Yes. It’s different now than it was pre 1800.
Well the command in their hadiths hasn’t changed from the 4th century. That’s to hit all Christians and Jews. The Jew part I don’t care but to the hardcore Muslim I look like an enemy. The man’s right,they are enemies and their migrating. Luckily our western values blunt a lot of them,they see we have good lives doing it our way and soften their stance
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As a firm Believer/Christian, while it is my personal duty to humbly, and lovingly try to divide the Word, this question is not new, and this question borders on mild dishonesty/misguided thinking. (Not directly accusing you personally).
9/10 when people ask this question, they either have not read fully, or forgotten how those people in the Old Testament behaved. For starters, most of the surrounding areas of Israel were offering their children/infants onto bronze/metal smoldering, burning, man-made statues/alters in hopes their crops would receive rain. They were performing unspeakable acts with animals/beasts of the field, perpetuating generations of incestual (note: Not akin to sanctioned biblical marriages along the fathers geneology) relationships, some regions carried out ceremonies that were extremely unsanitary, etc. there’s indeed more.
there’s a chunk in the Levitical laws where the instructions start with “You shall not” followed by “unlike the [insert foreign surrounding nations names]”.
As far as the all-loving aspect goes, let me ask you, if God didn’t do it, then what does that make him? Uncaring? Unjust? Indifferent? To which people will again turn around and point their fingers at God yet again for not doing something. But then people get up in arms because “He didn’t have to go that hard jeez”.
To add, the Israelites were warned for a period in the ballpark of 40+ years to stop adopting those same practices they were strictly told NOT to do, and they too were punished. Both the Babylonian and Assyrian invasions were direct prophecies involving their judgement.
I think people forget that Love and Justice run deeply together when we’re talking about God’s attributes. For some, they simply want the love aspect. Me personally? I think BECAUSE God is just, he is loving.
And yes, there’s the “well why hasn’t he flooded the earth, or caused another disaster like that, or brought on judgement like that? With all this suffering and injustice going on today?” To which I say, in the very last book, it deals with the “why hasn’t God done anything yet?” To which I’ll also say, in both of the above stated instances of judgement, God was patient. He is indeed still patient now. But when time is up, it is up.
Thanks to the common grace of providential common law we have a handful of modern nations who aren’t as bad as they could possibly be, but the continued suffering and hardships of humanity isn’t God’s fault. It’s ours. And people can only cry out now because the “now” is all we know as time-bound beings.
Rant over I guess.
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That’s accurate and showed you’ve studied it.
Strange question incoming. Is that particular brand of extreme witchcraft still practiced,did the Israelites successfully stamp it out?
Never said he was
thanks for providing what he refused to do
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Yea u did. The demand for proof comes from an angle that id be unable to provide any,which I identified. I gave you a keyword and that’s it,the onus is on you to research. Google’s there.
No obviously you thought I was making it up. Everything I say is honest,even to the point I’ll self deprecate. That’s who I am.
You had people who have studied just as much if not more cover that base. If you were truly interested in the truth,then googling would of backed up my assertions rather than just you zeroing in on me. Also I am somewhat of a vet when dealing with atheists and unbelievers online,I don’t cast pearls before swine. Aka don’t waste your time. Most of these discussions are Christians of various denominations testing each other. Some of them despite being of another organisation have been taught exactly the same thing regarding the topic
Another confrontational clown not worth my time
The Behemoth and the Leviathan mentioned in Job…could allude to the dinosaurs…
very debatable
Job 40:15-24
Job 41:1-34
They’re not Israeli, but jewish. What’s wrong with that anyway?
Are you alluding to the gap theory?
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I happen to know a fair bit of history and know all of this. Saying that that islam is all war is very reductive view about the religion and culture around islam. And even if there has been competition in practice, philosophically they aren’t opposing sides.
Islam is not “all war”, but it is mainly war. The religion was founded by a warlord who said that his livelihood came by way of his spear, and that Allah had commanded him to fight against everyone until they said the Shahadah. These statements are in the Hadith. Muslims believe that the only way to guarantee they will go to Jannah is by dying in Jihad. Otherwise, they won’t know until the day of judgement. Of course, they’re all going to hell, but still. The point is that Islam is a religion founded by a warlord who used it to rally and motivate his troops.
Islam has darker side to it.
Islam is the dark side.
But representing it as more war prone religion with the examples you gave is not very compelling.
I’ve heard this claim about christianity and islam before. But it’s kinda similar situation when anti-christian people bring up all the wars and atrocities christians have done throught history and claim it to be violent and oppressive by nature.
The examples I gave were of how Muslims were trying to conquer the entire Christian world. I didn’t use them as examples of how Islam is a more war-prone religion. That comes from statements in the Quran like Surah 9:5, 9:29, and 9:111, as well as the sayings and example of Muhammad in the Hadith.
The difference between Christianity and Islam is that this level of violence is commanded in Islam and it is condemned in Christianity. Jesus told Christians to love their enemies. There is a story in the Gospel of Luke where some Samaritans rejected Jesus and the disciple John as Him if they should call fire from heaven to kill them, like Elijah did once in the Old Testament. Jesus responded that John didn’t know what spirit he was speaking from, and that Jesus came to save lives and not destroy them. Muhammad, by contrast, killed people who made fun of him. This included the elderly and a woman sleeping surrounded by her children. Muhammad’s follower murdered her in her sleep while she was in bed with her children. The difference between Christianity and Islam goes down to the roots of the two religions.
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But in most cases (like Ottomans for example), they did not genocide christians, or even tried to convert them. To me it just sounds similar empire building romans or Alexander the Great did in their time.
Muhammad was probably quite awful person, I agree you on that. But islam is not a static thing, it changes and evolves as any religion. You can see it how vastly the mentioned jihad can be intrepreted.
Islamic/arabic culture was actually thriving during the middle ages, and they have some excellent scholars, scientists and philosophers (Ibn Sia or Averres for example), and most were not praising constant war against ”infidels”.
Something happened though. Islam turned to more stagnated state and never had the enlightenment or the scientific revolution the christian world did have in 17-18ish century.
I kinda see many forms of modern islam (islamism, muslim brotherhood and all that), in many ways worse and more hostile towards christianity than islam has usually been.
I can not do an analysis between Christian and Islamic theology, since I have read only some books about both religions, I’ve only read bible once (now I see my earlier comments about OT was a bit simplistic/misguided, largely thanks to you and @alex_uk) and I have never read Quran.
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I want tp add that I of course see many islamic countries as terrible places with their attitude towards women, their theocratic nature etc.
But I’m also opposed towards too simplistic views of history as clash between (monolithic) Christian and Islamic culture.
I’m also very careful with saying things about Islamic theology, since I don’t know it well enough (as I said). To me people seem to criticize the teachings of Islam (or Christianity) by cherry picking individual phrases or points from their vast and difficult-to-interpret holy scriptures.
This.
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Christopher Hitchens weighed in on this topic. I appreciated the writing - he is excellent.
Once again, this perspective is woefully incorrect.
Islamic/arabic culture was actually thriving during the middle ages, and they have some excellent scholars, scientists and philosophers (Ibn Sia or Averres for example), and most were not praising constant war against ”infidels”.
The Islamic golden age is certainly a credit that cannot be withheld from the Muslim world. They legitimately underwent a period of prosperity and scientific advancement during the Middle Ages that, so far, has probably been the height of Islamic civilization. The reason for it is that they conquered parts of the former Byzantine Empire that were already prosperous and scientifically advanced and built upon it somewhat. But what they accomplished pales in comparison to what Christian and post-Christian European civilization has accomplished in the last 500 years, and arguably was inferior to anything the Chinese or the Indians have done.
Islam itself is anti-scientific. Muhammad stated that the sun set in a pool of muddy water somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. The Quran states that semen is formed between the backbone and the ribs. When Uthman conquered Egypt, he had any book that contradicted Islam burned. Muslims do not always follow or believe in every part of their religion. The same is true of Christians. I believe the Islamic golden age was an anomaly, and that what we’re seeing in the Islamic world today is exactly what one would expect a seventh-century barbarian’s death cult to produce.
I kinda see many forms of modern islam (islamism, muslim brotherhood and all that), in many ways worse and more hostile towards christianity than islam has usually been.
This is untrue. When the Arab Muslims conquered Jerusalem, they destroyed churches and urinated on crosses. When the Turks conquered Constantinople, they sodomized priests and raped nuns. Sexual slavery of Christians was standard in the Islamic world. Even the Vikings participated in it by capturing Christians and selling them to Muslims in North Africa. That fact is not well-known. “Forms of modern Islam” are just Islam.
But in most cases (like Ottomans for example), they did not genocide christians, or even tried to convert them. To me it just sounds similar empire building romans or Alexander the Great did in their time.
The first part of your statement is not true. Yes, the Muslims tried to convert and successfully converted Christians wherever they conquered them. They told the Christians that they must either convert to Islam, pay Jizyah (an extremely high tax that came with second-class-citizen status), or be killed. Most Christians in Egypt, Spain, and the Middle East converted. The ones that didn’t paid the Jizyah, but it was so financially destructive that many converted to avoid it. From memory, the phrase used by Muslims in Egypt was, “Milk the camel until it bleeds” or something along those lines.
I suggest that you read the book Sword and Scimitar by Raymond Ibrahim. From your other posts I know that you’re a smart person and I think you would enjoy reading this comprehensive history of the military interactions between the Muslim world and the Christian world.
It should also be made clear that, despite everything that has been said, the Christians were treated more kindly than targets of other religions. That is because they are “people of the book” in Muslim theology. Muslims claim that Christians and Jews worship Allah but do so incorrectly. Any Christian who studies Islam will come to the conclusion that “Allah” in the Quran corresponds best to Satan in the Bible, but that is a different discussion. The point is that the Muslims treated the Zoroastrians and Persia and the Hindus in India and modern Pakistan with far more brutality than they did even the Christians, because there was no option to pay Jizyah. They were either converted or killed. It’s no surprise that modern Iran is only 40% Muslim according to a Reuters poll, and that Hindu Indians hate Islam so much.
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I know this is way off topic, but as a STEM, I feel it is my responsibility to show how Job 40 and 41 can be interpreted and still comply with an old earth.
I challenge you to ask yourself, what was God was trying to tell Job? Do you really believe this is a discussion about two different dinosaurs.
I suggest that you read this as a contrast of two creations of God.
It is easiest to look first at Leviathan. What do you see in the verses of Job chapter 41?
Read the last two verses of chapter 41, and ask yourself who you believe that God is describing.
33 “Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.”
Now read Isaiah 27:1
“In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
Now read about behemoth in chapter 40, looking for a contrast (remembering all that preceded this comparison.)
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