Christianity and Islam - the difference

Paul Cohen of The Path of Truth emailed me this morning reminding me of The Answer to Islam

You have heard it said that the pen is mightier than the sword. However, it is not the pen, but the Word of Truth issuing forth from the pen (or keyboard) of the inspired writer that prevails.

The pope recently quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor from a conversation the emperor was having with a Persian scholar about Christianity and Islam. Here is what the emperor said about the issue of jihad, holy war:

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The Difference Between an Extremist Muslim and an “Extremist” Christian

The loudest, the most vehement, and the most influential voices in the Islamic world are those calling for the end of Western civilization, which, it is declared, is destined to become subsumed into a greater Islamic empire that will rule the world. This is according to their prophet, Mohammed, apostle of Allah, recorded in the “holy” book of the Muslims, the Koran, ...

On the other hand, the way of God, the One true God, Whom Islam tries to use to lay claim to its legitimacy, is wholly different than that of Mohammed and Allah. The way of the God of Israel, as most pointedly exemplified by His incarnation and appearing as the Lord Jesus Christ, is about laying down the life for others, not about taking others’ lives (read more)

In case there is any question what Islam wants, read the following from Gates of Vienna:

Islam seeks to conquer the world

The rules of war are flexible; the objective of war remains.

The warlike religion of Mohammed

by Egon Flaig

“We hope that the flag of Islam may fly again over this land, which had the good fortune, for some time, to be under the rule of Islam and the roof of the Muezzins, god bless his name. Then the light of Islam died and they returned to unbelief. Andalusia, Sicily, the Balkans, the south of Italy and the Greek islands are all Islamic colonies, that must return to the arms of Islam. The Mediterranean and the Red Sea must return to being a part of the Islamic nation.”

These words are not from Al Qaeda; they are part of a program that the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Hassan al-Banna formulated in a speech. The Brotherhood has millions of members and has spread far beyond Egypt. Their intellectuals are active in Europe and the United States; they are considered “moderate” and are accorded recognition as such in the media. The planned recapture of “lost” areas belongs to the political program of states who consider territorial power struggles essential, i.e. in a political arena. How can this be in the program of a religion?

Is Islam a religion like others?

Since the beginning of classical times, between the ninth and eleventh century, Islamic clerics have divided the world into two parts, “The House of Islam” and “The House of War”. This partition is not dictated by where Muslims live or are in abundance, but only by where Islam rules — as dictated by Shari’ah — and where it does not. This is understood religiously but meant politically. Between these two parts of the world there will, naturally, be war until “The House of War” no longer exists, and Islam rules the world. (Sura 8, 39 and 9, 41)

This is why classical Islamic teachings dictate the duty to fight the infidels until they convert or submit.

This war is called Jihad.

As the teachings of Jesus asked for the conversion of all peoples, but not of their political systems, so the target of Islam is the political systems but not the religious ones, in case they are “of the book”.

Always on Watch has a musical response here to the Pope  and Muslim temper tantrums, like the nun shot 4 times in the back, yet she forgave her killers before she died, more at Sparks From The Anvil

CAIR denounces the violence against Muslims, but is silent on the Muslims engaged in violence, more on CAIR and the rampaging Muslims at Chickenhawk Express

The 'motive' behind the nun's death and all the violence from Muslims is NOT the Pope, it's Islam itself, more at Dive Desk-Log

Fore Left has the history of the 14th century Byzantine Emperor quoted by the Pope, Manual II Palaiologos and world events surrounding his life, very interesting.

Good Brownie ask a question the Muslims won't ask themselves, "Also ask yourself: If someone says something that upsets and offends me, am I then not to be held accountable if I react in a negative - and violent - manner?"  Glenn Dean makes a great observation when asking, "Should the Pope have apologized?"

I grew up around Church of Christ people who believed that everybody who went to the Baptist church was going to hell. They told us so from time to time, but we went to school with Church of Christ kids, and played sports with them. Do you know why? BECAUSE WE WERE CIVILIZED!

Absolutely, civilized people don't act like the Muslims act, period.  GOP Vixen takes it a step further saying that the Pope has done something good and he should keep on talking about violence/religion.  Lemuel has information on "The left-liberal/Islamofascist axis", which is not really surprising.

Hot Air has the video of Daniel Pipes on Fox News and I have comments from his article today here.

Old War Dogs has more, and ond Dog needs some help.  See his Bleg here. 

Let's blame all this Muslim violence on the Pope, well that's what some folks are doing.  Read it at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.  Morons continue to thrive unfortunately.

The Anchoress via Politics Central and Instapundit has a great outlook on the situation.

And yet Benedict, clearly an intelligent man, has done so. He has, in essence, dared to say to Islam, “Is this really what you want to be doing, in this century? The rest of the world’s religions have put away the swords…how about we talk?”

Up to now, no one has come out and said that to Islam. The Pope is the first.

The Muslims are trying to do away with free speech.  That's nothing new but you would think somebody would speak out?  Oh, right, they are afraid!  Memorandum wants to know 'Rushdie, Hirsi Ali, the Pope -- Who's Next?'

Muslims are executing Christians .  Mr. Minority reminds us, welcome to the new war, it's the same as the old war ... when will we learn?  He lays it out

Comments

[ReligionGuru]

The Adam & Eve story is taken from a Chaldean myth. It never really happened. Christians say we need a savior, since those people in the garden were disobedient. Since the Adam & Eve story never really happened, we DO NOT need a savior. We are our own savior. By trying to live a righteous life, we progress thru many lifetimes to a perfected state.

LOVE TO ALL

[Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis]

Benedictus XVI may not be right, but today's Muslims are islamically wrong!

The wrong question is: "Did Benedictus XVI insult Islam and Muslims?"

The correct question is: "Are today's Muslims entitled to protest, and to what extent can they be taken as the true 'custodians' of the system preached before 14 centuries by Prophet Muhammad?"

(first published in: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/9-16-2006-109009.asp)

Less than a year after the deplorable 'Cartoons War', a false debate is reproduced in front of a multi-confused international community. The wrong question is: "Did Benedictus XVI insult Islam and Muslims?" The correct question is: "Are today's Muslims entitled to protest, and to what extent can they be taken as the true 'custodians' of the system preached before 14 centuries by Prophet Muhammad?"

Written by a Muslim, this protestation against the disreputable representatives of modern Muslim countries and against their pathetic attitude as regards Pope Benedictus' references to Manuel Paleologus may give to Western readership an insightful of the tyrannized societies of Islamic Terror. Few can protest, when Fear reigns and misinformation matches with detrimental lack of education and culture, behavioural barbarism, and political intolerance. Few Muslims live in (and therefore can appreciate) democratic societies in which reference to does not necessarily imply acceptance of someone,

Pathetic Muslim ignorance of Manuel Paleologus

This is the point to start with. Before speaking about the Pope's excerpts, idiots and quasi-illiterate politicians of the misery and the most immoral hypocrisy, like the Turk Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Premier Erdogan's party, and the Egyptian Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, should have studied for an hour or two who Manuel Paleologus was. In Turkey there are specialized Byzantinists, so the task would be easier for the former: just ask before saying idiocies.

The latter should first remember that there are no Egyptian specialists in Byzantium (except those who got in the West a title "bon pour l' Orient", and work as taxi drivers in Cairo because of the economic failure of the successive dysfunctional governments of the Mubarak presidency); Aboul Gheit should remember that more than half of the population of the country he represents are miserable analphabets, plus that for about a century Western Egyptologists faced the threats of the semi-barbaric sheikhs of Egypt who did not wish to allow excavations to be carried out and ancient temples to be unearthed. Under such a heavy burden, About Gheit should present apologies for daring to comment.

Christian Orthodox, the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel Paleologus reigned after the Latin rule of Constantinople; in his time the Eastern Roman hatred against the Pope of Rome had reached culmination after the two schisms, in 863 and (definite) 1054, had divided Christianity into Orthodox in the East and Catholic in the West. It is interesting to remember that Patriarch Michael Kherularius confiscated immediately all Latin properties in the Eastern Roman Empire in 1054 immediately after July 16, when three Roman legates entered Aghia Sophia church during mass on Saturday afternoon and placed the papal Bull of Excommunication on the Aghia Trapeza (the altar).

Manuel II Paleologus lived 300 years after the schism and 100 years after the Eastern Roman liberation from the Crusaders, who reproached for treachery invaded Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (1204), instead of just crossing the land to reach Jerusalem. The Roman envy for the New Rome – Constantinople was running high for centuries, even before the days of Pope Nicholas I, who anathematized Patriarch Photius in 863!

At the times of Manuel Paleologus, little could save the ailing Eastern Roman Empire from falling to the Ottoman sultanate (this happened indeed 30 years after the Emperor died); it is also useful to remember that at those days the Eastern Roman, in their majority Greek speaking, populations were politically divided into two groups: the pro-Latins, who thought the Pope would mobilize Western Europeans armies to save Constantinople, and the pro-Ottomans, who knew that the Pope's worst enemy was not Islam but Christian Orthodoxy, and that for this reason help would never come from the West. Many top Eastern Roman theologians were far closer to political Islam (the Ottoman sultanate, empire after 1453, and caliphate after 1517) than the Frankish supremacy over Vatican and Western Europe that they considered as initiation to the Antichrist's Age. Cosmas the Aetolian, after many centuries of Ottoman rule over the Greek speaking Christian Orthodox populations of the former Eastern Roman Empire, found the clamor to attack the Pope as the ultimate reason for the … long awaited Antichrist, saying (or foretelling) that we should blame the Pope for the Antichrist's rise. The Sheikhulislam (religious head of Islam at the times of the Ottoman Caliphate) was not a matter of concern for that Orthodox monk of the late 18th century.

All this is to briefly say that Benedictus XVI quoted a declared enemy of Catholic Christianity. Whether the present Pope accepts the Eastern Roman Emperor's attacks against Islam has little importance. If we refer to News Agencies, the Pope insisted on that he was quoting; he was however quoting the emperor whom previous occupants of the Holy See did their best to destroy, an emperor whose people preferred Islam to Catholic Christianity.

We should in our turn ask why Benedictus XVI did not quote the extremely rich Catholic anti-Islamic literature that antedates the Eastern Roman Emperor. Probably, his choice was based on the consideration that even those who rejected Catholic Christianity and preferred political Islam, had negative opinion of Prophet Muhammad. This does not add much, and can hardly be taken as insult, It is well known that negative opinion of the 'other' was common place among all.

Islamic reaction against the Pope bears witness to Absolute Ignorance of Islam

What matters in 2006 is whether a negative opinion can be taken as an insult. If we reached this level, then communication has ended, this is what many of my coreligionists seem to forget; every one is entitled to a negative opinion of Muhammad, the Coran, Islam in its entirety, God Himself. Muslims should always remember that the Supreme Sentence within the Coran is

- There is no Compulsion in Religion.

As Muslim, I do not believe that Benedictus XVI has to apologize because I believe he is not obliged to accept Islam. If he insulted Islam, communication with Muslims would be difficult, but we cannot afford to take a negative opinion as an insult.

Only people with severe complex of inferiority would take a negative opinion as an insult; it seems that the vast complex of inferiority of political representatives of Modern Islam has no limits; for Turks it is due to a false interpretation of History and to deviation from the political ideology initiated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. For Egyptians and others, it is due to terrible long centuries of French and/or English Cultural, Economic, Political Colonialism against which they never had the courage to fight. The altered face of the so-called Arabic speaking peoples, their distorted cultural and historical identity, their lack of interest to assess their – absolutely non-Arabic – national identity (Coptic for Egyptians, Berberic for Libyans, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans and Mauritanians, and Aramaic for Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Palestinians and others), and their false Islam are the reasons of this complex of inferiority.

The first thing all critics of Benedictus XVI should bring in mind is the extent to which they represent Islam, the definite lack of knowledge of Islam, their miserable misinterpretation of a religion that has truly no followers anymore. These screaming and inane people should ask themselves to what extent they, and the execrable and totalitarian societies and countries they represent, would be have been accepted by top Muslim philosophers, if they had been back to life.

Ruling these states where Islam became a religion limited to few acts of practice and lack of basic thought, representing these societies where the hatred of the better reigns in all forms of the daily life, and daring to attack a scholar who was elected Pope are all contradictory. Trivial politicians should first correct inaccuracies and inconsistencies in their own countries before attacking others. Whatever Benedictus XVI said, what matters is how many Muslim beggars enter filthy (with dirty gallabiyas tope up and with black coloured foot – since they a re barefoot) in the mosques to pray and ask money from the people around.

When outside your mosques there are hills of trash tore up by rubbish eaters, you have nothing to defend. When in your schools your schoolboys do not study a single page of original text of Ibn Sina, Mohyieldin Ibn al Arabi, Maqrizi, Tabari, and Ibn Rushd, you have no Islam to defend.

When you do not know the most important Islamic monuments beyond the borders of your country, and when you need Western organizations (like the Rotary's) to restore your country's Islamic monuments, you should rather shut up.

The only thing Bendictus XVI has to say to his bogus-Islamic critics is that "since there is no compulsion in religion" all the Muslim countries should turn secular, and all those who are ready in these countries to reject Islam must be allowed by law to do so without facing consequences".

When you impose Islam, you destroy Islam; no one would respect a destroyed religion fallen to the hands of ignorant and illiterate sheikhs.

[Rosemary]

Hi! Thanks for picking up my little piece. I got fed up with people saying, "You shouldn't say this or that."

Who are they to tell me what I can or cannot say? Don't get MY dander up. It is not a pretty sight. :)

[Matt Brown]

Thanks for the link!

[Always On Watch]

Contrary to what our students are being taught today in school (and even in some churches), Islam is not "just another religion." Rather, Islam is inextricably tied to the state. Until the West grasps that reality, we are in the gravest of danger.

[massachusetts republican]

My goodness, now I am going to have to declare a bad fatwah on you.---a muslum leader