To peace and love Christians

[Jenny A]

I don't know enough about Islam or Judaism to this with those, but for Christians it goes more like this:

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Liberal: Claims that the heaven and forgiveness of sins part is true, but the uncomfortable bits like hell aren't. Says Jesus was a great moral teacher, but rarely reads the Gospels. Is sure Jesus was a liberal and that when he said to give away your possessions, he meant vote for higher taxes. Says the Old Testament and some of the New Testament should be read metaphorically. May believe in something else on the side like Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, or even Ra. Can't explain how both heaven and reincarnation work, but what the hell, it's woo. He may rarely attend church (unless he's Unitarian) but he loves to go on retreats.

Moderate: Claims the Bible is spiritually true (whatever that might mean). Believes most of it, but doesn't like to think about the uncomfortable parts. May not believe in hell or at least doesn't like to think about it. Probably does not believe in The Rapture, and is not looking for The End Times. Likes to think of Jesus as clean cut version of himself. Church attendance may vary from three times a week to once a year. The older he is, the more often he attends. Attends goes up for a while on the birth of a child.

Extremist: Says the Bible is one hundred percent true, but only acts on the mean spirited nasty bits. Touts turning the cheek and love your neighbor in debate, but certainly does not behave that way. Thinks Jesus was an anti-commie, gun toting capitalist who loved the middle class. Considers socialism is a form of theft and therefore a sin. Spends much time thinking about the Rapture and The End Times and might possibly be actively trying to hurry them along. Likes mystical numbers and signs. Won't sleep in room 666 and may think that his zip code or social security number is an attempt to brand him with the mark of the beast. Either never goes to church because he doesn't believe in organized religion or his whole social circle is based upon one church.

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To be honest, this is where we just bury our heads in the sands. First and foremost:

1. Judaism, Christianism and Islam are Abrahamic faiths and thus share the same root as far as biblical stories are concerned, same dietary laws and punishments etc etc.

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2. When Christianism split from Judaism, there were two distinct branches created; Catholicism and Protestantism.
3. Islam also split from Judaism and the Arabs who were practicing Judaism and paganism decide to convert to Islam.
4. Catholicism has shown itself to be an evil religion, a religion with only one other equal. It is a religion that has converted many millions of indigenous people, burnt people at the stake and tortured many millions more.
5. Protestantism isn't far behind, with Martin Luther (who at the start liked the Jewish people) who detested the Jewish, so much so that he wanted them burnt out of their homes. Martin Luther was just as much evil as the popes and Adolf Hitler.
6. Islam, has many branches i.e. Sh'ia, Sunni, Yazidi etc etc. There has been a great deal of violence towards others by muslims which is comparable to Catholicism. Examples of this was when they tried to force the Gurus to convert to Islam, it failed and so most, if not all of the famous Gurus were slain. Islam is an evil religion and along with Catholicism, they fit together like hand in a glove.

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With all that being said, I find it weird that you don't "know enough about Islam or Judaism", when all you have to do is read the Torah and the Qu'ran and you'll see the similarities. The way I see it is this, Christians get a hard time on here (and why not...:-) ) whereas muslims get a virtual free pass and are seldom criticised to the extent as Christians. You either criticise all three; Christianism, Judaism and Islam, or none at all. They are all evil.

Please read in context. I wrote about the way Americans of various Christian persuasions think and behave not about what the Bible says. It was social commentary about how much of and how Christians use the Bible and how religious they are and aren't.

Reading the Qur'an won't give me that information about Muslims. I don't know enough Muslims socially to give social commentary about them. I have no real idea what liberal Muslims think or how they behave.

I have read the Torah. But that doesn't really tell me how Jews behave in the real world. There aren't enough Jews in this part of the country for me to play this game with them either.

American Christians I am intimately familiar with. And I could have written what I wrote without having read the Bible.

I know full well that that all three religions are related and the history of that relationship as do just about all educated people. But that has nothing to do with how Christians behave or what parts of that tradition they accept.