Medieval History

» Brian Tubbs - Christianity and Islam

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.

I am not setting up anything as a straw man. I'm simply comparing foundations - the foundation of Islam as opposed to the foundation of Christianity. This is a valid comparison.

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.

I disagree with these parameters, since my objective - I being the initiator of this discussion - was to contrast the foundations of the two religions. But, since you wish to compare the conduct of the two organizations during the Middle Ages....well....then, okay. But the terms of the discussion change dramatically.

With that in mind, I would say that both Islam and Christianity were organizationally corrupted by human beings -- and both, in their own way, inflicted great pain on the world.

But...this does not speak to the truth claims of each respective faith. For that, it's helpful to look at their comparative creeds and foundations.