Quote:
Originally Posted by raytri
Agreed. Again, I'm not trying to attack the Bible or believers. Just pointing out what I consider a double standard.
Christians and Jews jump to offer all sorts of explanations and excuses for the violent parts of the Bible -- the word meant something different, you have to understand the context, it wasn't really a command, etc.
But why, then, don't they extend the same courtesy to the Quran? Every time I see a Quranic verse quoted, there's no context and it is demanded that we take the verse literally -- even though context is critical (especially in the Quran, where related verses are scattered all over the place) and Arabic, by structure, is given to all sorts of non-literal constructions. Never mind more mundane problems like bad translations.
For instance, I'm given to understand that the phrase "holy war" appears nowhere in the Quran. Yet it appears in various translations.
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Perhaps the difference is that you don't see Christian or Jewish today countries executing adulterers (mostly women) or homosexuals or even disobedient children. You simply do not see Jews and Christians behaving the way you see Muslims behaving today. Mostly Christian countries (like the US) engaged in warfare against others are not fighting for their (religious) laws to be enforced against the population of mostly Muslim nations. Even the (one) Jewish country does not insist that the Muslim population follow Jewish law... and Christian nations ditto. Neither Jews nor Christians are attempting to liberate other lands for God or Ha-shem. So in a way the context for the Koran is provided by what is actually happening with Muslims in the world today. The violence in the Koran provides a justification for Islamic behaviors today.
Perhaps that "courtesy" is provided Christians and Jews because they do not follow these kind of (barbaric, IMHO) rules/suggestions that come from the Quran.
(It is my understanding that the idea of Jihad comes from the Hadiths. The Hadiths tell of the life of Mohamed - which was supposed to be exemplary, and which reflected the concept of Jihad. Within the Koran there are several verses that exhort the believer to 'smite' the unbelievers... ie things which could be -and are, by some - interpreted to mean 'Jihad.'
There is no way to confuse some of the violent exhortions in the Koran as a mistranslation or lacking in context. Further, there is almost zero Muslim commentary trying to do so, except perhaps for Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, who is considered a traitor by most Muslims, lol... If a sufficient number of Muslims believed that their Koran was taken out of context, mistranslated etc they should be speaking and writing of it. It is giving their religion a black eye. Yet they seem not to be doing so. )
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0bU...watch_response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL0C2QvqIlo#
"The courageous over the infidels, make war for Allah and are not afraid... This is the depiction of the army of Allah that will come at Allah's decree, from here or from there, to liberate these lands from the defilement of the Jews, for Allah was angry with them in his book and called them once 'monkeys,' once 'swine,' and once 'donkeys.'" (Palestinian TV, March 30, 2001)