I am not implying that individual Muslims are any more wicked than individual Christians. At the civilizational level however how much blood has been shed by conflict between Islam and Christendom? It's not like we have to go back to the Middle Ages to find examples of that sort of thing. And while Christendom has unclean hands too much …
I am not implying that individual Muslims are any more wicked than individual Christians. At the civilizational level however how much blood has been shed by conflict between Islam and Christendom? It's not like we have to go back to the Middle Ages to find examples of that sort of thing. And while Christendom has unclean hands too much of the recent bloodshed is due. directly and indirectly, to Islamic terrorism (and of course the response to it).
A lot to unpack there, but I will try to keep it brief. Christianity began as a disadvantaged sect in a mighty empire, while Islam began among a collection of tribes used to raiding each other's caravans because that's what life was all about. Having been forbidden to slay each other as brother Muslims, rather than becoming vegan pacifists, they turned their united forces outward, finding the badly weakened Byzantine and Sassanid empires easy prey. At first the point was not to convert everyone -- Islam was the religion of the Arabs. They simply took over the empires they had conquered, and had the same civil service collect taxes for them. They found Damascus much more comfortable than Mecca, and the Arabian peninsula became a backwater. Christianity got its taste of state power after Constantine, and was easily dragged into the joys of war and conquest. Anytime warriors nominally espousing either faith have taken up the sword, it has been bloody.
I don;t dusagree wuith any of this. But my original point is that the Hell delights in setting people violent against each other and religion has been a fruitful field for that devoir.
I am not implying that individual Muslims are any more wicked than individual Christians. At the civilizational level however how much blood has been shed by conflict between Islam and Christendom? It's not like we have to go back to the Middle Ages to find examples of that sort of thing. And while Christendom has unclean hands too much of the recent bloodshed is due. directly and indirectly, to Islamic terrorism (and of course the response to it).
A lot to unpack there, but I will try to keep it brief. Christianity began as a disadvantaged sect in a mighty empire, while Islam began among a collection of tribes used to raiding each other's caravans because that's what life was all about. Having been forbidden to slay each other as brother Muslims, rather than becoming vegan pacifists, they turned their united forces outward, finding the badly weakened Byzantine and Sassanid empires easy prey. At first the point was not to convert everyone -- Islam was the religion of the Arabs. They simply took over the empires they had conquered, and had the same civil service collect taxes for them. They found Damascus much more comfortable than Mecca, and the Arabian peninsula became a backwater. Christianity got its taste of state power after Constantine, and was easily dragged into the joys of war and conquest. Anytime warriors nominally espousing either faith have taken up the sword, it has been bloody.
I don;t dusagree wuith any of this. But my original point is that the Hell delights in setting people violent against each other and religion has been a fruitful field for that devoir.
Or, as C.S. Lewis put it in The Screwtape Letters, one of the most helpful allies of Our Father Below has been The Church.
"The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops"