1.5 billion Muslims ( http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html ) multiplied by .01 (1%) = 15,000,000 Muslims. Fifteen million. More 'extremists' than there are Jews in the world today.

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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)

Well, I was being generous with the 1%. But even that adds up to less than half the population of Afghanistan.

There are 1 billion people in Europe and the United States. There are 2 billion Christians worldwide. Do you really believe that even 15 million idjits are going to conquer them?

And if you think they'll take a gradual approach, establishing Islamic states in the Middle East and then spreading outward, again I think that's just fantasy. When the loonies actually did take over the asylum -- Afghanistan under the Taliban -- what happened? Sanctuary for militants, sure, but a totally imploded economy and infrastructure, driven in no small part by their Sharia law, which pretty much forbade education of any serious sort and all but crushed the almost irrepressible entrepreneurial zeal of the Afghan people. They posed zero existential threat to their neighbors.

Extremist fundamentalist Islam is incredibly self-destructive.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

How am I surprised at what I am seeing. A non-Christian attempting to demonize Christianity through the out of context use of various verses. The verse you mentioned pertains to a past people, nowhere in the Bible does God tell all Christians to force their faith on others. Jesus says for believers not to judge non-believers and to try to save other people, not by force,but by sharing their faith. Sure, God has justice in the Old Testament which may not match up with modern notions of justice. However, we cannot judge God's actions wrong, we are incapable of making such a judgment.

There is not one verse in the Bible which tells all Christians, past and present, to force the word of God on others. The verse you mentioned had to do with a specific people at a specific period in time.

Also Islam's Allah is not the same as the God of Israel. They aren't even remotely close.

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“Good leaders abhor wrongdoing of all kinds; sound leadership has a moral foundation.”

-Proverbs 16:12

If you read the full discussion, you would know I'm not attempting to demonize Christianity. I was pointing out that Christianity and Judaism have managed to find ways to ignore the violent verses in their holy book.

That was my point. It doesn't match modern notions, so we find a way to discard it.

Gotta disagree here. God is what he is, if he exists: But I can choose whether I want to worship him. I'm not going to worship a God that demands 20 human sacrifices a day, regardless of how "unknowable" he is.

So that makes it okay then?

There are plenty of injunctions to go out and spread the word. The exact methodology has always been rather broadly interpreted.

According to Muslims, they are the same. Muslims just claim to have the most recent revelation.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

If you read the full discussion, you would know I'm not attempting to demonize Christianity. I was pointing out that Christianity and Judaism have managed to find ways to ignore the violent verses in their holy book.

That's fair, I suppose

That was my point. It doesn't match modern notions, so we find a way to discard it.

Because everything modern is correct?


Gotta disagree here. God is what he is, if he exists: But I can choose whether I want to worship him. I'm not going to worship a God that demands 20 human sacrifices a day, regardless of how "unknowable" he is.

First of all, I never said it is impossible to have a relationship with God. I simply stated that we cannot judge His actions to be wrong. Now you can attempt to, however it is impossible for a person or population of any size to accurately judge God to be "wrong". This is because we can't see the full reason for His actions and how they fit in with the larger picture. We, as inhabitants of this world, can only judge events and actions on a worldly scale. God is on a scale which is not only beyond us physically but also mentally and in other ways we cannot imagine. To put it simply, God is beyond this world in all ways(although He does intervene from time to time), so for us to accuse of him of being "wrong" would be ridiculous.

So that makes it okay then?

Read my above statement

There are plenty of injunctions to go out and spread the word. The exact methodology has always been rather broadly interpreted.

However, the Bible doesn't specifically tell believers to force the word on other people. It does tell believers not to judge non-believers though, which would indicate that the Bible is against the use of force in saving others.

According to Muslims, they are the same. Muslims just claim to have the most recent revelation.

Firstly, God sent his son to die on the cross for humanity, according to the Qu'ran Jesus was a simple prophet and not the savior of mankind. This is a clear difference between the God of Christianity and Allah. Second, God in the Bible is the trinity. This differs from the Qu'ran which states that Allah is a single entity.

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“Good leaders abhor wrongdoing of all kinds; sound leadership has a moral foundation.”

-Proverbs 16:12

In the history of the human race, of all the inspirations for the separation of man from his true tribal culture, of all the inspirations for the acts of violence from one man onto another, from one nation onto another, from one oppressor onto the oppressed, there is no more guilty party and inspiration than Christianity and Islam. Both are just political tools to justify a few high ranking mens greed.

"Correct" is a judgement call. Just because something is modern does not mean it is necessarily "correct." But by the same token, just because something is old doesn't mean it's "correct" either. I've never understood the "absolute morality" crowd's desire to keep living under barbaric 4,000-year-old legal codes. What is considered just and moral changes over time. For most of human history, slavery was just fine. Now we consider it immoral.

Which is why even the absolute morality folks find ways to ignore inconveniently barbaric passages, even while insisting that the passages they still support are "absolute".

I understand. I just disagree with the second sentence. You wouldn't worship a God who demanded regular human sacrifice, would you? If not, then you are making judgments about God's actions. It doesn't matter that God is far beyond human ability to comprehend. I ain't worshipping something that wants me to sacrifice my neighbors to it.

In politics, that's called "plausible deniability." If God didn't want his followers using force to spread the word, he could have said so quite clearly. Maybe made it the 11th Commandment, or at least the First Guideline.

Fair enough. But Islam isn't an offshoot of Christianity; it views itself as a third, co-equal revelation that builds on -- and corrects, and updates -- the other two.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

"Correct" is a judgement call. Just because something is modern does not mean it is necessarily "correct." But by the same token, just because something is old doesn't mean it's "correct" either. I've never understood the "absolute morality" crowd's desire to keep living under barbaric 4,000-year-old legal codes. What is considered just and moral changes over time. For most of human history, slavery was just fine. Now we consider it immoral.

Which is why even the absolute morality folks find ways to ignore inconveniently barbaric passages, even while insisting that the passages they still support are "absolute".

Which is why the Bible never supported slavery. I have seen all the so-called "slavery supporting" verses in Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and other books of the Bible. However, the verses which many atheists point to as evidence of the Bible being pro slavery are not examined in a historical context. In fact, most mentions of slavery in the Bible are actually referring to indentured servitude. Not the modern race or nationality based form of slavery. Try looking into how God saved the Israelites from their Egyptian slave owners for an example of nationality based slavery in the Bible.

Also, the Bible calls for us to be kind to one another and to love thy neighbor as thyself. This critical part of Christianity goes against all aspects of slavery.

I understand. I just disagree with the second sentence. You wouldn't worship a God who demanded regular human sacrifice, would you? If not, then you are making judgments about God's actions. It doesn't matter that God is far beyond human ability to comprehend. I ain't worshiping something that wants me to sacrifice my neighbors to it.

There is only one instance of a human sacrifice in the entire Bible(besides God sacrificing his only son for mankind). In fact, in the one place where God asked for a human sacrifice, he eventually told the man to sacrifice an animal instead.

In politics, that's called "plausible deniability." If God didn't want his followers using force to spread the word, he could have said so quite clearly. Maybe made it the 11th Commandment, or at least the First Guideline.

I suppose if you consider "sharing and spreading the word" the same as "forcing and imposing Christianity" then you could make the case that the Bible is for forcing others to convert to Christianity. However, what Jesus said to his disciples and followers doesn't come anywhere near asking them to enforce Christianity on other nations.

Fair enough. But Islam isn't an offshoot of Christianity; it views itself as a third, co-equal revelation that builds on -- and corrects, and updates -- the other two.

Interesting, I will have to look into this.

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“Good leaders abhor wrongdoing of all kinds; sound leadership has a moral foundation.”

-Proverbs 16:12

It wasn't *all* indentured servitude. While the Bible might not have said "slavery is just dandy", the chosen people owned slaves, and did for a thousand years.

And anyway, do you think even indentured servitude would fly today?

That said, it was just an example. If you want me to dig up verses showing all sorts of things outlawed or allowed in the Bible that wouldn't be outlawed or allowed today, I will.

The Bible says many contradictory things. You want to take the good and discard the bad. I totally agree that most believers do that. But you're being selective, not accepting the Bible as "absolute."

You're missing the point. I'm not saying the Bible demands human sacrifice. I'm saying you wouldn't worship a god that *did* demand it, even if I told you that we can't judge god because his purpose is beyond our understanding.

Or are you saying you *would* commit human sacrifice if I told you my god demanded it?

Agreed. Doesn't demand it. Doesn't really prevent it, either, though.

I'm not trying to impugn Christianity. Just demonstrating that what you ask me to accept regarding Christianity ("we can't judge God") you do not accept regarding other religions.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

The Bible is very specific on how the indentured servants were to be treated, and it was kindly. Slavery was common in the area...The entire Jewish people were slaves in Egypt, people were kidnapped and sold into slavery (Joseph)

According to this site: http://www.iabolish.org/modern_slavery101/ 27 million people are enslaved in the world today.

Slavery is widespread in Saudi Arabia: http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SaudiArabia.htm

In Sudan and Mauritania and Pakistan : http://www.gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Pakistan.htm

From Daniel Pipes 2003:

__________________
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)