Islamo-Christianity

[Loki_999]

Christians will claim to be less violent but I've received more death threats from them than from Muslims.

What the hell are you doing to them? I've never received a death threat from anyone and I take the piss out of religion and religious people all the time!

I have yet to experience any Jew knocking on my door and asking if I've yet found Moses.

If they do though you can always ask if they have checked behind the sofa. When I loose something it usually turns up there.

Anyway, on topic and its already been said, they are all the Abrahamic religions, focused on a relatively minor desert god that grew to prominence in the region a couple of thousand years ago by supplanting the existing gods/religions largely backed up by massive programs of genocide aimed at their neighbors as God commanded (its in the bible!)... and this was not Christians or Muslims... this was the Hebrews/Jews who predated the modern day variants of the religion.

[Shinylight]

I've always used the term 'Judeo-Christian', since Jews and Christians believe the same books, if a bit differently. All three of them do, though... so maybe it should be extended to 'Christjudiuslim'.

Why don't we just use the blanket term 'Nutcases'?

[DeistPaladin]

Christians will claim to be less violent but I've received more death threats from them than from Muslims.

What the hell are you doing to them? I've never received a death threat from anyone and I take the piss out of religion and religious people all the time!

I've sometimes wondered how, as a deist, I seem to attract more anger and attention from Christians on various forums than my atheist counterparts. They seem to zero in on me and call me out for debates. One atheist had a suggestion. It was something along the lines of I don't just lack a belief in their god, I emasculate him and turn him into a laid-back hippie who can't even muster enough righteous anger to firebomb a gay pride parade.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Mind you, there isn't a clearly defined Christian equivalent of jihad

Crusade? Or is there a distinction I'm not aware of? Just curious.

Having studied the crusades at A Level, I feel that the Crusades were a fairly unusual phenomenon which arose due largely to social and political events which coincided with the desire to liberate the Holy Land. For instance, the First Crusade was partly launched to better relations beween the Orthodox and Catholic churches, following a schism in 1054. The crusades had no historical precedent, and, whilst the Old Testament is almost entirely bloodthirsty and violent, there is not so much scriptural support for such actions as there is in Islam (hence Pope Urban II used the writings of Augustine of Hippo, rather than the Bible itself, to justify violence in this case).

[DeistPaladin]

I've started using the term Islamo-Christianity to underscore how the two are closely related religions. In another thread, I remarked how there's "not a dime's worth of difference" between the two. I thought I should start a new thread inviting both Christians and Muslim apologists to explain what makes their religion so significantly different.

Before we begin, I should emphasize that the topic of Christology doesn't offer a significant distinction for the non-believer. This is because prior to Nicaea in 325 CE, there was a wild variety of "Christianities" that offered different ideas about what Jesus was. Just to name a few:

Marcionite: Jesus was a higher god, separate from and superior to the Jewish god.
Ebionite: Jesus harbored the spirit of God but was otherwise mortal
Docetic: Jesus existed only as a phantom, an illusion created by God

One could argue that modern Trinitarian Christology doesn't differ much from Islamic since both agree that Jesus existed as a physical being, wasn't a superior god, was born of a virgin, did perform miracles and was taken up into the clouds after he died.

Both offer a terrifying salvation scheme that involves eternal torture for wrong thinkers and a devil to fight against (and use to demonize non-believers) so they both have the same potential for violence and cruelty.

[Rwandrall]

I would say the major difference is who they see as their main prophet. The Prophet in both religions is the paragon of perfection, and the differences between the two show differences in the philosophy of these two religions.

Mohammed was a Warlord, he had wealth and power, multiple spouses, murdered and pillaged and more importantly: conquered. He was a great man in the physical realm, a hero. He was also a wise man with a strong message.

Jesus was more of a teacher, a man preaching love and understanding, against the rich and powerful.

I have to say i respect Jesus more than i respect Mohammed, as far as prophets go.
This is a drastic difference between the two religions, in my view.

[Rayaan]

I think it's an over-simplification to say that "there not a dime's worth of difference" between Islam and Christianity. On a larger scale, they do have many similarities because they are both monotheistic religions, but there are also many differences between them, such as the exact manners of praying, fasting, the holidays they celebrate, giving charity, and many other religious activities.

Muslims believe that the Quran is the final revelation from God whereas the Christians believe that the Bible is the final revelation from God. So, this means that they follow two different holy books. Even though there are similarities between the two, this doesn't mean that the Quranic verses were copied or stolen from the Bible (as many people claim to be the case) because they don't know about the history of the Quran's preservation and how it was compiled starting from the time of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which even the most intelligent scholars couldn't refute according to my knowledge. Even the literary style of the Quran is nothing like that of the Bible.

Another key difference is that Muslims are not supposed to overpraise their Prophet as the Christians do. We are not supposed to ask Jesus, or Muhammad, or anyone else to forgive our sins except for God alone. It is only God who is to be praised and not the prophets of God. This is one of the main differences between Islam and Christianity.

There are plenty more differences between the two but I'd rather not go through all of them right now.

So, I don't know what is the purpose of combining the two religions with a word like "Islamo-Christianity." Why not just call them for what they are? Islam and Christianity.

[leo-rcc]

What is the difference between this thread and this thread?

[DeistPaladin]

What is the difference between this thread and this thread?

Um, the difference is that I'd forgotten about that other thread I'd created.

[leo-rcc]

And now they are one again.