I fucking despise religion

[Zone]

Explain the Indonesian experience.

Indonesia and the Balkans were exceptions to the more usual way in which Islam expanded itself into new territories. If you compare it to Christianity you'll see that prior to the Middle Ages and the Crusades all conversion was willing and peaceful, even if some of it was for political gain rather than true spiritual reasons.

[KichigaiNeko]

Sorry Zone. NO "conversions" have been "peaceful" ALL has been for political reasons and money.

[Zen Badger]

Incorrect. The Qur'an calls for the indiscriminate violence against those who disagree with their religion. The Bible does not.

Exodus 22:20 He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

Deuteronomy 13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

17:2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant,
17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;
17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:
17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

2 Chronicles 15:13 That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.

Numbers 25:16 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
25:17 Vex the Midianites, and smite them:
25:18 For they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, which was slain in the day of the plague for Peor's sake.

Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Need I go on?

[Zone]

Sorry Zone. NO "conversions" have been "peaceful" ALL has been for political reasons and money.

Christianity spread as far as China through the monastic tradition. Ancient Christian texts written in the style of Buddhist Sutras were found in a ruined Chinese Monastery, they're collected in this book.



It didn't persist as the Chinese authorities stamped it out, and a similar thing happened in Japan when there was an uprising of Christian Samuari warriors that they had to put down in the 16th century. The Roman Empire attempted to do this as well until Constantine had a dream in which he was advised to mark his soldiers shields with the X of Christ before battle. So with Christianity there was a grass roots movement that went against ruling authority as well as an top down conversion from kings to subjects. Islam spread by military conquest right from the very start, conquered subjects either had to convert or they had to pay a special tax. Christianity didn't spread that way (in it's first 1000 years) with a few exceptions, the pagans living in Isle of Wight in Britain 700 AD were massacred for not accepting Christianity. The rest of the British converted without any violence at all.

[Aractus]

Ah, well...the good news is that the sick fucker is going to burn in hell forever after he dies, but not because he raped and mutilated his own daughter - it"s because he refused to accept Jesus as his personal lord and savior. Right?

Yes well, I can see how you think that's silly. After all, you'll get on your high-horse and tell me not to judge people with lifestyles I disagree with. Hmm... But what I think you've failed to grasp is actually that I don't have a vested interest in judging others at all, that's for God to do not I. Yet here you are, clearly this is someone deserving of your judgement, you feel you have the right to do so, from a place of moral supremacy.

Yes, his sins could be forgiven - of course. But if it was up to me he would spend life without parole in gaol, or face the death penalty - that's the debt I believe he owes to society. But that fact doesn't mean he can't or shouldn't come to God, after all Moses was a murderer and he was accepted by God and made a prophet of God.

[KichigaiNeko]

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Sorry Zone. NO "conversions" have been "peaceful" ALL has been for political reasons and money.

Christianity spread as far as China through the monastic tradition. Ancient Christian texts written in the style of Buddhist Sutras were found in a ruined Chinese Monastery, they're collected in this book.



It didn't persist as the Chinese authorities stamped it out, and a similar thing happened in Japan when there was an uprising of Christian Samuari warriors that they had to put down in the 16th century. The Roman Empire attempted to do this as well until Constantine had a dream in which he was advised to mark his soldiers shields with the X of Christ before battle. So with Christianity there was a grass roots movement that went against ruling authority as well as an top down conversion from kings to subjects. Islam spread by military conquest right from the very start, conquered subjects either had to convert or they had to pay a special tax. Christianity didn't spread that way (in it's first 1000 years) with a few exceptions, the pagans living in Isle of Wight in Britain 700 AD were massacred for not accepting Christianity. The rest of the British converted without any violence at all.

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[WinterHold]

Islam itself, like all religions, is a tribal ethnic group in it's own right. More so than most as it has complete social and political structure built into it. There was an Arab monotheistic movement before Mohammeds era so it's something that emerged from that region of the world within that culture.

Zone get your facts right. There was no monotheistic movement before mohammad in the arabian peninsula, the one & only before him was Abraham's journey, and it concluded many countries & the founding of mekka, but that was some very long time ago, even for mohammad's time.
Consider the fact that there was no books at that time, any kind of knowledge was in rome, Mohammad didn't go to rome's capital, so literally he didn't receive any education.

We're also speaking about the same era of "Attila the Hun", which witnessed a raise of power to the church allover the world.

I'm trying to find a reason why mohammad would forge a new religion that unifies god & people.

If you said he did it to brainwash people into following him, then you know nothing about the medieval mind.

medieval people especially arabs weren't like us. They didn't believe in those sneaky ways, and weren't capable of managing such tricks all by themselves..especially if they don't know how to read !

Accusing mohammed of forging religion based on an older one, means mohammad can read, write, think like a modern person, knows the future, and studied the physiological condition of each arab & non arab during his time.

Carrying on the accuse means : Islam is the biggest conspiracy in the modern world after christianity..

I thought conspiracy theories are more "theoretical" more than real ? just like the Da Venci code, might be fun to read, but never carries a straight forward evidence.

They look for the holly grail to make that theory true.. you would have to search for the way mohammad used to write the Quran up.

[Aractus]

Zone get your facts right. There was no monotheistic movement before mohammad in the arabian peninsula, the one & only before him was Abraham's journey, and it concluded many countries & the founding of mekka, but that was some very long time ago, even for mohammad's time.

Ah yes there was, it's called Christianity. Why do you think Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of God while Jews don't?

[WinterHold]

Zone get your facts right. There was no monotheistic movement before mohammad in the arabian peninsula, the one & only before him was Abraham's journey, and it concluded many countries & the founding of mekka, but that was some very long time ago, even for mohammad's time.

Ah yes there was, it's called Christianity. Why do you think Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of God while Jews don't?

That wasn't in the arab peninsula, christianity didn't spread there. I recall one christian tribe only in the peninsula during the time of mohammed.

And in his time, the trinity already existed, so he didn't witness the monotheistic christianity -hence ; the roman church rose to power- which meant that any christian allover the world would obey them, and believe in the holly trinity too.

I don't see how mohammad would come up with a monotheistic idea out of a trinity.

and the jews didn't teach anybody who isn't jewish.

The quran is pretty much big, even for educated people like me it takes years to study it. Doesn't that prove in the worst cases, that mohammad was a genius ? if he made that up, he's a better writer than most writers, a first class philosopher, sometimes a biology expert, and above all a saint who forbids rape, killing, he also came up with modern ideas like "the shoora" or in english "questionnaires" to solve problems, also annihilated racism & proved evolution by telling humans that they all come from the same origin

It's hard to believe that such a man lived btw if you need the verses on any word I wrote just ask, I didn't make that up, I read it in the Quran myself.

[Zone]

Ah yes there was, it's called Christianity. Why do you think Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of God while Jews don't?

The monotheistic movement prior to Mohammed didn't really view Christianity as properly monotheistic as you have the Trinity, the Virgin Mary and various Saints and so on. They were interested in a pure form of monotheism much liker Judiasm but for their own people. What the Arabs generally had was a form of Henotheism where there were various pagan gods but also a supreme God which they associated with the God of the Jewish/Christian faiths. The Kaaba was said to have been constructed by either Adam the first man or by Arbraham. So Mohammed had a great deal to work with, you could say he just reformed the Arab belief system into a purer monotheistic form of which there was already people already in place eager to support the new religion he had in mind. It could be he really did have some kind of a visionary experience or hallucination while he was fasting in a cave which gave him the initial inspiration, but I don't think that's much of an issue either way. To me personally the Quran is Mohammeds own work in much the same way as Book of Mormon is the work of Joesph Smith.

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I'm sorry what? The British Isles converted sans any violence towards pagans? This is erroneous Zone. (please cite historical texts that refer to this)

The Celts were converted during the Roman period and the Anglo Saxon were converted later by missionary activity by the Roman Catholic Church initated by Pope Gregory I in 597. He saw some blond Anglo Saxon slave boys and thought that Anglo sounded a bit like Angel so they should be converted to the true faith. What they did was first convert the Saxon kings to Christianity and then the kings imposed it on their subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Christianity

There wasn't really any forced conversion at the point of a sword save for that incident mentioned by the Venerable Bede in the Isle of Wight. There's no archeological evidence of a massacre though so it's possible that it didn't happen. I think you have to get to the period of the Crusades to really see the juicy action. But even then initally at least you could say that was in reaction to the conquests of Islam (having conquered about half of the then Christian world) and it may not otherwise have occurred.

EVERY religion has expressed violence towards the "non-believers" of said religion. That is why in my understanding religion is a disease of the human Desire for Privilege.

That's certainly not true of say the Jains. But even if you want to go back to the supposed intolerant Old Testament it says things like this.

"Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt."
Exodus 23:9

"'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him." Leviticus 19:33

"Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge." Deuteronomy 24:17

How else is one to KNOW one is privileged if equality is the norm?

The theme of most if not all religions is that no-one is meant to be privileged or inherently better than others based on their ethnic/religious background. See the Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan for an example, though he had quite a lot to say about the people who saw themselves as being a cut above the rest like say the Pharisees, the spirtually elite Jews, he called them hypocrites.