Hey Christians, how can you believe in this???

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Yes, for sure there were many ordinary people who had volunteered to serve in the SS and Einzatsgrupen (spelling), but it has to be remembered that far many more did not.
And I think it should be pointed out that Daniel Goldhagen is hardly an unbiased source - he had even attacked the character and motives of the brave German patriots who had taken part in the Stauffenberg bomb plot, which a great many historians have taken him to task for.

I wouldn't have liked the average dark age Christian either. There are a few more factors at work in social advancement over the past 1,500 years.

^This.

While I consider myself an atheist, I know several people with remarkably similar life views as myself who consider themselves Christian (based on the source of their moral code), despite the fact that they do not believe in Jesus as a messiah or in any type of omnipotent/omniscient god(s).

By the way, it seems you continue to mention things that happened in the past, while ignoring the crimes that are happening in present days in the name of religion and so-called "honour" (my idea of honour is definitely different than that of the people who murder their own daughters and sons and/or family members).

Let me quote myself:



Also the fact is that you can go to New York, in a crowded street, and start yelling insanities about Jesus and burn a Bible, and maybe some people will yell at you but chances are no one will actually attack you physically ... now try the same thing in Iraq, go to a crowded street, start yelling insanities about Muhammad and burn a Qur'an, and see what happens to you.

But Christians have learned to actually live by Christ's teachings. Would have worshipers of Wodan become more tolerant and love their neighbor if that religion had survived to this day? I sincerely doubt it.

The Jews moved past their barbaric legal codes despite their presence in the bible. The Christians moved past the Inquisition. Today's believers tend not to be like ancient believers.

That's because there was always a moral code in the Old and New Testaments. You can't say the same thing about Norse/Germanic paganism, with it's sole emphasis on the heroic ideal, which revolved around violence. In fact, when Wulfias translated the Bible into Gothic, he found there were no Germanic words for sin and damnation, and so he had to try to make Germanic words like forfeiture and outlawry fit Judeao-Christian concepts. The point is, Pre-Christian pagan northern culture had no concept of morally wrong actions, or their consequences, just legal ones.

Or go to NYC and start shouting about the importance of Islam, Muhammad, and living your life by the tenets of the Qur'an and are and see how well that goes for you. Or go to a small isolated rural community where Christian fundamentalism is the only socially accpetable standard and see how well it goes for you.

Don't get me wrong, Muslims around the world are in a violent state of upheaval, but overall the younger generation of Muslims are drastically different from the old guard holding power in many of the predominantly Muslim nations. Islam is going through the same dangerous growing pains that most other religions have gone through before.

It will have the exact same effect as in the previous paragraph, people still won't attack you physically. On the other hand go to Iraq, to a crowded street (or isolated village), start shouting about the importance of Christianity, Jesus, and living your life by the tenets of the New Testament, and see how well it goes for you. (I can already tell you how well it will go, to the least, and if you are lucky, in many Muslim countries you will go to prison for this).

There can always be some maniac (I am thinking isolated nut cases, or people like the Westboro church, these guys are indeed scary, but they are far from being a majority) who might attack you like you are trying to imply, however it is not a general thing at all, and in the U.S. if they do attack you, they are the ones who will go to prison, and will face charges. If the same thing happens in Iraq (and many other Muslim countries), it is you who will go to prison and face charges for speaking up about Christianity and Jesus, and/or for speaking against Muhammad and Islam. And chances are you, and your family, will eventually get attacked and murdered, as it has happened to many Christians. And you do remember what happened in Afghanistan when a few Qur'an were burned a little while ago right? Thousands of people attacked them, it was certainly not the majority of people in Afghanistan, but it certainly was a very significant number.



I agree with this, in case you have missed it I mentioned one of my best friends is a Muslim. However, and unfortunately, in some countries where there is a majority of Muslims (like Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria, etc, even Pakistan and Egypt are getting worse) the young ones who want freedom and democracy either get murdered (remember what happened last year in Afghanistan? many teenagers who were partying were murdered by Taliban men), or are brainwashed by the older ones. In Iran on the other hand, eventho the government is Islamic there is many who want freedom and democracy, and I think they are much closer to this goal than countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Iranians are also well educated and this makes a huge difference (they have many Universities and many Iranians have diplomas and receive a higher education).

Speaking of which, here is one of my favorite videos, made during the peaceful revolution of 2009-2010 in Iran. The big crowd, with people wearing green bracelets, green items, and doing the V sign, are people who wanted more freedom and democracy in Iran, the much smaller crowd to their left are people who support the Islamic government. As you will see the crowd of people who support more freedom and were part of the Green movement is much bigger than the Islamic government supporters crowd. Another thing that you will notice is that men and women are protesting together, side by side.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gegE9UbBUfA[/youtube]

monsterguy, I think it's a good start that you are recognizing the ugly side in each of these 2 religions.

Violent crimes are committed against Muslims in the US surprisingly often for a supposedly tolerant country. We have several Muslim households within a few blocks from us, and they have been subjected to some pretty horrible treatment while just keeping their heads down and only leaving the house when needed. And many African countries are have populations that have no qualms executing Muslims just for existing.

And to assume that all of Iraq's citizens will attack you for being Christian is patently absurd. Yes, there is a substantial portion of the population that may be that extreme, but it is still a minority of the population. Please do not pass judgment on an entire nation's people's based on the actions of the most visible. It would be like people outside of the US assuming that all Americans believe the world is 6000 years old and that homosexuality is a sin that can be easily corrected by some re-education camps.

This is a pretty good graphic to put Muslim to Muslim extremists in perspective:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YjKyQRR89Uo/TdPxGYpmmkI/AAAAAAAADgc/KtgtL2qPYFI/s1600/tumblr_llbx4hA0GY1qza249o1_500.jpg



And again, you mistake the actions of the few as the actions of all. These acts are not sanctioned by most governments (definitely not Iraq's official government), and attacks on Christians are just as illegal as attacks against anyone else. In the US, there is plenty of bigotry based crime; our nation is just better at catching and punishing it, which means it is done less overtly (now).



The majority of Muslims of Iraq are not getting worse (nor are Syria's); the extremist movement has gotten more powerful and taken more ground, and the majority of those extremists are coming from elsewhere (Saudi Arabia has way too many violent extremists sheltered there under the magical US oil protection umbrella), but the majority of the population is not as extremist as you seem to believe. And it is not a matter of Muslims vs Christians, it is a matter of a violent and dangerous leader who has no problem imprisoning, torturing, and executing Muslims who has pushed things too far and started the "enemy of my enemy" game. There are factions of extremists fighting against Assad and each other at the same time. The Iraq-Syria border and its surrounding area has become the go-to battle ground for most of the extremist factions.

Egypt's mostly secular military leaders have been persecuting the Muslim Brotherhood like you would not believe (although they are also taking down everyone else along they way); it is not based on religion, but on threats to military power. In fact, if you are Muslim in Egypt, you are considered a higher risk to the current "elected" leader.

Libya is not any worse (or better) from a religious standpoint. It has become more violent, but it is just a power grab by the different factions that Gaddafi kept in check for 40 years who are all using firearms handed out indiscriminately by the US to duke it out. They aren't after Christians; they are after oil (and power). One (possibly) positive development is Khalifa Haftar's assault on Muslim militants and extremists. Although this was done without the Libyan "government" giving consent or approval, there have been quite a few demonstrations supporting the move.

Northern Pakistan is getting worse, but that is because the extremists have few places left to hide in Afghanistan, so they have relocated (also a major contributing factor to the troubles in Syria and Iraq; displaced fundamentalists finding a new location to take up the cause). Although the Pakistani government has recently been taking steps towards taking the extremists concentrated in the north down a peg or two, and they have (for the most part) been quite receptive to the US drone strike program.



This happens less and less (overall, although in some regions it has intensified). Isolated events of an ever-weakening extremist group are not a good example of growing unrest. The Taliban made so many threats when the elections were coming that you would have thought that a massacre was emminent (which did not materialize). The Taliban is not welcome in most geographic locations in the country anymore. Even most of the tribal groups at this point will not help them.




Despite the (publicly) extremist that was in power until recently, this has been the case for quite some time. This new moderate has stopped a lot of the posturing that previously was thought to make the nation appear more powerful. Cuba was in the same boat. They didn't really hate us, they just had a vested interest in keeping us at a distance.

And please don't forget that there are less Muslims in the Middle East than elswhere in the world. Do not use the insanity there as a representation for anything other than a minority of Muslims.
And there are plenty of MidEast countries that are quite receptive to the West and perfectly accepting of other religions. There are plenty of Muslims in that region who find the behavior of extremists just as abhorrent as you (and I) do.

Here is a pretty good graphic of the breakdown of the way things stand right now, from a like 'em/hate 'em standpoint of the various factions:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/26/the-middle-east-explained-in-one-sort-of-terrifying-chart/

I NEVER said this! Extremists (including fundamentalists - i.e. people who take religion very seriously) might attack you, NOT all of Iraq's citizens! I even mentioned an event (not sure if it was in this thread tho, and I'm being lazy lol I don't feel like reading my messages again) where extremists in Egypt (I think it was in Egypt, but I would have to check) threatened Christians, and a crowd of Muslims surrounded the Church to protect the Christians against these extremists during service, they risked their lives for this. I also mentioned how moderate Muslims were persecuted by extremists just as much as anyone else, they also fear them, and they also get murdered by these extremists.



No, I don't, it is you who misunderstand my words. I am talking about the actions of A FEW, not the actions of ALL. The problem tho, is that there is many of these FEW, to where they can control whole cities and countries. I even mentioned the Qur'an burning incident, and how a few thousands attacked them, and how many moderate Muslims were killed by other Muslims during this incident, again I never said nor implied that it was all of Iraq's citizens! I only said that the number of people who did attack the soldiers due to the incident was significant.



Again, I NEVER said that the majority of Muslims of Iraq were getting worse! Sunnis and Shias (and different groups among them) have been fighting each other for hundreds of years, long before America (as the U.S.) even existed, they were fighting each other long before we went there, and will continue to do so for God knows how long. Shia and Sunni extremist groups have existed ever since Muhammad's death (and before that there has always been wars and dictators, long before Islam even existed).



That's because when the Muslim Brotherhood is in charge, they always want to implement Shariah law, and people lose their freedom completely, especially women. Mohamed Morsi also tried to "pull a quick one", by giving himself all powers, eventho he spoke of "justice" and "freedom". Sorry but myself I do not trust the Muslim Brotherhood at all, and I am glad they are not letting them do whatever they want.


I agree with this in general. But Christians (and any other religion) are often persecuted in countries under Muslim rule.



Same as the other countries unfortunately, its always just a matter of time.



I hope you're right about this, but they seem to have become more powerful in Pakistan. I don't know tho, I don't have actual numbers, it just seems that way if I judge from recent events. I guess the future will tell.



I'm not sure what you are talking about here (about Iran) when you mention an extremist group, are you referring to the present government, or militant groups like MEK? or Quds? etc. The Islamic government is still in place, so is the Supreme Leader Khamenei, and so are the Revolutionary guards and militia, and presidential candidates still have to be approved by the Guardian council, and its been that way since 1979, nothing has changed, but it has gotten a little better. Presently, many human rights activists, journalists, students, writers, etc, are in prison for political reasons. The difference tho, is that people, especially students, never stopped protesting after they realised what kind of man Khomeini was, and how the new government took their freedom away. And last I heard, Mr. Mousavi and his wife (leaders of the Green movement) are still on house arrest. The peaceful revolution of 2009-2010 was a bigger, general protest movement, and it is only a matter of time until the next one. I am not sure about Cuba tho, I know Iran and Iranians, but I don't know any Cuban unfortunately so I will take your word for it.



I agree that there is many Muslims who don't approve of the actions of groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, I said this myself, I mentioned how most don't like them, they are afraid of them. As to the people who actually like Americans (and/or "the West"), it is a love/hate relationship, some just hate the West, but others love/hate us, they hate some things, but at the same time many love many things from "the West". But I think they are a minority, except in Iran, and possibly in Pakistan, where there is actually a lot of citizens who are truly friendly towards Americans.

So you have no problem with the jailing of political disidents, as long as they are a group that was democratically elected but not up to your personal standards for what is acceptable?



And atheists and homosexuals are often persecuted in countries under Christian rule, including the US (despite some laws in place that say otherwise).



The simple fact that the government of Pakistan is actively pursuing the Taliban (and other extremists) within its borders is movement in the right direction. And as I have said before, the reason things are "getting worse" in Pakistan is that the Afghani extremists that remain are being pushed out of that country.



1. The elctions put the most moderate candidate in power (Hassan Rouhani), showing that the people do not want any more extremists running things.

2. The present government has no problems with open discussions in terms of giving up ambitions toward nuclear weapons, as well as open politcal engagement with countries that it previously refused to acknowledge.

3. As for imprisonment, anyone in the US should be wary of making those complaints without first addressing the fact that even with their unjustified imprisonments, their incarceration rates are still significantly lower than the US.

4. The imprisonments in Iran are fewer in number than you are led to believe by the media. One pastor and two other Americans are the only ones the US has there. The three hikers that were imprisoned in 2011 were accused of spying, but were convicted of entering the country illegally, so be careful of your condemnations on that score considering the treatment for the same crime in the US.

5. Khamenei strongly condemned to 9/11 attacks and those who carried them out. While he by no means a prgressive forward looking leader, he is far from the violent extremist he is frequently portrayed as. Do not forget that the US has a vested interest in making sure its citizens have some big bad guys around to keep us scared.

6. Just for the record, Sharia law isn't some set in stone, persecure women and non-believers code of laws. It simply means laws based on scripture. There are plenty of people in power in the US that want the Bible to be the entire source of legislation and legal codes.



These are some fairly (or very) comparatively progressive Islamic nations:
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Azerbaijan
Turkey
Chad
Mali
Senegal
Guinea
Indonesia
Jordan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Eritria
Niger
Kazakstan
United Arab Emirates (you can be an openly gay Jew in Dubai with no fear)
Kuwait
Bahrain (where there are many synagogues next door to mosques)
Jordan
Tunisia
Morroco
Armenia
Iran and Syria (the majority of the actual people, anyway)

We have examples of a range of religions reforming and changing over time. Not just Christianity. That's a trend. If a religion survives I imagine it will always change and find different forms. Paganism in the Greco-Roman world was diverse and competed with Christianity until the Christians shut the schools down. I see no reason why a hypothetical literate northern Europe couldn't have adapted similarly. But of course it was difficult for any other belief to survive the oppressive behavior of dark age Christianity but that's another issue. Not nice people.

A great many of the Dark Age Christians were once northern pagans. It took a while for Christian culture and morality to actually sink in to the general populace and warrior elites.

I never said this. Did you see what Mohammed Morsi did???? The problem with the Muslim Brotherhood is that when they are in position of power there is no democracy or freedom, and women (and people in general) lose their human rights, and when some groups/organisations want to take away other people's human rights I do have a problem with that.



No they aren't, if anything it is Christians themselves who are persecuted even here in the US (nothing compared to persecution in some Muslim countries tho). We do have a group or 2 who are pretty extremist tho (but nothing compared to groups like Al Qaeda!), like the Westboro church, I don't know what's wrong with these guys, but thankfully they are a very small minority among Christians (I'm not even sure we should call these guys Christians as what they do is anything but Christian). About homosexuality: depending on where you live in the U.S. (some states are more open minded than others), in California for example there is plenty of openly gay people. Isolated cases of harassment happen in every country, every groups as well, religious and others, sadly its human nature (I should say of "some" humans, not all of course), but it is not the same as persecution approved by the government, and if you attack a person physically (or harass), whether they are gay or practice any religion, or whatever else, you will get arrested and charged for assault (or harassment, etc). Even in Iran, which is moderate compared to some others countries, many homosexuals have been jailed and even killed just because they were gay (and this not only with the government blessings, but with the government actively participating in the persecution)! !! Remember when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "there is no gay people in Iran"??? When Freddy Mercury died Muslims in Zanzibar/Tanzania (which is where he was born) refused to even mention him because he was gay.

There is a reason why so many immigrants come to the US, and many who asked for asylum and who are refugees from other countries. No country is perfect, with perfect laws, but the US is a dang good country to live in.



Every candidate has to be approved by the Guardian Council, which eliminates any candidate who would advocate for democracy and/or a secular government, but he is a diplomat (or used to be), and I like him better than Ahmadinejad. The majority of people wanted Mousavi, but he is still on house arrest.



The "present" government is exactly the same as the previous one. No matter who is President, it is the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards who are actually in charge (and a whole lot of people behind the scenes).


Are you serious? Iranian prisons are full of great people, human right activists, journalists, students, lawyers, etc, who have done nothing but advocate for human rights!! ! It is not the case in the U.S., people don't get jailed for expressing disagreement with the government (unless you are actually threatening to commit violent acts). This is not comparable to "normal" wrongful convictions, which unfortunately is something that happens in every country. In Iran if you protest against the government you go to prison. And people are treated very badly in Iranian prisons.



Absolutely not, there is MORE than you are led to believe by the media. I don't even get my news from the medias, I get them from Iranians themselves, in and outside Iran!! !! Along with my Iranian friend (who was born in Iran), I actively supported the Green movement in 2009/2010, and I was aware of every human right activist (and protester) who was put in prison, and put to death as well. I used to have a website where we posted the names of every activist arrested (I don't anymore because I am totally broken financially, but we still do on our Facebook pages). One of the people I admire very much is Shadi Sadr (that's why my user name is Shadi), she is a lawyer who works for women, and she was also beaten by militia and put in prison (like so many others like her)! !!



You are constantly blaming the US for everything, Iranians are not idiots, they can think for themselves. And you are wrong, the US SUPPORTED the Green movement!! ! Iranians did not want a military intervention, they want to solve their own issues themselves, and peacefully. And Khameini is indeed far from being a "progressive" leader, and he is not the "sweet and innocent" leader that you seem to believe he is either. There is a reason people were burning pictures of him in the streets during the 2009-2010 revolution. Ayatollah Montazeri, who was (had become) a moderate, and supported the Green Movement, was still on house arrest until his death!! !

Here are a few of the people who were killed by your "nice" Khamenei's IRG and militia, all they did was protest peacefully https://www.flickr.com/photos/_free_iran_/3908198985/ , and there is hundreds of human right activists who are jailed right now.



I know what Sharia law is Sonofghandi, there is good and bad within it, but the bad is very bad, and according to Sharia Law women are considered 2nd class citizens, there is no 2 ways about it. And I haven't heard about anyone in power in the US who wants the Bible to be the entire source of legislation and legal codes, even the most "extremist" Christians don't follow the laws in the Bible. Among other things, they don't stone people.