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The Christian tradition knows the concept of ecclesia militans. Whatever the battle metaphor means depends on the believer and their tradition. It's not helpful

The Christian tradition knows the concept of ecclesia militans. Whatever the battle metaphor means depends on the believer and their tradition. It's not helpful to single out Islam as particularly militant, indeed Mohammed originally considered himself a reformer instead of the founder of a new religion. Muslim concepts tend to have a Christian counterpart.

acqq 10y ago
> Mohammed originally considered himself a reformer And Jesus didn't consider himself starting a new faith ("Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.") Irrelevant. > It's not helpful to single out Islam as particularly militant Have you actually read the original texts, the Bible and the Quran and Hadith (as these two are the equivalent of the Bible), to compare? I think the huge difference is more than obvious to anybody who does. That is, that whoever actually reads can't deny it. E.g. ten commandments versus 75 commandments only about sharing the loot (including the female slaves): http://www.clearquran.com/008.html http://www.clearquran.com/008.html Or 10 commandments versus 164 jihad verses: http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.html http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.h... Or simply compare: the Christian martyrs are those who were thrown to the lions. The other martyrs are those "who are killed while killing the unbelievers." The idea of heaven with 72 virgins always ready for sex with the died fighters is also quite non-comparable, but explains the motivation for wishing the death. Edit Or can you quote something testosterone inducing in fighting for Christian God or being in heaven? This is from the real site ("a project of the non-profit Islamic Supreme Council of America organization devoted to providing educating the public regarding Islam, Muslims, Islamic belief and law, and Islamic spirituality (tasawwuf)"): "Arousal and verses about the houris" http://eshaykh.com/halal_haram/arousal-and-verses-about-the-houris/ http://eshaykh.com/halal_haram/arousal-and-verses-about-the-... /Edit We are really lucky for all the people who don't take the religious texts seriously.
- vacri 10y ago
  > The idea of heaven with 72 virgins always ready for sex with the died fighters is also quite non-comparable, but explains the motivation for wishing the death. It's there in christianity as well, it's just not so explicit - if you die for a christian goal, you'll get into heaven, same as their muslim counterparts, and heaven is an awesome place that you really want to be.
- HarryHirsch 10y ago
  Can we have proper sourcing on this website please? Some decent Islamic theology if you discuss Islam, not random stuff written by people with uncertain reputation? No one would quote such stuff in their degree thesis, it would make their university look funny.
- notahacker 10y ago
  It's pretty difficult to make an intellectually honest comparison between the levels of violence in the Quran and the Bible if the Ten Commandments is the only part of the Old Testament you're willing to acknowledge exists. It's not like the Old Testament doesn't also have long lists of innocuous things for which one can be put to death, clarifications on the level of beating that one is permitted to give ones' slave, and divinely-sanctioned combat and divinely sanctioned mass killing of civilians. As with the Quran, there's a lot of scope for scholars and leaders to determine which passages they believe are most applicable to the present situation.
  - acqq 10y ago
    Can you point me to any actual Fiqh which presents the possibility of choice of "which passages to believe" in Islamic scholarship? I'm really not aware of it, only the opposite, and for that there's enough quotes in any Fiqh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh Jihad as the actual physical fight is also a part of every fiqh. Excluding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya that are around 1% of all believers and actually not accepted by the rest.
    - notahacker 10y ago
      I actually said "which passages they believe are applicable to the present situation" which is quite different from "which passages to believe"[1] Fiqh literally is the principle of interpreting how actions and statements made by Muhammad at various times during his rather turbulent life should be applied as behavioural rules and guidelines for Muslims living under different circumstances today and in the future. For example, Islamic scholars differ hugely on whether the "sword verse" abrogated all prior calls for religious tolerance found in the Quran or was better understood from the context of the surrounding passage as a conditional and quite specific directive targeted at particular pagan groups in the event of them opting to violate a ceasefire during the time of Mohammed (and of course there is plenty of scope for scholars following the latter interpretation to nevertheless claim a particular side of a particular conflict is an analogous situation...). Needless to say, the interpretations found on websites like "Answering Islam" are not necessarily the most authoritative or representative of mainstream Muslim belief. [1]if this is because you have a more general difficulty or unwillingness to interpret even simple, uncontroversial sentences written in modern English using their most natural meaning, the study of Islamic theology probably isn't for you...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Why do you only talk about "ten" commandments and not the other six hundred and three: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments
  - acqq 10y ago
    Because it's only thing which is clearly separated as "the actual words of god" in the Bible, compared to the Quran which is "the whole separated book of the actual words of Allah." If we'd count everything from the Bible, we'd have to count everything from the Hadiths ("The life of Muhammad," much bigger than the Quran) including all the killings ordered by Muhammad (once, 900 Jews were beheaded at once after they surrendered) which are described there but not in Quran. Now the life of Muhammad was actually used by Muslim law makers to produce the Sharia Law, but what did Jews and Christians do with the "every Jot and Tittle," in the words of Steve Wells: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/EJAT/intro.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/EJAT/intro.html "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law. Matthew 5:18 If Jesus really said these words, he wasn’t much of a prophet. Because nearly every jot and tittle of biblical law is ignored by his followers today, as it has been throughout the history of Christianity. Even the Jews stopped obeying most of the commandments after the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.1 And yet despite Jesus's prophecy, the earth is still here."
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
      Sounds like special pleading to me.

acqq 10y ago

> Mohammed originally considered himself a reformer And Jesus didn't consider himself starting a new faith ("Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.") Irrelevant. > It's not helpful to single out Islam as particularly militant Have you actually read the original texts, the Bible and the Quran and Hadith (as these two are the equivalent of the Bible), to compare? I think the huge difference is more than obvious to anybody who does. That is, that whoever actually reads can't deny it. E.g. ten commandments versus 75 commandments only about sharing the loot (including the female slaves): http://www.clearquran.com/008.html http://www.clearquran.com/008.html Or 10 commandments versus 164 jihad verses: http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.html http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.h... Or simply compare: the Christian martyrs are those who were thrown to the lions. The other martyrs are those "who are killed while killing the unbelievers." The idea of heaven with 72 virgins always ready for sex with the died fighters is also quite non-comparable, but explains the motivation for wishing the death. Edit Or can you quote something testosterone inducing in fighting for Christian God or being in heaven? This is from the real site ("a project of the non-profit Islamic Supreme Council of America organization devoted to providing educating the public regarding Islam, Muslims, Islamic belief and law, and Islamic spirituality (tasawwuf)"): "Arousal and verses about the houris" http://eshaykh.com/halal_haram/arousal-and-verses-about-the-houris/ http://eshaykh.com/halal_haram/arousal-and-verses-about-the-... /Edit We are really lucky for all the people who don't take the religious texts seriously.

vacri 10y ago
> The idea of heaven with 72 virgins always ready for sex with the died fighters is also quite non-comparable, but explains the motivation for wishing the death. It's there in christianity as well, it's just not so explicit - if you die for a christian goal, you'll get into heaven, same as their muslim counterparts, and heaven is an awesome place that you really want to be.
HarryHirsch 10y ago
Can we have proper sourcing on this website please? Some decent Islamic theology if you discuss Islam, not random stuff written by people with uncertain reputation? No one would quote such stuff in their degree thesis, it would make their university look funny.
notahacker 10y ago
It's pretty difficult to make an intellectually honest comparison between the levels of violence in the Quran and the Bible if the Ten Commandments is the only part of the Old Testament you're willing to acknowledge exists. It's not like the Old Testament doesn't also have long lists of innocuous things for which one can be put to death, clarifications on the level of beating that one is permitted to give ones' slave, and divinely-sanctioned combat and divinely sanctioned mass killing of civilians. As with the Quran, there's a lot of scope for scholars and leaders to determine which passages they believe are most applicable to the present situation.
- acqq 10y ago
  Can you point me to any actual Fiqh which presents the possibility of choice of "which passages to believe" in Islamic scholarship? I'm really not aware of it, only the opposite, and for that there's enough quotes in any Fiqh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh Jihad as the actual physical fight is also a part of every fiqh. Excluding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya that are around 1% of all believers and actually not accepted by the rest.
  - notahacker 10y ago
    I actually said "which passages they believe are applicable to the present situation" which is quite different from "which passages to believe"[1] Fiqh literally is the principle of interpreting how actions and statements made by Muhammad at various times during his rather turbulent life should be applied as behavioural rules and guidelines for Muslims living under different circumstances today and in the future. For example, Islamic scholars differ hugely on whether the "sword verse" abrogated all prior calls for religious tolerance found in the Quran or was better understood from the context of the surrounding passage as a conditional and quite specific directive targeted at particular pagan groups in the event of them opting to violate a ceasefire during the time of Mohammed (and of course there is plenty of scope for scholars following the latter interpretation to nevertheless claim a particular side of a particular conflict is an analogous situation...). Needless to say, the interpretations found on websites like "Answering Islam" are not necessarily the most authoritative or representative of mainstream Muslim belief. [1]if this is because you have a more general difficulty or unwillingness to interpret even simple, uncontroversial sentences written in modern English using their most natural meaning, the study of Islamic theology probably isn't for you...
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Why do you only talk about "ten" commandments and not the other six hundred and three: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments
- acqq 10y ago
  Because it's only thing which is clearly separated as "the actual words of god" in the Bible, compared to the Quran which is "the whole separated book of the actual words of Allah." If we'd count everything from the Bible, we'd have to count everything from the Hadiths ("The life of Muhammad," much bigger than the Quran) including all the killings ordered by Muhammad (once, 900 Jews were beheaded at once after they surrendered) which are described there but not in Quran. Now the life of Muhammad was actually used by Muslim law makers to produce the Sharia Law, but what did Jews and Christians do with the "every Jot and Tittle," in the words of Steve Wells: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/EJAT/intro.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/EJAT/intro.html "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law. Matthew 5:18 If Jesus really said these words, he wasn’t much of a prophet. Because nearly every jot and tittle of biblical law is ignored by his followers today, as it has been throughout the history of Christianity. Even the Jews stopped obeying most of the commandments after the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.1 And yet despite Jesus's prophecy, the earth is still here."
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    Sounds like special pleading to me.