The religion(s) of peace

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Part of that is an exaggeration of Islam, and some of it belongs to a culture that pre-exists Islam. For instance the Taliban's behavior can be traced back before Islam to tribal customs. There are many, many practitioners of Islam in the world who don't engage in or promote such actions.

It's a difficult comparison, since Christianity is more centrally structured - larger churches have centralized leadership - whereas Islam is not answerable to a central authority but to local authorities that do things their own ways, often following the older cultural mindsets of those regions. I can't claim to be an expert, but if you start reading about the subject you soon find that you can't accurately lump all Muslim behavior into a single statetment like yours.

Aside from that, there are elements of Christianity that even today get into some pretty crazy stuff. Look up Christian Identity (which may have influenced Timothy McVeigh). Also Warren Jeffs and his offshoot group. Charles Manson was trying to bring about Armageddon by creating scenarios staged to look like racial violence. Many of the Nazis who carried out atrocities during WWII were devout Christians. There have been claims of religious discrimination of soldiers carried out by Christian officers in the US military just in the past few years. Many of those cases are still being investigated.

I don't think modern Christianity can yet be fully exonerated as nonviolent and peaceful.

A disciple of Jesus cut off a guards ear with a sword but Jesus healed the ear.

Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Sorry. Do say it again, I was just beside myself for a moment.

check out this very sad movie about the catholic church
be warned, it can be hard to watch

It is a religion of peace, just people being people convolute the message and the meaning. This is why I pretty much only pay attention to what Jesus says and not his followers. Often a follower doesn't know what he is talking about.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 10 Jan 2013, 1:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If Christianity were a religion of war Jesus would not have been crucified.

Androbot, this is a very wise statement.

Even if his disciples were cowards Jesus could have called in an army of a million angels to prevent the crucifixion.

Jesus himself says in the Bible he did not come to bring peace but a sword.

Granted, this wasn't meant to be taken literally, but the context is clear that it wasn't temporal peace on earth he was trying to achieve.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God?

Matthew 5:9

Note the context of the passage in which this resides.

Focus on the "kingdom of heaven" bit.

The Beatitudes

He is trying to give the hopeless hope. Life was very hard for most people back then. People died young. Loss was everywhere. So, here comes Jesus trying to comfort these hurting people who had, most likely, suffered tremendous loss in this life. Probably lost several kids in infancy, didn't have enough to eat everyday, suffered all kinds of health maladies. It was hell.

Yeah, but look at the context and notice how it's an apocalyptic one. What with the inheriting the earth and all.

Jesus was all about the apocalypse ... which never happened in his time as he predicted.

He was about helping people. He wanted to live a good life where they thirsted after peace and tried to reconcile before things got too out of hand. He wanted to feed them. He wanted to give them free wine and he wanted to heal them. He didn't want married people to get divorced. All these things he thought would serve them well in life and make them lead happier lives.

You're just repeating the same thing you said before with different words.

Jesus in the Bible several times predicted the end was imminent (that is, in his time) and that the kingdom of heaven would arrive and all men worthy would be a part of it.

That was why he was preaching love and peace and all. It was for preparation for the kingdom of the future that was supposed to be all about peace and love and harmony between the people.

Obviously, it never did come, and some things from Jesus' words were adjusted to suit later theologies, but make no mistake, the Beatitudes were originally never meant for any of us modern people, including modern Christians.

Have a read of Bart Ehrman's book on the Apocalyptic Jesus to see what this whole fuss about peace was about.

Of course he wanted that because everyone was so damn miserable. Sheesh. It sucked back then. People were vicious and evil, sick and dying, walking around with their noses falling off from Leprosy. What do you think he's gonna say to them? He wanted them to think there would be an end to it and they would be alright.