be for generic tribal violence now or if you were a Christian. In effect I am saying your belief in God wouldn't make much, if any, difference.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑March 7th, 2018, 6:14 am This has probably been done to death elsewhere, but:

If I was Christian or Jewish one thing that might trouble me would be that I've been taught that God is immutable. He does not change His mind. So if (as expressed in the OT) He once thought violence by His tribe against a rival tribe was a good idea, he must still think it.

Despite the issue being raised to death and countered, the question of 'What about the Bible' is always raised when one discussed the very obvious evils and violence of Islam. Thus the need for continual refresher of the issue.

Within the Quran, it is specifically stated the words [in Arabic] of Allah in the Quran are immutable, i.e. cannot be changed because the Quran was perfected by Allah [5:3]. Thus the Quran-proper at present is the verbatim words delivered to Muhammad and coming out of his mouth in the period 610-632AD.

There are no similar commands in the Bible [?].
True, whatever words God state must be immutable.
What I understand is God in the Bible focus on the principles rather than the specific words.
In this case the principles are immutable not the words.
This is why the Christians do not focus their attention on the words spoken by Jesus or Moses. In any case, it is not practical to enforce what Jesus or Moses really said from their mouths.

Your title is misleading. A better one would be: Which religion's canonistic texts contain or espouse the most violence?

OT Judaism and Vatican Christianity of the Holy Roman Empire are not so different.