Muslims believe he is everything the new testament says he is ...
They believed Jesus was put to death, buried, and rose from the dead?
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You have chosen to parse and attack out of ignorance, with little or no knowledge or concern for gaining an understanding of circumstance. You know and I know the same thing could be done and has been done throughout history to demonize and persecute innocent people. You just choose to deny that for your own purposes.
I don't think so. I think I'm just not willing to believe that there were good reasons for the horrific things Mohammed is described as doing in the Islamic siras and hadith.
I don't believe Mohammed had to cut off an entire tribe's heads because there wasn't anything else to do with conquered people in those primitive times. I don't believe he married multiple wives, including one whose family he'd just killed out of mercy so the women have someone to care for them. I don't believe he only attacked caravans to recover stolen booty which they needed so as not to starve to death. I don't believe the Islamic wars of conquest were all defensive and were for the purpose of making peace.
For one thing I know that as soon as the caliphate was founded, there began a series of civil wars and power struggles that basically have continued down to today. Uthman, the third caliph was murdered, his successor Ali was murdered. The Umayyad caliphate was overthrown by the Abbasids, who beheaded all the members of the Umayyad family, except one who made his way to Cordoba Spain and founded a separate caliphate there.
I don't believe Mohammed had a good reason to have a man tortured to death over hidden treasure because. Perhaps the Muslims really needed that treasure and they would die without it but I don't think so. .... and the old woman captured and torn in two by having her legs tied to two camels which were then whipped .... I don't believe there was any necessity for that either.
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The greatest mass slaughters of innocent Christian men, women, and children have been at the hands of competing Christian denominations and sects. The cruelest oppressions like wise. Deaths to Martyred Christian leaders and reformers have been at the hands of Christina religious authoritarians.
Perhaps, though I think thats true of Muslims as well. Certainly the Christian world has seen religious wars in past centuries, though there was usually really a non-religious motive behind them. OTOH, its a fact that Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and north Africa were all once Christian territories. And conquest by Muslims changed that.
Thinking about it some more, I think this charge that most mass slaughters of Christians have been committed by Christians may not be true at least as to absolute numbers ..... we need to remember the genocide of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrian Christians by Turks early in the last century. Well over 2M Christians were killed at the hands of Muslim Turks:
en.wikipedia.org
According to various sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period.
en.wikipedia.org
Contemporary reports placed the figure at 270,000, although recent estimates have revised that figure to as many as 500-750,000
en.wikipedia.org
Though Christians have persecuted one another over the centuries, I doubt the various religious wars and persecutions between Christians have racked up anywhere near that total. Two million plus is a really big number. Most Christian persecutions and religious wars usually only killed a few thousand at a time.
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This attack on Mohammad is not scholarly it is defensive/aggressive with preconceived agenda ... it is based in fear and ignorance and could not possible result in anything good. Christianity, you, continue to identify a new demonic group outside of Christianity, make your case and wage a war against the evil of that group, for which Christianity generally expresses remorse at some point in the future as they are moving on to another group...you know the list as well as I do. Hand ringing, regrets, wash, lather, rinse, repeat. Within Christianity not much has changed either, the other sect is not acceptable to Christ, the same sect across the street doesn't have it right, some of those in your congregation are in error, within your own family, OMG the priest got busted, just get a new less evil one. It is endemic. And you are reminding me lest I should have forgotten.
Call it what ever you want but does calling oneself a Christian automatically mean having little tolerance for those of other beliefs? It doesn't have to and I know too many wonderful saintly people who call themselves Christian to assume as much. It is definitely normal however.
I think the negative information about Mohammed is scholarly. Furthermore, I think Muslims have a persecution complex. The reaction to mentions of Mohammed's documented (by Muslims) actions brings charges of bias, hate and accusations of persecution.
I don't think Muslims have the right to demamd that nothing bad be said about Mohammed, especially when the bad things said are simply quotations from Muslim religious documents. I find this demand for self-censorship and public honor for their prophet to be arrogant and domineering.
Truly, I believe if Muslims were a majority in this country, if sharia were established as you think it should be, I would be in danger of my life just for posting the things I've said.
Frankly, I'm more disturbed now by your reaction than I was before this discussion began. I suppose even moderate Muslims really would like to enforce conformity of thought and expression in our society. |
