The LORD is a man of war. Exodus 15:3
Fight in the way of Allah. Quran 2:244
Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran? Is there a way to objectively answer such a question?
Well, it wouldn't be easy. But it is possible to compare the amount of cruelty and violence in the two books.
Here is a summary of the highlighted verses in the SAB and SAQ.
| Number of Cruel or Violent Passages | |
| Bible | 1321 |
| Quran | 532 |
So the Bible has more than twice as many cruel or violent passages as does the Quran. But the Bible is a much bigger book. How do they compare when size is taken into account?
| Violence and Cruelty | Total verses | Percent | |
| Bible | 1321 | 31102 | 4.25 |
| Quran | 532 | 6236 | 8.53 |
When expressed as a percentage of cruel or violent verses (at least as marked in the SAB/Q), the Quran has twice that of the Bible. (8.53 vs. 4.25%)
Of course this analysis does not consider the extent of the cruelty in the marked passages. And that is an important consideration. Is Numbers 31:14-18, for example, more cruel than Quran 5:34? That is something that each person must decide.
A good argument could be made that either book is the most violent and cruel book ever written. The award would go to one or the other, for neither has any close competitors.
It is frightening to think that more than half of the world's population believes in one or the other.
294 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 294 of 294You can see the leaf of a stationary fan, while the fast rotating fan leaves isn't visible to the naked eye. Now, we have two aspects of the object of observation, viz. 1) the stationary fan leaf; 2) the invisible fan leaf. And we have one instrument of observation, viz. the eye. In the above two aspects if the eye were to assert that the leaves of the fan doesn't exist in the second aspect because it cannot see it, can this assertion be true? We know it to be false because we know at the cost of injury. So in order to get the whole true story we need to take all aspects (context) relating to it.
Hello mr. Steve wells,May I ask what version of the bible your using and do you believe its the true word of God. I like your exploration of things, I'll include you on my blog
http://marsian-thebiblenotebook.blogspot.com/
You did not mention God or Allah as man or war for
When you have your belief based on "Blind Faith" this type of violence happens, cause the mind gets distorted for any rational act.In order for any human being to act humanly and rationally they have to understand the evolution of all religion and not leave their entire human intellect to some "holy book" wriiten thousands of years ago which had a purpose for that time ONLY..
Please select One- the most violent verse in Quran for discussion as already requested to you on another place at your blog.
Please respond to my following request.
paarsurrey said...
@ dwindlinginunbelief
Today is the fourth day that I requested you to choose from your list, One- most violent verse of Quran.
No response is forthcoming.
I think you might have not read the Quran yourself; and just copied/pasted the list from some other website in opposition of Quran/Islam/Muhammad.
If it would have naturally occurred to one while reading Quran ; one might not have prepared the list to start with; as there is no violent verse in Quran if understood correctly from the context verses.
I think you agree with me.
Do you? Please
Sat Feb 08, 12:18:00 PM 2014
@paarsurrey
That is a silly question. Even if the bible had the one most violent verse, the Quran might have 300 violent verses that are almost as violence. Nothing is proven.
The Quran has at least 109 verse that call Muslims to go to war with nonbelievers, purely for the sake of Islamic rule. There are commands to find infidels wherever they are, and to slay them. There are commands to chop off their fingers and heads. The message is clear torture and killing of infidels is just fine. The Muslims that occupied the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya were acting on the 'moral' demands of the Quran.
The Quran (2:191-193) instructs believers to kill all infidels until none are left: "And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone.
How about Quran (4:95) - "Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,-"
This passage criticizes "peaceful" Muslims who do not join in the violence, letting them know that they are less worthy in Allah's eyes. It also demolishes the modern myth that "Jihad" doesn't mean holy war in the Quran, but rather a spiritual struggle. Not only is the Arabic word used in this passage, but it is clearly not referring to anything spiritual, since the physically disabled are given exemption.
Does it mean anything if the worst violent statement is in the Bible, when the Quran commands its true believers to be violent?
As I have said in earlier comments, in most cases violence in the Bible is simply reported as a nasty historical event. The violence in the Quran is promoted for the here and now! The Bible deals with violence by saying, "This is what they did". The Quran deals with violence by saying, "This is what Allah commands you to do".
Allah is one nasty imaginary. A sane Muslim would run from Islam as if his life and happiness depended on it... and they do! Anyone who knows these things, and stays with Islam is a major asshole.
@ Richard said:
Sat Feb 08, 04:36:00 PM 2014
Ignoring the evil words of your post; I was not asking the number of verses that you think are violent in Quran; I asked to choose One- the most violent verse you think in Quran for discussion, not in comparison to Bible; but from your list of violent verses in Quran.
In this connection you have preferred to choose two places from Quran; we now discuss the first place mentioned by you namely Verses (2:191-193).
I give here the context verses:
[2:191] And fight in the cause of Allah against those who fight against you, but do not transgress. Surely, Allah loves not the transgressors.
[2:192] And kill them wherever you meet them and drive them out from where they have driven you out; for persecution is worse than killing. And fight them not in, and near, the Sacred Mosque until they fight you therein. But if they fight you, then fight them: such is the requital for the disbelievers
[2:193] But if they desist, then surely Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.
[2:194] And fight them until there is no persecution, and religion is freely professed for Allah. But if they desist, then remember that no hostility is allowed except against the aggressors.
[2:195] The violation of a Sacred Month should be retaliated in the Sacred Month; and forall sacred things there is the law of retaliation. So, whoso transgresses against you, punish him for his transgression to the extent to which he has transgressed against you. And fear Allah and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showChapter.php?submitCh=Read+from+verse%3A&ch=2&verse=188
As one could see the verses are not general for all non-believers but are specific, as the context shows, for the Meccans who had declared a war with Muslims and continually attacked the Muslims at Medina, a hundred miles away.
Now please prove from the verses your viewpoint that the verses are violent and against the normal behavior of human beings.
@paarsurrey
First, words cannot be evil. Words only exist for the human being who understands their particular referents (which may be real or imaginary). Since morality can only be a matter of choice, and choice is a matter of mind, choice is private reasoning with facts. That is only achieved by reason, not blind faith or coercion. Political tyranny counts on coercion (Nazis, Communists). Religious tyranny counts on both.
The 'religion' of Islam is a political ideology. It cares nothing for the individual's mind, nor his reasoned choice, so long as he submits, one way or another. You know this, and you know that Islam means “submission to the will of God". The kind of peace it offers is only that of a man who obeys orders. That is an evil.
The Quran is loaded with evil referents: the physically brutal (whether against infidels or transgressors of Sharia), or the morally despicable (status of woman and Jews).
You have ignored my point that selecting a single worst case of violence is absurd. By narrowing one's focus to one case, and then dismissing it, you engage others in a tiresome one-case-after-another debate. In each case you ignore what certain words actually mean in Arabic, and present a plausible English meaning to create a false context, supposedly showing that that one case is not as evil as it might seem. In the end, only you believe it (&/or are practicing taqiyya).
The following only uses interpretations that I have learned by listening to, or reading the words of, imams (sometimes on Arabic Al Jazeera -translated-), who offer them in other contexts.
[2:191] "fight against you" does not simply mean taking up weapons. It means failing to submit to Allah, failing to live by Sharia, failing to pray to Allah five times a day and failing to attend mosque. Similarly,"do not transgress" means kill infidels but stick to Allah's laws.
[2:193] "desist" does not mean the infidel stops using weapons. It means the infidel accepts Islam ... & then tyrant Allah (who is so small minded he needs human obedience) forgives.
[2:194] This is ambiguous,"if they desist, then remember that no hostility is allowed except against the aggressors". Unclear meaning (bad writing) is characteristic of the Quran, which is why Islam has so many works that attempt to make sense of it. By being ambiguous a Muslim can take it either way... if the infidel is not violent (define that!) leave him alone, or if the infidel persists in being an infidel, kill him.
[2:195] One would have to be one heck of a fool not to grasp that is a direct encouragement to be violent against infidels, because infidels who do not acknowledge the Sacred Month are transgressors against Muslims. To seruiys Muslims the infidel's view is that Muslims are practicing something unnecessary, improper, pointless. That is insulting to both Muslims and their Allah, so the infidel is a transgressor against Muslims, period!
One must always interpret the words using the most common understanding of those words, among those who use them. Indeed, my quotation and explanation of Quran (4:95) was an important message to you. You either ignored it or were ridiculously unable to grasp what the explanation meant. It tells Muslims to get out of the house, use violence, even if suffering pain, in the cause of Allah. It is hardly saying one should read the Quran to infidels, until one's voice is hoarse,
The verses are general, and were not just aimed at Meccans.
I repeat, Allah is one nasty imaginary [being] and Islam is a vicious doctrine. A sane Muslim would run from Islam as if his life and happiness depended on it... and they do! Run, Paarsurrey, run. Better yet, see the Quran for what it is, and join ex-Muslims who work to expose it.
Islamic Terrorists have carried out more than 22,418 deadly attacks since 9/11 (and many before that). They are serious about the Quran, Paarsurrey. Violence is what they get from it, by the millions.
@Richard : your comments of Sun Feb 09, 11:14:00 AM 2014.
So you have not read Quran from beginning to the end yourself and you have relied on hearsay. Your observation has not come to you naturally while reading Quran yourself.
The verses of Quran are clear seen with the verses in the context; one could understand them unambiguously.
If you want to follow the wrong interpretation of the extremists; then you become one yourself. It is your own choice; it is not the teachings of Quran/Islam/Muhammad.
The verses are peaceful and rational; and according to the norms of humans in all ages.
@ Me
You are right but this blog has been good. It has brought out what is wrong with ridiculous religious belief. Good for it!
There is no Hell, but Islam forces its believers to a life on Earth that IS Hell.
@ paarsurrey
No, I have not read the "Quran from beginning to end". I need not.
When a work's beginnings are wildly insane and horribly wrong, one should not overlook its beginning in the hope that subsequent ideas will be better.
After the insanely incorrect statements in Surah 2, and their extension into "Surat Al-Baqarah", everything is suspect. Do you know what "suspect" means? It means the thinking does not fit with reality. No book, so supposedly great, would be so absurdly wrong and then turn out to be right!
No I have not relied on hearsay, that is your interpretation. I am careful to check sources... so I check parts of the Quran and sometimes consider comments by Imams in countries that are 90+ % Islam. Yes... I consider translations of imams speaking to Arabic Al Jazeera. Beat your wife soon, she might need it!
No, the verses are not unambiguous. They are only unambiguous to blind believers. To them I say, there is a whole world of understanding to which your belief blinds you.
If you think "The verses are peaceful and rational; and according to the norms of humans in all ages." then you have no understanding of the rest of the World.
Yes, Paarsurrey, you do not understand the World, nor the nature of human beings. The most important quality of human beings, that separates them from all other organisms, is their ability to think in abstract terms.
If you really care, read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
I think you do not really care... you just want to browbeat everyone to believe what you believe.
@Richard said...: Sun Feb 09, 04:19:00 PM 2014
“So I check parts of the Quran and sometimes consider comments by Imams in countries that are 90+ % Islam. Yes... I consider translations of imams speaking to Arabic Al Jazeera. Beat your wife soon, she might need it!” Unquote.
This shows that your approach is wrong. These sources which you quote have no status in Islam. Quran itself is self-explanatory. Quran does not delegate any authority to these people.
The correct approach for one, if one wanted to do some research and intended to read its chapter two; then to start with one should have studied the entire chapter two on one’s own. One should have prepared notes while reading, if a question would have naturally arisen from a verse and its context verses; one should have written that question in the note book. If the subsequent verses in the chapter would have cleared the question, one should have noted this also. After the end if there would have been a question which would have not resolved, then one should have again read the chapter and perused it intensively to form an opinion. Afterwards one could discuss such question for clarification. Else it just amounts to hearsay.
One of my atheist friends suggested me reading a book by Christopher Hitchens; I first read the book twice and then started discussing the issues.
If you did not adopt a right approach previously; you can try it now; no harm.
Please have confidence instead of relying on false opinions.
Thanks
@paarsurrey
Here I, 1) reiterate my point on language, 2) address your charges as to sources of information about Islam, and 3) place the entire issue of religion in context.
First, you seem to have dodged my fundamental point, about the use of language. It is very clear that language encouraging violence recurs throughout the Quran, and is evident in other works central to Islam. Many imams are no different. The message is consistent. To ignore it requires a special kind of blindness commonly found among the religious faithful.
You claimed "the Quran is self explanatory". If that were remotely true, then why are such Islamic works as the Sunnah and Hadiths used to suggest guidance in the struggle to interpret it? Why are different sects at war with each other over proper interpretations? Your claim is ridiculous on its face.
You attempted to dismiss my sources (a common ploy used by defenders of the indefensible), particularly the status of imams. The term "imam" denotes a recognized religious scholar or authority in Islam, and is often used for the founding scholars of the four Sunni madhhabs, or schools of jurisprudence (fiqh). It may also refer to the Muslim scholars who created analyses related to Hadith, or it may refer to the heads of the Prophet Muhammad's family in their generational times. That certainly contradicts your claim. You may not reject the Twelve Imams who were Mohammed's successors, but you must know there are differences between the Sunni and Shia (you?) notions of an imam. If such disagreement exists among Muslim sects, how can you claim to have the right understanding?
As for telling me how to read, I do what you describe, usually in a single reading. I taught high school and university students, and many were inept readers how to improve their reading skills. If your own ability at critical reading/thinking is not sorely lacking, you will recognize that the arguments in the next three paragraphs transcend usual debate.
Arguing about imams & the Quran is just silly, like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, without ever questioning the existence of angels. There can be NO Allah that precedes & creates the Universe. The word Universe refers to the "one" "everything". If words are to have any meaning at all, there can be nothing separate or apart from the Universe. (This also applies to: "supernatural", “mystical”, etc.) Thus a god that exists outside the Universe, or that created the Universe, is a contradiction in terms. It is a shame Hitchens, Dawkins or Sam Harris never made that point. To entertain that contradiction is simply bad thinking. Founded among primitive men, it has been handed down through hundreds of generations. Worse, even if some God made the Universe (which can't be), how was God originally formed out of Nothing?
Belief in gods began with primitive tribes, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago. Over time, Witch Doctors (shamans etc.) claimed a knowledge of the gods, and claimed to know how to communicate with them. Over the centuries, often through tribal warfare, a tribal god would gain so substantial a following that it became prominent. Like any race, there had to eventually be single gods that won out over the rest. So it was that in the Middle Eastern regions, a god named "Allah", "Jehovah" or "God" dominated primitive belief. The schisms between believers continue to this day, and can never ever be settled.
They cannot be settled, because the different beliefs are utter fabrications. There is no specific way of checking which is true... whilst each faction claims it knows better... because they are not founded in any Reality with which one can check those claims. That is why, despite claims to the contrary, the Quran has been adjusted and adapted many a time ... by men. It is the fanciful, varying, words of ... men, of which Mohammed was just one.
Gods are ridiculous.
@Richard
"How was God originally formed out of Nothing?"
You said it "Nothing" actually formed God. So "Nothing" is God. So again What formed "Nothing"? Well can you define this "Nothing", then this is God for you and me. So I and the world of believers just named it God, so that I and the world would be able to use one more term to describe our mundane things of life.
Simply because an image in the mirror was given a life of its own it starts to ask questions about existence and tries to understand it, viz-a-viz the boxed environment that it is in. It tries to define the reality with its limited knowledge and limited to the 'image' environment that it is in does not mean it can fully comprehend. Simply because we can 'think' what would the image 'think'.
@Milton C
You have expressed the kind of wild rationalism that has become acceptable in academia. I had rather expected the reader to recognize that Nothing (especially when capitalized) is precisely that, nothing, no thing, nada.
Nothing cannot do or be anything. Indeed, it does not exist, because to exist is to be something. There is no special aspect of the universe for the "not somethings".
"So I and the world of believers just named [Nothing] God". My response to that has been to point out the irony that 'Nothing' made God out of nothing, that 'Nothing' is more powerful than God, so one should worship 'Nothing' (in the sense of subordinating oneself to an imaginary Superior being). Except, since 'Nothing' is, quite literally, nothing, that would eliminate all religious belief, and free men from the greatest most enduring of all hoaxes, encouraging them think for themselves.
The sad attitude that our existence as humans entails the "mundane things of life" is precisely the consequence of subordinating oneself to that imaginary being. You are echoing the mistaken, imaginary notions of Plato, who 1) asserted that real Reality existed in the World of Forms (laymen might call it Heaven) and 2) concluded that this World is a pale copy (what you refer to as an "image" in a mirror). Plato's notions tied in well with the developing monotheistic religions of the time, which have embraced it so fully that it is essential to the Bible, Torah and Quran. With such a view of life, death is a release from "this mortal coil". It justifies killing, or suicide bombings, so long as it is in the cause of that 'higher' World. Except it does not exist.
As P.T.Barnum said, "There is a sucker born every minute." Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to belief in supernatural sky daddys or the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
@Richard : Tue Feb 11, 06:28:00 PM 2014
“There is no specific way of checking which is true”
Please don't be angry and confused.
I think it is not difficult to understand the verses by using a common sense approach which is generally helpful for understanding any book in the world.
A single verse without the text and the context could be sometimes misleading.
One cannot correctly understand the meaning of a word unless one knows the whole sentence in which it has been used; the value of a sentence could be best understood in a passage, and of a passage is best understood in a chapter. The reference with the context is therefore most essential for a useful discussion.
This helps to understand the verses; hence Quran is self-explanatory.
Please try it for correct understanding; no harm.
Will you please?
Thanks
@peersurrey
If you read my email(& the one I wrote responding to Milton C) as carefully as you suggest I read the Quran (& the one I wrote responding to Milton C), you would know that I specifically noted that I read more than just single verses, or words, and a lot more, to be sure I knew exactly what was being said.
Repeating part of that same reading pattern back to me is hardly an argument, nor even a rational suggestion. Asking that I do it, when I do it more effectively than you, is just plain silly.
I already addressed the fact that you were not using the words the verses surrounding [2:94] accurately at all.
[2:191] [2:192] [2:193]
[2:194] And fight them until there is no persecution, and religion is freely professed for Allah. But if they desist, then remember that no hostility is allowed except against the aggressors.
[2:195]
Read the other passages, from another part of the Quran, I provided that adds context to verse 2:194. Some more passages are noted in my next comment, read them.
@Richard
The God of the Bible after making Himself known to the Jews was an overpowering God, I agree. That you too agree. But when I say His Son came to show His real face as that of a God stooped to the be with us humans, you would have problem to believe. Because there are many discrepancies to that belief such as scientific studies that say Jesus the person’s existence is suspect. But on the other side there are well corroborated studies that show Jesus’ existence as very true. Now, I tend to weigh these both and would like to take sides with the latter. My reason being the teachings (and His work) of Jesus. That when seen with His life and gory death gives me ample proof to believe in Him and what He said. And with His Resurrection (to you I will’ve to put it in quotes) to boot the last inkling of doubt is put at rest.
And if you need to rationalize everything including ‘God’ then ‘rationalizing’ is God for you. But the thing is ‘rational-thing’ has not life in it, like my God.
And what do you think the trillions of things out there in the expanse around us apart from our world is an happenstance? How can you believe, what you believe that everything just happened out of itself without a ‘Something’ creating it and with if it did, it did, did not do with a Purpose?
There are two sides to self annihilation 1: Kill and get killed in the process, in the belief of something 2: Die and give life in the process for another, in the belief of something. Number one is destructive and Number two is constructive, which one would you chose? It is not because death is a release from "this mortal coil" that anybody would chose according to Christ but because s/he chose to give her/his life to another so that the other would live. That elevates a human above the animal that s/he is. This is what Christ teaches us on the Cross. And if you are going to argue what is the gain here when one-on-one, one death = one life (if you come to brass tacks mathematics – silly eh!) History says when one Christian dies thousands upon thousands are born that is why Christians are counted among the top even with “Dwindling In (Un)belief” in your places. History may be a little more harsher to Christ and His followers and the methods involved in conversions since I believe the truth may be a little more deeper than what has been given to us, as every missionary who went forth to preach Christ would indeed have to do justice to his conscience which would pin him down in Mat 5:44 ‘love your enemies’
@Milton C wrote,
"The God of the Bible after making Himself known to the Jews was an overpowering God, I agree. That you too agree."
I agreed to no such thing. Please note that you are getting off topic.
Further (without quoting you), since God as usually defined by all the major religions is an impossibility, I hardly believe Jesus was his son, or that Mohammed was his Prophet. If either existed, he was simply a man who convinced a lot of people that he was special. He was just a better witch doctor.
More on topic is your remark that God might be rationalized into a different thing for different people. By that process, God becomes anything.
Your Argument from Design has been roundly debunked by many.
Without accepting the false premise of a two universes —natural and supernatural— the rest is unfounded/irrational.
@Richard : Sun Feb 09, 04:19:00 PM 2014, Tue Feb 11, 06:28:00 PM 2014
The topic of the post is “Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran?” so for all fairness we should confine to the discussion on Quran from the Quranic adjacent verses; or the immediate context.
If you don’t accept this then please change the topic of the post accordingly; it only mentions of Bible and Quran and nothing else, in my opinion.
Please
http://paarsurrey.wordpress.com/
http://paarsurrey.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/atheists-common-sense-approach-to-understand-quran-verses/
@paarsurrey
You wrote,"...for all fairness we should confine to the discussion on Quran from the Quranic adjacent verses; or the immediate context." If you are referring to my response to Milton C... then comment to Milton C.
I have stuck to the Quran, and the topic of this blog. It is obvious so, why do you say otherwise? Please read my comments that begin with @paarsurrey.
The Quran, as the word of Allah, imposes outrageously violent moral imperatives upon believers. There is no doubt of this fact, as it is reiterated many times through the Quran and the Hadiths. I have presented 46! passages doing so.
I have dealt directly with the "context verses" you chose to present as reason for a benevolent interpretation of Quran 2:191-193. The context verses you provided do nothing to lessen or negate the violence of the main verse. Your claim that the verse is not violent is plainly wrong, and I explained why. You then chose not to address Q4:95, which is similarly plain: "get out of the house and kill infidels"
I have provided 24 other quotations from the Quran, each of which advocates absolute murderous violence. I have also listed 22 Hadiths which serve as guidance for when and even how to kill unbelievers/apostates.
Please, feel free to present the "context verses" around any of those quotations. They will not allow unbelievers political freedom and stature, nor any moral equivalence to Muslims where-ever Islam rules a nation.
For the saying about the violence of the HOLY BOOKS. It has been said about the violence in the books and no need to make any distinguishes more further.
Dear People of many gods(including Christians)
Firstly to u polytheists there is only one god not many, like the Greek gods who are an embarrassment even to human standards by sleeping with anything that has a hole and fighting amongst themselves all the time.
Secondly to my christian brothers your religion has become tainted, Jesus himself never claimed he was god and assuming he did what ur telling me humans actually killed GOD, are u guys crazy. Secondly if he was god then who did he pray to, u claim that he prayed the most to god, what he prayed to himself ?
Does that sound logical to u also to all of guys trying to make the bible and the Quran look bad u guys will need to do ur research first because ur looking only at the content not the context within and outside the text. The bible has become corrupted(changed) and this whole trinity idea and "kill whoever disagrees with you" ideas where written by Paul who actually used to kill the Christians and hadn't met Jesus . the quran hasn't been tampered with but needs an analysis of the context to fully understand it.
ATHIESTS I'm not even going to try to argue with you because it's pointless,
Peace be upon you
Dear People of many gods(including Christians)
Firstly to u polytheists there is only one god not many, like the Greek gods who are an embarrassment even to human standards by sleeping with anything that has a hole and fighting amongst themselves all the time.
Secondly to my christian brothers your religion has become tainted, Jesus himself never claimed he was god and assuming he did what ur telling me humans actually killed GOD, are u guys crazy. Secondly if he was god then who did he pray to, u claim that he prayed the most to god, what he prayed to himself ?
Does that sound logical to u also to all of guys trying to make the bible and the Quran look bad u guys will need to do ur research first because ur looking only at the content not the context within and outside the text. The bible has become corrupted(changed) and this whole trinity idea and "kill whoever disagrees with you" ideas where written by Paul who actually used to kill the Christians and hadn't met Jesus . the quran hasn't been tampered with but needs an analysis of the context to fully understand it.
ATHIESTS I'm not even going to try to argue with you because it's pointless,
Peace be upon you
Also to u guys, Idont take all ur hadiths from sahih Bukhara or Muslim or tirmidhi as they contain many contradictions and don't contain strong hadiths it best to look at both Shiite and Sunni hadiths to make sure
@Mustafa Radly,
You really should read earlier comments before posting your own.
Atheists, with whom you refuse to argue are your best hope. It is wild hypocrisy to criticize someone else's imaginary Gods by saying your imaginary God is somehow more special. In thinking so, you are every bit as "crazy" as the people who believe the Son of God is God. The idea of God is insane, period! Prove your god exists —it is your claim to prove, not ours to disprove. Until you do, all you say, that presumes His existence and command, is just heaping more arbitrary claims upon that first one.
You should also not the effort by peersurrey to say the Quran was taken out of context. No, the Quran absolutely means the violence & prejudice it promotes. The Quran is a lot more evil than the Bible, but that doesn't mean the Bible is a good book (it's awful too).
You also bring up the ridiculous notion that the Bible is changed and the Quran has not. That's onsense, of the kind that is simply repeated so often that people blindly accept it.
Both Quran, Old Testaments (Torah) and New Testaments have been badly memorized, badly repeated, written in bits, and rewritten by many. Heck, one Hadith even mentions how entire Sura's were largely forgotten. Quran 2:106 even mentions rewriting of Quranic verses! There are many scholarly sources providing evidence. This one is easy to link to, and to read without buying a book: http://futiledemocracy.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/the-myth-of-the-unchanged-quran/
@Richard said:Sun Mar 02, 11:01:00 AM 2014
"You should also note the effort by paarsurrey to say the Quran was taken out of context."
I still maintain that; since we are not in a formal debate; when you started being off-topic and shifted to Hadith and hearsay; I withdrew from the discussion temporarily.
If you can keep yourself restrained to Quran and its context; you will see me back in the discussion again.
Now it is up to the atheists; they all may join in.
@ paarsurrey
Even in a formal debate, the Hadiths are relevant context, because they and the Quran are man-made documents revolving around an imaginary deity and his 'prophet'.
If you do not wish to debate that broad, no less applicable, context, you are still quite free say so, and to restrict yourself to The Quran. I have given you plenty of repeated demands by Allah, as reported by Mohammed, to inflict violence on any person defined as insufficiently Muslim. For you to object to my context having gone beyond the Quran is disingenuous.
Your real reason is that you have no argument in defense of the violence in the Quran, nor of the misogyny, nor of the anti-Semitism, nor of the fact that Allah himself made infidels and then condemns them (that is in Quran:2) —as if that is the act of a mature & benevolent God.
The bottom line is that you, and all religious people, have no case. More narrowly, no Muslim has a case in defense of the verses in the Quran; no case as to the existence of Mohammed, let alone as the prophet of a God; and no case as to the existence of that God, "Allah".
Verify the existence of Allah, so that any rational being can recognize it with the same clear judgment as recognizing whether it is day or night, wet or dry, up or down, plant or animal, dead or alive, hot or cold and so on. You must do it correctly. You cannot note that the lights are on in a dark room, and claim it is sunrise.
If you cannot achieve such a verification, then you have no reason to believe in Allah yourself, let alone in Mohammed as a prophet, or the Quran as Allah's word. Further, you have no rational right to impose that belief on others, as the Quran requires of you. I could just as readily demand that you believe in and obey leprechauns, fairies, and more www.musesrealm.net/deities/creatures.html
Now, if you want to 'play' the context game, pick one of the Quran quotations I provided and actually show how context changes its meaning into something non-violent, without changing the meaning of words to make your case. But, you must first agree that if you cannot show the quotation is non-violent, that you will admit that the Quran imposes, as a moral imperative, that true believers of the Quran as Allah's word must accept that violence as their duty to God. You must agree that the Quran that you defend is a figment of your imagination. You must recognize that as Allah's word, believers adopt a religion of violence, not a religion of peace. You must, for all your life, know that you were brainwashed into adopting a work of hatred and violence as your guide to that life.
@Richard : Thu Feb 20, 07:24:00 PM 2014
“YOU THEN CHOSE NOT TO ADDRESS Q4:95, WHICH IS SIMILARLY PLAIN: "GET OUT OF THE HOUSE AND KILL INFIDELS" Unquote
I HAVE NO HESITATION IN DISCUSSING VERSE 4:95; BUT IN THE DISCUSSION YOR SHALL HAVE TO RESTRICT YOURSELF WITH THE VERSE AND THE VERSES IN ITS CONTEXT. I QUOTE THE SAME BELOW:
[4:89] What has happened to you that you are divided into two parties regarding the hypocrites? And Allah has overthrown them because of what they earned. Desire ye to guide him whom Allah has caused to perish? And for him whom Allah causes to perish thou shalt not find a way.
[4:90] They wish that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you may become all alike. Take not, therefore, friends from among them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah. And if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and take no friend nor helper from among them;
[4:91] Except those who are connected with a people between whom and you there is a pact, or those who come to you, while their hearts shrink from fighting you or fighting their own people. And if Allah had so pleased, He would have given them power over you, then they would have surely fought you. So, if they keep aloof from you and fight you not, and make you an offer of peace, then remember that Allah has allowed you no way of aggression against them.
[4:92] You will find others who desire to be secure from you and to be secure from their own people. Whenever they are made to revert to hostility, they fall headlong into it. Therefore, if they do not keep aloof from you nor offer you peace nor restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them, wherever you find them. Against these We have given you clear authority.
[4:93] It does not become a believer to kill a believer unless it be by mistake. And he who kills a believer by mistake shall free a believing slave, and pay blood money to be handed over to his heirs, unless they remit it as charity. But if the person slain be of a people hostile to you, and be a believer, then the offender shall free a believing slave; and if he be of a people between whom and you is a pact, then the offender shall pay blood money to be handed over to his heirs, and free a believing slave. But whoso finds not one, then he shall fast for two consecutive months — a mercy from Allah. And Allah is All-Knowing, Wise.
[4:94] And whoso kills a believer intentionally, his reward shall be Hell wherein he shall abide. And Allah will be wroth with him and will curse him and will prepare for him a great punishment.
[4:95] O ye who believe! when you go forth in the cause of Allah, make proper investigation and say not to anyone who greets you with the greeting of peace, ‘Thou art not a believer.’ You seek the goods of this life, but with Allah are good things in plenty. Such were you before this, but Allah conferred His special favour on you; so do make proper investigation. Surely, Allah is well aware of what you do.
[4:96] Those of the believers who sit still, excepting the disabled ones, and those who strive in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their persons, are not equal. Allah has exalted in rank those who strive with their wealth and their persons above those who sit still. And to each Allah has promised good. And Allah has exalted those who strive above those who sitstill, by a great reward,
[4:97] Namely, by degrees of excellence bestowed by Him, and by special forgiveness and mercy. And Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showchapter.php?ch=4&verse=97
NOW WHAT IS IN THE VERSE/S AGAINST THE NORMS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY?
PLEASE
@peersurrey
Why have you introduced "the norms of international society? What norms are those? At least my quotations from the Hadiths were connected with the context. There is no such thing as "international society", there are only all the different nations. Within the nations there are differing groups of people with differing social and moral norms. One country can have neo-Nazis, radical environmentalists, grocers, doctors, nightclub dancers, skiers, cyclists. People differ both individually and in groups. Each is its own little society.
On the other hand, there are some things that are right for the organism that is Homo sapiens, a.k.a mankind. All breathe air, all have minds, all think in order to live. All need to be free to act on what they think, or their thinking is pointless. That means that all must be free to think, so long as others are left free to think. But if they think, they must be free to act on their thinking because there is no better way to find out if one's thinking works in the real world, is worthless. They may not act in anyway that physically forces another person to act other than he chooses to act. Again, one must discover if their chosen action will work or not work, in reality, and they must benefit, which may include gaining property, or suffer the consequences themselves alone. Of course, no one can think of anything if they are dead, so the most fundamental right thing for each member of mankind is the right to life. But it follows from that, that life is pointless without liberty to act as the right way for him to use his mind to live his life. Further, it follows that it is the right thing for him to keep the products of his actions; it is right that he keep that property he makes or earns. In having those rights, has no right to cheat someone of their life, liberty or property. Rights must apply to all, equally. All of the forgoing is necessary because of the Nature of Man, not just some agreement in a Constitution (though a constitution may respect them).
International Society not only accepts repeated violation of rights, it views rights as handed down by governments, rather than being inalienable from the Nature of Man.
So, what does Sura 4:89-97 actually say . . . .
By your selected translation of Quran 4:89-97
4:89 Notice that Allah has caused the unbelievers to perish.
4:90 One must not befriend unbelievers, unless they become Muslim. If they do not SEIZE THEM AND KILL THEM WHEREVER YOU FIND THEM. Really, paarsurrey? Not only is this a disgusting violation of the Rights outlined above, but it doesn't fit with international society either!
4:91 Yes, the 'pact' is of two kinds: that they adopt Islam, or pay jizya (this, like taxation is a form of property taking... meaning the payer is enslaved to work to make payments). The net part of this does not mean if any group of people "keep aloof from and fight you not", it only means the ones who have the pact (it specifies "them")... who pay jizya Kill the rest.
4:92 Who are the people who desire "to be secure from their own people"? Clearly they are either the persecuted or the criminal. Why would they be "made to revert to hostility"? Could it be that they are to either die at a Muslim's hands, are required to convert to Islam, or pay the jizya and remain aloof? That is certainly what other verses in the Quran make clear! Their property is not theirs, they have no liberty to move as they wish, and they face death.
4:93 This is not about unbelievers, but notice it accepts men as slaves. That is a violation of rights... and of "international society" such as you call it.
4:94 Well murder of believers is wrong, but not of unbelievers. Kill the unbelievers
4:95 Notice believers "go forth in the cause of Allah". That does not mean plant wheat... it means spread Islam. When the believer meets someone, he should not immediately assume unbeliever, but should investigate. (Obviously this is a process for individuals moving through humanity in peaceful times, not a clash of military squads.) It says, once a Muslim has sorted out who is not a Muslim, then do not deal with the unbeliever except to convert them, exact jizya, and maybe kill them. No rights, no international norms.
4:96 As I said, this says don't sit at home, get out and eliminate infidels... because that is the cause of Allah.
4:97 Yeah, he is merciful if you kill or enslave, kill or enslave, kill or enslave!
Peersurrey, those verses are as disgustingly violent as the other quotes I have listed in earlier comments. I have described that they are not only outside of the norms of modern civilized society, but wildly outside respect for a human's life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. You must recognize that as Allah's word, those verses in Sura 4 requires that believers like you adopt a religion of violence, not a religion of peace. You must abandon it, if you wish to live your life.
Your life, and that of your children, your friends, the merchants with whom you work, and even the police and soldiers that guard you, would wildly improve if all understood my second paragraph, and lived by it. History has proven that to be so. Nation by nation, present societies show that it is so: the greater the respect for the rights I have outlined above, the more productive, longer living, wealthier and happier are the citizens. Men are meant to live in THIS world, not the fantasy heaven of a murderous, insecure, childlike God whose ego is so weak he cannot stand the idea of someone not hanging on his every word.
@paarsurrey
@Mustafa Radly
Your Islam wants you to live the worst of human life...
Sure, it wants infidels to die... but it only wants you to think that your life is better if you make innocent people die. That is, it wants you to kill anyone not Islamic.
If you say, "I am Muslim",even as a 'Moderate', then it is you who should die... because you support murder.
You, paarsurrey, are a wicked person.
@ Richard : Sun Mar 02, 06:52:00 PM 2014.
I don’t get you.
You have mentioned “By your selected translation of Quran 4:89-97”; then you don’t give the same.
Please see below the first two verses given by me, and given by you.
Verses quoted by me (in my post of Sun Mar 02, 04:12:00 PM 2014):
[4:89] What has happened to you that you are divided into two parties regarding the hypocrites? And Allah has overthrown them because of what they earned. Desire ye to guide him whom Allah has caused to perish? And for him whom Allah causes to perish thou shalt not find a way.
[4:90] They wish that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you may become all alike. Take not, therefore, friends from among them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah. And if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and take no friend nor helper from among them;
Verses given by you (in your post of Sun Mar 02, 06:52:00 PM 2014):
4:89 Notice that Allah has caused the unbelievers to perish.
4:90 One must not befriend unbelievers, unless they become Muslim. If they do not SEIZE THEM AND KILL THEM WHEREVER YOU FIND THEM.
I give the text of the correspoinding verses quoted by me in the roman alphabet also for your convenience:
[4:89] fa-mā lakum fī l-munāfiqīna fiʾatayni wa-llāhu ʾarkasahum bi-mā kasabū ʾa-turīdūna ʾan tahdū man ʾaḍalla llāhu wa-man yuḍlili llāhu fa-lan tajida lahū sabīlan
[4:90] ʾillā lladhīna yaṣilūna ʾilā qawmin baynakum wa-baynahum mīthāqun ʾaw jāʾūkum ḥaṣirat ṣudūruhum ʾan yuqātilūkum ʾaw yuqātilū qawmahum wa-law shāʾa llāhu la-sallaṭahum ʿalaykum fa-la-qātalūkum fa-ʾini ʿtazalūkum fa-lam yuqātilūkum wa-ʾalqaw ʾilaykumu s-salama fa-mā jaʿala llāhu lakum ʿalayhim sabīlan
Please check up and rectify.
@paarsurrey
The verses I read are from quran.com, but surely you can see that it does not matter. There is no need or point to be gained if one tries to "rectify" the different versions. Both versions require Muslims to kill infidels.
You have tried to suggest that a broader context shows otherwise. Yet the broader context plainly reinforces that violence, as a requirement from Allah. Islam is a horribly violent religion, as its 'holy' book repeatedly dictates. Paarsurrey you cannot escape or evade that fact.
Apply the duck test: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Similarly, if Islam requires killing of unbelievers by Muslims, if its God says Muslims should get out of the house to kill unbelievers, if it says the killing of infidels is a sure way to get to Heaven, and if it repeats that message, then Islam is a religion about killing, which means Islam is a religion of violence.
Stop trying to wriggle out of the obvious.
@Richard : Sun Mar 02, 06:52:00 PM 2014, Wed Mar 05, 02:50:00 PM 2014
It is very regrettable that you misquoted the verses from Quran.com.
There is no verse at that site given by you as verse number “4:89 Notice that Allah has caused the unbelievers to perish.”
I quote from that site:
4:87” Allah - there is no deity except Him. He will surely assemble you for [account on] the Day of Resurrection, about which there is no doubt. And who is more truthful than Allah in statement.
4:88 What is [the matter] with you [that you are] two groups concerning the hypocrites, while Allah has made them fall back [into error and disbelief] for what they earned. Do you wish to guide those whom Allah has sent astray? And he whom Allah sends astray - never will you find for him a way [of guidance].
4:89 They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah . But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.
http://quran.com/4
Please explain where from you got the words “Notice that Allah has caused the unbelievers to perish” and presented it as “4:89”by interchanging in your post of “Sun Mar 02, 06:52:00 PM 2014”.
It changed the meaning and the whole context of the verses; very grossly indeed.
The verses pertain to the “hypocrites” specifically and do pertain to the innocent non-believers; the "hypocrites" mentioned in the verse were under a treaty with Muslims; yet they betrayed and sided with the Meccans who were at war with the Muslims; hence they fell under the charge of treason and were to be treated likewise as per the norms of the international society.
Muslims were warned not to take them in their ranks; they were not trustworthy.
@paarsurrey
What ARE you talking about. I deliberately, and obviously, used only translated verses that you provided, in replying to you, not the ones from quran.com.
What I posted as 4:89 may have been some sort of cut and paste error. I'll accept the blame for that, but the error is quite irrelevant. The actual verse is much worse! The last sentence of that verse is "But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper."
How can you possibly argue that that is not violent? Your next paragraph is interesting:
"The verses pertain to the “hypocrites” specifically and do pertain to the innocent non-believers; the "hypocrites" mentioned in the verse were under a treaty with Muslims; yet they betrayed and sided with the Meccans who were at war with the Muslims; hence they fell under the charge of treason and were to be treated likewise as per the norms of the international society."
You apply a suspected historical context based on the Meccans and of believers who sided with them (hence "hypocrites"). There are two points that apply here:
1. The Meccans were terrorized by Mohammed and his men. So were the believers who sided with the Meccans. Fearful that the Meccans would lose the impending conflict the believers among them went back to Mohammed's men, swearing their allegiance to Allah and Mohammed. Mohammed had them all slaughtered!
2. The Quran does not specify anything about the Meccans. These verses are not historical reporting, they are normative imperatives (that means, the are absolute commandments as to the proper moral behavior of Muslims). If the Quran is Allah's word, then he has not set such plain, murderous verses into it, without the slightest explanation that it was actually about treasonous Muslims siding with Meccans. NO, quite the contrary Allah, in all his wisdom, has deliberately omitted mention of the Meccans and deliberately focused on unbelievers... who are also hypocrites as outlined elsewhere in the Quran.
Your scholarship has been used to confuse you with respect to the blunt meaning of Allah's true word!
_______________________________________
But, paarsurrey, go back to my earlier comments... and please reconsider them. Allah, the supernatural God, who preceded the Universe, who is omniscient and omnipotent, simply cannot exist. Cannot. 1.5 billion Muslims are as wrong as the 1.5 billion Christians. It is important to understand that right and wrong are not determined by how many believe. Right is established by the inexorable truths of the physical, existential Universe, the nature of Man, and by his proper use of his volitional mind. A volitional mind is a brilliant thing: it can choose what it wants to think and do as can no animal or plant, but it can also choose to be wrong. The supernatural is wrong. Cave men, 10,000 years ago, were so ignorant of the workings of Nature and their own minds, that they could perhaps be expected to draw faulty conclusions. Now, with 300 years of modern science, there is no such excuse. Reason makes life better, not gods. Peaceful trade makes life better, not violent forcings. Respect for all other persons' Life, Liberty and also Property, as a cultural 'given' (something everyone accepts without question), improves the life of each individual. Islam does not respect life, does not respect liberty and only marginally respects property. Muslims, if they pursue property at all, pursue it as a symbol of superiority, think Dubai. They do not think of it as a good thing an individual chooses to pursue, as was done by Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. Jobs had a nice home, but his was not a fraction as pretentiously ostentatious as the Habtoor Palace of the Sheikhs of Dubai. Jobs just wanted to make great things, and he did.
@Richard : Thu Mar 06, 03:31:00 PM 2014, Thu Mar 06, 04:11:00 PM 2014,
You said:
“What I posted as 4:89 may have been some sort of cut and paste error.” Unquote
You know that there was no copy/paste error; as there is no such item on the page you took the verses from. It seems to be a deliberate attempt to change the text of the verse of Quran.
Other stuff you gave in your posts, referenced above, as a cover up of your wrong doing are off-topic and not worthy of any attention. The topic is specific about Quran (“Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran?”) so please only quote Quran or get the topic amended.
If you have nothing substantial to write in connection with the verse in discussion Quran; you may select another verse from the 527 violent verses you mentioned in the original post.
If you cannot prove a single violent verse in Quran and have to resort to changing the text to prove your viewpoint then it is obvious the violence is in the minds and heart of the Atheists not in Quran.
Better quote another verse from another place of Quran for discussion and try your luck in vain.
@paarsurrey
Since I used the verses you presented, my comment was entirely about the Quran, as you requested.
I even wrote:
The actual verse is much worse! The last sentence of that verse is "But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper."That is not a "cover-up", is not "off topic" and demands your full attention. You are using irrelevant material to obfuscate & evade the fact that your Quran requires violence be done to infidels, period.
Since I made that point in my comment, it is very regrettable that you show yourself to be inept at reading or plainly dishonest by not addressing it. Prove that Allah exists. Prove that the passages you presented do not demand the obvious violence they entail. You can do neither. You cannot pretend that, "...seize them and kill them wherever you find them" means "... feed them bread and honey, and give them milk to drink"
No, I do not need to address another violent verse or set of violent verses, paarsurrey (where did you get 527 from?). You have lamely, or dishonestly, or foolishly, but certainly shamefully, failed to show that the verses in question are peaceful, while insisting they are (or meet some international standard of your imagination). Your comments have almost entirely been an exercise in avoidance, like a little boy trying to hide from his parents the fact that he broke a valued vase, e.g.: "It was the cat." "No, son, the cat was outside." Now he would be in deeper trouble for having lied.
If the Quran actually is peaceful, you have failed to defend it, before your God.
You failed, because it is not peaceful (and there is no such God).
Now, face the truth, address the issue properly. Be a man.
Give up,and admit the violence is there.
@paarsurrey
What was done to this little girl, has been done to you. It's sometimes called brainwashing. It is a crime against a child's mind. It is a crime is standard practice in madrassas, mosques and (yes) churches or synagogues.
@Richard said: Mon Mar 10, 01:55:00 PM 2014, Mon Mar 10, 02:00:00 PM 2014
You wrote:
“(Where did you get 527 from?)”
Please see the OP (The Original Post of this blog) titled:
Quote: “Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran?”
(Repost with updated numbers and graphs on 2 April 2011)
The LORD is a man of war. Exodus 15:3
Fight in the way of Allah. Quran 2:244
Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran? Is there a way to objectively answer such a question?
Well, it wouldn't be easy. But it is possible to compare the amount of cruelty and violence in the two books.
Here is a summary of the highlighted verses in the SAB and SAQ.
Number of Cruel or ViolentPassages
Bible 1214
Quran 527 ” Unquote
Please access the following link to see it.
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.ca/2006/06/which-is-more-violent-bible-or-quran.html
The rest of the contents of your posts, referred by me in the beginning, are off-topic and or not on the topic; so I won’t discuss them.
If you are defending the OP; then quote another of the alleged 527 verses that show violence in Quran.
I will discuss the topic verse by verse not in general.
@paarsurrey,
What are you talking about? The 527 is NOT a number that I put up. For the second time, paarsurrey, please note that this is not my blog, at all. I just made some comments here. All this time you keep assuming I began this discussion?? Wow.
What is considerably worse is that you are copying or have copied my comments here, and have put them up on your blog, while claiming they are the words of Dwindling in Unbelief! That is libelous misrepresentation. Darn it, just how stupid are you?
As for "Islam, the religion of the most bloody violence"...
Your evasions are now completely rude. Particularly rude is arbitrarily announcing something exactly on topic, is off topic, because you are unable to address it without admitting you are wrong.
Why do you refuse to explain how the verses YOU quoted are peaceful. That IS on topic. It is exactly how you want it. I dealt with exactly those verses. You, apparently, cannot.
It'll be an interesting lesson for other readers to see what nonsense you produce next... or will you come clean and actually address the topic you say should be addressed. (Yes, your hypocrisy on that is noted.)
Here is the third or fourth reminder:
This is YOUR quotation from the Quran. The last sentence of that verse is "But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper."
That is not a "cover-up", is not "off topic" and demands your full attention. What follows is also "on topic", and to dismiss it is to dismiss thinking. If you enter a discussion and demand that everyone dismiss thinking, then there is no discussion, only blind stupid belief. Well, that might work in a madrassa, a Sunday school, or the equivalent, but not here.
You say you "will discuss the topic verse by verse not in general."... yet grasping the general principle is precisely what the honest thinking mind must do. It is also essential to the topic introduced by Dwindling in Unbelief. To compare the Bible and the Quran, one MUST assemble many verses that refer to similar things, one MUST see what they mean individually and when taken all together. So, one must come to a general conclusion: which is more violent the Bible or the Quran.
If you refuse to look at the verse above, and refuse to draw general conclusions, then your claims that the Quran is peaceful are empty, are the claims of a vacuous mind, devoid of thought or understanding. Get out of the discussion.
I am sick of the Context argument. The fact is in any context these things would not be good.
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. Bible Numbers 31:15-18
They trespassed against god, that's the context. Now tell me in what context it is ok to kill women and children and save the virgins for yourself?
@ Wayne Manor
I am talking for the Bible in regard to
Quote But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. Bible Numbers 31:15-18 unquote
You mentioned that
'Now tell me in what context it is ok to kill women and children and save the virgins for yourself?'
This is not the institution of virginity as such but more of immorality that is steeped in paganism at that time. A girl or woman who has kept herself from the vileness of getting involved in immoral practices that was prevalent in their society, only a few I believe could have not tasted the waters. The verse is quiet gullible to the interpretation the interpretations that you have given which in todays’ parlance becomes suspicious filtering because we are inundated with news of such practices in today’s world.
The only way I can answer your question is to read and understand the Quran like the way you can easily pick a bible to read it. You dont have to expect an ignorant person to understand and answer your question especially when you don't give any are the opportunity to read and understand the full Quran.
What is criteria used to attribute verse as violent?
@Learn Quraan said...
What is criteria used to attribute verse as violent?
Wow, if that is not the most fatuous and disingenuous comment yet.
What part of killing infidels (as painfully as possible), as commanded by the Quran, doesn't fit any criterion of violence? See The Quran's Verses of Violence
Before I gut a fish, I make sure I have wrecked its brain, so it feels no pain. Then I eat it, because it is food. Islam is not so kind! Islam treats Jews & Infidels as fish, goats, camels, & sheep, but with even less humanity than I treat fish!
The criteria is, kill non-human animals ONLY for food. Kill them so quickly they have no hint of pain or death. Any other way (such as Halal bleeding, is barbaric, uncivilized, and is evidence of a psychopath).
There are over 100 verses in the Quran, the Holy Word of Allah (supposedly, but that is pigshit nonsense), that are as violent as gutting fish.
@Kimberlee Smith
I live in Mississauga and I was raised by devout Anglican parents.
Kimberlee, how is it more important that as Christians "we worship Jesus" than Muslims should worship Mohammed?
We (as I was raised) think Jesus is the ultimate lover of men and women. Jesus, we think, set a standard of loving each other that no one can match! Yet so did Mohammed, by Islamic standards.
How does your worship of Jesus and God help change their worship of Mohammed and Allah??
It cannot.
Neither Jesus nor Mohammed matter. Their super-naturalism is nonsense. Get on with your own life. Forget Jesus and Mohammed.
All the stories of Quran is actually the "witness" of the Qiyamat.
More at: http://sanandhonline.blogspot.com/2014/01/alif-lam-mim-unlocked-and-the-stories-of-Quran.html
It doesn't matter if I think it is cruel or not, it isn't a document I believe in or use, so whether it gave advice on infidels or infinity, makes no difference to me.
You're obviously captivated by this document, so it makes sense for you to comment. However, if your skills of interpreting what the Quran means for readers today is anything close to your abilities to interpret the Bible, chances are you're missing it by a mile.
learn quran naat
muslimah ahmed
There are two things wrong with 5:33 First, it seeks to enforce support for an imaginary being.
Indeed, this is why there is always so much war and violence among the religious... no one has a clue as to what Allah, Jehovah, God really is, despite the incredible number of literary works presenting them and their supposed laws. It is not possible to "know" an imaginary supernatural being —a supernatural anything is impossible, by definition. Without an observable, real, Being, it is always one group's imagination against another's. That is why, even if the entire world were Islamic, Muslims will simply begin to war against each other... as historical reality has proven.
Second, this verse does not define "corruption", but we both know it means both criminal and irreligious behavior as defined by the Quran and Sharia. That behavior is defined by the men who claim to know Allah... and is based on *their* particular imaginations. Their own beliefs may be the corruption, for which others will suffer horrid punishments they do not deserve. There are cases of double amputation for a 12 year old stealing $10 . The idea that sexual pleasure for a woman is corrupt (hence FGM) is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, except in the absurd world of the aforementioned gods.
You say, "i actually think that God ONLY encourages severe punishments in the Quran in severe cases where there needs to be truthful witnesses, and that if the person repents there [sic] will be saved."
Saved? Why does anyone need to be "saved". You see, your view is that mankind is a bad thing unless subordinated to your particular imaginary Being, and you are willing to support the use of extreme violence to enforce your view. That is extremely immoral.
Yes, there is corruption in the various Western Legal systems, just as there is corruption in the Sharia system.
Your claim of violence in non-Islamic world (Dar al Harb) is patently ridiculous. Middle East violence is always initiated by Muslims, to which non-Muslims must retaliate or be violently overrun by Islam. Violent crime occurs in every society, but should everyone live in fear of having limbs cut off and many other horrific treatments if they do not quite agree with the local imam, or the mutaween? That is not "Peace", but the 'stillness' of a prison. Indeed, it is just that kind of 'stillness' that has made the Islamic world so unproductive that it must rely on the
the achievements of its enemies to wage a continuous and spiteful war against them.
There has been enormously less violence coming from nations that respect and strive to uphold individual rights to life liberty and property, in part through a separation of religion and state. Where they fail, it is largely because too few people have grasped that there should also be a separation of economy and state. They use religious and quasi religious (socialism, environmentalism) beliefs to enact improper laws that violate the rights of their own citizens.
Muslimah, learn about, and join, the world of rational and fearless Muslims... they are the apostate Muslims. Do not submit to an imaginary being, created by other me,n so as to keep you down.
Kimberlee Smith, as I wrote to Muslimah... you cannot oppose one culture surrounding an imaginary being by asserting that your imaginary being is superior. That is what much of human warring has been about for 100,000 years. The Bible, Torah and Quran perpetuate the nonsense. Time to learn from history, rather than repeat it.
your analysis of the Quran is deceptive not not very accurate.
example:#4 as you have wrote it has nothing to do with the very verse you reference 2:30
please review your list for accuracy
and credibility
thank you for your time and effort
@Ramble a Day
You are correct as to the origins of the three monotheistic Middle Easter religions, but omitting the fact that there are important normative differences offers no one anything useful. Same uselessness applies to swearing and insulting ... it does not do anything to make your case, except render you as another useless infidel.
As I say in other comments above, the Old Testament Bible argues for some all-out brutal things but it is dominated by historical descriptions of,brutality. In the New Testament, however, has Jesus (whoever that is) arguing that believers must be peaceful, and God sets the standard of of threats for brutality, not people.
The Quran differs in having God requiring that Islamic believers carry out the violence.
E.g.
Quran.com/22/19-22/ “These are two adversaries who have disputed over their Lord. But those who disbelieved will have cut out for them garments of fire. Poured upon their heads will be scalding water /
“By which is melted that within their bellies and [their] skins. /
“And for [striking] them are maces [or “hooks”] of iron.”
Nice isn't it. A contributor here, named "paarsurrey" tries to argue that this and other verses like it are perfectly acceptable to the rest of humanity, so Islam is okay. He is therefore as guilty as any spy for the Nazis in precipitating death and destruction on innocent people ... of course by the twisted logic of Islam, being an unbeliever is to be guilty of a crime against Muslims.
This is why hundreds of thousands of Muslims kill &/or cheer at the (often gruesome) Christians & Jews sadly shake their heads even at the death of Muslim women and children. This is why Muslims are proud when their children act as genocide bombers. This is why Hamas beats and batters Palestinians to remain near their missile launch sites, so the deaths of their own can be (superficially) blamed on infidels.
the verse you quoted is for punishment meeted out in hell after the final judgment.
Hi. Full disclosure: I'm from a Muslim background, so maybe I have a bias. But not much, I think, since I'm not a religious believer, in Islam or anything else. Now, what I wanted to say was - pardon my surprise and incredulity - you can't be serious! You think the Qur'an and the Bible are about as violent as each other? That's very silly. Nay, verily, the Bible is in a league all its own. There are multiple passages in it enjoining *genocide*, for goodness' sake (such as, "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass"); there's even a hymn jubilantly climaxing in a fantasy about smashing the bodies of little children ("Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones"). There's nothing like that in the Qur'an. (Incidentally, I can read the Qur'an fluently in Arabic if you need any help analysing it.)
Ah, but Christians use the excuse "but that was OLD Testament". When confronted with "so . . . is ALL of the OT wrong then?" You will get complicated excuses, because no - clearly they don't believe the whole thing is wrong, they just want to cherry pick it. Of course, the NT has some nasty stuff in it too anyway.
The Old Testament has over 23,000 verses while the Koran has just over 6,000. So, in terms of proportion of violent verses to the size of the book, the Koran is more violent.
The quality of the violent verses of the Koran is that they prescribe laws for how to deal with non-believers for all time, whereas only the first 5 books of Moses in the Old Testament are regarded as the word of God and as dispensing laws. Violence sanctioned by God were specific to long-dead people over 3,500 years ago.
There are ZERO verses in the Old Testament railing against non-Jews for not converting to Judaism and prescribing worldly and eternal tortures and hardships for them until they give in. The opposite is true of the Koran.
The Jewish belief, unlike Christianity and Islam, is that all people who are righteous, regardless of whether they are Jewish or not, have an equal share in heaven. This belief is set out in the Talmud. Righteousness is defined by following the 7 Noahide Laws - do not murder, do not steal, do not eat a part off a live animal, set up courts of justice, etc.
You should also consider this article: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Are_Judaism_and_Christianity_as_Violent_as_Islam%3F
Apologies if I'm posting this again, but it doesn't seem to have posted it the first time I tried.
the religions are not violent...the people are violent.
that is a profound difference as a starting point for debate.
the real question is this:
what kind of people are violent, and what behaviors and associations do these people have in common?
answer: nihilism (the fundamental philosophy that LIFE IS MEANINGLESS.
this is the WHY many kinds of people are motivated and attracted toward the religions, both judaism, christianity and islam (and others!)...the person is looking for an escape from the inevitable death they face..,.they desire immortality and god powers...they can never achieve either...but the "promise" of the trifecta of death religions, teach at the core this not so subtle notion that the physical life is rooted in evil, pain, and sin...and that only through death..that the eternal perfect solution is achieved.
these same people have existed in all times and in all cultures..they all demonstrate nihilistic motivations.
and in that sense, and death religion will do.
simple as that..
you folks are just splitting hairs on what books are more attractive to these types of people than other books.
looking for your answers in all the wrong places.
here is another secret: this is the only and one life you will every have..cherish it...preserve every moment..
this is what gives rise to true love and mercy, forgiveness and peace...that you just have this one time in the universe.
make it count.
and stop reading DAMNING books..and stop rewarding people around you that act of DAMNING BOOKS>..ignoring them does not make the problems they create go away.
Expose them for the frauds they are...and kill them if they persist.
this is how you deal with evil.
Mr. Paradise,
You are quite correct about having only one life, and the need to live it, sensibly, to the fullest!
You miss an important & fundamental aspect of religion and other ideologies.
It is ideas that drive human motivations and actions. Indeed ideas drive all historical events. As such we have seen all kinds of religious beliefs & range of secular ideologies (Communism, Environmentalism, etc.). Yes, many of these ideas lead to nihilism, and of course to violence.
This discussion is comparing the ideologies laid out in the Quran and in the Bible, ideologies by which people act. The Quran advocates much more violence then the Bible advocates, as I have written above. As such the ideology of Islam (outlined in the Quran) is more violent, more nihilistic and much more oppressive. Islam actually translates into "submit". A Muslim is "one who submits". Those who accept that ideology are inin (often tacit) agreement with, or actually follow through on the violence, nihilism & oppression!
Yes, it is indeed people who take such violent actions, but they are widely driven by their ideologies, such as those written 'Holy' books, or in such works as The Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf.
Nicely done! And by that I mean you demonstrate how to create a red herring that leads your readers to focus on the background secondary nature of Islam, Christianity and Judaism instead of there world views and respective truth claims.
The cruelty you speak of virtually disappears when the reader examines the context of these cultures worldwide from 1500 BCE to 1000 CE.
An eye for an eye for instancemwasmsetmagainst the back drop of the story of Lamech. There he brags of killing a man for wounding him. And wiping out 70 for the death of one family member.
Just because the Bible accurately record violence doesn't mean that Judaism or Christianity are inherently violent. A simple read of Foxe's book of Martyrs would disabuse you of any notion that Christians grew there church by violence. Often the uneducated or malicious misrepresent the dispicable politicization by the Catholic Church leading to the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition as the norm in Christianity, but it is a strawman argument and represents the worse inChristian tradition as the standard.
The real question is on Atheism it seems that cruelty is just an illusion. Do you think it is cruel when a lion kills a Zebra? Or when a Male grizzly bear forcibly copulated with a female bear. You don't cal those murder and rape do you? When a group of apes drive out and kill all the competing apes in the territory, you don't call that cruel do you? Genocide?
It seems bizarre that objective values like "Cruelty" would just be created by the universe the way it generates quarks. If there are no objective morals as most nonbelievers since Hume have thought, then it seems somewhat ironic that a "Non-Believer" would write an entire book highlighting an attribute in religion that they don't actually believe exists.
When you don't filter out the violence in the cultures that surround Judaism, Christianity, and Islam you will see that these religions are no more violent then their culture.
When you stop transporting ancient cultures and comparing them to the backdrop of modern culture your thesis will disappear.
This is a rookie mistake for a historiographer. But then again I suspect that is not you background. Nevertheless you have set the dogs off the trail with your red herring allowing you to escape grounding your objective moral cruelty!
Interesting blog post and so many good people thinking things through. This is what people should be doing... more thinking.
Playing devils advocate, I say that the Quoran, has violent passages that involve beheading non believers at the time 1000 years ago. While that seems horrific, it was the form of war at the time. Think that the Christian Inquisition did a lot more than that to non believers. For 400 years and even more recently they were burning people alive, and torturing them. And, we have actually dropped a nuclear bomb on civilians to win a war in the last century, and may still do so. So while a beheading is gross, it is not as gross as seeing an entire population suffer a slow death from radiation poisoning.
Let's face it, these books were written by humans, not Gods. If God is capable of creating an entire universe, why would it bother at all with flawed human beings. The books all refer to a story of the flood. It seems God was so disappointed with humans, it want it kill them all and save the animals. Now, think of this. What if this God sees time as one 3 diminsinal picture. For this God, time is not linear, it sees past, future and present as one image. So, imagine if the story of Noah is really a future event? Makes sense right. Sea levels are rising, species are disappearing, and the planet is being desetroyed. But people keep worrying about their pitty little wars and don't want to discuss peace. It is clear that humans are not going to survive with this behavior, and these books are not helping.
@Green Publishing
First, the Old Testament violence is emphatically NOT like the Quran. It is mainly historical, rather than putting forth moral commandments, with a few exceptions.
Second, the New Testament was a brilliant reformation. It did not present Christ as a prophet! He is far superior, as the Son of God. He is "God On Earth". He was 'sent' by Jehovah, "God In Heaven" to teach mankind that only Jehovah may cast judgment on the sins of men.
So, why The Inquisition? The church leaders & monarchs sought spiritual & legal authority over their illiterate subjects. The Reformation in Europe sought an emphasis on New Testament tolerance. It also softened resistance to the Pursuit of Reason that was to produce The Enlightenment. The church leaders resisted that Enlightenment using Inquisition methods. Extreme, dark ages, violence was 'the way' (as with Mohammed). Furthermore, The Bible was Latin, really only readable by monks & priests. It was easy for the church leaders & monarchs to invoke a verse here & a verse there, phrasing it in the local language, to condemn a man they wished to silence. That said, the Inquisition was not mandated in either of the Bible’s books. The Quran, however, insists that Muslims not only judge their fellow humans but also condemn them to brutal penalties!
Your analogy of dropping a nuclear weapon on civilians fails. The targets were industrial areas producing weapons & war machines. Most citizens working in those industries were as supportive of the Japanese Pacific campaign as any sailor, pilot or soldier. Furthermore, since Japan was the aggressor, their deaths are the responsibility of Hirohito & his generals, not Americans. (The same argument applies to the Dresden firebombing.). In any war it is not only soldiers that must be destroyed but their families & their homes. Anything less is a weakness that prolongs the war, causing greater carnage. The nuclear bombs on Japan ended that war in days, saving many lives on both sides!
Your argument concerning global warming also fails. It is known that temperature data from globally distributed weather stations were extensively tampered with to make a warming trend appear real. It is entirely a hoax that took on a life of its own. Those able to profit from it, politically, economically or in scientific prestige, ignore contrary results.
See:
http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/20/german-professor-examines-nasa-giss-temperature-datasets-finds-they-have-been-massively-altered/#sthash.EeWmu8zH.dpbs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html
Ether chapter 8. Verse 19
For the Lord worketh not in secret combinations, neither doth he will that man should shed blood, but in all things hath forbidden it, from the beginning of man.
Cruelty is written in all of the religious books.
These books are written by people.
Look at the universe and our natural world, that is the creation of our God. Those are the rules. Allah, Jehova, God, whatever you call it wants to preserve this precious earth and wants us to get along so we can save it. God is a creature of infinite wisdom and knowledge and wants us to figure out how to be good by ourselves.
It is up to us. How do I know? The story of Noah, he makes the guby build an Ark. He couldhave conjured up this ark, but no, he wants the guy to build it. As a father would make his son do the work.
I cannot believe that these religious books full of hatred and wars, and violence are the word of our God. No way. Not a God that makes kittens, babies, flowers, butterflies. No way, I just don't believe it.
http://throughpassion.weebly.com/jesus-christ-meant-to-return-a-long-time-ago.html
I once saw Christopher Hitchens say something to this affect after having written my book. I wondered with incredulity how he could not have written a book about this. It's probably because it does not take a book to prove this, but in my own I give plenty of passages and historical examples to do so. Still, why did he in the least not write an article about this if he cared so much about ending religion?
The Quran in ARABIC LANGUAGE
I was born in Ilayangudi a small town in South India. At the age of six I went to learn to read the Quran in a local Masjid and I completed the Arabic Quran at the age of 12 or so.
When I went to college my ideas changed and I thought it was useless( astagfirullah) just to read the Quran in Arabic without understanding the meaning. So I started reading teh English translation of the Quran and eventually forgot to read the Arabic Quran fluently
After reading the following Quotation from a Christian Arabic Language professor on the beauty of the Quran, I started re-learning to read the Quran in Arabic.
“The Quran was revealed in Arabic. It is a matter of faith in Islam that it is of divine origin, it is inimitable and hence to translate is always to betray. Muslims have always deprecated and at times prohibited any attempt to render it in another language.
Anyone who has read it in the original is forced to admit that this caution seems justified. No translation however faithful to the meaning has ever been fully successful.
Arabic when expertly used is a remarkably tense, rich and forceful language.
And the Arabic of the Quran is by turns, striking, soaring, vivid, terrible, tender and breathtaking.
As Prof Gibb has put it, “No man in 1500 years has ever played on that deep toned instrument with such power, such boldness and such range of emotional effect.”
It is meaningless to apply adjectives such as “beautiful” or “persuasive” to the Quran, its flashing images and inexorable measure go directly to the brain and intoxicate it. It is not surprising then, that a skilled recitor of the Quran can reduce an Arabic speaking audience to helpless tears.”
QUOTATION TAKEN FROM THE BOOK:
TITLE: Islam
AUTHOR: John Alden Williams ( a non-Muslim Arabic scholar)
PUBLISHER: Prentice Hall International, London 1961
The following Quotation taken from the foreword of Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s Glorious Quran reinforces the above views of Prof. Alden equally effectively and forcefully.
“The Quran can not be translated. That is the belief of old- fashioned sheykhs and the view of the present writer. The Book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language.
But the result is not the Glorious Quran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy.
It is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Quran: and peradventure something of the charm: in English.
It can never take the place of the Quran in Arabic nor is it meant to do so.
pamohamedameen
The whole idea that God would actually write a book in a language that only just a portion of the world understands is presumptive and evil. Faith, that is that? Isn't it, believing in what people tell you without proof? If God wanted to write a book, he would write it in DNA code and stick the information right into your brain.
God created an entire universe, and animals, like kittens, butterflies, and beauty in nature beyond imagination. That God would write a book of cruelty and war is just not possible.
Those that believe it betray God.
Croose Hackle,
Perhaps you should read the Quran then, or are you practising taqiyya! If you have been reading the Quran you will know, just from Surah 2, that your primary obligation as a Muslim believer is to kill infidels, force them to pay jizyah, or to convert them to Islam. Worse, that chapter indicates that it was Allah who created the infidels in the first place. He then put a seal upon their 'hearts' to prevent them from wanting to convert. How horribly unfair!
The Muslim who believes that has no problem with killing such a creature since it has no mind of its own. But you should note, in believing that so submissively, you too have no mind of your own. You have allowed your mind to be a pawn of Allah; you have submitted your mind to Mohammed. That means you can be just as easily killed by another Muslim, perhaps from a different sect. You should examine just how wrong for a human mind that is! Your obligation as a human is to rely on your senses, not your imagination of some supernatural being. Deep down, you know that Allah is a figment of your imagination (and Mohammed's) that has been handed down to you by your parents and other elders in your religious culture.
Your true obligation as a human, in this natural UNcreated universe, is to look after & value your own life on Earth. That requires acting on only the facts of reality that improve your life. It means that you should value those who will work with you, through trade, not conquest.
In trade you both benefit.
In conquest, whether for goods or for ideas, you may benefit for a short term if you succeed, but in the end you lose! The very men who provided what ever goods or ideas you gain, are no longer willing or able (especially if you've killed him ) to produce them! This is why every Muslim nation on the planet devolves into a mess of violence and poverty.
Once in that mess, the citizens look for a) more supernatural help and b) someone to blame –rather than looking to themselves. Belief in Allah is your enemy. You are a victim of Muhammad, who made up Allah in the first place, just as Jews and Christians made up Jehovah. It is only by reducing or eliminating religion from their lives and turning to reason that they have succeeded in the real world.
It was the European Enlightenment that made it possible for Christians to escape the Dark Ages. The same must be accomplished in the Middle East for Muslims. Unfortunately Islam is much more strict. It will be very difficult for millions of Muslims to do that. But you can do it for yourself. Good luck.
It's late and I'll have to come back and see if anyone has asked if the qu'ran was as big (length/page wise) if it wouLtd have more violence?
Me: You seem to be reading more into this than I did. The original story did state that the Koran had twice as many evil passages for its size than the Bible, though if only the old Testament were counted, they would be closer to equal. On the other hand, the New Testament is nothing if not wishy-washy. This Christ guy walks around advising against most of the evil, barbaric practices in the Jewish Bible (eg. stoning adulteresses), but claims not to have overturned anything in said Old Testament. Even at the Last Supper, these Christ followers were still celebrating the ugly holiday of Passover, in which a vengeful, evil, supposedly all-powerful, god victimized a whole population in order to avenge the acts of a minority that was enslaving the Jews. As a result, some Christians seem to be self-hating, "crucify-me-please", Dorothy Day types, while others (like the AM radio preachers we have in the USA) are so bored with Christ that all they can talk about is the Jewish Bible. The point is that all 3 religions are potentially violent and ugly. That doesn't deny the fact that in this day and age, most Christians and Jews have, for the time being, managed to BS their way around all the vicious evil in the books they consider holy, while a substantial portion of Muslims have not. All religion should be viewed with suspicion, but Islam is definitely a more immediate threat. The so-called "progressives" who think letting this primitive creed into the Western world will go down in history as the instigators of the end of advanced, secular, Western civilization. They have already turned W. Europe in to the next Yugoslavia and they're working on the same fate for the USA, Canada and Australia. Fasten your seatbelt ...
I have read your article and trust me it was amazing article. thanks for sharing such an interesting post here
Quran institute
I think something that rarely gets thought about when this type of discussion occurs is social context
Its almost vacuous to say "but Christians don't do that stuff" because most of the wars in the last few hundred years have been ordered by Christian leaders who run majoritive Christian countries that claim to live by Christian morality sending armies of mostly Christians to do as their leaders have often described it "gods work"
Gods work under the flag of Christianity that includes but is not limited to targeting civilian targets, restricting medicine and food even outside of war knowing it would and then did result in millions of deaths including millions of children and then flipping state run banks over to the central banking Ponzi scheme, stealing those countries gold reserves and thereby guaranteeing never ending poverty for vast amounts of the people in those countries
Then theres the radical element of Judaism, Zionism whose alltime allstars not once but twice tried to form an alliance with the Nazis in return for the Nazis removing the british and Palestinians from Palestine, who carried out a decades long terrorist campaign and then when recognised as a state didn't jail a single terrorist but instead elected three of them as heads of state, put many more in government posts and rather than jailing the lower terrorists just let them join the army instead so they could carry on doing what they had been doing up until that point. Then went and had a party to celebrate one of the terrorist attacks and put a plaque up to commemorate the "wonderous" event and is still committing assassinations now around the world
So firstly lets not be duped into thinking "the" violent religion is islam. Competition is very stiff between the three main religions
Also, we need to consider social context too
Many of the "terrorists" who are held up by the media as being indicative of ALL muslims tend to come from the poorer nations or become terrorists because of what is or has been done to those countries.
For Christians its not the same. Nowhere on earth is there a Christian country being harassed to anywhere near the same extent by the worlds super powers or collections of Christian countries keeping them down and destabilising their economy and infrastructure
If that WAS the case, if millions of Christians were growing up in countries where they were trapped in an apartheid like prison camp in a tiny portion of what was once their own country I think its safe to assume they too would be doing whatever they could to either try and change that or if that was impossible make the perpetrators of it suffer as a result
In Ireland, a staunchly Christian country terrorism was rife not so long ago. And barely a muslim in sight
So its moronic to try and claim that its a "muslim" thing when jews and Christians have, when faced with what they consider to be unfair treatment or a situation they just didn't like doing the exact same thing
So its dim-witted at best and deliberately disingenuous to give commentary on occurences without also adding the context of the social environment that those occurences were generated from and the lack of hope, the despair, the oppression, the attacks of human rights, freedom and autonomy that exist and are without doubt a catalyst for those occurences to happen
We cant with a clear conscience show disdain for actions that in reality are very often not merely "actions" but are in fact REactions to actions we have taken
Kick a dog for long enough and theres a good chance it will bite you. Trying to claim that makes the dog evil is the very definition of delusion
The examples cited by your website are perfectly within their context, contrary to objections raised above.
If you don't believe the Bible teaches cruelty, look at the history of church-originated wars and slaughters since the council of Nicea 267 a.d. where do the beliefs come from?
Answer: Christians taking the bible out of context and explaining it in a way that supports their prejudices!
Thanks to your website for putting light on the scriptures.
Equating Christianity and Islam is as unfortunate as it is misleading. The two books do demand unreason. If you want to go by that alone yes they are equally vile. But one needs to go further to recognize how the books act as philosophies for living (sort of).
First of all, the verses in the Old Testament are generally not of a *normative* nature, they are not telling today's people how to act. They are historic explanations of what Jehovah (God in Heaven) said to do to one tribe or another. Yes Jehovah was a violent prick. And yes there are a number of instructions from Jehovah, such as killing gays, that are normative. Now that's the Old Testament.
In the New Testament Jesus (God on Earth) brought a message that was largely peaceful and normative. That's why we read such things as "turn the other cheek", "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", "do onto others as you would have others do unto you", "judge not lest you be judged" and there are quite a few more.
However the imaginary story was developed, God in Heaven sent God on Earth to tell man to get along, albeit by altruist standards. Men were to leave judgment up to Jehovah.
(It is important to note here, that the violence perpetrated by the Catholic Church and its inquisitors was definitely not New Testament. They viewed themselves as rulers along with monarchs and they needed to keep the masses in control. Since the Bible was handwritten in Latin, few laypeople could comprehend it. So the inquisitors only needed to quota few verses pertinent to some poor heretic's crime in order to find him guilty.)
On the other hand, the Qur'an is repeatedly and insistently normative. It dictates the rules for living to which every Muslim must adhere. In particular it stresses the subjugation of infidels requiring that they either convert, pay the jizya tax, or be killed ("smite their necks"). It does not simply state that women are one quarter of a man, it lays out rules as to how men should handle the women, as chattel. There are some 60 violent normative requirements that believers must obey. Most of them apply to the mandate of performing Jihad. Jihad is not a spiritual struggle, so much as a violent struggle against infidels, and against the Jews in particular.
The Qur'an is dramatically more vile as a guide to life than is the Bible, for those who recognize the New Testament. Indeed it is more vile than the Old Testament, which is essentially what Jews have been following for millennia. Jews treat the Old Testament as historical description and/or as parables that one should think about to decide how one should guide their own life. No such judgment is possible to those interpreting the Qur'an. It asserts absolute requirements, for which no word-changes or loose re-interpretation is permitted.
To equate the Qur'an with the Bible does an injustice. Not because it demeans Christian belief, but because it white-washes the far more vile Islâmic belief.
Lol @
"Support the suicide bombing of civilians:
2002
74 % of Lebanese
47 % of Nigerians
44 % of Bangladeshis
43 % of Jordanians
33 % of Pakistanis
2007:
42 % of Nigerians
34 % of Lebanese
23 % of Jordanians
20 % of Bangladeshis
9 % of Pakistanis
8 % of Egyptians
Support Bin Laden killing Americans:
2003
72 % of Palestinians
59 % of Indonesians
56 % of Jordanians
46 % of Pakistanis
20 % of Lebanese
2007
57 % of Palestinians
41 % of Indonesians
38 % of Pakistanis
20 % of Jordanians
1 % of Lebanese
Islam is more evil than Nazism."
Which western muslim hating arm of the propaganda wing invented those figures?
And what percentage of western people support the "war" on terror? The war that has killed milliona of innocent civillians many of whom don't even reside in countries that are affiliated with radical islam and countries that had no links whatsoever to 9/11?
How many supported the actions against Iraq between the wars where food and medicine was blocked from getting into the country resulting again in millions of deaths of innocent civillians, half a million of which were children
How many support Israels "retaliation" in Palestine, where a rocket that kills nobody results in a 21 day air attack timed to happen when the children are leaving school?
If you add up the innocent civillians killed by fanatics wearing bomb vests and compare it to the civillians killed by allegedly "trained" soldiers using pin point accurate ordnance the suicide bombers are almost a negligent risk to human life
But its funny how when Christians or jews kill thousands of people it barely gets news coverage and even when it does their faith is rarely mentioned as descriptive label
Yet when any muslim kills even one person their faith is in every sentence even if they weren't doing it for religious reasons to begin with
On the subject of the torah not being included, although its a valid point to say they don't have the same numbers. But is that really relevant?
Each leader who has ordered atrocities has been 1 in many millions,
As the topic is violence both in, and to some extent caused by holy texts it should be considered that many muslims included in that are actually fighting for political reasons but their faith only adds to their conviction but isn't the root of it
Whereas pretty much 100% of the jewish murdering done in the last 100 years or so, not to mention the "alleged" genocides in ancient history have been done singly and purely because of their faith
So despite being the smallest group they will win the gold in many years for the most people killed in the name of religion on a global scale. So their membership alone isn't reason to exclude them
And although the other two have higher followings we should also note that a HUGE amount of Christians, mainly in the US do effectively support violence under the teachings of the Torah against Palestinians. So they should really be added to the number of jews when arriving at the amount of people "influenced" by the text
All of that aside though, the comparison is merely between religious texts. And Judaism is probably the next most prominent world faith, with far more air time than the other two combined in recent times
So it would have been fascinating for all three of the Abrahamic faiths to have been compared to see how each differs in terms of violent messages
But I do wonder whether at least part of the reason for not doing so related to the fear of being called a hew hater, Nazi or anti semite (even though many muslims are also semites lol)
Wow, look at this thread. The thing is you may agree or disagree with ether book it's all the same. Cruel or just, violent or peaceful, in the end, the word of God is what it is. The creator of all things, gives and takes as he sees fit. No one said it had to be fair.
If he does exists. The question is,
can we rise against him?
The Qur’an (in Anglicized form: Koran ) is certainly the greatest literary work in classical Arabic and for all Muslims stands as the definitive word of God (in Arabic: Allah ) spoken to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. When reading the Qur’an , you should realize that, for all Muslims, the text you are reading is quite literally the voice of God; because the Qur’an is the direct speech of God in Arabic, translation of the work is seen as blasphemy, as an unforgivable tampering with God’s own speech. Nevertheless, the Qur’an has been translated into Turkish and Farsi (the language of Iran) in this century and is recited in these languages in religious services in Turkey and Iran. The Muslim community tolerates this but just barely. For all practical purposes, to be Muslim, then, means almost universally to be able to read and understand classical Arabic, despite what one’s native language is [Ed. a Muslim reader noted that many Muslims do not understand the language, but they must only read or say the words correctly].
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Well,
It seems a quantitative analyses as you have done is sort of misleading. I'm no specialist in religion, but the impression I got from the passages in this website, comparing the Bible and the Quran, is the following:
Bible (old Testament)> a lot of violence infliged by God on men. But violence among men often condemned as sin.
Bible (new Testament)> only a single episode involving Jesus, against some sellers in the temple, but nearing a heated argument and nothing else. And what is elsewhere said by Jesus in fvaour of peace, sacrifice, solidary, compensates by far this episode.
Quran> a kind of obsession with "disbelievers", which seems to include Jews and Christians as well. There's encouragement of violence among men, killing and raping.
Summary: Jewish God says "I'll smash you-them!", Muslim God says both "I'll smash you-them!" and "guys, go and smash them!". Christian God is the more merciful, or the least cruel, and in any case he will wait until you before smashing you.
So, my friend, saying all of them are equally violent is a lie, I think. Degrees of violence make a great difference - and that's the point from the very start.
It becomes clearer if you try to imagine a situation in which you'd have to choose between a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim (the three of whom orthodox), who would you prefer to have as neighbour, taking into consideration your chance of not being killed for being who you are.
(By the way, you forgot socialism... But I think that was on purpose, for socialism is so superior in terms of religious violence, that all we have to bother about is the second in the list.)
Well,
It seems a quantitative analyses as you have done is sort of misleading. I'm no specialist in religion, but the impression I got from the passages in this website, comparing the Bible and the Quran, is the following:
Bible (old Testament)> a lot of violence inflicted by God on men. But violence among men often condemned as sin.
Bible (new Testament)> only a single episode involving Jesus, against some sellers in the temple, but nearer to a heated argument than to anything else. And what is elsewhere said by Jesus in fvaour of peace, sacrifice, solidary, compensates by far this episode.
Quran> a kind of obsession with "disbelievers", which seems to include Jews and Christians as well. There's encouragement of violence among men, killing and even raping.
Summary: Jewish God says "I'll smash you-them!", Muslim God says both "I'll smash you-them!" and "guys, go and smash them!". Christian God is the more merciful, or the least cruel, and in any case he will wait until you before smashing you.
So, my friend, saying all of them are equally violent is incorrect, I think. Degrees of violence make a great difference - and that was the point from the very start.
It becomes clearer if you try to imagine a situation in which you'd have to choose between a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim (the three of whom orthodox), whom would you prefer to have as a neighbour, taking into consideration your chance of not being killed for being who you are.
(By the way, you forgot that other violent religion: socialism; there's also a strange blend of anti-christianism ans sicence called nazism, which killed a lot and incredibly fast... both of these did in but a few decades more killing than all the three monotheistic religions were able to do in millenia.)
This still remains a pointless comparison unless you also include the Jewish religions books the torah and more importantly the Talmud
Or I suspect a "fairer" comparison might be
"Which is more violent, the bible AND quoran VS the Torah AND the Talmud, or even the Bible and quoran VS the Talmud"
I suspect the Talmud would beat the other two combined hands down
Odd that it didn't get included......
@Mike Mckay
The Jewish "Tanakh" is basically the Old Testament of the Bible.
The term "Torah" means instruction. This book offers a way of life in the form of rabbinical narratives written alongside the chapters of the Tanakh From the book of Genesis to the end. It can also mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice.
The Talmud, in standard print, is over 6,200 pages long. It contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis (dating from before the Common Era through the fifth century CE) on a variety of subjects, including Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law, and is widely quoted in rabbinic literature.
If one is going to bring in these two books as part of the Jewish faith, we also must add the Muslim Hadiths and Sunnah. The degree of scholarship that that requires is beyond the reach of most individuals.
My own 'take' on this only comes from what I know as an observer of Jews, some Jewish practices, and what I know from the Bible. The Jews are essentially a peaceful people. They don't treat historical violence in the Tanakh as a mandate by God for violence in the present. Instead, they Interpret each situation and use the events as a parable to work with, so as to draw conclusions as they pertain to real life.
I think my view is generally applicable, although some sects are more stringent. That said, none are particularly violent, even the devout ones! If the Jews were reading the same kind of violence in their books, as Muslims read in the Quran, Surely the Jews would exhibit more violence today.
Did you mean in numbers or as a percentage? Because the much smaller numbers would require far less instances to be comparable. And if you go back over say the last hundred years then jewish assassinations, terrorist attacks and acts of ethnic cleansing are far from scarce
In fact many consider the bombing of the king david hotel to be the first act of modern terrorism.
There is also direct and indirect acts of violence to be considered.
WW1 had ended effectively and Germany was willing to just call it a day, reset ALL borders back to what they had been at the start and recall all troops without further loss of life
It was only because of direct action by Baron Rothschild that the americans entered the war, britained just accept Germanys offer and as a result literally MILLIONS of people then died who didn't need to die
So all the deaths after that point are quite fairly linked to that faith due to one of their members direct action to continue the war in order to get the british to invade Palestine causing even more loss of life and pretty much starting much of the violence we still see going on today
Violence isn't always wielded directly. In ancient times jews fled persecution not from members of other faiths but from rabbinic law as many Christians, especially scientists were fleeing from Christian lands with constaninople being one of the few places where despite being a muslim city allowed all faiths, sciences and medicines to be explored and discussed freely
But even then the rabbis didn't enact that violence themselves, they used the force of whatever country they were in to do it for them.
I do take the point about scale. But I still feel that its gives it a bit of a confirmation bias issue by limiting first the scope of violence and secondly by assuming its directly related to religious doctrines when in fact much violence whilst carried out by "religious" people is because of, or in direct retaliation to the actions of others either socially, politically, geographically or financially
And as you say, many jews don't apply the jewish supremacist mindset espoused in the Talmud, nor share the view that non jews are on a par with cattle and whose only purpose is to be slave labour for the jews. But what percentage DO view it that way? And what percentage of muslims don't agree with sharia law, or wouldn't want to enact violence from the quoran?
On Christianity and islam you are ONLY comparing violent statements in their texts. So why would or should the actions or behviours of individual jews even be relevant?
Surely the "equal" comparison would be just like with the other two and merely a comparison of the texts which would effectively include the entiriety of the old testament anyway plus the Talmud which many jews claim superceedes the old testament anyway and which just like the old testament was written by rabbis who were given detailed rules and laws to follow by moses directly from god
So its not merely "the views of rabbis" its claimed to be the jewish version of the 10 commandments. Moses gave the goy 10 rules to follow then gave the rabbis hundreds of laws that jews are meant to live by
Which puts the Talmud on a par with the Christian new testament, against which it would fair badly in a direct comparison which is kind of my point in the previous post
CHALLENGE TO CHRISTIANS:
KILLING WOMEN/CHILDREN:
ISLAM:PROHIBITED KILLING WOMEN/CHILDREN
Malik :: Book 21 : Hadith 21.3.10
Do not kill women or children or an aged, weak person,Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees.Do not destroy an inhabited place. Do not slaughter sheep or camels except for food. Do not burn bees and do not scatter them. Do not steal from the booty,
Muslim :: Book 19 : Hadith 4456
……….And the of Allah (may peace be upon him) did not kill the children of the enemy, so thou shouldst not kill the children……………
Bukhari :: Book 4 :: Volume 52 :: Hadith 257,258
Narrated Ibn 'Umar:
During some of the Ghazawat of Allah's Apostle a woman was found killed, so Allah's Apostle forbade the killing of women and children.
Dawud :: Book 14 : Hadith 2608
Narrated Anas ibn Malik:
The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Go in Allah's name, trusting in Allah, and adhering to the religion of Allah's Apostle. Do not kill a decrepit old man, o a young infant, or a child, or a woman; do not be dishonest about booty, but collect your spoils, do right and act well, for Allah loves those who do well.
Muslim :: Book 19 : Hadith 4294
Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children.
Bukhari :: Book 3 :: Volume 47 :: Hadith 786
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
A Jewess brought a poisoned (cooked) sheep for the Prophet who ate from it. She was brought to the Prophet and he was asked, "Shall we kill her?" He said, "No." I continued to see the effect of the poison on the palate of the mouth of Allah's Apostle .
CHRISTIANITY:BLINDLY KILLING WOMEN/CHILDREN
5. Joshua 8:24-26
When the Israelite army finished chasing and killing all the men of Ai in the open fields, they went back and finished off everyone inside. So the entire population of Ai, including men and women, was wiped out that day—12,000 in all. For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed. (NLT)
4. Deuteronomy 2:32-34
Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, unto battle at Jahaz. And Jehovah our God delivered him up before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones; we left none remaining. (ASV)
3. Deuteronomy 3:3-6
So the LORD our God delivered Og also, king of Bashan, with all his people into our hand, and we smote them until no survivor was left. We captured all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns. We utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women and children of every city. (NASB)
2. 1 Samuel 15:3,8
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' " … He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.(NIV)
1. Hosea 13:16
Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open. (NRSV)
The link from "Quran 5:34" was probably intended to read "Quran 5:33".
Our Holy Islam show us lesson of adoration and kind to each other. Quran is our heavenly and last book of religious Islam. Quran show us to spend our life according to Allah,s requests and Muhammad (PBUH), orders. I am doing my obligation to instruct the Quran to my Islamic siblings. We ought to must educate and quran reading to comprehend the Islam and Allah and his Last prophet of Allah Muhammad (PBUH).
Firstly I am confused as to why I get messages saying there is a "new" comment, yet the "newest" on the thread seems to be around 4 years old?
Secondly, I am still confused as to why the jewish holy books weren't also included in this with their countless genocides because technically "Christians" follow the new testament whereas its Judaism which follows the old testament and I don't think there would be much of a contest between the "turn the other cheek" sentiments in the new testament and the quoran, however the Judaic old testament vs the quoran would have been a far more sensible comparison
So this gets me to wondering about the author and THEIR religion, jewish perhaps? If not then what possible reason is there for comparing Christianity by using a book that Christians don't even follow whilst not mentioning Judaism in reference to the book they DO follow?
This is akin to a talk about whether the English language or german language is easier to learn by then comparing learning german for the germans to Japanese for the british instead of English which they don't even speak to begin with
This SHOULD have been a comparison between Judaism and islam and not Christianity and islam, or perhaps islam vs catholocism instead of "Christianity" at the very least
Despite being an agnostic I do find religion and religious topics "interesting" albeit often from a bemusement angle, but this particular one I find to be (potentially deliberately) a misdirection at best and deliberately misleading at worst
Ok now that is bizarre, when I follow the link to the thread on an email and order it by the newest 2013 is the newest, but after posting a reply I now see posts from recently
How strange.....
@ Richard
Oh, Richard, Richard, Richard,
I enjoyed your comments and was prepared to follow you from A to Z on Atheism and Bad Religious Books—but stopped at AYn Rand, the near-deity of Alan Greenspan and the clown carload of financial "experts" and distinguished bankers who brought us the misery of the Great Recession. I read Atlas Shrugged, etc., and was quite taken with "Objectivism." When I was sixteen. Luckily I recovered from that particular virus by the age of seventeen. I've not since read all of Rand's opus, but, as a wise man once said, "When a work's beginnings are wildly insane and horribly wrong, one should not overlook its beginning in the hope that subsequent ideas will be better." (You, above.) I suppose, if she were alive, Rand would be be one of Trump's favorite Russians too.
My question: why would one want to exchange one destructive ideology for another, equally indefensible, one? I'll pass, thank you.
You're missing the point: The Quaran cointains literal, a-historic commandments to commit violence against non-muslims.
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