Islam spread through sword and coercion.

[Harris]

Thank you,Gottle of Geer, for your candour. I salute you and that does not make you less of a Christian.

 

[inJESUS]

With due respect, this is a non-starter. You already put a condition on how and what to discuss which obviously siding your argument. I can understand you want to approach it that way, but that is through the eyes of an already biased Christian. Again I ask, why pick and choose certain era of History?

when you try to assess a spread of a faith, do you look at 1000 years later or the onset of the faith? am i putting a condition or is it the logical approach, knowing that we are talking about “ideology” here ?

True, there were wars of conquest by the successors of Mohammad, but you cannot for certain say that Islam **depends **

 

[Harris]

Thank you, inJesus, for trying to continue this discussion. But I can only see semantic and we would be picking nit bit. I do not see other major conclusion that can come out out this other than what have been said. I think I made my point; not that you should necessarily agree with it.

Gottle of Geer has spoken what I had wanted to say. I did not say it myself because you would not listen to me and beside if I did it would only invite more hostility to some of the Christian posters here. So much for objectivity. …

… You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.

I think that is a beautiful verse. Sadly for non-Christians, they don’t see that in Christians. You have noble teachings and noble examples of Jesus, but at last the followers have not much to show for it. That they have to kill and exterminate, sometimes the entire nation/empire to get people to become Christians. Mahatma Ghandhi had eulogized this eloquently … I think. Some food for thought. Maybe get your house in order first before you throw stone at other religion that does not agree with you.

Minus the nations that Christians had not won with the sword, maybe you have only the Latin Europe. And what have become of them today? As I said you may not like to hear this, well maybe not you, but others.

 

[vee8]

What more pertinent issue will be - what did the religion achieve based solely on peaceful means on spreading its influence and followers. Christianity does not impress surely on this count. Its best disciples did not show much in term of converting nations. St Francis of Assissi or Francis Xavier for example. China and Japan today are still largely non- Christians. As for Christian Europe, please tell us how many of them can truly, truly call themselves Christian today.

Catholicism never failed in Japan it has barely had a chance.
There was only about 40 years from the time of St Francis Xaviers arrival in Japan until the shogun decided to get rid of the Christians. Interestingly enough the shogun at that time was being advised by a British man named William Adams. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29) Of course at that time England hated the Catholic countries so Adams advice would have likely been biased by that. Thus from the early 1600s until the Meiji restoration in 1868 the average Japanese person had no chance to learn about Christianity. Im not sure how long after that missionaries came but giving them time to arrive, setup and see the fruits of their labor say ten years or so so 1878. You have from around 1878 until just before WWII for Catholicism to spread and thats only fifty years. Combine that with the 40 or 50 years of relative peace from Xaviers arrival and you have only 100 years.

But what about after the war vee8 one might ask well there was such a rush and focus on rebuilding and restarting life that I doubt much thought was given to religion. Once life and the economy started to get better people became, and still are, focused on materialism. I should also mention that 63 years ago today the 9th the Nagasaki atomic bomb fell on a good portion of Catholics. In fact it detonated 500m over the cathedral and Ive even heard a mass was on at the time. I dont know how many of those killed were Catholics but in the most Catholic city in Japan it must have been a fair number thus wiping out a lot of future generations.

As for China currently being crushed by Communism it is hard to say how many Catholics loyal to the pope there are since they belong to an underground church meeting in people`s homes. Ive heard there are 10-12 million of such people.

My point though is Catholicism hasnt failed in Japan it has hardly had a chance and trying to get that message across is why I came to CAF in the first place. Ive made my point now you may go back to your regularly scheduled discussion

 

[inJESUS]

Thank you, inJesus, for trying to continue this discussion. But I can only see semantic and we would be picking nit bit. I do not see other major conclusion that can come out out this other than what have been said. I think I made my point; not that you should necessarily agree with it.

i was trying to compare what am talking about to what you’re presenting. Your major issue was “history picking”…this is exactly why i said that it is a correct approach to assess the spread of a faith as soon as it started, or within a limited frame of time that i even extended to 4 centuries…i cannot assess Christianity or Islam’s “spread” after 1000 years. As soon as Muhammad died, war conquests began to convert, humiliate or kill…nothing of the like happened in the rise of Christianity for several centuries.

Gottle of Geer has spoken what I had wanted to say. I did not say it myself because you would not listen to me and beside if I did it would only invite more hostility to some of the Christian posters here. So much for objectivity. …

 

[Harris]

Catholicism never failed in Japan it has barely had a chance.
There was only about 40 years from the time of St Francis Xaviers arrival in Japan until the shogun decided to get rid of the Christians. Interestingly enough the shogun at that time was being advised by a British man named William Adams. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29) Of course at that time England hated the Catholic countries so Adams advice would have likely been biased by that. Thus from the early 1600s until the Meiji restoration in 1868 the average Japanese person had no chance to learn about Christianity. Im not sure how long after that missionaries came but giving them time to arrive, setup and see the fruits of their labor say ten years or so so 1878. You have from around 1878 until just before WWII for Catholicism to spread and thats only fifty years. Combine that with the 40 or 50 years of relative peace from Xaviers arrival and you have only 100 years.

But what about after the war vee8 one might ask well there was such a rush and focus on rebuilding and restarting life that I doubt much thought was given to religion. Once life and the economy started to get better people became, and still are, focused on materialism. I should also mention that 63 years ago today the 9th the Nagasaki atomic bomb fell on a good portion of Catholics. In fact it detonated 500m over the cathedral and Ive even heard a mass was on at the time. I dont know how many of those killed were Catholics but in the most Catholic city in Japan it must have been a fair number thus wiping out a lot of future generations.

As for China currently being crushed by Communism it is hard to say how many Catholics loyal to the pope there are since they belong to an underground church meeting in people`s homes. Ive heard there are 10-12 million of such people.

My point though is Catholicism hasnt failed in Japan it has hardly had a chance and trying to get that message across is why I came to CAF in the first place. Ive made my point now you may go back to your regularly scheduled discussion

Beautiful. You continue on bro.

Of course, the context of the discussion - Christianity fails here because this nation has not become Christians.It seems it has to be conquered by the sword in order that a country become Christians.

 

[Vladi]

The thread can equally well speaks for Christianity which was spread through the sword and coercion too. No honest Christians can deny this fact.

haha alot that that coercion was to make up for the losses to Islam, think Charlemagne and the Saxons.

 

[Harris]

i was trying to compare what am talking about to what you’re presenting. Your major issue was “history picking”…this is exactly why i said that it is a correct approach to assess the spread of a faith as soon as it started, or within a limited frame of time that i even extended to 4 centuries…i cannot assess Christianity or Islam’s “spread” after 1000 years. As soon as Muhammad died, war conquests began to convert, humiliate or kill…nothing of the like happened in the rise of Christianity for several centuries.

It’s not that I try to be evasive.

War generally is quite ugly. As you can see I don’t deny some of the excesses that might happened by commanders and officials of the empire. Generally too, the Islamic goernment governed quite fairly by the standard of the day, according to its code and guided by religous teachings. It’s still better than chaos and abritrary rule. At least the subjects know what to expect. Of course you cannot please entirely the conquered population. I would say, in many aspect they were better than Christian conquerors.

Why are you bringing this up? if not to suggest without the war there would be no spreading of Islam? As already stated we can never know for sure. Personally I don’t believe Islam hangs on this one episode in its History though admittedly it was a jump start for them.

As a matter of discussion, this did not happen to early Christianity because its followers was not in a position to do so. If you just want to state this fact, it’s not a problem with me. Of course once Christianity became stronger and established as nations and empire then you began to see excesses committed in its name. Nobody said it wrong those time either.

As soon as Muhammad died, war conquests began to convert, humiliate or kill… - I think this is a wee bit an exaggeration.

i already said we deny nothing…but i am going back in time to the rise of both Islam and Christianity and not what happened in the 5th or 6th century because am not sure we can be still talking of an “ideology of conquest” because if this ideology is inherent to Christian teachings, Christians wouldn’t have waited for hundreds of years to apply it, just as Muslims did not wait for hundreds of years as well. Jesus says “the city that does not accept you, dust off your sandals”…there is nothing called preach, if they don’t accept, let them pay taxes and be humiliated, if they still refuse, kill them…if there is such ideology, what is better than the first zealous years of the rise of a faith to apply this? yet this did not happen for centuries…on the contrary, Christians were being led voluntarily to death/crucifixion/lions ecc, hardly the reaction of people who have war ideologies in their blood…this does not apply to Islam where war conquests and ideologies started as soon as Muhammad died.

I agree with you.

I just don’t agree with you that Islam advoactes in its ideology forceful conversion. The Quranic verses that you may cite to support your statement are never understood to literally meant that way.

welcome to the real world. Jesus picked apostles, knowing that one of them will deny Him, one will betray Him, and many will forsake Him. These 3 categoories apply to humans in general…we always had and will have Judas…those who killed others in order to spread Christianity are exactly the ones to whom Jesus on the judgment day will say " depart from Me you evil-doers, i never knew you".

Christians are supposed to be “the salt of the world” and a “light to the world” as Jesus says…“by this they shall know you are my disciples”…of course you will find bad fruit, and “narrow is the gate” but not because Jesus taught so but because there will always be saints and demons…we look at saints’ examples and pray for the bad fruit who are a stumbling block to many, and Jesus warns against those who might be a stumbling block to our faith in Him, be it laymen, priests or anyone. When Jesus says the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church, He is saying that the gates of hell will try and any act committed against His teachings falls within the gates of hell.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you. You will not only find bad fruit in Christianity but also in Islam.

 

[inJESUS]

Why are you bringing this up? if not to suggest without the war there would be no spreading of Islam? As already stated we can never know for sure. Personally I don’t believe Islam hangs on this one episode in its History though admittedly it was a jump start for them.

 

[inJESUS]

Beautiful. You continue on bro.

Of course, the context of the discussion - Christianity fails here because this nation has not become Christians.It seems it has to be conquered by the sword in order that a country become Christians.

Jesus says the gospel will reach the world, but does not say everyone will become a Christian. He specifically says “dust off your sandals” because He knows many will not accept. Conquering by the sword is not what Jesus teaches and surely it is not a means to conversion. It is conversion by being the salt and light of this world, not the sword of this world…those who reject, again, we dust off our sandals…the sword will not make them believe if other means did not and we do not want people to believe in Jesus because of the sword because Jesus died for people to believe and be saved and be elevated, He did not kill them or humiliate them to make them believe.

 

[inJESUS]

As a side note, i can given an example of war ideologies attitudes.

In here, Christians and Muslims have 2 religious channels. One is run by Hizbullah and one by Maronite Catholics. on the Hizbullah channel, war is a divine theme…it is so glorified that episose after episode are talking about wars, hymns of war, results of wars, booties ecc…result? any bad incident, you see within 10 mn many Muslims on the streets in different cities ready for war…war is simply in their blood…

On the Christian channel there is nothing of the like and Christians are so reluctant to go to wars, that even when Muslims attack Christian neighborhood, Christians do not retaliate, but simply stay at home and let the rioters do whatever they want…you cannot attack hatred/violence with the same weapon without a disaster falling.

I am just showing the difference in attitude between war ideologies running into the veins of people, and the other side of people who avoid war . Did Christians fight? yes we did but war is not in our blood, we do not glorify it, we do not look for martyrdoom through wars…some of the other side even wish one of their children dies as martyr…we do not call it death culture for no reason…

This realistic example of everyday life shows the difference between the reactions of people who have war ideologies and those who do not. Those who do show it on the spot, those who don’t simply don’t. If Christianity ever had this ideology, we wouldn’t have waited for centuries, we wouldn’t have fed the lions, we wouldn’t have hidden in caves, we wouldn’t have monks and monastries.

 

[dzheremi]

I do not see how Christianity “fails” because of the existence of non-Christian countries. Christianity never fails (individual Christians or Christian communities, yes, but this is another topic). We do not consider ourselves to be fated to rule the world, and our faith advises us not to mix religion and government (Matthew 22:21, most famously), and to submit to governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7). So what a non-Christian may see as failure or weakness may be seen by Christians as keeping as closely as we can to our principles as outlined in the Bible.

I think the fact that Harris makes such a statement equating “failure” of a religion with failure of conquest/mass conversion of entire countries is very good evidence of the difference in the mindsets of Muslims and Christians regarding this issue that inJESUS points out. I would further point out that, in those times when Christian forces most closely conformed to the Islamic* version of success (bringing people to the religion, by hook or by crook), we also committed some of our most shameful actions and atrocities. So…with that in mind, can I say that I am glad that we have failed at some points? Sometimes the cost of success is too great, especially when our Holy Bible promises us no such earthly enrichment.

• I realize that it is not entirely fair to extrapolate from Harris’ statement that all Muslims feel this or that way on this issue, but it does seem, based on the verses of the Qur’an that tell followers to fight in the cause of Allah so that such and such a thing will happen in the world, that this view is certainly closer to a general observant Muslim view than a general observant Christian view, with certain obvious exceptions (such as the unfortunately politically-minded and powerful Protestant Evangelicals in the USA…)

 

[Angelos]

War generally is quite ugly. As you can see I don’t deny some of the excesses that might happened by commanders and officials of the empire. Generally too, the Islamic goernment governed quite fairly by the standard of the day, according to its code and guided by religous teachings. It’s still better than chaos and abritrary rule. At least the subjects know what to expect. Of course you cannot please entirely the conquered population. I would say, in many aspect they were better than Christian conquerors.

What I am interested in is actually Muslims come to invade my territory and desecrate my temples by turning them to mosques. Since I do not like the idea of being ruled by Muslims, who oppose my faith and aim to make Islam the only dominant religion in the entire world because of some statements in their scripture, the supposed justice of their administration makes no sense to me. More, I personally do not believe that they rule Christians fairly.

Why are you bringing this up? if not to suggest without the war there would be no spreading of Islam? As already stated we can never know for sure. Personally I don’t believe Islam hangs on this one episode in its History though admittedly it was a jump start for them.

Discussing possibilities will lead us nowhere. The fact is Islam made her leap by Muslim soldiers, who delighted in accomplishing the (supposed) divine commandment in their scripture. The commandment in the Koran to fight non-Muslims and humiliate them is eternal for Muslims.

More, Islamic ideal of conquering the whole world and turning temples of different religions into Islamic temples (mosques) emerges from Muslims’ will to imitate their messenger Mohammad, who conquered Mecca and turned the temple of pagans into the holiest sanctuary of Islam.

As a matter of discussion, this did not happen to early Christianity because its followers was not in a position to do so. If you just want to state this fact, it’s not a problem with me. Of course once Christianity became stronger and established as nations and empire then you began to see excesses committed in its name. Nobody said it wrong those time either.

I personally believe that such a thing did not happen in Christianity not because of the position of its followers, but because of the teachings of its founder. Mohammad, unlike Jesus, promised an earthly kingdom to his followers and was more concerned with political victories than spiritual ones. When I say victory in Christian context, what primarily comes to the mind of Christians is Jesus’ resurrection. When I say victory in Islamic context, what primarily comes to the mind of Muslims is the conquest of Mecca. See the difference?

As soon as Muhammad died, war conquests began to convert, humiliate or kill… - I think this is a wee bit an exaggeration.

However, history testifies to that exaggeration.

I just don’t agree with you that Islam advoactes in its ideology forceful conversion. The Quranic verses that you may cite to support your statement are never understood to literally meant that way.

Your argument is fallacious because it is incomplete. Never understood literally by whom? Muslims? Which Islamic sect?

Do you really want me to believe you that Muslims wage war against non-Muslims and dream of making Islam the only dominant religion in the world because they understand some verses figuratively? I do not suppose that their real wars are based on figures of speech.