Which religion is more aggressive in historical perspective?

Islam didnt take over the whole of the americas, most of africa and huge parts of aisa. Christianity. Salididn was fighting a defensive war. That's not so say i support hte theocracies that run some islamic ocuntires.

Religon is ultimatley jsut a tool of the ruling class.

 

The crusades were defensive because the holy land was originally christian and got conquered by islam.
So the muslims conquer the holy land ,the christians try to re-conquer it as a response to jihad and then saladin re-conquers it for islam.

all the films and written about this period seem to miss out jihad and paint the crusades as offensive which is very poor history .

historically both religions are pretty ropey but the negitive aspects of islams history are being much more covered over .

I would say islam is more aggressive especially in the person of the founder although the old testament is very violent jesus is so non violent that he forgive the people that killed him .

mohammed on the other hand ethnically cleaned lots of people, led aggresive armys and taught the idea of jihad which is offensive war to spread the religion .

whether their distant followers that came long after them were more violent is interesting, but I think its more important to look at the behavior of the founders

 

I agree with Johnny. Both religions are agressive but Islam gets whitewashed more than christianity does. I will also go haead and say that most of the agressive natrure of christianity is not in the scriptures, which left it more room for reform. However, a lot of the agressibe nature of islam is in its scripture, therefor the reform of islam has proceeded at a much slower pace than that of christianity. And perhaps it is also true that it is much more offensive (to a muslim) to call Islam a violent religion because the offense hits them right where it hurts.

And also worth mentionining is the fact that "agressive" and "evil" are two different things. Some aspects of other religions were evil but not agressive, like the hindu caste system.

 

Christianity, but they've had more time to practise.

I don't recall Muslims sailing off to distant lands to claim it for their own just because they think / pretend to think god says they should take it (MANIFEST DESTINY, anyone?), erasing whole cultures in the process (yet?).

I can't tell very accurately of course since I don't belong to Islamic culture and don't possess 'inside information' from there. This may also have guided my dislike towards religion in an anti-christian more than anti-islamic direction.

 

In the bible, god commanded the slaughter of citiesful of innocents (including pregnant women, elderly and children and, best of all, keeping the young virgins for themselves) by the hands of the Israelites. I may be wrong, but I'm not aware of any parallels within the Koran.

Even Jesus said 'but those mine enemies, that would not that I reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me', as well as 'I come not to bring peace, but a sword'.

The reform of the Islam is right on schedule. It must be their fourteenth or fifteenth century now... do you remember the fourteenth century of christianity in Europe? Inquisition, paranoia, denial of common sense, public executions of those than don't fit the perfect picture... seems to me they're not behind.

 

greater numbers of people were killed in the islamic invasion of india for example than happened in the conquest of america .
There are books on the subject but you need to do a bit of digging to find them , on the other hand its very easy to find books and films on things christians have done .

the islamic world is in total denial , you have very rich people who will pay for flim flam where islams very bloody history is whitewashed .

take the recent kingdom of heaven film about the crusades the muslims were portrayed as being peaceful victims of bloodthirsty christians .

if the hundreds of years of jihad, persecution of minoritys, slavery had been mentioned there would have likely been death threats, riots, boycotts of the film studio .

so they give a false view of history .

Islam as done a wonderful job of erasing cultures if you look at what happened to the buddhist statues and the national museum of afghanistan ,that took place all over what is now the islamic world .

when you become a muslim you will notice that people take arabic names dress in arabic dress take on a new legal system seperate men and women, this changes cultures .

in a islamic state if you were not a muslim, if you were a christian or a jew you could become a dhimmi which is a secondclass citizen that lives in a sort of aparthied paying protection money to muslims , everything was set up so you would convert to islam to improve your miserable lot .
if you were a pagan or a atheist in most branches of islamic law you couldnt be a dhimmi and your options were being made into a slave or death .

"In the bible, god commanded the slaughter of citiesful of innocents (including pregnant women, elderly and children and, best of all, keeping the young virgins for themselves) by the hands of the Israelites. I may be wrong, but I'm not aware of any parallels within the Koran."

there are parrallels in haddith and the koran, you had right hand possession which are women made into sex slaves , you have mohammed himself beheading all the captive men and boys of towns and then handing out the women as sex slaves .

there are examples of mohammed personally torturing people blinding them cutting their hands and feet off and leaving them in a desert to die .

there is the case were a man kills a pregnant women for mohammed and where mohammeds men pull a old lady apart .

both scriptures are pretty nasty

 

The problem is that the "winners" are usually the ones who get to record the history. I'm not sure that "keeping score" on this question is the point. Lots of religions have been involved in some gory stuff, and the fact that one religion might be slightly less bloody than another is not something to boast about.

 

Satanism looks pretty agressive to me....

 

jonny2mad and fuzzywuz you both have right.
My country - Bulgaria - was under turkish domination for 5 centuries. During this period many bulgarian people were killed because of their christion religion. Other were forced to accept the islam. The christians were second class - we paid a special tax like "unbelievers". But the most evil duty was the "blood tax" - every year through violence the turks took a thousands 5-6 years old boys from their families and made them a muslim soldiers.
I can give many information about how the muslim "communicate" with the christians in the Balkan region.

 

sad knight...im so sorry you had to go through that... reading your post made me cry. *hug* *love*

 

PHP:

Okay so history fair is coming up and I need a topic and i was thinking something about hippies. The theme is taking a stand in history. Does anyone have any ideas. I'd really appreciate it if you'd help out

 

Well the hippies are really nice guys and I hope that some hippy will put here its beliefs about the religious agression!

 

I'll start by saying I don't think either religion is evil. I have read both the Qu'ran and the Christian Bible, and I think they are both beautiful religions in their own right.

I think that people misuse their religion and give it a bad name. I also think Christians have misused their religion more over history than Muslims have. Christians have also had more power over a longer period of time. I think people want to look at it as more of about the religions than it is. People don't do bad things because they're Christian, or because they're Muslim. People do bad things because those individuals are power hungry, and religion is an easy excuse. Not a reason.

 

Christianity without a doubt.


It is a great legacy of fear, ignorance and hatred that continues to this day in the Church that more liberal Christians must contend with every day.

 

Well on the aggressive part, I'mma have to say Ásatrú!

Norse mythology!! Arrgh

But if I have to choose between these two, I'm really not sure...

 

Islam. It spawns virtually all the world religious terrorists.

 

Occam, I did not expect this kind of answer from a learned person like you, any fresh born historian knows that islam has had a much more tolerant history and this is -without a doubt- a fact(we are not talking about the current affairs of some muslims which in comparance with christianity is like a drop in a sea).

The christians in Jerusalem acually prefered having a muslim goverment controlling their land rather than their christian roman brothers. With islam they had their freedome of religion and their churches intact. The muslims made a treaty with them which meant that they were under the protectiveness of the muslim army.
Theres a famous story from Umar(the second caliph, one of the companions of the prophet) when he reached Jerusalem and he held a speech were he promised the christians that none of their churches would be destroyed nor would any muslim force them to convert by sword nor would he subject them to injustice(from the verse "Let there be no compulsion in religion".K 2.255 )

The first order he issued was to clean the jews holy place from the garbage which the christians had poured over in order to scorn them. The christian liked him so much for his humbleness and uprightness as a leader that they acually invited him to pray in their big church but he denied saying that he was afraid that the later muslims would take that as an argument for taking over the church and making it into a mosque.

Jews were after a awhile allowed in into jerusalem were the christians had expelled them from and they lived there with their religions under muslim rule. What happened when the christians later took over Jerusalem again? They killed and started a gigantic massacre of muslims, killing loads of innocent children and women and even when Saladin recaptured the city, the christians were not subjected to revenge and were treated in the same matter as before because Allah(may he be exalted) says: O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.(5.8)

This picture was the same in Syria and I my self have during my visit in Damascus seen churches dating back hundreds of years still existing! This is the same in Egypt, the treaty that the famous companion Khalid wrote shows this:
"This is what Khalid ibn al-Walid would grant to the inhabitants of Damascus if he enters therein: he promises to give them security for their lives, property and churches. Their city wall shall not be demolished, neither shall any Muslim be quartered in their houses. Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His Prophet, the caliphs and the believers. So long as they pay the poll tax, nothing but good shall befall them"
They payed the poll tax in order to be protected and if the muslims would fail to protect them, they would return their money to them!

The christians way was NOT the same as many as you claim, where is the 10 000 mosques built in Spain? They made them all into churches, they massacred muslims who had lived in PEACE with them(and jews, they acually migrated to muslim lands to find freedome of religion) in Spain for 700 years!!!
They expelled the jews who fled to Marocko and Tunis were they could practise their religion without being burned on stake.

Why do you -Occam- think that the rise of science arose in muslim countries instead of christians? Is it not true that muslim made important contributations in fields like astronomy and physics? Is it not true that chemistry was even started by muslims, that Algebra system is based on a verse of the Quran and was started by a muslim scholar? That universities are a muslim invention, that hospitals and pharmacies were started by muslims?(the whole concept of modern medicine was started by ibn nafis for crying out loud) That they kept and translated greek scriptures and stored them in gigantic libraries, why did this and several other things started in the muslim world? The answer is simply, the muslim tolerated this while christians called scientists deviators and killed them and tortured them.

So please, read your history people (there is no way on earth that christianity has had a history like islam) , islam came with a tolerance 1400 years ago which the westerns just recently started (without any christians help btw but from people like David Humprhey and John Lock).

 

Cabdirazzaq, I see that you have some information about the history. Now please let me improve your knowledges with another one, which you didn't learn in your muslim books!
The islam (like the christianity) is peacefull religion but in practice (aslo like the christianity) has many distortions! Maybe you don't know but the "prophet" killed a lot of arabian people who didn't want to accept the Islam. Maybe you think that the muslims were too tolerant to the Jews. Yes, the muslims gave a shelter of the jews but also of their money But the usual behavior against the christian people was terrible! I'll give you only one exaple and I believe it's enough to stop with the fairy tales about the muslim toleration. When my country Bulgaria was under muslim domination the muslim government every year took with sword fairly 5 000 little boys from their families to make them "a soldiers of Allah". The name of this army was "yenichari" (from the turks words for "new army"). The name of that evil deed was "a blood tax". That practice continued for 400 years! Can you count haw much bulgarian boys were converted through violence in muslims? The same situation happened in other christian countries: Greece, Romania, Serbia etc. Is this the toleration of the Islam?

And yes, I agree that in the past the muslim countries had important discoveries in the medicine, literature and poetry, astronomy etc. But all of these sciences, including the pharmacies, were started in the antiquity - for examle, Hipocratis put the basis of the medicine, the Shumers - of the astronomy etc. The christians also accepted many idesa from the ancient world like you! But with the time the muslim culture became more conservative and closed for the new. Yes, you had a big labraries but now you hate Salman Rushdi because the fanatic muslims don't like the controversial opinion. Today everything around you (material and no material) is created by the people of the christian civilization: cars, computers, phones, many philosofical and political ideas ...
Se you have right - read the history!!!

 

Religion is as evil or as benevolent as the institution that gets its hands on it. Since the nature of politics is essentially self-preservation of the ruling party, benevolence is rare.

Although Christianity has been tamed by the centuries, don't forget that it is still being USED in it's most pentecostal forms to win elections in the US. Yes... all those mega-churches you see on TV - not to hard for a politician to say, "Oh yes... I believe in those things too.... God as my witness."

Now this poorly stated example may not be the outright ultra-violence of Jihad... but frankly, blowing yourself up for allah seems honest comparatively. Christianity doesn't do violence anymore... instead, we do what we've really been good at all along... subversion and self dellusion.

 

Given that both religions have been proffessed by so many people in so many cultures through so many lifetimes, I do not find it surprising to hear that some of the most horrible things imaginable have been done in the name of either religion in certain times and places - and that some of the most wonderful things imaginable have been done in the name of both religions in other times and places.