Elizabeth Kantor interviews me about my book Religion of Peace? for Conservative Booknotes:
This morning we take a break from Bush bashing (and Bush appreciation, too) to bring you an interview with Robert Spencer, author of numerous books on Islam -- including the bestselling Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth about Muhammad -- and most recently of a book about Islam and Christianity: Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't.You've written bestsellers on Islam -- why did you decide to branch out and write about Christianity in your new book?
Because over the years I have countless times been confronted with the sins of Christianity, real and trumped up, as if they were somehow grounds upon which the deep roots of the jihadist ideology of Islamic supremacism in the Qur'an and Islamic theology and law could be dismissed.
This tendency has now metastasized into the Christian theocracy craze: the ever-growing number of books, some of them bestsellers, claiming that Christian fundamentalists (or sometimes Catholics) are bent on destroying the U.S. Constitution and instituting religious law. Meanwhile, it is a hard, never-to-be-questioned dogma among both liberals and conservatives that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, and that it will only antagonize our Muslim friends to call upon them to acknowledge the existence of the elements of Islam that jihadists are using to incite to violence -- which acknowledgment I, in contrast, believe is the only path to genuine reform.
So at length I have begun to see that the indictment of Christianity as equivalent to Islam is distracting us as a society from the reality of the situation we’re facing, and has become a way for people to dismiss, albeit in a knee-jerk fashion, the reality and magnitude of the Islamic jihad imperative. It was also sapping our strength as a culture that is steeped even now in Judeo-Christian principles to formulate any response to the cultural and civilizational challenge posed by the jihadists. That's why this book concerns everyone, not only Christians: whether we are Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, whatever, we are all threatened by Islamic supremacism, which would remake Western societies utterly. If we do not value our own culture and heritage, we will not be able to defend it.
Can you give us any kind of numerical comparison between the amount of violence that’s inspired by Islam and the amount inspired by Christianity?
There have been over 9,000 terror attacks committed in the name of Islam and justified by Islamic principles since 9/11. How many terror attacks committed in the name of Christianity and justified by Christian principles were committed in that same span?
There's clearly a quantitative difference between Islamic and Christian violence. Is there a qualitative difference, as well? You admit there has been violence committed in the name of Christianity (everybody knows about the Inquisition and the Crusades). What’s the difference?
Yes. There is no justification for violent acts committed by Christians, either in the Christian Scriptures or in the teachings of various Christian Churches. (I discuss the principal verses that many use to claim the contrary in the book.) But in Islam, all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Muslim community to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers. So when a Christian commits an act of violence or terrorism in the name of Christianity, he is transgressing against the teachings of the religion, while a Muslim who commits an act of violence or terror in the name of Islam has ample justification to point to in the Qur'an and Sunnah. That's the key difference, and it is important because it shows what capacity each tradition has and will continue to have to give rise to violent groups.
One of the most interesting things in your book is the evidence that the Bible's most obviously violent passages -- the Book of Joshua, Jesus' hard sayings about "hating" your family -- have not in fact inspired Christian religious violence. If both the Koran and the Bible have violent passages, why don't both books equally inspire violence?
The passages that are pointed out in the Bible as violent are not equivalent to violent passages in the Qur'an. The open-ended command for believers to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers that we see in Qur'an 9:29 has no equivalent in the Bible. Also, the violent passages of the Bible are spiritualized by Jewish and Christian exegetes, while those in the Qur'an are presented quite literally by all too many Islamic preachers, and the mainstream interpretation of them is literal.
John Derbyshire has joked that your book really ought to be called "Why Christianity is a religion of peace and Islam isn't, and how I wish it were the other way round!" Are you really a proponent of a more militant Christianity? Should we be waging a crusade?
I suppose it all depends on your understanding of "militant." There is a long tradition of Christian theorizing on under what circumstances and how to wage war, and I think it could fruitfully be revisited, particularly in this age when Christian clerics so often mistake Democratic Party platform planks for manifestations of Christian piety, and when weakness of mind and will are confused with charity and humility. John Derbyshire, for all the admirable verve and humor of his writing, missed my fundamental point. This book is trying to answer the need to respond to the jihadists' ideological challenge. We need a strong military response, although if best oriented toward containing jihad activity that may not take the form it now takes, but we have done nothing to answer the jihadists' ideological challenge. Where is the Radio Free Europe of the counterjihad? Where are we standing up for the principles that have become universal, but are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and are now threatened by Islamic supremacism?
A Crusade? Sure. A Crusade with a few differences from the old Crusades. A Crusade of Jews, Christians, and all others who face subjugation and annihilation by the jihadists. A Crusade that works on the level of ideas, issuing a counterchallenge to the jihadists' cultural critique. Were this accompanied by a realignment of foreign policy in Western nations to reflect a will to fight against Islamic supremacism both militarily and ideologically, we might be getting somewhere.
Islam, as you describe it, doesn't look all that easy to reform. In your opinion, do we have a better chance of persuading Muslims to give up jihad, or to give up Islam altogether -- for an altogether different understanding of what God is like?
I think that neither one is very likely, and that while we need to continue to call for Islamic reform, and to call upon peaceful Muslims to address the elements of Islam that jihadists use to recruit and motivate terrorists, we shouldn't have unrealistic hopes. We need to stand up for who we are and for our civilization, and certainly that will change hearts, but above all we need to stand firm.
You and I were in college together in North Carolina practically a quarter of a century ago, and you used to debate Muslims even back then. What about the argument has changed in the intervening decades? And what's still the same?
Actually what strikes me when I think back on those 25-year-old debates is how similar they are to the present situation. Even then my Muslim interlocutors struck poses of indignant victimhood, blaming the West for the troubles of the Islamic world, and advancing a cultural critique -- of modern Western mores, but also of Christianity and the principles upon which Judeo-Christian civilization is founded. In those days I was just reading the Qur'an for the first time. I hope my answers, and counterquestions, now are a bit more compelling.
From a previous article I posted here:
"What has been the effect on weakening the Camp of Islam and Jihad by spending this $880 billion in Iraq, and how else might it have been spent to weaken that Camp?
[...]
And suppose some of the rest had been spent on propaganda, broadcasting akin to Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, not to tell Muslims how much we like and respect them, nor how well-off Muslims are in our country, but rather to tell other Infidels about Jihad News around the globe (the kind of thing one finds gathered at Jihad Watch every day, but on a much larger scale, disseminated hither and yon).
Or what if the American government had also beamed into Muslim countries the voices of Wafa Sultan and Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, both in English and whatever other languages they choose to broadcast in, about their own "spiritual journey" out of Islam? What if there were, on these satellite channels beamed into Dar al-Islam, discussions by scientists on what is necessary for the development of science -- the free and skeptical inquiry so discouraged, even punished, in Islam? What if there were figurative artists and sculptors and art historians discussing their art, and the lack of such means of expression in Islam? What if archaeologists came on to discuss how the civilizations of the Near East were rediscovered not by the Muslims, but by such Westerners as the Assyriologist Austen Henry Layard, and Leonard Woolley at Ur, and a succession of Egyptologists -- Champollion, Lepsius, Howard Carter -- from everywhere but Egypt itself?
But there is no propaganda campaign. There is no large-scale effort, or even a small-scale effort, or even the hint of serious imposition of taxes by the American government on gasoline and on oil, to do as much damage to OPEC, and to raise the price of oil and gasoline as much as possible, thereby to encourage conservation and new technologies and new sources of energy.
No.
There is only the idiotic squandering of men, money, and matériel, on and on and on, world without end, in Iraq, to bring "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Muslim Middle East, and somehow to make of Iraq a unified state, instead of what we should be wanting, which is to create a permanent fault line between Shi'a and Sunni running north and west of Baghdad, a line that the Sunnis will never acquiesce in.
Oh, it's a policy all right. It's Boots on the Ground. It's soldiers, taught never to question but only to execute. It's destruction of morale, military (at least among the soldiers who can think for themselves, can take in the nature of Islam, and of Iraq, and of Iraqis) and civilian (ditto). It's not the way to combat, it does nothing to halt, the instruments of Jihad that really count: Da'wa, demographic conquest, and the money weapon.
It's a policy begun by those who did not know about Islam and about Iraq, and still refuse to learn. It makes no sense."
"Where is the Radio Free Europe of the counterjihad? Where are we standing up for the principles that have become universal, but are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and are now threatened by Islamic supremacism?"
Hey now, Mr. Spencer, that's hardly fair. Why, over on Dhimmi Watch I read that in the UK some organization is inviting Muslims over for coffee and biscuits. Isn't that enough?
And the hosts have been duly warned by their would-be guests that the coffee and biscuits had better not be too Judeo-Christian/Eurocentric.
/sarcasm
Some things that are different in Islam that any other religion -
1. Death for heretics and apostics.
2. Allah is not bound by the rules that we have discovered about the universe.
3. No other faith declares eternal war against unbelievers.
4. All believers must be literalists, there is no group of Muslims who interpret the Qur'an in the light of modern ethics or scientific discoveries.
5. The Qur'an consists of a lot of rules (and the consequences of disobeying them) and not very much religion.
First you have to recognize the enemy.
Till then, it would just be the Fatally-Confused Voice of Radio Honest-Folks-It's-A-Religion-of-Peace.
Tancredo, and to a lesser-extent Guiliani and Hunter and a few others get it, but not many others in the power structure.
The beating on their colleagues' numb skulls must continue.
"Where is the Radio Free Europe of the counterjihad?"
This is it as far as I am concerned. And I can even contribute to the "programming". As can my fellow posters on here.
Then there is Foehammer, the Sheik, PI in Germany and many others more. The ones I listed are my personal mainstays.
The path of antijhadism leads through Jihadwatch - no doubt.
While walking downtown today, I came across one of the many works done by the screevers hereabouts. The one I saw was a rendering of a Caravaggio. Not bad, says I to self. Then another thought wafted through my melon: What if a bunch of these street artists were parachuted behind enemy lines with their pastels and were left to work their viscious subversions upon the Ummah? A Da Vinci appears mysteriously upon a Riyadh street: pandemonium breaks out. Reports coming from Karachi indicate numerous works by Botticelli arising from the sea: police baffled. Meanwhile, in Teheran, the overnight appearance of Rubenses on seemingly every other streetcorner bring a stunned silence to the regime as they contemplate whether the offending pavement should be stoned prior to demolition or whether the Rubenesque sidewalks should be covered in suitable fashion prior to said stoning/demolition.
Clearly not having enough to do today, I further went on to wonder: Would this fantasy provide a genuine example of "guerilla art?" Or would it be a simple, fruitless demonstration of "Pearls before swine?"
Jesus or Muhammad -- You Decide:
http://www.christring.org/shortseries/jesusormuhammad.htm
....AND....
Allah is Not the God of the Bible:
http://www.kingmessiahproject.com/is_allah_not_God.html
@ topic
It's owned by the US Government, same one who finances such notable "nonpolitical" "networks" like PBS (a really big clue) under the same guidelines, which are anything BUT "nonpolitical"...may as well be financed by george "the capo" soros himself.
Some quotes from the peaceful bible, unlike the quotes you use from the Quran, these are complete verses and one sentence hasnt been taken out of context. Unlike you guys i have no need to omit half the verse to propogate my opinion.
(Judges 21:10-24 NLT)
So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse." Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance. Then they rebuilt their towns and lived in them. So the assembly of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.
(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)
As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
(Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT)
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. "Go up baldhead," they shouted, "go up baldhead!" The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces. (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)
Now we see why Christians have killed more civilians than any other religion, now we see why that madman bush and america feel they have a right to destroy, kill, rape and plunder the muslim world, and why only subservient muslim gimps like the Saudi regime are spared the rath of the crusaders. Now we see where HITLER got his inspiration from, now we see why the serbs thought they were justified in raping and killing half of Bosinia. Allah Akbar, rise Khilapahate and end the rule of the religious mafia/Barbarians
Wonder if rob will censor this!!!!, Western Christians are the biggest hypocrites. prove my point rob
The Christian faith has done MUCH MORE GOOD, despite the naysaying that is said about the Holy Bible and the Christian faith. For example, in the Gospels, Jesus shows great love and respect for women, starting with his mother, Mary. The apostle Paul teaches that in Christ there is no differences between Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. Also the the Gospels and in the Jewish or Hebrew scriptures, that is in the prophets, there is the call to help those in need. The results have been the abolition and civil rights movements in the USA. Today the good news of the Gospels is still being proclaim to the far ends of the earth. So it goes to show that a book by Robert Spencer comparing Christianity and Islam, and Christianity coming out looking more as the peaceful faith because of the Gospels.
That's right, bigcatgirl!
smithy --
Do you know when Christianity began? No? It began with Christ, as in Jesus Christ, and all of the passages you've listed are from the Old Testament.
Do you have any New Testament passages to share with the class?
"There have been over 9,000 terror attacks committed in the name of Islam and justified by Islamic principles since 9/11. How many terror attacks committed in the name of Christianity and justified by Christian principles were committed in that same span?" -- Robert Spencer, quoted in the article
"Wonder if rob will censor this!!!!," --from above
Ummm. No. The arguments that have trotted out by this poster -as they have been many times before by other Moslem apologists- are a valuable instructively.
There are criminally inclined people in all faiths and I trust people of goodwill to be found in all faiths as well. But if this assertion is indeed a fact, it does not follow that all religions are of equal merit. One needs to go back to the example set by the founder of any particular philosophy to see how the tenets of the philosophy were actually played out. For Christians, this example would be the life and teaching of Jesus as recounted in the Gospel. For Moslems it would be the example set by Mohammed as recounted in the hadith and sira. The difference between the two examples is glaringly obvious: Jesus meek, honest, chaste and forgiving; Mohammed warlike, dissembling, lustful and vindictive.
There are bad Chrsitians and good Moslems. Can you tell them apart from their actions?
This is a news article dated today, not thousands of years ago.
Via http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
http://allafrica.com/stories/200710010703.html
GENERAL Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Mr Samuel Salifu has condemned the killing of Christians in Tudun Dankande local government area of Kano State.
He called on the state government to bring the perpetrators to book, warning that Christians would no longer condone any attack on them.
Salifu who spoke with newsmen in Kaduna weekend said that reports reaching him from Kano state said there was trouble in Tudun Dankande local government area of the state Friday where nine Christians, including a youth corper serving in the area were killed and their property destroyed over an internet cartoon said to have emanated from a 20-year-old Muslim boy from Bangladesh.
"Information available to me is that almost all the churches within that local government area have been razed down and shops belonging to Christians had also been burnt including their houses. We have been told that they have been ejected and their property brought down and burnt.
"The information given was that they saw a cartoon on the internet and they discovered that this cartoon was drawn by a 20-year-old Muslim boy from Bangladesh and they decided to visit their anger on innocent Christians and their churches.
"I have been told that nine people including a youth corper are confirmed dead and several others injured while the local government in a desperate attempt to cover the dastardly act pretended to be taking the victims to the hospital while in reality they sent some of the victims to Bauchi and some other places around so that people will not go there and see the number of destitutes or refugees caused by this incident.
[...]
"It is clear that the cartoonist is from Bangladesh and he is a Muslim, so why should they now visit their anger on Christians unless they are lunatics and if you call them this type of name, they say they are angry, but they go killing.
"They cannot control their anger, they take knives and slaughter. When you tell them what they are doing is wrong, they will turn round and start to kill. Very soon, there would be a lot of blood shed unless they stop this nonsense because the church is getting fed up."
Re: Spencer interview: "Where is the Radio Free Europe of the counterjihad?"
My God that goes to the heart of the matter. You bet.
Allah Akbar, rise Khilapahate and end the rule of the religious mafia/Barbarians
Posted by: smithy
Talk about a T.R.O.L.L.! Damn.. my fingers are itching for a good nukin' of the black pagan stone they circle around..
The troll is challenging "rob" to delete his posts. I say go right ahead.
If *ONLY* Christians were .1% as militant as the troll with the fake Western name is saying..!!
IF ONLY.
May God Bless Serbia!!
Smithy does not realize that his assertions have been asserted here many times before. And dealt with as assertions should be. Smithy does not realize that he is BORING, there is nothing new about his point of view. Bring us some fresh material Smithy,
those old tunes are about worn out...
Nope. Commenters are free to disagree with our postings, or with the prevailing sentiments of other commenters.
However, attempting to drive multiple threads off-topic will ultimately get you banned if you don't stop and address the topic.
For that matter, we've been around and around the tu quoque issue. Google "tu quoque" and "Jihad Watch."
And while I'm at it, I'll mention that I'm not too keen on the "txt msg" style (though you've done more of that on other threads than on this one). It doesn't make one look hip, just careless.
Marisol Seibold
Jihad Watch News Editor
Allahfanculo; "May God Bless Serbia!!", seeing that worlds most advanced terrorist, who can identify a golf ball from 50000 feet, can't find him, it would seem that its Osama ibn Laden who is blessed by God.
Smithy
The old testement excerpts you mention are considered to be commandments that were meant only for the past and to never be repeated today. You read them and you can often clearly see they were meant to be applied in a singular historical context or for a limited period of time. Its just one of several important reasons why there are no chritian or jewish movements today (except for the odd deranged fruitcake) that go around quoting these passages and trying to implement them in a modern context. I have read Roberts book and all the arguments you make are debunked very logically and clearly in it so why not buy it!
However, as you would know, the korans violent tracts are often phrased in a way where they are not tied down to a specific time or place but open ended i.e. are meant to be applied forever untill Islam dominates the planet. Thats why there are LEGIONS of muslim organisations TODAY trying to murder, terrorise and force sharia on everyone. So, if you ever get a caliphate up and running the rape, pillage, murder Osama and his ilk think is so great will happen all over again. Therefor, logically, when considering all this, you have a zero ethical excuse to promate a caliphate. Read Roberts book for some enlitenment but I doubt you will.
Smithy...Been lousy can't find Geo Bush either, so Bush must be under the protectorate of Allah. There must be millions of Bush hating muslims and others , who would just love to get their hands on Bush, But Allah protects who he loves. Allah loves Geo Bush, that's why you guys can't get to him. Bush is a Christian and Allah has given Bush more than he has given Been Lousy, a muslim. Lousy gets to live in a cave, eat falafel and have medical problems, while the healthy Bush gets to live in a lavish White House, and eat fancy dinners. Clearly Allah is leaning toward Christianity in this case. And thats only one reason that Christianity is, and Islam isn't...'rob' put the rest of them in his book. Maybe you should read it...
Christianity is given with a choice to change the heart. Islam is shoved down your everlasting throat! Christians are killed because of their religion. Infidels are killed because they are not the religion that these fascist pigs seek. Islam is forced, with death or conversion as your only recourse, Christianity is led by the thought that, no one can force a religion, that is what is called freedom my son!
In support of Robert's book and why Christianity is a true religion of peace, I would like to provide a link on the "Actual Words of Jesus".
Since Christianity was founded on Jesus Christ, then I think it important to know what He said and what He stood for; and that His words can only be found in the New Testament.
Discover for yourself the message of Christ:
http://www.dornaslighthouse.com/words_Jesus.html
Ah, the usual. We're somewhat embarrassed by the antics in the Hebrew Bible, but we finally got that ethical vision thing straight by the time the Gospels came along.
Those antics are in general a historical record and are not guidelines for living. It may shock the faint-hearted to learn that the Allies killed lots of people during World War 2, but the Axis seemed unwilling to debate the existence of nations on NPR.
As for laws described in the Torah itself, many of them are seen today, even in the Orthodox community, as appropriate for a people who had directly encountered God at Mount Sinai, but appropriate to enforce literally for modern people who have a lower level of spiritual clarity and therefore a lower level of culpability for transgressions of that law. They are also seen as symbolic expressions of the stakes involved when transgressing the Divine Will, but which would not be literally enforced for the same reasons as above.
For those of you who still think ethics began with the Gospels, I pity your ignorance of the Jewish Oral Law tradition that predates the Talmud. If you knew the tiny bit about that subject that I did, you would recognize a large number of the prayers and teachings of Jesus. Hey, I'm glad he made those ideas so popular. It's just the unwillingness to cite sources that rankles.
smithy-
A Christian is dangerous when he does not follow Christ's example; a Muslim is dangerous when he does follow Mohammad's example.
That's the crux of the "religious" dispute.
Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Matthew 5:17
Congratulations to Robert upon another interview
in which he never loses his temper[no matter the provocation],always restrained and
argued with wonderful patience and logic as well
as a masterly grasp of facts & statistics.
Hugh shows us in practical terms how much we could
have achieved with 8,80 billion-Bravo Hugh!
Have noticed how little Moslems KNOW about their own History. Let me remind Smithy that no one ASKED Moslems to invade Christian Europe,mainly
Christian Middle East, Buddhist Afghanistan or
Hindu India[to name but a few places where the inhabitants were offered 'ISLAM OR DEATH'].
THERE WOULDN'T BE PROBLEMS TODAY IF THE CURSE OF ISLAM HADN'T LEFT ITS MARK IN BOSNIA & KOSOVO[once
Albanians were all Christians too].
So read your history 'Smithy' and know what atrocities,what rapes and plunder were committed in the name of Islam-and are still ongoing to this
day.
"it would seem that its Osama ibn Laden who is blessed by God.
Posted by: smithy "
...that would explain why he lives in a cave and cannot show his face in public and has to have legions of armed warriors to protect him...It would also explain why he is unable to get people to irrigate the lands to plant food and why he is unable to provide health care for the children of the religion, and why Muslims live in fear of other Muslims....yep...he is blessed...
"allah" is Satan and muhammad is the messenger of Satan.
Great interview by Robert and a great post by Hugh. Hitting the nail on the head, as usual.
Smithy, in your rush to demonstrate moral equivalency, you neglect a very important fact. Christians and Jews have repudiated and rejected the violence in the Bible. There are no Christians or Jews blowing buses up and decapitating innocent people today for not being Christian or Jewish. On the other hand, Islamic terrorism is a daily happening in today's world. The only point you've made is on top of your pin head.
Robert--
This interview is very good. You're growing on me.
Smithy,
You quote only the Old Testament. Where are the violent quotes from the New Testament?
Can't find any?
I happen to agree, invading Iraq was a mistake. George Bush, the moron, didn't understand that Muhammadans, especially Arab Muhammadans are WAY TOO VIOLENT and INTOLERANT to ever live with liberty and justice for all. That's impossible in Islam. Heck, the Muhammadans can't even tolerate each other!
Hugh and Robert--Your growing on me!
Smithe old bean---As has been said before--Red trumps everything!! Get a red letter edition of the Bible and read the words of Jesus and then repost with your apology for being so ignorant of true Christianity.
Ynkedoodl2 & guide inside --
Hi guys! I tried to make it easy for smithy to research the Words of Jesus by providing the above link to everything Jesus ever said, so maybe he's still reading it line for line. He won't find anything to fault Jesus on in the New Testament because there is nothing to find, but it should keep him busy for quite a while -- which may explain why we haven't heard back from him yet.
Smithy came in here swinging passages from the Old Testament around like a jackhammer in an attempt to undermine Christians; but Christianity didn't come into existence until AFTER Christ, not before, so I'm not quite sure why he used Old Testament verses.
And I'm not saying that Christians are perfect, but Christ certainly is!
Profitsbeard made a good point when he said, "A Christian is dangerous when he does not follow Christ's example; a Muslim is dangerous when he does follow Mohammad's example."
Smithy and others need to compare Jesus to Muhammad, because they are the ones that people follow after.
"Smithy." I can't get past the name. It has sent me on a fruitless search to find an online copy of "For Rupert -- with no promises" by Gordon Lish.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Smith is just so ordinary -- the "y" sort of spruces it up!
I think that Radio Free Europe has gone the way of the rest of 'free' Europe (which is now no longer free and is living under the increasingly totalitarian EU Bureaucrcy).
So it is therefore unrealistic to expect anything like a counterjihad Radio Free Europe to emerge anytime soon to assist with the real counterjihad, however dire the need for this really is. Present political developments across the world make Radio Free Europe's reemergence unlikely. Jihad Watch isn't doing a bad job as a stopgap, however.