Mark _australia said...It is OK to rubbish Christianity and take the piss but not to state that many Muslims believe in certain things
Like I have said before, do an experiment. Go to a party and tell everyone you are Buddhist, Taoist or something. Then go to a party the week after and tell everyone you are a born again Christian. Watch the difference.
and no, I don't subscribe to any particular religion I just find it annoying that the 'inclusive' types here rubbish Christianity, but if anyone rubbishes Islam they are accused of being racist.
As this may be applicable to my viewpoints, let me explain:
I'm an atheist with very strong academic interest in religions. Despite being an atheist, I believe that religions are very useful for many people, and I support them for this reason. In my opinion, which I hope is relatively unbiased, Christianity and Islam are exceptionally similar. Their holy books even talk about the same personalities - Mary (called Miriam in the Koran), Jesus (yes, he's a prophet in the Koran), Abraham, etc... Their attributes of God are identical (omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, you know the spiel...).
In the past, the so-called "Dark Ages", Christianity was the "bad" religion - its Churches instituted numerous Crusades, wrote a book called "Malleus Maleficarum" that was used as a justification to torch numerous women, had the Inquisition, etc... At that time, Islam was much more sophisticated and progressive.
Today, the mainstream Christianity is fairly sophisticated and evolved, has some issues, but is working to resolve them. There are a few cults, but they are in the tiny minority. Islam today has branched into moderate (mainstream majority) and fundamentalist minority, which is serously bad. Unfortunately, this minority has been in the news lately, probably because it does make good news. Perhaps many people watch just news, and maybe that's why so many viewpoints on this forum tend to pigeonhole ALL muslims into the same fundamentalist slot.
This is wrong. Both religions are very similar and have had an equal share of good and bad points and good and bad "churches". I hope this explains why I sometimes post provocative comments about Christianity - it is purely to provide a comparative perspective.
And Dinsdale, it's not declarative vs narrative - I'll gladly continue this debate offline if you are genuinely interested.
[}:)]
