Making fals equivalency between Christian and islamic 'fundemantalists'

[Justtristo]

I hear a lot ,lately, about how US christianity has its own 'fundamentalists' who are 'just as extreme' as the Muslim ones.

This is demonstrably nonsense. The behaviour of your average loony baptist,creationist biblical literalist if observed in the Muslim would would be unbelievably moderate ,liberal even.

Christian loons don't kill their daughters for 'dishonouring' the family, they don't start mass riots and storm the embassies of Muslim countries because of some insult that Muslims have made against Christians

There is simply no equivalence at all.

Well since the 17th century Western Civilization has been through both the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. The Islamic world has not undergone those changes (especially the Age of Enlightenment). Thus is not surprising today's Islamic fundamentalists are little different to what Christian fanatics were back in the 17th century.

For example; I believe there was very little difference between the Taliban State in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, to say Geneva during the time of John Calvin or Puritan New England. All of those places were theocratic states which brutally persecuted anybody (John Calvin sanctioned the burning of Michael Servetus for heresy in Gevena) who were deemed a heretic or infidel. Not to mention being fond of executing girls and women accused of being witches (Salem Witchcraft Trials). There was also the Puritan Commonwealth of England, which was a Protestant regime about as repressive as Taliban Afghanistan was. For example; they banned the celebration of Christmas, strict observance of the Christian Sabbath and closed down theaters.

[Anomalocaris]

I think they would if they could.

Well what stops them? Seriously....is there anything stopping from doing it if they wanted?

Societal progress

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It's too bad the nation did not go with Romeycare, but instead went with the more corrupt Obamacare.

But they will not go with the more corrupt Romney.

[Polaris]

Wouldn't doing so be progress to them?

More corrupt? Kind of hard to do so when you go against someone who goes from being against Bush policy to almost fully endorsing them.

[TaraJo]

This kinda touches on something I heard a friend of mine talk about in a blog post a while ago. You can read the full thing there, but she did spot an alarming parallel between American, Christian fundamentalists and Middle East, Islamic fundamentalists. You can read it in full here:
http://www.transadvocate.com/genevieve/

I used to do Counter Insurgency (COIN) analysis on religious fanatics for a living. When they thought that they were winning, or at least had a good chance, they played “nicer” in order to keep some of the population on their side. They had certain moral boundaries that they generally wouldn’t cross, such as kidnapping women for ransom and such. When they thought they had won (i.e. no U.S. or Iraqi forces anywhere to be found for years at a time), they dropped their veneer of populism and their “morality” and did things which were unacceptable to the local populace. This included kidnapping unmarried women and forcing them to be their wives, or shooting people for smoking or listening to music. Conversely, when it became clear they were losing, they became desperate, and no longer made any attempt to make a favorable case to the local population. All rules of engagement that might have been there before were gone, and moralconstraints to their courses of action completely disappeared. The scary thing was al Qaeda in Iraq caused an immense amount of havoc because of this amorality, while enjoying very limited public support (10-20% at any given time).

So, when Rick Santorum goes down in flames, and the massive electoral victory for President Obama becomes a mandate for the social change he has been promoting, you have to wonder what all of Santorum’s true believers will do. They lost, and if they have any notion of trend analysis, will realize that things aren’t going to improve. Younger people are increasingly pro-LGBT rights, and pro-choice. They are less religious, and when religious they are usually drawn to the kinds of Protestantism that Santorum finds “un-Christian”. Evangelicals blamed McCain’s defeat on McCain not being conservative, or pure, enough. This time, they got exactly who they wanted, and he will be beaten even more badly than McCain was in what should have been a winnable election.

What will they do? They will feel rejected, defeated, and isolated. They will be confronting the horrors of a nation where discriminating against LGBT people is punishable by law, and same sex couples are free to marry. To them, it will seem like the end of times, and they the last of God’s chosen. If history is any indication, many of the rules they abided by before will go by the wayside. Which ones, and how they choose to break them, is unpredictable. We are already seeing some of them fall, though. When was the last time a parties’ top candidate called the President a non-Christian, and his supporters agents of Satan? How much less civil will they be when they lose, and lose big?

The religious extremists are out there and they very well could be coming out of the woodwork.

[Puddleglum]

Again lots of attempts to make parrallels but in the west Muslims are actually killing people because of their religion. They are defying laws and murdering their daughters and attacking people who insult their religion. Christians are NOT doing this, in the same countries. The 'would if they could' argument is false because they quite clearly could do these things.

[Justtristo]

Again lots of attempts to make parrallels but in the west Muslims are actually killing people because of their religion. They are defying laws and murdering their daughters and attacking people who insult their religion. Christians are NOT doing this, in the same countries. The 'would if they could' argument is false because they quite clearly could do these things.

Modern Christian fanatics aren't doing this stuff. However their counterparts before the age of enlightenment were doing this sort of stuff.

Even now many conservative Christians would like to see blasphemy laws reintroduced and people they view as blasphemers be punished accordingly.

[jonb]

Again lots of attempts to make parrallels but in the west Muslims are actually killing people because of their religion. They are defying laws and murdering their daughters and attacking people who insult their religion. Christians are NOT doing this, in the same countries. The 'would if they could' argument is false because they quite clearly could do these things.

So why didn't all those black people lynch white Americans then? Did they have a better psychophysical take on the world?

[Brian37]

I hear a lot ,lately, about how US christianity has its own 'fundamentalists' who are 'just as extreme' as the Muslim ones.

This is demonstrably nonsense. The behaviour of your average loony baptist,creationist biblical literalist if observed in the Muslim would would be unbelievably moderate ,liberal even.

Christian loons don't kill their daughters for 'dishonouring' the family, they don't start mass riots and storm the embassies of Muslim countries because of some insult that Muslims have made against Christians

There is simply no equivalence at all.

Christian violence is not widespread like in Islam, but the underpinnings of gang mentality is still there. Christians had their Dark Ages, Iquisition and burned Witches. And even today they are trying to hijack politics to subjegate women's bodies to being Jesus owned. They deny gays equal rights.

The only difference between Islam and Christianity, is that Christianity has had a secular leash on it for 200 years. But you are being foolish to think that Christianity without that leash would not be as tribal and violent if given the chance. The west is civil in spit of religion, not because of it.

All the gods of Abrham are characters that demand loyalty and fight the outsider. Only people like Jefferson and Paine changed that tide. They knew that you couldn't stop people from believing what they want, but they came up with the concept of government neutrality and a ban on monopolies of power and a ban on pecking orders.

I have no doubt if there had never been written the Constitution, much of the freedom of religious minorities and the rights of women and blacks, would not have come about.

Christians don't view the bible the same way Islam views the Koran, I agree. But there was far more literallism and bloodshed in Christianity util the Age of Enlightenment. To ignore that is foolish.

The violence allowed, condoned and even caused by God in the bible is still written in word. People today chose to ignore those words or twist them to downpay the fact the words are there.

The bible is full of violence from begining to end. It is no less bloody than the Koran. The only difference is how most Christians interpret it. It is nothing more than a back peddle to avoid literalism.

All holy books are weapons and as long as there are words for humans to read, humans will make up excuses to use them, either in politics to dominate a political party, or to justify bigotry. It allows them to "die for what they believe".

Christianity does not deserve a pass. There was a time when it was as bloody and tribal as Islam is today.

Oh and if you think Christians cant be violent, Africa even today has violent Christians, "Lords Resisence Army".

[genkaus]

Again lots of attempts to make parrallels but in the west Muslims are actually killing people because of their religion. They are defying laws and murdering their daughters and attacking people who insult their religion. Christians are NOT doing this, in the same countries. The 'would if they could' argument is false because they quite clearly could do these things.

Clearly not, since they did do it when they could do it.

[Puddleglum]

Clearly not, since they did do it when they could do it.

They could do now in the West what Muslims do now in the West so why don't they?

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I am also talking about 21st century Christians and 21st Century Muslims not ones from long ago.

Even during the middle ages women who had sex before marriage weren't executed. They were forced to marry or join a nunnery but not murdered by their fathers.