Medieval History

» thesnowleopard - Christianity

In response to Christianity posted by BrianTubbs:
Let's not, since Islam did not come into existence until a good six centuries after the "primitive", apostolic New Testament Christianity that you apparently want to set up versus a straw-man Islam. If you want to compare Islam to Christianity, then to avoid being anachronistic, you must compare Islam to what Christianity was like when Islam came into existence--which is definitely post-Constantine and definitely problematical in the terms you want to compare. And definitely not monolithic. Nice try, though.

Christians had been making war on both pagans and each other for centuries before Islam came along. It is therefore a logical fallacy to compare pacifistic, non-nationalistic, apostolic early Christianity with early Islam. The two never coexisted.

Second, you keep comparing Muhammad to Christ. Please stop as this is grossly sacrilegious to a Muslim (especially considering that we're at the end of Ramadan). While Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, they naturally do not revere him as the Son of God. Even if they believed in a Son of God, it would never be Muhammad. Muhammad is in no way comparable to God in Islam--he is "just" the final prophet. He may be the Perfect Man to many Muslims, but he is still only human.

If you want to accuse Muslims of violence endemic to their religion (always a dodgy idea with any religion that boasts a billion adherents, imho), you should look at how they perceive God. But watch your step, since you'll also have to show why Christianity is not inherently violent even though Christians still revere the Old Testament, which frequently portrays God in such a vengeful way that it makes Allah truly look kind and merciful.

As for the "canonized" Bible--in what language? There have been many canonizations of the Bible through the ages. We don't follow every one of them today.

-- posted by thesnowleopard