Nature of Islam vs. Christianityjordan179August 9 2007, 00:57:28 UTC
Christianity and Islam are of course equally false, since there is no God, but Christianity has three features which make it less destructive than Islam.
(1) Render Unto Caesar
Because Christianity in its first three centuries was a faith of those with relatively little power, Christianity of necessity separated the religous and secular worlds. It has an inbuilt respect for established government as power, even while claiming a higher moral authority. This was a necessary survival mechanism -- varieties of Christianity which urged immediate revolution no doubt appeared and were summarily crushed by the Roman Empire.
By contrast, Islam claims supreme power over both church and state; indeed the concept of the umma (community of the Faithful) is sort of a combination of church and state in one. This makes it a lot harder for sane or tolerant regimes to develop in Islamic societies -- when they do, they do so through corruption. In Islam, the fanatic always occupies the moral high ground.
(2) Limitation of Miracles
Christianity holds that God lets the Universe run mostly on automatic, according to immutable laws which only God can set aside very rarely to perform miracles. Consequently, Christianity is friendly to rational explanations of most phenomena, even though it has at its core a profound irrationality ("God"). This evolution of Christian thought under the medieval Scholastics facilitated the development of experimental science after the Renaissance, and politically favors reasonable solutions to most problems. Militarily, it means that Christians are more likely to assume that God will either not interfere to aid them, or that if He does He will do so in very subtle ways.
By contrast, Islam holds that God creates the Universe anew from instant to instant of time, and frequently wills that miraculous things should happen. This idea (which grew in popularity after the fall of the Baghdad and Andalusian Caliphates) means that the Faithful should do what God commands, even if it looks unreasonable: surely God will reward those who do His bidding. Militarily, it makes Islamic societies very likely to "scream and leap" (like First Fleet Kzinti) because they believe that this is the Will of Allah (what Insh'allah literally means), and that either Allah will magically let them succeed or that they will be rewarded in Paradise for trying.
(3)Advancement of Civilizations
It so happens that, right now, the countries which are majority-Christian are more socially and technologically advanced than are those which are majority-Muslim. It is true that Medieval Christianity had many of the same flaws as modern Islam, but we have to live with violent Muslim fanatics now; violent Christian fanatics are far less numerous and far less well supported by their societies.
Re: Nature of Islam vs. ChristianitysaintjudasAugust 9 2007, 04:30:43 UTC
I agree with all of the points above, but I think that the whole western religious tradition is part of the problem.
Not just Islam. each of the Levantine monotheistic systems contributes to the dynamic, of which Islam is only one of the dancers. It just happens to be the one that is furthest back on the Intellecutal evolutionary scale. Not to mention its own set of beliefs that further propagates what is deemed "sociopathic" or "Psycopathic" behavior in any other culture.
I am very much aware of the history of the three "Peoples of the Book", as well as how they each vew the other. All are basically predicated upon a principle of being "Better" than "un-believers" (or whatever those who are not "part-of" are called: dhimmini for instance).
The whole situation is one that needs to be confronted by the west before it erupts into something than cannot be safely contained. I fear that this may be the ultimate destination for this issue though. I fear that most Muslim countries will insist upon martyring their populations rather than adopt an Islamic Reformation that creates a modern Islam that rejects the racist and antiquated beliefs of a world that is no longer valid...
Re: Nature of Islam vs. Christianityjordan179August 9 2007, 15:00:34 UTC
I agree with all of the points above, but I think that the whole western religious tradition is part of the problem.
I actually agree with you there -- just because Christianity is less of a problem than Islam doesn't make it not an obstacle to rational consideration of the Universe.
Not just Islam. each of the Levantine monotheistic systems contributes to the dynamic, of which Islam is only one of the dancers. It just happens to be the one that is furthest back on the Intellectual evolutionary scale.
Indeed. All three monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) came into being either to justify or to enable the creation of a stable totalitarian monarchy. The Ancient Near Eastern polytheistic civilizations tried to obtain divine sanction for their kings by associating them with the gods as a demigod; but that had the obvious defect that the king was but a minor god and if he behaved in ways to offend the other gods (in the eyes of the priests and people) he could be deposed. In the monotheistic religions, the king is instead the mouthpiece and chosen hero of the One True God, and rebellion is thus also blasphemy.
The whole situation is one that needs to be confronted by the west before it erupts into something than cannot be safely contained. I fear that this may be the ultimate destination for this issue though. I fear that most Muslim countries will insist upon martyring their populations rather than adopt an Islamic Reformation that creates a modern Islam that rejects the racist and antiquated beliefs of a world that is no longer valid...
That's why the thought of Iran or Al Qaeda with atomic weapons is so scary. It's been pointed out that they are no worse than the Crusaders: well, if a medieval Crusade came into being today, armed with atomic weapons, I'd find it pretty scary.
Deterrence ... even deterrence-plus-defense as you get with antimissile weapons deployed ... is ultimately based on the assumption that the other guy is a rational actor who realizes that the fruits of victory are not worth the damage you will do him, even if he wins. If the other guy believes that Allah will shield his Faithful or, at worst, take them all up to Paradise, deterrence breaks down and all you have is the choice between defense or pre-emption.
(1) Render Unto Caesar
Because Christianity in its first three centuries was a faith of those with relatively little power, Christianity of necessity separated the religous and secular worlds. It has an inbuilt respect for established government as power, even while claiming a higher moral authority. This was a necessary survival mechanism -- varieties of Christianity which urged immediate revolution no doubt appeared and were summarily crushed by the Roman Empire.
By contrast, Islam claims supreme power over both church and state; indeed the concept of the umma (community of the Faithful) is sort of a combination of church and state in one. This makes it a lot harder for sane or tolerant regimes to develop in Islamic societies -- when they do, they do so through corruption. In Islam, the fanatic always occupies the moral high ground.
(2) Limitation of Miracles
Christianity holds that God lets the Universe run mostly on automatic, according to immutable laws which only God can set aside very rarely to perform miracles. Consequently, Christianity is friendly to rational explanations of most phenomena, even though it has at its core a profound irrationality ("God"). This evolution of Christian thought under the medieval Scholastics facilitated the development of experimental science after the Renaissance, and politically favors reasonable solutions to most problems. Militarily, it means that Christians are more likely to assume that God will either not interfere to aid them, or that if He does He will do so in very subtle ways.
By contrast, Islam holds that God creates the Universe anew from instant to instant of time, and frequently wills that miraculous things should happen. This idea (which grew in popularity after the fall of the Baghdad and Andalusian Caliphates) means that the Faithful should do what God commands, even if it looks unreasonable: surely God will reward those who do His bidding. Militarily, it makes Islamic societies very likely to "scream and leap" (like First Fleet Kzinti) because they believe that this is the Will of Allah (what Insh'allah literally means), and that either Allah will magically let them succeed or that they will be rewarded in Paradise for trying.
(3)Advancement of Civilizations
It so happens that, right now, the countries which are majority-Christian are more socially and technologically advanced than are those which are majority-Muslim. It is true that Medieval Christianity had many of the same flaws as modern Islam, but we have to live with violent Muslim fanatics now; violent Christian fanatics are far less numerous and far less well supported by their societies.
(I'll talk about the other stuff later)
Reply
Not just Islam. each of the Levantine monotheistic systems contributes to the dynamic, of which Islam is only one of the dancers. It just happens to be the one that is furthest back on the Intellecutal evolutionary scale. Not to mention its own set of beliefs that further propagates what is deemed "sociopathic" or "Psycopathic" behavior in any other culture.
I am very much aware of the history of the three "Peoples of the Book", as well as how they each vew the other. All are basically predicated upon a principle of being "Better" than "un-believers" (or whatever those who are not "part-of" are called: dhimmini for instance).
The whole situation is one that needs to be confronted by the west before it erupts into something than cannot be safely contained. I fear that this may be the ultimate destination for this issue though. I fear that most Muslim countries will insist upon martyring their populations rather than adopt an Islamic Reformation that creates a modern Islam that rejects the racist and antiquated beliefs of a world that is no longer valid...
Reply
I actually agree with you there -- just because Christianity is less of a problem than Islam doesn't make it not an obstacle to rational consideration of the Universe.
Not just Islam. each of the Levantine monotheistic systems contributes to the dynamic, of which Islam is only one of the dancers. It just happens to be the one that is furthest back on the Intellectual evolutionary scale.
Indeed. All three monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) came into being either to justify or to enable the creation of a stable totalitarian monarchy. The Ancient Near Eastern polytheistic civilizations tried to obtain divine sanction for their kings by associating them with the gods as a demigod; but that had the obvious defect that the king was but a minor god and if he behaved in ways to offend the other gods (in the eyes of the priests and people) he could be deposed. In the monotheistic religions, the king is instead the mouthpiece and chosen hero of the One True God, and rebellion is thus also blasphemy.
The whole situation is one that needs to be confronted by the west before it erupts into something than cannot be safely contained. I fear that this may be the ultimate destination for this issue though. I fear that most Muslim countries will insist upon martyring their populations rather than adopt an Islamic Reformation that creates a modern Islam that rejects the racist and antiquated beliefs of a world that is no longer valid...
That's why the thought of Iran or Al Qaeda with atomic weapons is so scary. It's been pointed out that they are no worse than the Crusaders: well, if a medieval Crusade came into being today, armed with atomic weapons, I'd find it pretty scary.
Deterrence ... even deterrence-plus-defense as you get with antimissile weapons deployed ... is ultimately based on the assumption that the other guy is a rational actor who realizes that the fruits of victory are not worth the damage you will do him, even if he wins. If the other guy believes that Allah will shield his Faithful or, at worst, take them all up to Paradise, deterrence breaks down and all you have is the choice between defense or pre-emption.
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