There seems to be a deep historical mistrust between Hindus and Muslims in India. Muslims are in practise not considered equal to Hindus, as far as my observations about the behaviour of Hindu officers goes - I admit that the sample size is very small but everything else that I have heard seems to support this observation. Patriotism seems to be strongly involved in this as among Hindu nationalists, only Hindus are considered truly part of India.
Although the mistrust and even hatred between Hindus and Muslims seem to be deeper than what Hindus think about Christians, the anti-conversion laws were originally targeted against Christian missionaries. It seems that the Brittish rulers of India were more interested about wealth and power than the God of Christianity. Later additions about marriages to the laws may have been targeted more against Muslims because Islam may accept marriages with women from other religions with the assumption that these women become Muslims after the marriage or at least, the children are grown as Muslims.
Islam is definitely legalistic, but “violence is inherent in the system”.
That would be “third wave” Christianity in India: the “Saint Thomas Christians” were there early, later came people from the Oriental Orthodox, and finally the British. The British caused new problems, managing to split the St. Thomas Christian community.
First they played the princes against each other, then the realms the winning princes built; I think they didn’t start setting religious factions against each other until the Crown stepped in after the East India Company managed to make a total mess of things.
The Quran flat out says to kill infidels, and it defines infidel as any non-Muslim. The Bible nowhere commands any of the above (except arguably genocide but that was a limited situation).
The majority of Muslims disagree. According to them the text says idolators. Do you need a list of the people the Bible commands believers to kill? Witches are on this list but I think there are more. Oh yes there are also rebellious sons, men and women who commit adultery, those who worship other gods, … more?
Acts 15 seems to be about not needing to be circumcised but insisitng on following the food laws (and sexual morality) of judaism. Not sure how this answers Mitchell?
There is justification for killig witches and adulterers in Moasc Law.
The point being that you can see or claim justifiable execution from Mosaic Law, so it boils down to how much of that Law is continued in Chriistianity. The principle of Love and forgiveness, should overturn all of it , of course.
In Acts 15 we read that the Holy Spirit reduced the entire Mosiac Law to four admonitions – none of what was listed is a part of those admonitions.
Four admonitions is all that remains. – not a bit more, according to the Apostles and the Holy Spirit.
That includes the Ten Commandments – which, BTW, are mislabeled since they use the imperfect tense and no imperatives, and without the imperative calling them “commandments” is misleading. The scripture calls them ten “words” (and the first one is “I am YHWH your elohim who brought you out of the land of Egypt”).
I.e. the principle of the Cross, the actual starting point of Christian morality.
The point is that the means by which you justify calling Islam a religion of death works just as well for them to call Christianity a religion of death. Remember what Jesus said about judging others… God will use the same judgement on yourself also.
No, it doesn’t – the instructions in the Quran are never countermanded.
And the orders to commit genocide in the OT applied to specific peoples and to a specific nation to carry them out. That nation might match up with Israel, but the specific peoples – aren’t around any more. The command in the Quran applies to all infidels.
Islam is not only a religion, it is also a political system that aims to conquer all nations. Fundamentalists accept that violence is part of the ‘war’ towards hegemony, moderates usually prefer non-violent means to achieve the goal. According to those who have grown as Muslims, that is a goal set by Quran. In this sense, it is inherent to Islam.
By the way, when Muslims tell about their goals, I believe more what they tell to other Muslims than what they tell to outsiders (‘infidels’). Talks to Muslim audiences include colourful expressions and exaggerative painting with words, so you can filter out 80% of what is said. Yet, the rest is more truthful than what they tell to people they think are infidels.
There is a reason for this: lying to non-muslims is allowed if it may bring benefits to the Muslim.
I have read that this part of teaching was first intended for situations where a Muslim is in danger - it was acceptable to lie that someone is not a Muslim if that saves his life. Later, the application of the teaching has expanded to practically all situations where the benefits of Muslims and non-Muslims are in conflict.
After reading about this (from a book written by an ex-muslim believer who knows the religion), it has been difficult to trust the talks of Muslim leaders without checking first what they have told about the same matter to other Muslims - a Muslim should not lie to other Muslims (umma). Exaggerated talks are apparently not counted as lying and many leaders seem to be more liberal about lying than an average Muslim believer, so there is a need to filter these talks.
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
Romans 14
One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them
I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves
As you well knoiw. The Holy Spirit did not dictate or take responsibility for what Paul or anyone else wrote.
I looked at many religions and chose Christianity. But buying into this kind of confirmation bias which whitewashes Christianity while painting other religions black was never a part of it. Dishonesty and hypocrisy will never be ok with me.
I don’t see that the instructions in the Bible are ever countermanded. Quite the contrary we have Jesus saying that none of the law is countermanded.
And… like I said before your reading of that part of the Quran as “infidels” is not agreed to by most Moslems.
The verse of the Holy Quran is often mentioned to malign Islam. The verse does not say infidels it says idolaters. (9:5) And when the forbidden months have passed, kill the idolaters wherever you find them and take them prisoners, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakat, then leave their way free. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.
This verse, chapter 9 verse 5, is often used as evidence that Islam allows killing of non-Muslims, but what is not recognized is the context and history behind these verses. The history of this verse is that when Prophet Muhammad(sa) began preaching the unity of God he was persecuted for 13 years, much as Prophets Abraham and Jesus were. Since Muslims who are being persecuted are encouraged to leave for safer areas, rather than create disorder, Muhammad(sa) and his followers migrated to Medina. After they left, the Meccans attacked them in Medina on and off for a period of nine years until Chapter 9 was revealed.
Looking at the context of the verses, it becomes obvious that the commandment of this verse only relates to those tribes who continued hostilities against the Muslims even after they had migrated. In particular, reference is made to 5 tribes (‘Banu Khuza’ah, Banu Mudlij, Banu Bakr, Banu Damrah, and Banu Sulaiim) that did not honor the treaties they made with Muslims. It is also important to remember that the preceding verses give these people respite for 4 months to reconsider their behavior and cease hostilities. Sadly after 4 months passed, the enemies of Islam continued their hostilities against the Muslims. Only then was Prophet Muhammad(sa) commanded by God to meet them in battle to defend Muslims and the religion of Islam.
My point is that these things are not inherent in either religion because people will understand the presence of such verses in their scripture differently.
Christianity has been used to conquer far more nations than Islam… slaughter more people… rob more land… enslave…
I have little doubt that there are Muslims who lie for Mohammed just as I KNOW their are Christians who lie for Jesus.
Misunderstood Christianity has been used as an excuse in colonialism and in attempts to gain more power and wealth both within and outside the society where the culprits live. I do not deny that. What happened in India reveals something of the relationship between colonialism and Christianity: British rulers banned the work of British missionaries because that threatened their rule by causing problems in some areas.
Much violence and unjustice have happened under the banner of ‘Christianity’. Crusades were at least partly motivated by misunderstood Christianity but the violent methods could be called anti-Christian in the sense that they were against the teachings in the NT scriptures. One sign of the character of Crusades was that those participating in the Crusades attacked also on targets we could call ‘Christian’, like the Eastern Orthodox (Constantinople).
The difference between Christianity and Islam in this matter is not in how some rulers have decided to act, it is in the fundamental teachings that have been written in the NT scriptures vs. Quran complemented with Hadiths.
I welcome any attempts by moderate Muslims to reinterpret Quran in a less violent way. For some reason, fundamentalist Muslims do not seem to support such interpretations, possibly because of the way how Hadiths clarify and reinforce the teachings in Quran.
Despite the shortcomings of so called ‘Christian’ troops, during the last two centuries Muslims have probably caused more deaths and suffering than Christians. If you study the World Watch List, most of the countries persecuting and killing members of religious minorities are so called Muslim countries. There are some bad exceptions, like North-Korea (no. 1), India (no. 11) and China (no. 15), but otherwise, the negative list is sadly dominated by Muslim rule. In the list of the worst 50 countries, the cause of persecution is dominantly ‘islamic oppression’ (31/50). These countries represent different branches and interpretations of Islam but persecution due to Islamic teachings is a uniting factor.
Edit:
I have read that Mohammed went through a similar kind of development than Luther in his attitudes towards Jews. The early hopes were that the outsiders would understand and join to the ‘better’ religion. When this did not happen, the attitudes changed towards the destruction of the others. I have read that this development can explain part of the difference between the early and late Surahs. Hadiths originate probably from the talks of the old Mohammed and may therefore be more hostile towards outsiders than the earliest texts in the Quran.
The claim molecular differences between two individuals might be due to creation of sequence differences between them, or the accumulation of random changes since Creation week…
that entire statement by the author is ignorant of what the bible actually says. It also completely ignores the affects of the global flood and its aftermath. Even naturalism agrees that a major catastrophe is responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs…clearly major environmental change occurred at that time in the earths history (how ever long it was). Creationsits believe that God already designed into us the necessary resources…i believe that in fact what sin did when it came into this world is attempt to corrupt and even destroy all creation…to seek to make all life on earth extinct and ruin what it could not kill off. So we have gradually over the last 6000 years become less perfect…not better. We have already had the information necessary to enact that change.
God has limited how much Satan can adversely affect Creation, including after the flood. The consequences of sin however, are biblical…so this statement by the author is ignorant to the effects of sin and it also ignores the state of creation before the fall. It can only test ancient death and modern living…it has never tested the living from 6500 years ago!