Christian violence vs. Islamic violence: Is there any difference?

What many don't know is the meaning of Islam in Arabic is not "peace" but "submission." The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace. I well remember when Muslims all over the world burst into joyful, spontaneous celebrations when the hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This is not to say that every Muslim is violent at heart. Most are living peaceful lives. They simply want to work and raise their families the best way they can.

What we must remember is there are Muslim extremest who want to kill or convert us. I have heard this expression many times, "Convert to Islam or die by the sword."

To the first question, Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah. This means that he is the one who will fulfill the prophecies that have been quoted in the Hebrew scriptures. He has come to save people from their sins and offer a new life. On the other hand, Muslims view Jesus as a prophet. Therefore, they don't deny his existence. They instead just view him as not important when compared to Muhammad. He is the main prophet. Their views on God are also very different. Christians are trinitarian monotheists while Muslims are unitarian monotheists. When Christians are trinitarian monotheists, they believe in one God except that he has revealed himself in three forms. These are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Muslims however believe in one absolute God. His name is Allah. Another difference between the two is the way of salvation that each of them offers. Christianity is based upon the idea that Christ has died and sacrificed himself to cover for all of humanities sins. All that people have to do is simply accept him for doing that. Islam is based upon doing good works and following the five pillars. These five pillars are (1) go to Mecca, (2) observe Ramadan(period of fasting), (3) give to the poor, (4) pray five times a day toward mecca, (5) you must state that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. Each religion is also very closely linked with Judaism. Christianity is actually an extension of Judaism. This is because the Jewish people have been looking for a Messiah. Christians believe that Jesus is this Messiah. Not all Jewish people have accepted this. In history, the Muslims have been in constant contact with Jewish people and probably will share similarities based on culture.

I think, the dedication is the key here.

Also, the Islam is a law in many countries.

A legal measures are applied, based solely on the Islam.

That is the difference.

In middle ages, when countries ridden by Christianity were killing the ´´infidels to Jesus-God thing, it was about the same horrible, as what Jidah does today.

In these days of course, it stands out very clearly and very wrong, because the civilization has reached most of the world countries and a secular law is in effect.

sadly, this does not applies to uneducated tribes in every Islamic country in the world.

Ok, so you don't want to use the Crusades as an example of Christian violence. Ok fine how about a more current example, Northern Ireland. Do you want something more current than that then how about the Iraq war? Yes the Iraq war. Was Iraq responsible for 911? Was Iraq a small player in 911? Did Iraq possess WMDs? To all of these questions the answer is a definite "NO." Why did we invade Iraq? More importantly what was the path to invasion?

First off why is Iraq an example of Christian violence? Ask yourself who is the voter base that put the Bush regime in power? The answer is Christians. Christians are responsible for Bush, his policies, his invasion of Iraq, and ultimately the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. The worst part of this criminal invasion was and still is condoned but the supporters of George W Bush.

There may be a difference in the methods of killing between Americans and Middle Eastern insurgents, but the differences are only on the surface. Those referred to as terrorists in the Middle East are just soldiers of their cause. They don’t have a three quarter trillion dollar defence budget to fight with and their methods are necessarily crude. What we see as terrorism is just methods to a goal a shoe string budget fighting a super power. Americans on the other hand have a well financed military, and do not have to inconvenience themselves by strapping on a bomb belt and sacrificing themselves for their cause. Do you ever wonder if American Christians have the conviction in their beliefs to sacrifice themselves the way a so called terrorist suicide bombers do? American fighters have the luxury where they can sit thousands of miles away push a button and extinguish human life and won’t muddy their boots. The outcome is the same whether is be suicide bomber or missile launched from a drone over Iraq by an operator located in Tampa Florida, people die in violent ways.

When push come to shove never forget those Christians who elected Bush are the ones who hold the flag in one hand but hold the cross higher in the other and therefore put in power the ones who control the globes largest military budget.

Here's a couple quotes from Ravi Zacharias' "Jesus Among Other Gods"

"Jesus’ kingdom was of such nature that it was not procured by military might or power. Its rule is neither territorial nor political. If history has proven anything, it is that the spread of the gospel by the sword or by coercion has done nothing but misrepresent the message and bring disrepute to the gospel."

Now to the main quotation,

" The teaching of Jesus is clear. No one ought to be compelled to become a Christian. This sets the Christian faith drastically apart from Islam. In no country where the Christian faith is the faith of the majority is it illegal to propagate another faith. There is no country in the world that I know of where the renunciation of one’s Christian faith puts one in danger of being hunted down by the powers of the state.

Yet, there are numerous Islamic countries where it is against the law to publicly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, and where a Muslim who renounces his or her belief in Islam to believe in anything else risks death. Freedom to critique the text of the Koran and the person of Mohammed are prohibited by the laws of blasphemy, and the result is torturous punishment.

One must respect the concern of a culture to protect what it deems sacred, but to compel a belief in Jesus Christ is foreign to the gospel, and that is a vital difference. The contrast is all too clear."

Religious violence does hardly depend on its holy books.

The crusades were one thing but the very violate colonization of America and Africa was also legitimated by The Holy Bible. In fact: wars, in which a deep national feeling of unity is needed, almost always get endorsed by religion. It's a matter of picking the right verses to the right action.

This sounds rather cynical but I think that's the way it works.

There are countless examples of Christian violence. The crusades are one example. Read about the sack of Constantinople. Others include the inquisition (originally created to root out Jews pretending to be Christians in order to avoid persecution for not being Christian), burning of heretics, abortion clinic bombings and so on.

The biggest difference between Christian and Muslim violence is that most of Christianity's violence are in the past, and it's reduced now.

violence is violence,whoever the perpetrator is,muslim,jew,christian or even atheist.it breeds more violence,and ultimately solves nothing.

extreme pacifism is just more of an incentive towards violence,but we seem not to have yet found a happy medium.

It is interesting to note that in the Creation vs Evolution debate, you never hear of academic extremists making death threats against vocal Christians.

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/03/threat...

What Christian violence?

I haven't heard of any recently at all. The crusades was a very very long time ago. The crusades were not what Christianity instructs them to do, they were doing the opposite to what Jesus wanted. He doesn't want the Gospel spread like that.