More specifically, the difference between radical Islam and radical Christianity is simply the difference between martyrdom and murder.
If you look at international news, chances are you will see an example of a follower of Islam killing someone else. You have suicide attacks in Israel, terrorist beheadings in Iraq, bus bombings in England, train bombings in Spain, etc.
If the media reported it you would also see examples of Christians dying for their faith. There are believers being run over by steamrollers in North Korea, shot in China, burned alive in Vietnam, beaten in Pakistan, put to death in Iran, etc.
Except for the lone Christian cultist you do not see examples of Christians going out to murder in the name of Jesus. When there is a crazy who claims to be killing for Christ, the Christian community as a whole denounces the individual and his actions.
What you do see is Christians willing to die (not kill) for their faith. Yesterday at our university’s December graduation we had a Christian leader from India give the keynote address. He has had 18 attempts on his life because of his beliefs. He was set to speak somewhere and the police told him he couldn’t because they thought there was a bomb under the stage. Five minutes later they found the bomb. He has said that he is not seeking it, but it would be a privilege to die for Christ.
Compare that to the jihad of Islamic extremists. There are countless examples of Muslims killing in the name of Allah. Then after the attacks, few are far between are the rebukes from fellow Muslims. Usually the victim is responsible somehow. Be they American (“because the war”) or Jewish (“because they…were born”), the majority of Muslims seems to look the other way when fellow Muslims murder.
You may say that both want to outlaw [insert your pet issue considered a sin by both religions], but the difference is your Christian neighbor is not going to behead the gay guy living across the street. The Muslim in Sri Lanka may kill the woman down the street because they dared to walk out of the house with more than their eyes showing.
Any comparison between two groups can be made and justified somehow. Everyone shares some type of common belief with basically everyone else. But ask yourself two questions if you are neither Christian nor Muslim: Do you feel your life is in danger here in “the West” because you are not a Christian and don’t live by the Christian value system? Would you feel your life was in danger in the Middle East if you were not a Muslim and didn’t live by Islamic law?
Aaron,
I feel that my liberties are in danger living next to Christians who seek to restrain them. I have never feared for my life because of the Christians next door.
But I'd rather not have to choose between my liberties and my life. I don't enjoy either being threatened.
Aaron, I won't argue that there isn't a wide difference between Islam and Christianity, but it's not a difference that's necessarily inherent in the religions themselves, or if it is, it's not as big as you'd like to think.
You don't need to look hard to find examples in the Jewish and Christian Bibles of violent teachings and oppresive, vengeful thought. It's pretty common, actually, and it's only been in the past two centuries that blatent persecution by Christians has become fairly rare.
The liberalization of the Western World isn't thanks to Christianity, like you're suggesting, but rather it's due to a great many socio-political advancements, many of which are actually the opposite: We've become a more peaceful society because we've become less hardline in our Christian "values" where we haven't dropped them entirely.
Islamic countries have a lot more work to do. But in relative terms, they aren't that far behind us. The Muslim world of today is in dire need of a religious liberalization, in exactly the same way that Europe was several hundred years ago. The difference, of course, is that the Muslim world of today has access to bombs and vast quantities of the most valuable substance on the planet.
Stop patting yourself on the back just because you had the fortune of being raised in a progressive culture that values peace and ideological moderation. Those are built-in beliefs of Christianity, they're products of centuries of liberal reform.
Sam brings up one of a good number of objections that you may need to address.
1. Isn't Xianity's involvement in public policy just a less dangerous form of religious oppression?
Of course, my answer, in 50 words or less, is that it can be oppressive if we are trying to institute religious law, rather than moral laws based on a common ethic.
However, in the case of moral gray areas that an ethic can not clarify one way or the other, we must be willing to compromise, or be seen as fundamentalists unwilling to submit to common reason. This is why such things must neither be criminalized or condoned by government. With gay rights, this is why it should not be illegal, but granting special rights like marriage, thereby actively condoning it, is not right either – it is imposing a moral code unsupported by sufficient moral and ethical reasoning upon others.
If we compromise, each extreme may feel imposed upon by the the other, but you just can't make fundie secularists or religionists happy with reasonable compromise.
2. Are the differences between Islam and Christianity merely due to the influence of western liberalism and secularism, not due to differences in their teaching?
In other words, Islam and Xianity are essentially the same, but Xianity has benefitted from liberal thought?
This idea has wide acceptance in moderate Islamic thinking. They argue that Xianity, which is older, needed 1600 years before it hit a maturation milestone, thereby maturing from a more primitive, harsh faith into a more liberalized, modern one. Islam, they argue, being now about 1500 years old, is ready for a similar step.
On the surface, this argument sounds compelling, and while Islam may benefit from liberalization, this parallel is a poor one.
As I described in Three Types of Reformation, the Protestant movement was a "restoration" to the fundamental teachings of the faith, leaving the corrupted teachings of the Catholic church of that time. It was not a "liberalization" that made it better.
Islam, on the other hand, if it returned to it's foundational teachings, would become more like the Islamic terrorists we see today because they are following more closely what Mohammed taught in the Koran.
Liberalization has certainly mellowed Xianity a little, but mostly from a paternalistic view of women, (which was arguably not scriptural), not from murder, deceit, and oppression, which is where fundamental Islam would move from.
The "harsh teachings" of the Judeo Christian tradition do exist in the Jewish part of the Canon, and can not be easily explained away by Christians. However, many have undertaken to explain (not explain away, as some may want to accuse) why the OT picture of God, and the laws, seem to be violent and warlike as Islam now appears to be. They may have some similarities, but after a more detailed examination, I think it is believable, if not clear, that the Jewish God is not harsh, but merciful, unlike Allah. I don't have time to look for links to such material, but here's a couple almost decent ones.
Ethical Problems in the Pentateuch – nice short overview
Why Does the God of the Old Testament Seem So Cruel and Judgmental?
with all the respect of all peopl's opinion , I totally Disagree in what has been written. let's take a closer look on what you are saying suicide in Israel, If we are said to be murderes then what Israeli's are!!!! you see things from your point of view which is total dictatorship..Islam doesn't emphasizevoilence, nonetheless,it its all peace but people understand it the wrong way, it never said go for a war unlsess someone is attacking you.there's more 2 say but please don't attack Islam this way before knowing the right facts and reading about it very well.
No one is defending Israel in this post. But I assert that Islam is violent by it's nature – the founding documents encourage spreading Islam by the sword, and Mohammed did the same in his lifetime.
Worse than that, Islam, in my understanding, teaches that you earn heaven by having your good deeds outweight your bad, but even then, Allah might reject you. Of course, you can always die in a jihad, and ensure you get to heaven. This earning of salvation, or meriting it through your good works is, in the eyes of Christianity, offensive to God, and in the eyes of Christians, is seriously inferior to the method of salvation offerred by Jesus.
Xianity teaches that no one can earn salvation:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. – Ephesians 2:8-9
This is by far a better offer than what Islam offers. And Jesus rose from the dead to prove that He was telling the truth.
all religions teach peace and respect of others. all three religions in their infancy came under attack from people who were worshiping stones instead of the one god we all know. the attack was not verbal it was cold blooded killings. that's when god allowed the believers to fight back. that was then not now. now it is man on his own doing bad thing in the name of god even though god never talked to him. so let's not blame religion, blame man. as far as islam and christianity muslims are told by god thru gabriel that god did not allow the crucifing of christ and instead he put up an image that looked like christ also god does not like the believers to associate him with another diety because there is only one god. that's why god does not like the trinity and says he does not have a son. he says christ was created in a special way, by gabriel blowing his breath in the womp of mary.