Feb 6, 2014

The Differences & Commonalities Between Muslim & Christian Religious Fundamentalism


There is allot of confusion between Islam and Christianity because Islamists assume the Christians follow thier scripture exactly and because Christians don't understand what having life dictated by scripture rather than a collection of endorsed beliefs is like.

To a Muslim the Quran is the word of God so religious tolerance (i.e. tolerance for other peoples beliefs that are not outright insulting the Muslims beliefs) is actually easy because once you say that 'the Quran says this' if it is written there it is 'written' and that is that. For example to protect your religion all you have to do is quote these verses to a Islamic Religious Scholar (not a mob... you can't talk to a mob of any religion, for example; the Salem witch hunts).:

 "There is no compulsion in religion" (Quran 2:256)


Surah Al-Ma'idah verse 48 states:
If Allah so willed, he would have made you a single People, but his plan is to test each of you separately, in what He has given to each of you: so strive in all virtues as in you are in a race. The goal of all of you is to Allah. It is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute. (The Quran 5:48)
Surah Al-Ankabut verse 46 states:
And dispute not with the People of the Book, except with means better than mere disputation, unless I be with those of them who inflict wrong and injury, but say to them: "We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; Our God and your God is one; and it is to Him that we bow." (The Quran 29:46) {Note: People of the book are Jews and Christian AT THE VERY MINIMUM}

By seeking to make the Muslims world stable, the US over-engaged itself in that region (mostly due to the cold war) and managed to make the one clause in the Quran viable i.e. 'if a Muslim is oppressed he is commanded to fight back till they are no longer oppressed' and although some reasons for fighting against 'western oppressors' lack logic this lack of sanity is even more common in the West as the right in the US has proven beyond a doubt the difference is simply that there is no RELIGIOUS persecution as the Muslims reason for fighting, i.e. the Muslims would like to convert others to Christianity, especially when they see missionaries constantly babbling at them, but they won't make it thier life's mission because that's not allowed... but if they OR any of thier fellow Muslims are attacked THEN they are allowed to defend themselves. A Christian will always say, 'well, we are more evolved of a religion cause Jesus said Turn Thy Cheek' that's a silly assertion as Genocide is actually a more common occurrence amougnst the Christians and except for the early Christians who really did 'Turn thy check' as Jesus commanded and were thrown to the lions I don't think any Christian Nation on the world stage has EVER done such a thing. Constantine literally used Christian symbolism to give credibility to his Empire and during the Dark Ages the Pope started a Crusade long after the Muslims assault was over. So while Muslim leaders may have been as cruel as Christian one, outright extermination of people with other beliefs is a more Christian tradition than a Muslim one so when Christian think Muslims are persecuting them for thier faith they are really just imagining the Muslims are like them which is a fallacy.

Why this dichotomy? I has to do with the Christians lack of belief in thier scripture. While a Muslim follows scripture a Christian follows thier leader that's why they emphasize being a 'flock of sheep' cause that's how they have historically been taught to function. When you ask 'why it is OK to eat Pork or get tattoos or weave two types of cloths together which is forbidden in the book of Leviticus' he/she gets a reply 'because Jesus came and abrogated past laws' ...

but when you ask 'so why do you persecute gays when that's also in the Book of Leviticus AND Jesus said nothing about gays especially when you aren't following the other laws of the Book of Leviticus' you draw a blank. The question simply doesn't penetrate. To a Muslim this is very confusing as they follow scripture so they think the Christians scripture has been corrupted and they have gone made when in reality the answer is simpler than that... Christian NEVER read thier scripture. Is is read for them by a 'chosen one' who then guides them from thier. These MAJOR cultural differences cause major problems in International Relations.

Here are a variety of Biblical quotes that will either A) Get a denial from a Christian 'it's Not in the bible' or B) silence with possibly some of the schizophrenic nonsense of Jesus having made ignoring that particular law OK while not others all for random reasons EXCEPT for the believer him or her self... who believes what they do without question OR research.

Christian Scripture Not Followed (well mostly, well, not intentionally anyways):

1. Leviticus 19:27 “‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

2. Leviticus 5:2 "'Or if a person touches anything ceremonially unclean--whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground--even though he is unaware of it, he has become unclean and is guilty

3. Leviticus 11:7 And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.

4. Leviticus 11:9 "'Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.

5. Deuteronomy 22:9 Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled

6. Deuteronomy 22:11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

7. Leviticus 19:19 "'Keep my decrees. "'Do not mate different kinds of animals. "'Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. "'Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

Hosea 13:16 (King James) Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

Numbers 31: 17-18
17. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Deuteronomy 20:16
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

1 Samuel 15:2-4
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.

Psalm 137:8-9
8 O daughter of Babylon, O destroyed one, O the happiness of him who repayeth to thee thy deed, That thou hast done to us.
9 O the happiness of him who doth seize, And hath dashed thy sucklings on the rock!


Basically what a Christian "leader" does is pick and choose which laws he or she will follow by using the quotes below to make his chosen obsoletes valid while he is never questioned on what he or she chooses to implement as questioning is not allowed within the Christian institution itself (unlike the Muslim one where is not only allowed but encouraged and only during educational dark ages does it get out of hand like when the Christian Nazi movement took over Europe, ex 'the pen is mightier than the sword'):

The following quotes make it possible to allow pork, tattoos and making different kinds of cloth but somehow - mysteriously - doesn't apply to gays:

Matthew 5:17: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (ex. thou shalt not kill)

Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.



Notes on Commonalities

Where a Christian and Muslim fundamentalist or hate group find common ground is in the 'seeking escape from ones-self that is necessary for 'true belief':

This is from the preface of his book, The True Believer;

"All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and single hearted allegiance." 

To start a fundamentalist religious group (or a non-religious one) blind obedience without question is necessary. If people are educated with history and the sciences in a way where it becomes integrated with their perception then lying to them becomes very difficult. If someone with religious authority lies to them, it will hurt to have someone they like lying to them but they will do what is right...eventually, once they are sure. 



2. American Foreign Policy of the Bush Era can be summarized thusly:

"The ideal devil is a foreigner. Hitler—the foremost authority on devils—found it easy to brand the German Jews as foreigners." (pp. 92-93)

3. Lets remove the 'we have free speech' and Muslim world doesn't nonsense from the debate as this is typically an old world VS New World - and educational - phenomenon.  The religious right in the US is working hard on removing the Constitutional divide between Church and State with the help of traditional Evangelical orthodoxy (who operate beyond the teachings of Jesusand in the old world the meaning of 'sacred' means something that is holy. Whether is be the scripture of a Muslim OR a decree of the emperor such as displayed in Shanghai Noon where Jackie Chan bows helplessly before another palace guard reading him the Emperors decree and then Wilson says 'this is the New-World/America we are free from such things'. That is what people don't often understand i.e. the split between the old and new worlds goes back millennia and included all of Europe as well (remember the Inquisition? or WHY the people fled Europe for America in the first place?). So no more Glenn Beck or Bill O Reilly logic that Christian America is somehow more tolerate than the Muslims. If 30% of the future of America weren't Atheist I shudder to think where America would be today.

In the New World, to allow the various sects of Christianity and other cults such as Quakers or the later Mormons and other various Christian groups who are more often at odds with every other Christian group around them and the Constitutional separating between Church and State helps these different sects to co-exist.

The new Western trend towards free speech is not as developed as people like to think and is allot more fragile than people like to think (except for some reason when it involves members of ones own religious group who can say stuff they would never allow others to say). Especially when you take into account the almost continuous media blackouts on important issues of the day. How long before a GOP President returns to power, claims to be doing God's work and proceeds to destroy American society with their lies and false wars and thier ability to remove science from the mind of it's Journalists (and thier ability to scare them into silence WHENEVER they so choose) so that all they know is what they hear from thier preferred "echo chamber" but not around emotional issues that they can't face (especially involving how architecture works for example: How can a Modern Skyscraper fall from a light fire when even heavy fires can't make a modern building fall like a pancake - it's unprecedented, or it was till everyone knew it was possible and were told so -  and this is just concerning the building that wasn't hit by a plane. A closed mind or worse)?



------------------------

Update Sep 13: I heard some woman on Hannity say 3:15 of the Muslim's Quran was about killing people for fun (or something in that context). Here are the verses from 3:15 & 3:50 (in case I misheard it).


3:15

Say, "Shall I inform you of [something] better than that? For those who fear Allah will be gardens in the presence of their Lord beneath which rivers flow, wherein they abide eternally, and purified spouses and approval from Allah . And Allah is Seeing of [His] servants -

&

3:50

And [I have come] confirming what was before me of the Torah and to make lawful for you some of what was forbidden to you. And I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, so fear Allah and obey me.





No comments:

Post a Comment