DID ISLAM DESTROY CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION?

Submitted by John J. ONeill on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 06:37

PDF versionJohn J. O’Neill

One of the most enduring problems of history is the decline of Classical Civilization. How is it, scholars have long asked, that the civilization of Greece and Rome, which had endured over a thousand years, gave way to the world of the Medieval; an age which saw, for a while, the decline and apparent disappearance of the rationalist spirit of Greece and Rome? In academic and journalistic literature and in the popular imagination there is no mystery at all: After the Barbarian Invasions of the fifth century, we are told, the peoples of Western Europe reverted to living in thatched, wattle-and-daub huts. Cities were destroyed and abandoned, the art of writing virtually lost, and the mass of the population kept in a state of ignorance by an obscurantist and fanatical Church, which effectively completed the destructive work of the Barbarians. Into this darkened stage, the Arabs arrived in the seventh and eighth centuries like a ray of light. Tolerant and learned, they brought knowledge of the science of antiquity back into Europe and, under their influence, the Westerners began the long journey back to civilization. That, in a nutshell, is the story told in an enormous number of scholarly treatises and academic textbooks. It is a story implicitly accepted by a large majority of professional historians, both in Europe and North America – among them Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle Eastern studies in the English-speaking world; and yet it is a version of the past that is completely and utterly false. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a narrative further removed from what actually happened. And, shocking as it may seem, historians have known this for several generations. Why this knowledge has never been fully disseminated or integrated into academic thought is a moot point, but the fact that textbooks designed for schoolchildren and students of higher education can still be printed promoting the above version of events should be a cause of deep concern. For the truth is that when the Arabs reached southern Italy and Spain they found not a bunch of primitive savages, but a highly sophisticated Latin civilization, a civilization rich in cities, agriculture, art and literature, and presided over by completely Romanized Gothic kings. How do we know this? Well, the Arabs themselves said so. On their arrival in Spain, Gothic Spain, the Muslim conquerors of 711 were astonished at the size and opulence of its cities. Their annalists recall the appearance at the time of Seville, Cordova, Merida and Toledo; “the four capitals of Spain, founded,” they tell us naively, “by Okteban [Octavian] the Caesar.” Seville, above all, seems to have struck them by its wealth and its illustriousness in various ways. “It was,” writes Ibn Adhari, among all the capitals of Spain the greatest, the most important, the best built and the richest in ancient monuments. Before its conquest by the Goths it had been the residence of the Roman governor. The Gothic kings chose Toledo for their residence; but Seville remained the seat of the Roman adepts of sacred and profane science, and it was there that lived the nobility of the same origin. (Cited from Lious Bertrand and Sir Charles Petrie, The History of Spain (2nd ed. London, 1945) p. 7) Not much sign of decline here! Another Arab writer, Merida, mentions Seville’s great bridge as well as “magnificent palaces and churches,” (Bertrand and Petrie, pp.17-18) and we should note that archaeological confirmation of this picture is forthcoming. Several of the magnificent Visigothic churches and palaces still stand, and the discovery near Toledo in 1857 of a collection of richly wrought Visigothic votive crowns encrusted with precious stones brought the descriptions of the Arab conquerors to mind in the most vivid way possible.(See Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain (London, 1992) p. 18) Documentary and archaeological evidence from throughout the territories of the former Roman Empire has demonstrated, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Barbarian rulers who occupied Italy and the Western Empire during the fifth century, far from destroying Roman culture and civilization, rapidly became Romanized themselves, and presided over a veritable renaissance of Classical civilization. The arts and the sciences flourished under them, and their enormous wealth was employed in the construction of brilliantly decorated residences and churches. By 500 AD, virtually all of the damage that had been done during the Invasions of the fifth century had been repaired, and cities flourished as they had under the old Imperial administration. Indeed, the “Barbarian” kings of Italy, from the very beginning, actively imitated the Court in Constantinople, and all of them regarded themselves as not only allies, but functionaries and officers of the Empire. The gold coins they issued were stamped with the image of the Byzantine Emperor, and they dwelt in the palatial villas erected by earlier Roman procurators and princes. Some of these were extended, and all were regularly renovated. Yet, having said all that, it is true that by the end of the seventh century, or at the very latest by the start of the eighth, this flowering Classical civilization came, rather suddenly, to an end; and the medieval world we are all familiar with took shape: cities and towns declined and were sometimes abandoned, trade diminished, life became more rural, the arts declined, illiteracy prevailed, and the feudal system, which fragmented the kingdoms of Western Europe, took shape. In the years which followed, the Church became the sole vehicle of learning and administration, and a barter economy largely replaced the monetary system in place shortly before. What coins were issued, were minted in silver, rather than the gold used till the start of the seventh century. The Middle Ages had begun. Who or what had produced this situation? As early as the 1920s Belgian medievalist Henri Pirenne located the proverbial smoking gun. But it was not in the hands of the Goths or Vandals, or the Christian Church: it was in the hands of those people whom it had, even then, become fashionable to credit with saving Western Civilization: the Arabs. The evidence, as Pirenne was at pains to show in his posthumously published Mohammed and Charlemagne (1938) was incontrovertible. From the mid-seventh century the Mediterranean had been blockaded by the Arabs. Trade with the great centers of population and culture in the Levant, a trade which had been the mainstay of Western Europe’s prosperity, was terminated. The flow of all the luxury items which Pirenne found in the records of the Spanish Visigoths and the Merovingians of Gaul, came to an abrupt end, as Arab pirates scoured the seas. The flow of gold to the West dried up. Gold coinage disappeared, and the great cities of Italy, Gaul and Spain, especially the ports, which owed their wealth to the Mediterranean trade, became mere ghost towns. Worst of all, perhaps, from the perspective of culture and learning, the importation of papyrus from Egypt ceased. This material, which had been shipped into Western Europe in vast quantities since the time of the Roman Republic, was absolutely essential for a thousand purposes in a literate and mercantile civilization; and the ending of the supply had an immediate and catastrophic effect on levels of literacy. These dropped, almost overnight, to levels perhaps equivalent to those in pre-Roman times. Pirenne stressed that the arrival of Islam effectively isolated Europe both intellectually and economically. And with this economic paralysis came war: the Muslim conquests were to unleash a torrent of violence against Europe. As a direct result of the Arab advance, by the seventh and eighth centuries, Christendom, the area within which Christianity was the dominant religion, diminished almost to vanishing-point. This catastrophic loss of territory – everything from northern Syria to the Pyrenees – took place in a space of two or three generations. In Western Europe there remained only a nucleus of Christian territory, comprising France, Western Germany, the Upper Danube and Italy (as well as Ireland and parts of Britain); and these regions felt themselves threatened also with imminent extinction: For the surviving Christian territories were besieged and under sustained attack from the north and east, as well as the south. As the Arabs sent army after army to plunder, destroy and occupy, they encouraged and, in some ways directed, further attacks on the core areas of Europe from other directions. Thus even the Viking onslaught, which devastated huge areas of the British Isles, France and northern Germany, was elicited by the Muslim demand for slaves. The latter is a fact not yet widely known, though well-accepted by professional historians: the Vikings, essentially, were piratical slave-traders, and their notorious expeditions across the seas to the west and along the great rivers of Russia to the east were elicited first and foremost by the Muslim demand for white-skinned concubines and eunuchs. Without Islam, there would almost certainly have been no Vikings. As it was, this trading-alliance between the barbarians of the North and the Muslims of Spain and North Africa was to bring Christian Europe to the brink of collapse. As if all that were not enough, the attempt to control the inroads of Muslims and Vikings opened Europe to the depredations of other predatory peoples, most especially from the steppe lands of central Asia, and one of these in particular, the Magyars, or Hungarians, were to prove a real threat, for a time, to the continued existence of a Christian Germany. Pirenne’s research was first class and was never effectively refuted by his critics. Nonetheless, his findings have been ignored. Year after year popular and scholarly works on the history of the Mediterranean and of Islam’s interaction with Christianity continue to be published – especially in the English-speaking world – without mentioning Pirenne’s name, far less taking on board his findings. This was the case, for example, with John Julius Norwich’s history of the Mediterranean (The Middle Sea), published in 2006. The same is true of the latest offering of Bernard Lewis, the grand old man of Middle Eastern studies at Princeton, whose 2008 book God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 – 1215, not only ignores Pirenne and his ideas, but comes to conclusions reminiscent of those taught before the appearance of Mohammed and Charlemagne. So for example in the above volume Lewis contrasted the cultural sophistication of the eighth century Islamic invaders of Spain with what he describes as the almost Neolithic culture and economy of the Visigoths and Franks whom they encountered. For Lewis, the “Dark Age” was still brought about by the Germanic Invaders of the fifth century, and the Arab blockade of the Mediterranean in the seventh and eighth centuries had no effect upon Europe. For him, the Arabs were still, evidently, the saviors of Europe from barbarism. How to explain this? Without doubt, political correctness has played a part. The spirit of the age dictates that non-European civilizations (such as the Islamic) should never be criticized, or even critically examined. Such an attitude, which essentially places ideology above evidence, is most disturbing, and needs to be combated at every opportunity. There is however another factor: Pirenne, along with almost all historians of his age, assumed that Byzantium, which had not been overrun by the Barbarians, never experienced a Dark Age or a Medieval period. This view was prompted, in part at least, by Byzantine propaganda, which always advertised the Empire as the Second Rome and the inheritor of Rome’s mantle. As recently as 1953, for example, Sidney Painter could write that, “from 716 to 1057 came [for Byzantium] slightly more than three centuries of glory. The Byzantine Empire was the richest state of Europe, the strongest military power, and by far the most cultivated. During these three centuries while Western Europe was a land of partly tamed barbarians, the Byzantine Empire was a highly civilized state where a most felicitous merger of Christianity and Hellenism produced a fascinating culture.” (A History of the Middle Ages, 284-1500). To this day, popular literature tells us how, after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Greek scholars and philosophers, fleeing to the West, helped “kick-start” the Renaissance in Italy. But if Byzantine civilization was not destroyed by the Arabs, why should anyone believe they destroyed classical civilization in the West? This was a point Pirenne did not address: He was perhaps unaware of its importance. Yet developments in Byzantine archaeology since the Second World War have now come dramatically to the support of Pirenne: For it has been shown, much to the surprise of everyone, that from the mid-seventh century onwards, the Eastern Empire suffered its own Dark Age: Byzantium experienced three centuries during which – in complete contrast to the opinion expressed above – almost all her cities were abandoned, populations plummeted and high culture came to an end. So great was the destruction that even bronze coinage, the everyday lubricant of commercial life, disappeared. And when archaeology again appears, in the middle of the tenth century, the civilization it reveals has been radically altered: The old Byzantium of Late Antiquity is gone, and we find an impoverished and semi-literate rump; a Medieval Byzantium strikingly like the Medieval France, Germany and Italy with which it was contemporary. Here we find too a barter or semi-barter economy; a decline in population and literacy; and an intolerant and theocratic state. And the break-off point in Byzantium, as in the West, is the first half of the seventh century – precisely corresponding to the arrival on the scene of the Arabs and of Islam. The evidence from the East, which has, regrettably, not yet become “common knowledge” even in the world of academia, weighs decisively in favor of Pirenne. The debate is essentially over – though the knowledge of that fact has yet to percolate through to the history faculties of our universities. Classical civilization, just as Pirenne said all those years ago, did not end in the fifth century; it ended in the seventh; and it was terminated by the Arabs. In my forthcoming book, Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of Classical Civilization (Felibri, August, 2009) I reiterate Pirenne’s arguments and demonstrate that, in many ways, he did not go far enough. For the impact of Islam upon Europe was far from being merely economic. Whilst Islam’s doctrine of perpetual war against the infidel did turn the Mediterranean into a violent frontier, and did impoverish Europe, Islam now also began to impose its mindset upon the West. Until the closing of the Mediterranean the predominant cultural influence upon Europe was from the East: from Byzantium and from the ancient Hellenistic centers in the Near East, especially Egypt and Syria. With the closing of the Mediterranean, the West was isolated, and the centre of gravity moved, as Pirenne stressed, to the North; to northern Gaul, Germany and Britain. Yet the influence of the East did not come to an end. There was continuity. But now the East meant Islam. And in the centuries after the first Arab conquests, the influence of Islam became profound: It was this influence that would definitively terminate Classical civilization and give birth to the theocracy we now call “Medieval Europe”. The first and most obvious Islamic idea to be adopted by Europeans was that of Holy War. Before the seventh century, Christianity had been largely true to its pacifist roots. Even after becoming the official religion of the Empire, Christians tended to eschew the army as a career and the taking of any human life, even in war, continued to be frowned upon. In the words of Gibbon – no friend of Christianity – by the fifth century; “The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged, and the last remains of the military spirit [of Rome] were buried in the cloister; a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and charity.” (Decline and Fall, Chapter 38). This may go part of the way to explain the recruitment into the army of great numbers of Barbarians from the fourth century onwards. Actually, by the late fourth and certainly by the fifth century the words “barbarian” and “soldier” became virtually synonymous. The Gothic and Vandal kings who supplanted the Roman Emperors in the West were, to begin with, not exactly pacifists. Whilst readily accepting Christianity, the new faith had to find a place alongside the ancient warlike cults of Woden and Thor. Nonetheless, by the end of the sixth century, even the warlike nature of the Teutonic rulers began to dissipate. Gibbon notes that, under the spell of Christianity, the Goths and Vandals soon lost their martial traditions: so much so that by the seventh and eighth centuries the Germanic populations of North Africa and Spain were utterly unable to stem the Islamic advance in those regions. What a contrast this Christianity appears when we compare it with the muscular and militant faith of the Middle Ages, the faith of the Crusaders, Inquisitors and Conquistadors. This new Christianity was a direct consequence of the clash with Islam, for it did not appear until after the arrival of Islam. In one respect, the change came quite simply because it had to: Surrounded by aggressors bent on its destruction, aggressors with whom it was impossible to make peace, Christians had to take up arms. This was as true among the Christians of the North, threatened by the Vikings and Hungarians, as it was among the Christians of the South, threatened by the Muslims. But the change was elicited by ideology as well as simple necessity. Europeans began to be profoundly influenced by Muslim ideas – ideas on war, interpretation of Scriptures, heresy, the Jews, etc. This was a purely “Medieval” outlook: indeed, it was the very epitome of what we now mean by “Medieval.”. Historians are familiar with the influence of Islamic philosophy upon the West at this time, and they quote, generally with approval, the study by Europeans of the Persian Muslim Avicenna and the Spanish Muslim Averroes. But not everything that came from Islam was so benevolent. It is widely known, for example, that the Byzantine doctrine of iconoclasm, the destruction of sacred religious images, was directly attributable to the influence of Islam. But many Islamic ideas, some of them the polar opposite of those found in early Christianity, now began to find resonance in the thinking of Europeans at almost every level. How could it have been otherwise, when impoverished Christians viewed with astonishment the wealth, luxury and sophistication of Muslim cities in Spain, Sicily, and further east? That this wealth and luxury was debarred to them by the very Muslim Emirs and Caliphs whose opulence they so much admired, was beside the point. Europeans could only be impressed, and influenced. And influenced they were. From the Muslims they learned “Holy War”; from them they learned too that the Jews were an accursed race and the enemies of God. The consequences of these Islamic notions about the Jews were to be as long-lasting as they were tragic. Islamic fatalism, founded on the conviction that Allah could not be bound by any kind of natural or scientific laws, was lethal to the rationalism of Greece and Rome, which now began to die. Parallel with this development, there appeared, first in Islamic Spain and then throughout Europe, that obsession with sorcery and witchcraft which was to be one of the hallmarks of the Middle Ages. From Islam too the Europeans breathed the essence of fanaticism. Islamic law decreed death to be the only fit punishment for a heretic or an apostate. No such idea had ever existed among Christians. True there had always been fierce doctrinal and theological disputes among Christians which even, at times, turned violent. But such violence as occurred was mainly verbal and rarely involved physical attack. By the end of the eleventh century, Christian Europe, under the influence of Islam both in Europe and in the Middle East, was beginning to think in a very different way; and within a hundred years the Popes had defined and published their new doctrine of capital punishment for dissenters. Torture too, absolutely normal in Islamic lands, began, for the first time, to be applied judicially in Europe. John J. O’Neill’s new book, Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of Classical Civilization, is published iby Felibri.com and will be available for sale in August 2009. You can download this ground-breaking tome from Felibri Store now.

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“A Lie that is repeated often

Submitted by Ali Sina (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 08:27.

“A Lie that is repeated often becomes true.” This quote is sometimes attributed to Vladimir Lenin and sometimes to Joseph Gobbles. It does not matter who said it, it is true. The belief that Christianity, or the Goths and the Vandals were the destroyers of the Classical Civilization is one such lie that has been repeated often and is believed to be true. John J. O’Neill is shattering that myth and is finding the smoking gun in the hands of Muslims.

A few years ago I wrote an article showing how Islam destroyed what could have been a renascence in Iran when it silenced the Persian rationalists such as Al Razi, Khayyam and Farabi. Now O’Neill is showing us that it was also Islam that destroyed the Classical Civilization and halted the progress of Europe.

One thousand years the human civilization has remained frozen in time thanks to Islam. We could have had everything we have today and advanced to where we are now one thousand years ago, had it not been for the devastating influence of Islam on human civilization.

Moderators I will be

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 09:18.

Moderators I will be commenting on both Jihadis and crusaders since it is relevant to the contents of this article. The author is an Christian apologetic that wants to shift the blame away from the unholy biblical tyranny on civilizations to Islam alone. What does he mean when he says the Christians destroyed Roman, Greek and other temples, ransacked cities, and finally after converting all those worship places to Churches, they turned to reformation. Champs, this is not the case. There are written records of the barbarity of these crusaders. Here is an example of what they did because of which Europe lived in dark ages.

* In Alexandria in 415 CE, a "Christian" mob attacked and cut to pieces the famous and beautiful female philosopher Hypatia. The mob carried pieces of her body through the streets of Alexandria, finally burning her remains together with her books in a place called Cynaron.

* In 429 CE Christian mobs sacked the world-famous Parthenon, the temple of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis of Athens.

If this is a sample up to 5th century AD, let's look what they did after 10th century. We'll see if they really promoted art, literature, science, astronomy etc.

a) 1204 Christian crusaders sack & ruin greatest city, Constantinople.
b) 1211 Burning of Waldenses heretics at Strasbourg begins several centuries of persecution.
c)1277 Pope John XXI, alarmed by rumors of pagan heresy among “scholars of arts in the faculty of theology" pressurizes Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, to prohibit 219 philosophical and theological theses.
d) 1347-50: The Black Death sweeps across Europe, killing one-third of the population.
e) 1478: Pope Sixtus IV establishes the Spanish Inquisition.
f) 1498 Dominican reformer, Savonarola is burned for criticising the degenerate Pope Alexander VI.
g) 1553 Michael Servetus, the Spanish physician (DISCOVERER OF PULMONARY BLOOD CIRCULATION), burned at the stake for heresy by Protestant church.
h)1563 Following the Council of Trent, Jesuit Order becomes 'Defender of the Faith'. Huguenots are persecuted in France.
i) 1600 : Giordano Bruno, who had the audacity to suggest that space was boundless and that the sun and its planets were not unique, is condemned and burned at the stake after a 7 yr trial.
j)1633 Galileo is brought before the Inquisition. Under threat of torture and death, he is forced from his knees to renounce all belief in Copernican theories.
k) 1618-1648 Central Europe devastated by Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants
l) 1793: witch burning ceremony at Poznen in Germany
m)1844: 'Protection of Children Act' allows Church missionaries in Australia to kidnap aboriginal children.
n) 1550-1847 Portuguese inquisition of Goa-- destruction of temples, looting, and killing people in the name of Jesus.
o) 1864: Pius IX issues the encyclical Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Errors. It condemns some 80 propositions derived from scientific method and rationalism. Liberalism & socialism are denounced.
p)Hitler, a Roman Catholic, is never excommunicated for causing the death of millions; whereas Martin Luther was excommunicated for criticism of the papal system.
q) September 2000 John Paul II issues "Dominus Jesus " reaffirming intolerance: "Only one path to God – the Roman Catholic Church."

You see champs Europe lived in utter dark ages. Popes and his associates (chelas) believed in flat earth theory (bible preaches so) and that the earth was created in around 4000 BC. Anyone who dared to say against them were killed. The Musalmans continued the holy trend of crusaders. If anyone wants to learn about barbarism in theory, please visit Quran and Old testiment. If you wanna a practical vision of it then see the destroyed temples and civilizations in Persia, Greece, Italy, middle east, south america, India. Hey guys, if you think that it is all finished, just switch on to news from South Korea, Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka. They destroy the idols of pagans because GOD ASKS THEM TO DO SO in Old testament and Quran.

Mr. John O'Neill, those who were oppressed by the Church for more than 1400 yrs showed their finger to the Church. Renaisance happened not due to chuch but by keeping it away from administration. The Church or mosque should never ever come in the way of people. Human civilization has suffered the worst of its kind due to these barbaric cults. Christianity has lost its ground completely in the West. Now it is high time we get rid of islam. Both these creeds should go back to where they came from.

wagamama, let's try to list

Submitted by ibnsahr (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 12:47.

wagamama,
let's try to list islam time line from it started until now, and for example christianity has been destroy by muslim in 10th century, so we only got one big islam influence in the world.
by the end of its time line, as now, do you think we can writing on internet, driving in a car, flying in aeroplane, building skyscraper, having human right, having the UN (which is useless anyway), UNHCR, put satellite in the sky?, will you say no doubt about it?

all these misbehaved are process of learning how to better yourself and others, this is far from muslim dreams, let alone put it in reality, you got stoning in 7th century, and you still got stoning in 21th century.

do you belive if islam destroy christianity and become sole superpower, we still think the earth flat?

Unfortunately when westerners

Submitted by pathfinder (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 13:46.

Unfortunately when westerners write about destruction about civilizations mention only about christian countries. The muslims also destroyed a advanced persian civilization which is continued till today. They destroyed the hindu-buddhist civilization in afghanistan (recently the believers of same faith destroyed bamiyan buddhas), till recently while doing excavation they found many old hindu artifacts. The area which is pakistan was a well developed hindu civilization with many beautiful temples, muslim barbarians destroyed almost all of them. In kashmir used to have the best meeting and learning place for hindus and buddhists. hindus and buddhist used to live together peacefully and happily. Even recently muslims have driven away hindus from areas where they were in minority.
They destroyed all best art pieces. 'Nalanda' the biggest university was destroyed after muslim barbarian khilji killed tens of thousands of unarmed teachers. It took some 6 months to destroy it and put to ruins. The list is too many to mention it here. Even in city of hampi, one of the most beautiful and architectually developed was put to ruins which the muslim barbarians took months to destroy.
Shah jahan instead of destroying the shiva temple 'Tejo mahal' converted it into his burial place called 'Taj Mahal' . His bad deeds resulted in that his own son prisoned him near that place and killed his all other sons and shown him the heads of his favourite sons after butchering.

AS Omar said when burning The

Submitted by redjupiter58 (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 16:09.

AS Omar said when burning The Great Library of Alexandria "if it is not in the Quran then we don't need it, and if it is in the Quran then we have it".

Besides physical destructions, many languages, identity, heritage became instinct due to Islamisation/Arabisation, specially in the Middle East.

I have been doing my own

Submitted by Ibn Rushd (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 18:51.

I have been doing my own research concerning anti-Semitism and I found that it is not part of Christianity. What I mean is that although Paul was anti-Jewish (possibly a spy against the Jamesian movement to destroy it from the inside), he was only anti-Torah, not against them as a race, or advocated killing them. He didn't live long enough to propose that if he was going to.

The real anti-Semitism only came about in the 9th century, after 100 yrs of contact with muslims in Spain. The new anti-Semitism emphasized the baseness and badness of Jews and advocated their slaughter. Ibn Warraq and Robert Wistrich drew attention to the connection between the 1066 genocide of Granadan Jews (there are still none there today) and the 1096 pogrom in Mainz, and Rhineland. I read a few years ago but haven't re-found the article that there were some comments current among Christians that Muslims knew how to "take care" of their Jews, and that "we should follow their example". Without Islam, there would have been no Holocaust.

As for science, some writers have said that if not for Islam, we would have already colonized Mars. Engineers and scientists in the 2nd-6th cent. AD were already on their way to building cars. Robots (simplistic) were in use in theatrical productions (sort of like walking brooms, they were limited in movement to the length of string, but they were self-powered just like those wind-up ducks in bathtubs, only a little more advancement would have brought about a modern robot), air pressure was understood and was used in temples to produce movement, "bleeding/crying eyes" of the gods, Heron of Alexandria designed the first vending machine that was activated by the weight of a coin and dispensed a measured amount of water for ablutions.

And there are so many more advances being done in Greece. Aristotle was not an authority as the book "The Forgotten Revolution" shows. If he was there would've been no advancements. John Philoponus of the 6th cent. AD knew about gravity and may have figured out a figure or mathematical equation for.

I'm looking forward to this book.

Hi wagamama, Thanks for

Submitted by Dajjal (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 19:14.

Hi wagamama, Thanks for enlighting us with your laundry list of atrocities committed by crusaders in 415CE, 415CE ... blah .. blah... blah... blah.. upto..September 2000 ...What about the latest atrocities committed by your fanatic fraternity 'Sang Parivar' the RSS, Bajrang Dal, in Indian States of Orissa and Mangalore. Please be balanced in your views, we are more worried about the present rather than the stories of the past.

Brilliant article. I will

Submitted by Saleem (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 20:17.

Brilliant article. I will definitely be buying this book.

Islam has destroyed innumerable civilizations that would have went on to successfully flourish.

Wagamama, The author is a

Submitted by Ali Sina (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 21:02.

Wagamama,

The author is a historian academician and not a Christian apologist. He has done research on the subject and is backing up his views with facts. He is not giving an opinion based on his beliefs. These are two different processes and approaches. Believers often come to a conclusion that is supported by their Faith and then try to validate it through scientific methods using all sorts of mental gymnastics and logical fallacies to support their beleifs. This is how Muslims find science in the Quran.

Academicians are skeptics. They come to a conclusion after doing extensive research and sometimes those conclusions are contrary to what they had originally thought.

You should read O’Neill’s book before commenting on it, or rejecting it.

Ibn Rushd: I have been doing

Submitted by Marie (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 21:10.

Ibn Rushd:

I have been doing my own research concerning anti-Semitism and I found that it is not part of Christianity. What I mean is that although Paul was anti-Jewish (possibly a spy against the Jamesian movement to destroy it from the inside), he was only anti-Torah, not against them as a race, or advocated killing them. He didn’t live long enough to propose that if he was going to.

I say:

Paul was a pharissee who started out hunting down Christians and putting them on trial. It is believed he was there when Stephen was martyred.

In regards in Paul being

Submitted by Marie (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 21:19.

In regards in Paul being anti-torah here's what he said about the ten commandments:

Romans 13:8-9

Let no doubt remain outstanding , except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," Do not murder, "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there maybe, are summed up in this one rule: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Great article.

Submitted by Marie (not verified) on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 21:32.

Great article.

Dajjal @7: Mate, the current

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 00:52.

Dajjal @7: Mate, the current topic is about Europe and the influence of Islam and Christianity on civilization there. If there is a topic on RSS or VHP I will provide a better answer. So stick to the topic Okay!

Islamic barbarism is against

Submitted by pathfinder (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 01:27.

Islamic barbarism is against all. It hasnt left anybody be it persians (zorastrians), hindus, buddhists, christians, jews etc.
After the start of end of colonization starting 1947 around, the western world was secure as the muslims within there borders were less. Unfortunately the hindus suffered tremendously from then till now.
The single most barbarism done to hindus was in 1971 where some 3 million hindus were butchered in bangladesh and 4,00,000 hindu women raped. 10 million refugees in India. India send its army and made a new country Bangladesh. UN was against India and passed a resolution condemning India if it attacks pakistan to free the people from pakistan muslim army, US send a nuclear armed ship to attack India also.
Also when hindus were attacked hardly any human right group cry/voice.
After 9/11 western nations have started to feel the barbarism of islam. Also due to muslim immigration, higher birth rate and negative birth rate of europeans Islam posses more danger to them than any other country.
Let's hope if muslims attack hindus, buddhists or some other religion, others should come out of support.
Christian and muslim countries are no doubt the biggest blocks and they see there own interest. Hope they also see that others are also human and suffer equally from muslim harassment. In india luckily there are groups like RSS, VHP etc which atleast give some voice to hindus. Read some articles by stephan knapp about atrocities done on hindus and buddhists, then you talk.

Can a Mullah or Pope say hindus or buddhists are equal to them, no they cant.They both see everything as black and white and consider others as 'infidel' or 'heathen'.

In India zorastrians, syrian christians, armenian christians , jews especially banghdadi jews etc all have taken refuge and lived happily without any problem. Why? because of hindu population and belief which see everybody as equal.
When muslims attacked syrian and armenian christians, many took refuge in India as Islam and Roman catholicism was against them.

Interesting article, I used

Submitted by Rocky (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 01:39.

Interesting article, I used to think that the Moslems made contributions to Western civilisation,not any more. However after they cut off European trade with Asia they forced the West to look for a sea route to India,China and Indonesia,this started the Age of Exploration and led to the West's 500 year long supremacy. While Isalm slept, Europeans where exploring the world, perhaps we should be grateful to the Moslems for that, rather unintended, gift.

Ibn Rushd,
Classical civilization was conservative, there wasn't the ready connection between scientific knowledge and technical innovation that exists in modern industrial society,this connection really only appeared in the 17th century, or , as some historians suggest in the late medieval period.The reason that the Greeks and Romans didn't industrialise was probably due to slavery and the absence of the capitalist system, I doubt if we can blame the Moslems for that. If it had survived, the 19th century Roman Empire would have been more like 19th century China or India.

Ali Sena, I will definitely

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 03:03.

Ali Sena, I will definitely read the book. However, I am forced to write against the lies penned by this author in this article. You have written innumberable articles and a book on Islam. I am objecting to some passages in this article. I shall provide proofs for whatever I quote in rebuttal. The barbarism of Christianity in Europe and elsewhere is a naked truth. Read it with an open mind and come to your own conclusion.

Quote: // It is widely known, for example, that the Byzantine doctrine of iconoclasm, the destruction of sacred religious images, was directly attributable to the influence of Islam. // Unquote
Wagamama says: Iconoclasm existed in Christianity three centuries before the birth of Islam. Islam learnt this great art through Christian scriptures. Its roots are in Old Testament (Dueteronomy 12: 2-4):

•You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places. You shall not worship the Lord your God in such ways.

Now let us see how Christianity used these verses on the great HEATHEN pagan cultures of Europe.

* After the council of Nicea in 325 AD, upon Constantine's orders the temple of Asclepius in Aigeai Cilicia and other temples of the goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, and Mambre were destroyed in 326 AD.
* In 335 Constantine sacks many pagan temples in Asia Minor and Palestine
*353 An edict of Constantius orders the death penalty for all kind of worship through idols
* In 364 Emperor Jovian orders the burning of the Library of Antioch (because the books in the library do not contain anything that exists in Holy Bible)
* In 375 The temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus, Greece, is closed down by the Church orders
* In 381,throughout the Eastern Empire the pagan temples and libraries are looted or burned down. Theodosius outlaws visits to Hellenic temples. In the same year the temple of Aphrodite is turned into a brothel and the temples of the Sun and Artemis to stables.
* In 384, Theodosius destroys the temples of the pagans in Northern Greece and Minor Asia.
* In 385 to 388 Prefect Maternus Cynegius scour the countryside and sack and destroy hundreds of Hellenic temples, shrines and altars.
* In 393 The Pythian Games, the Aktia Games and the Olympic Games are outlawed as part of the Hellenic “idolatry”. The Christians sack the temples of Olympia. HAIL OLYMPICS HAIL PAGANISM
* In 401 The Christians of Carthage lynches non-Christians and destroy temples and “idols”. In Gaza too, the local bishop “Saint” Porphyrius demolishes the remaining nine still active temples of the city.
* In 406 John Chrysostom of the Catholic Church orders the destruction of the famous temple of Artemis.
* In 429 The temple of goddess Athena on the Acropolis of Athens is sacked
*From 440 to 450 The Christians demolish all the monuments, altars and temples of Athens, Olympia, and other Greek cities.
* In 528 Emperor Justinian orders the execution—by fire, crucifixion, tearing to pieces by wild beasts —of all who practice magic or idolatry and prohibits all teachings by the pagans.
* In 580 the Christian inquisitors attack a secret temple of Zeus in Antioch. The imprisoned pagans are are thrown to the lions or crucified. (God save Xians)

This is just a glimpse of the dark ages in Christian Europe. A pedophile Prophet was born in the 6th century. He memorized all Biblical verses, added a bit of Arab masala, and formed Quran.

His lunatic follwers continued the grand legacy of the Christians whereby all the KAFFIR (equivalent to Heathen) temples in middle east and Asia were attacked and destroyed.

Truth cannot be blotted out. Ali, I have given reasons as to why these Christian and Muslim barbarians resorted to destroying places of worship. IT IS IN THEIR SCRIPTURES. Seek, you will unravel it! . Don't side with any of these cults. Thanks mate!

Great article, I am looking

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 03:28.

Great article, I am looking forward to this book too. I also bought this book of J.J. Norwich, Mediterranean. I guess it wasn't accurate in all things, then. I read about 8th and 9th century Byzantine Iconoclasm. In Judaism and Islam it was forbidden to portray people, especially holy people, but the Christians did not have this prohibition and made countless beautiful icons + statues But some Byzantine emperors (Leo III, Constantine V, Leo IV, Theophilus, # 716-842) also, stupidly believing in some divine anger at images, prohibited portraying humans, forcing it on the Byzantines, destroying countless icons-statues.

Wagamama told us about pre-Islam Christian barbaric behavior, and I heard about some of it too, but it was not much he listed. But his listing of Christian barbaric behavior after the advent of Islam does not go much against the article, is therefore irrelevant, because that tells us that Christian attitudes and behavior were much influenced by Islam and changed accordingly.

Much of this article surprises and delights me. I am asking myself: Could it really be true?!

Also of interest is the book of David Keys, "Catastrophe" about a big meteor-catastrophy somewhere around 540 AD in East Africa. It caused a plaque of rodents, which in turn caused massive pests all around the world, especially in Persia, the Byzantine empire, Europe, including Britain. As a result, it says; Persia and the Byzantine empire were much depopulated and weakened, and Islam found a vacuum it readily exploited, among other effects, like making England Anglo-Saxon instead of a predominantly Celtic (speaking) Britain, or the 6th century invasion of the cruel Avars into Europe for instance.

Wagamama, You say the

Submitted by Ali Sina (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 03:43.

Wagamama,

You say the barbarism of Christianity in a naked truth. O’Neill is not denying it. He however has demonstrated that the perversion of Christianity was directly the result of Islamic influence on the Europeans’ thinking. The Church had become Islamized and many concepts of Islam had crept into the doctrine and the practice of Catholicism.

For example, the hatred of the Jews was brought to Europe by Muslims. This did not exist prior to the invasion of Islam. You can witness this happening even today. Go to various Islamic forums and you’ll see that Muslims promote the hatred of the Jews among the Christians, reminding them that the Jews were the ones who crucified Jesus and other silly things. Everybody is familiar with this tactic.

Muslims have been very successful in perverting the minds of the liberals as well and making them take an anti Israel pro Palestine stance. It goes without saying how Hitler admired Islam for its unwavering hatred of the Jews.

The other argument that O’Neill is making is that inquisition has no roots in Christian scriptures and it did not exist until a century after Muslims invaded the Europe and influenced the minds of the clerics of the Church.

There is no denial that the Christians burned the apostates, the witches and tortured many to death. What O’Neill has shown is that these were the result of the Islamic invasion.

Wagamama says:Iconoclasm existed in Christianity three centuries before the birth of Islam. Islam learnt this great art through Christian scriptures. Its roots are in Old Testament (Dueteronomy 12: 2-4):

These ordinances were given to Moses alone, not to his followers and certainly not to the followers of Jesus. However, when Muslims invaded Europe, Muslims like you, dug up these verses and made people believe that they should practice them. You yourself are very much an example of how Muslims corrupted the Christian mind with their own brand of intolerance.

I cannot tell you how many times I hear misguided Christian priest saying how they admire the devotion of Muslims and wish that Christians become as zealot as Muslims. 1200 years ago that is what happened. The Christians became Islamized and that brought the destruction of the Classical Civilization.

Wagamama says: * After the council of Nicea in 325 AD, upon Constantine’s orders the temple of Asclepius in Aigeai Cilicia and other temples

No one is saying that the Christian rulers did not commit any abuses. The argument presented in the book is that after the invasion of Islam these abuses became doctrinal and were practiced systematically.

Wagamama, I only just saw

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 03:54.

Wagamama,

I only just saw your now much longer list of pre-Islam Christian Intolerance. I do by and large agree that it happened. But I still see a middle way for most of the article to be true and you being right. Crucial was the role of the Church inpre-Islam times. The barbarian peoples and kings are already being largely acquitted of being the cause of medieval downfall.

You are right about what the sources say, but John J. O'Neill also talks about much archeological evidence. And his theory about the closing of the Mediterranean and Arab piracy, Viking slave-hunting, Jew-hating, killing apostates etc. sounds very plausible to me.

I think the scientists and historians got it right, we may believe theories, even religious ones, but we must always look for the truth, and be openminded for new, better theories, with better evidence, concerning the same "issues, areas under investigation". And adopt them after careful consideration, replacing the old theories or beliefs. Even if we cherished the old, obsolete theories, beliefs for a lifetime, even then! And certainly also even if our loved ones, people cling to them! And also when bullying governments try to force us to keep them.

Ali Sina, I gather, from

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 04:23.

Ali Sina,

I gather, from previous posts and also considering his lumping together of barbaric Christians and Muslims, that Wagamama is a Hindu, loathing Christianity and Islam equally.

@Ali quote //For example, the

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 05:35.

@Ali quote //For example, the hatred of the Jews was brought to Europe by Muslims. This did not exist prior to the invasion of Islam. You can witness this happening even today// Unquote
Wagamama: Ali I am sorry to say that Jews were hated and persecuted well before the arrival of dirty islam to Europe because Christians always believed that Jews killed Jesus. Pray read the following facts

1) In 306 AD the church Synod of Elvira banned marriages, sexual intercourse and community contacts between Christians and Jews.
2) In 325 AD in the council of Nicea it was stated "let us have nothing in common with this odious Jews...We desire dearest brethren, let us separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews...How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded."
3) In 337 AD Emperor Constantius created a law which made the marriage of a Jewish man to a Christian punishable by death. (Jew-Christian bhai bhai)
4) Between 367 and 376 AD St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem refers to synagogues as brothels.
5) 379-395: Emperor Theodosius the Great permitted the destruction of synagogues if it served a religious purpose
6) In 415 AD The Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyril, expelled the Jews from that Egyptian city.
7) 489 - 519: Christian mobs destroyed the synagogues in Antioch, Daphne and Ravenna.
8) 535 AD: The Synod of Claremont decreed that Jews could not hold public office or have authority over Christians.
9) 561 AD: The bishop of Uzes expelled Jews from his diocese in France.
10) 692: Cannnon II of the Quinisext Council stated: "Let no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman, let him be cut off."
11) In 722 AD, Leo III outlawed Judaism. Jews were baptized against their will.
12) 1050 AD: The Synod of Narbonne prohibited Christians from living in the homes of Jews
13) In 1078 AD The Synod of Gerona forced Jews to pay church taxes (Jeziya).
14) 1096 AD : About 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed in the first Crusade alone.

This is how Christians loved Jews until another set of Barbarians (Jihadis) invaded Europe. The fate of Jews even worsened because the Jews had to escape from two evils at the same time!

Quote// Go to various Islamic forums and you’ll see that Muslims promote the hatred of the Jews among the Christians, reminding them that the Jews were the ones who crucified Jesus and other silly things. //unquote
Wagamama: Agree with this view.

Quote//Muslims have been very successful in perverting the minds of the liberals as well and making them take an anti Israel pro Palestine stance. It goes without saying how Hitler admired Islam for its unwavering hatred of the Jews.//unquote
Wagamama: Muslims are the worst, of which there is no doubt. Dr. Sina dont forget Hitler was NEVER ex-communicated by the Church. Any reason?

Quote//The other argument that O’Neill is making is that inquisition has no roots in Christian scriptures and it did not exist until a century after Muslims invaded the Europe and influenced the minds of the clerics of the Church.//
Wagamama: Even in the first 7 centuries of Christian rule, there were hard and fast rules on Jews; Stringent measures were taken to see that people didn't reconvert to Judaism. The arrival of Islam pissed the system even more.

Quote//There is no denial that the Christians burned the apostates, the witches and tortured many to death. What O’Neill has shown is that these were the result of the Islamic invasion.
Wagamama: Long before Islamic invasion on Europe the Greek, Roman, and other "pagan" preists were burned to death. Those neo-converts into Christianity couldn't go back to their roots. Hypatia, a woman scholar was torn to pieces. It was definitely an intolerant society. However, I agree that it took a new height with the arrival of Arab chimps.

Quote// These ordinances were given to Moses alone, not to his followers and certainly not to the followers of Jesus. // unquote
Wagamama: Ask the current breed of Christians if OT is not a word of God. Every church keeps and preaches both OT and NT. Sir, iconoclastic fury emanates originally from OT. Mohammed borrowed it from OT. If those ordinances were given to Moses alone, then christians shouldn't have practiced it--which they did. You fail to connect the dots. Why don't you see people from religions other than Xnity and Islam destroying places of worship in the past? Mate, iconoclasm comes from the scriptures of these two religions.

Quote// However, when Muslims invaded Europe, Muslims like you, dug up these verses and made people believe that they should practice them.//
Wagamama: Sorry mate, I am not a Muslim. However, I have studied the scriptures of these two religions and have found innumerable common things.

Quote// You yourself are very much an example of how Muslims corrupted the Christian mind with their own brand of intolerance. // unquote
Wagamama: Tall claim! Whatever I have written is substantiated with facts.

Quote// I cannot tell you how many times I hear misguided Christian priest saying how they admire the devotion of Muslims and wish that Christians become as zealot as Muslims.//
Wagamama: This is because they trace their roots to Old Testament.

Quote//1200 years ago that is what happened. The Christians became Islamized and that brought the destruction of the Classical Civilization. //
Wagamama: Before the arrival of Muslims, Europe had to face the wrath of one fiery eye of the Jealous God, and later Muslims became the second fiery eye.

Quote//No one is saying that the Christian rulers did not commit any abuses. The argument presented in the book is that after the invasion of Islam these abuses became doctrinal and were practiced systematically.// Unquote
Wagamama: If Christians were to stick to many peaceful verses in NT, it wouldn't have happened. If Muhammad had lived like his fellow Arab pagans, it wouldn't have happened. Unfortunately, both of them were inspired by a third factor and their own hatred. Other than that I don't see any difference here.

To Mr Wagamama #21 I think

Submitted by kenmirzz (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 09:00.

To Mr Wagamama #21

I think that Mr Wagamama has a concrete point there. To say that the Christians in Europe were being islamized for their subsequent brutality during the Dark Ages was far from being truth at all. The hatred of the Jews was there even before Islam and after Islam. The Jews were forced into exiled in Portugal, Spain, Germany and various territories not due to the influence of Islam. There was no link between the two separate idealogies except that both are derived from Abrahamic faith that consider non believer ( Non Muslim and Non Christian) of it to be destined for eternal hell fire respectively.

I am not sure what sort of Islamic ideas that being crept into Catholicism but as far as I know, that's Earth and Sky difference between Islam and Catholicim both in practice and doctrine. The burning of witches at stakes, Inquisition and the concept of Pope's infallability cannot be Islamic. The Islamic version of hatred is distinct from Catholicism.

Just my two cents though.

Humanity is but one family. :)

This book "Holy Warriors" by

Submitted by Shafee al-Zindig (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 10:27.

This book "Holy Warriors" by John O'Neill, on the negative influence of Islam on Christianity, sounds like a great scholarly work and I will definitely be ordering it.

Gauging from the views of some few fanatical Hindus, as sadly witnessed from some of the comments above and elsewhere, it appears that Islam has also contaminated not Hinduism itself (thank heavens), but a few Hindus with its fanaticism and intolerance to all other points of view..

Hinduism was the faith of my distant ancestors from India and which I still deeply respect. It has survived all sorts of cruel invasions for thousands of years. It will continue to exist and thrive if it remains true to its historical core values of tolerance to all other faiths.

Therefore it is truly disappointing to read such extreme views that are held mostly by fanatical Muslims such as the Taliban, being voiced by members of tolerant Hinduism. Islam truly does corrupt all that is good in this world.

Jai Hind!

The only Christianity that

Submitted by Raisin Head (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 12:15.

The only Christianity that Islam influenced was Roman Christianity with the popes. The Christianity of jesus was never into torture, forced conversions, racism or hatred of Jews as most of them were Jews. Paul was a Pharisee, a member of Judaism and he killed many Christian as he said so. He learned some sense and stopped.

Islam messed up many places. A flat earth kept Europeans from sailing the earth and that was as a result of Islam ruling Spain for 700 yrs. The Bible never said the earth was flat. Allah of Islam did that lie. Sura 3:54. Hinduism is a satana Dharmatic religion pre-Islam and was used by Muhammad to make his religion of Islam seem likeable. He took the Kaaba in Mecca as his own and lied that Abraham and Ishmael came there, a lie, as Ishmael was Egyptian and he went there not Mecca. Egyptians are Berbers not Arabs. Now Muslims claimed they built the pyramids as Pharaoh was first Muslims.Sura 10:90. When was Hinduism moderate when they had caste for centuries. Untouchables were a Hindu concoction, still slavery! No one is perfect so stop trying to pretend someone is perfect. Some are worst than others. If one did it that does not give another the right to do so. If it was wrong for one then it is wrong for another.

Dear wagamama what ever you

Submitted by PramodCosmopolitan (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 14:52.

Dear wagamama

what ever you are saying about Christianity might be right .but see the in the modern world every religion has changed and had reformed it self except this
barbaric evil cult known as Islam.

Having lived my entire life in Hindu neighborhood i fully agree with your view that Hinduism are most tolerant religion in the world .But lets not forget the sati system, cast system were part of it too but not anymore.similarly in christianity church was so powerful that it burned so many scienctists and free thinking people pushing europe into dark age .The nights of the templar were burnt alive .But do you see this trend today? .christianity has changed so has the West.It is the the most liberal scoicty in the world today .India though isnt far behind in fact it is a perfect example of Peaceful coexistence. In every province there is different language,different script different weather different appearance different food and yet there is amazing unity between all.
What a pity that Pakistan which was created with a MUSLIM only tag is gripped with civil war.(because its creation is based on the RELIGION OF FLITH) ,yet india is united .Having said that i must mention here there are several draw back in Hinduism as well and biggest of them all
CASTE system.(Though it is nothing compared to the genocide committed by the TERRORISTS of the religion of peace ).

My point is no religion is perfect each one has its own demerits .(Islam is not a religion it is a curse)

Request to Raisin Head.please remove the sentence

Hinduism is a satana Dharmatic religion.

This sounds like a very

Submitted by Boethius (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 15:03.

This sounds like a very exciting book, I will buy it no doubt!

-Demsci, thank you for a great response to my "sasanian" comment. I saw it only recently. The study and discussion of the last pre-islamic persian empire and its violent collapse is very vital to the understanding of the succes of Islam.

There is no doubt in my mind that Islam has been a chaotic and very negative force in world history.
Again it is worth mentioning its birth in the fringe position of pagan Arabia.
In this wasteland Muhammed could pose as a prophet of the Bibletradition and get away with it.
But it is also worth noticing that the pagan arabs did not like his character and fought him even if in a very halfhearted an undisciplined manner. They simply could not fathom the range of his and his believers malevolence.

The defeat of the arrogant Khosrau and the great armys of Persia brought forth the opportunity for the arabmuslims to storm the world.
And suddenly this small group of desertpirates with their socalled "religion", this din of violence and slavery had made themselves a worldempire.

Ofcourse arab expeditions against the outside world was no novelty, as far as I can recall from Tabari, Shahpur II had as a young man rebuffed a massive arab onslaught against his empire and he had invaded Arabia and Yemen both in retaliation against the peacebreakers poisoning their wells and slaying their kinsmen.

It it is also clear that the persians are the ones who have adorned Islam with whatever coating of high culture it pocesses. Its philosophy, its art, its architecture. Yet its perverted heart (Muhammad and his quran) the persians could not overcome and were themselves infected by its hatred.
Yet one could name the bahaireligion a persian escape attempt from the prison of Islam. Bahaiullah claiming ancestry from Zoroaster and the sasanian shahs.

Well I am getting lost here! :-) May I by the way recommend two books who give a lot of details to the consequences of the islamic whirlwind against civilisation:

"Byzantium viewed by the arabs" by Nadia Maria El Cheikh
Harvard university press

and

"The history of Leo the deacon" (Talbot and Sullivan)
Dumbarton oaks

Both books give great insights to the great and devastating jihad against Byzantium and the brave exploits of its defenders.

Regards

Mr pramod, what are you

Submitted by aryavratt (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 17:27.

Mr pramod, what are you talking about. Hindus are being persecuted not only by Muslims but also by Christians. See this video as a proof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU0ROqup5FE&feature=related.
A group of Hindus who just wanted to worship God, are getting beaten by an Orthodox Cristian policeman in Russia.
Most of the European countries don't even recognize Hinduism is a valid religion. The only existing temple in Uzbekistan was demolished by the authorities and we could do nothing except stand and watch.
Even if a Chruch is demolished in India for legal reasons, the Christians straigtaway blame us Hindus for it and make life miserable for us with the media that they have bought.
Sorry sir, you are wrong Christians hate Hindus as much as Muslims. I have seen the hatred of Christians for Hindus with my own two eyes.
I was made fun of for being a Hindu in a country like USA, so you can imagine the state of affairs in rest of the parts os the world.
I am sorry but I have to disagree with Ali Sina on this, Christianity is as much as threat to world peace as Islam.
I can give thousands of incidence not just from India, but throughout the world that Christianity is a threat to world peace.
Even Jews are realizing the threat and are fighting this battle against Christian Hegemony. At least the Muslims don't lie to people when they convert them , nor do they pay bribes for conversions.
Christians are not forcing people to convert in the West because they can't do so anymore, and not because they don't want to do so.
So I would say that out of the two, Christianity is the bigger evil. While the Muslims are making it apparent they hate us, the Christians are slowly cutting our roots. Now you can decide for yourself who the bigger enemy is.

@23 Shafee, how can you call

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 23:46.

@23 Shafee, how can you call someone fanatic for just exposing the history of Christianity? Did I ever abuse Jesus, the central figure of Christianity or misquote or misinterpret his teachings? I only showed that Jews were as much hated by the Christian-ruled Europe (during preislamic era) as the Muslims of the Arab world for all ages. I also showed that iconoclasm existed in Christianity for all ages. Islam mastered the art of iconoclasm even better. From 4th century till the period of renaisance-- when state was separated from church-- Europe lived under dark ages. Islam has always been in ignorance right from its birth.

I have my deepest sympathy for the Jews who were hunted by both Christians and Muslims in the past. They are as much persecuted as the people of the Indian and Persian religions. No matter who I am arguing with I always cherish presenting facts.

@25 Pramod. I respond to

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 00:27.

@25 Pramod. I respond to those parts of your comment that are relevant to this article. I agree Christianity has refined in the west ever since the Church was separated from the state affairs. However see what Pope John Paul II said on November 8 1999- " The first millennium saw the cross planted in the soil of Europe, and the second in America and Africa. May the Third Christian Millennium witness a great harvest of faith on this vast and vital continent of Asia". We know how cross was planted in Europe, South America and Africa. We don't have any problems in accepting some of the good teachings of Jesus. However, when they coerce or cheat you to stop following your cherished religion, how will you take it? Currently, in Korea, Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka there are attacks on Buddhist and Hindu idols by hooligans of some advanced religions (we are pagans/kaffirs for them). I have never seen Hindus attacking a Buddhist or Jain or a Sikh temple or vice versa. Why is then iconoclasm continuing in Asia only on Hindu or Buddhist temples? Which teachings are brainwashing them to commit that ungodly act? Just because their scriptures preach idolatry is the gateway for hell and should be stopped, what gives them a right in a democratic world to attack the idols of other religions? When many Buddhist viharas were burnt in South Korea by the Christians in the last 3 years, did Pope or any other authority condemn those attacks? Is that a blessing in disguise? Christianity has refined over the ages, however Islam is still picking up dates in Arabia. Sorry mate, as far as iconoclasm is concerned, they are yet to reform.

@24 Raisin Head... I will

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 01:07.

@24 Raisin Head... I will reply to your comment that is relevant to this topic

Quote// The only Christianity that Islam influenced was Roman Christianity with the popes. // unquote
Wagamama: Roman Christianity or Catholicism was the only Christian sect until medieval era.

Quote//The Christianity of jesus was never into torture, forced conversions, racism or hatred of Jews as most of them were Jews.// unquote
Wagamama: Unfortunately Christianity expanded using torture, forced conversions, and hatred for Jews. See my above comments for proof.

Quote // Paul was a Pharisee, a member of Judaism and he killed many Christian as he said so.// unquote
wagamama: Pharsee (zoroastrian religion) doesn't advocate killing infidels or heathens. When he switched his faith, something drastic changes took place. Why? Which verses plagued him?

Quote //A flat earth kept Europeans from sailing the earth and that was as a result of Islam ruling Spain for 700 yrs. The Bible never said the earth was flat. // unquote
wagamama: If it was due to the influence of Islamic scriptures alone, then who stopped Christians from reading their Bible and go out for sailing? FYKI here are the verses from the Bible to describe flat earth. Sorry mate!

1. Isaiah 11:12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the FOUR CORNERS of the earth.
2. Revelation 7:1 : And after these things I saw four angels standing on FOUR CORNERS of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
3. Job 38:13 : That it might take hold of the ENDS of the earth that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
4. Psalm (104:5) He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
5. Ecclesiastes 1:5- The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises (OOPS something is unscientific here). Howdy?

A civilization thrives by

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 03:39.

A civilization thrives by preserving treasured works from its past. Let us see what Christianity did to the literary works after capturing power in Europe. It is also essential to assess Church's deeds after coming in contact with Islamic barbarians. I shall quote few incidents from the history of Europe.

* In 364 AD Emperor Jovian orders the burning of the Library of Antioch because the teachings of the books in that library were not in harmony with Biblical poetry.
370 AD Upon the orders of Emperor Valens philosopher Simonides is burned alive and the philosopher Maximus is decapitated. Many philosophical books are burnt in Eastern empire.
372 AD: Emperor Valens orders the extermination of Hellenistic books on wisdom (torch-bearers of classical civilization)
389-390 AD: Emperor Theophilus orders the destruction of temples of the Middle East and Egypt, and "burning of pagan libraries".
24th Feb 391 AD: Upon Theodosius' orders temple of the god Serapis was demolished, its famous LIBRARY is BURNT to ashes.
398AD: The 4th Church Council of Carthage prohibits everybody from STUDYING PAGAN BOOKS.
408 AD: Emperor Honorius prohibit ownership of PAGAN SCULPTURE. His Bishops then resort to book burning of pagans.
409 AD: Astrology is punishable by death -- new verdict issued.
415 AD: Philosopher Hypatia murdered in the most gruesome manner by Xians.
448 AD: Theodosius II orders all non-Christian books to be BURNED.
529 AD: Justinian outlaws the "Athenian Philosophical Academy" and has its property confiscated.
556 AD: Upon Justinian's orders destruction of Antioch non-Christians and the BURNING of all PRIVATE LIBRARIES.

ok ok now we are into 6th century when God's last prophet (a pedophile) was sent down upon earth to complete the mission. Let us now see how Christians and the church behaved WRT preserving civilization in medieval Europe.

1277 AD: Pope John XXI orders the Bishop of Paris to prohibit 219 philosophical and theological theses. (old habits die hard)
1486 AD: Christian monks Henrich Kramer and James Sprenger write a best-seller – Malleus Maleficarum ('The Witches Hammer'). (should win posthumous Booker prize)
1524 AD: Dominican monks in the service of Ferdinand proudly BURN all the books of wisdom of Spain.
1553 AD: John Kelvin, the Protestant Head, puts Michael Servetius, the DISCOVERER of pulmonery blood circulation, to death by burning.
1559 AD: Church issues a list of Forbidden Books.
1600 AD: Giordano Bruno, who suggested that space was boundless and that the sun and its planets were not unique is BURNED AT STAKE.
1633 AD: Galileo is subjected to life imprisonment for stating that earth revolves around sun (Ecclesiastes 1:5- The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises). Basically Galileo revolted against God's words in Bible

Besides this, book burning (Mayan and Aztec calendars) also took place in South America by the Spanish Christian army.

From the above discussion we see that Christians, upon taking up the reins of Europe, resorted to burning of philosophical books, killing philosophers, scientists, and anyone that came in the way of Church and its teachings -- all the way from 4th century AD to renaissance.

#30 Where does the word flat

Submitted by Raisin Head (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 06:10.

#30 Where does the word flat appear. Isa 40:22 says the earth is a circle.

#31 Roman christianity is not

Submitted by Raisin Head (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 06:16.

#31 Roman christianity is not the Christianity of Jesus. followers of jesus were thrown to the Lions. The christianity of Jesus is not the same as Christianity of Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Obama. Roman Christians are the ones you haTE, YET YOU ENGAGED IN Untouchability for centuries against a dark skinned people. Stop the "I am best crap"

The article was about John J.

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 08:08.

The article was about John J. O'Neill's coming book "Islam and the demise of classical civilization". It argued that it really were the Muslims with their agression and influence on Christian societies that caused this demise of classical civilization, and it were not the barbarian peoples or the Christians that terminated it. Then Wagamama came with many undeniable facts that showed, say, detrimental acts by Christians, because of Christian teachings, ever since Christianity became state religion in 325 AD, after the council of Nicea, presided over by the emperor Constantine (#306-337). So before the advant of Islam, which began its invasions in 634 AD.

Whichever way you look at it, here 3 "cultures, civilizations, religion-systems, ways to organize societies" if you will, are distinguished from each other and compared. First off O'Neill and many, many people lament this demise of the classical civilization. But by and large, would this classical civilization not have had its own big faults, with all its wars, slavery, male domination, conservatism and what not? Would it really have superior advantages over the later civilizations of Christianity and Islam? That of course is disputed by Christians and Muslims.

Then there is the comparison between the bad behaviors, customs, influences of the Christian and the Islamic "civilization". Wagamama shows us with many facts that apparently BOTH Christianity and Islam had many followers with immoral behavior, customs, influence, not Islam predominantly.

And after all this careful examining and showing of facts, culture-relativists can come into the discussion and say: "You see, all that bad and good behavior, these bad and good customs, these influences to and fro, they ONLY show us human nature. By and large no civilization is any better or worse than any other.

Whereas there are also culture-absolutists, who say; no, my favorite culture was in the past still the best, after careful examination of all the facts and careful weighing. This is what Christians, Muslims AND Hindus do or could choose.

So what is the conclusion going to be; "All civilizations/ Cultures, including; Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Amerindian religion etc are by and large all the same mixture of bad and good and this is borne by all the known history in 0-2000 AD." No preference is justified.

Or: No, by and large we find the Classical civilization better than what came after it. Or: No, we find that both Classical civilization and subsequent Christian civilization were still better than the influence of that cult Islam. Or: We think that Hinduism/ Buddhism definitely were better than Islam, which is still better than Christianity, or "these 2 Abrahamic religions were/ are equally evil". Or perhaps the wild hunter/ gatherers were better off than all that came after them?

It is safest in discussions to choose either to concur with whoever you are talking with, or to withdraw to complete culture-relativism, not judging any civilization better or worse than any other. But I myself, very hesitantly, with only a narrow margin, prefer the Classical civilization over the subsequent Christian civilization of the Middle Ages, that one slightly over the contemporary Islamic civilization, then after 1500 I definitely, despite all its misdeeds, arrogance, the Western civilization.

Ah Mr demisci how easy it is

Submitted by proudkafir (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 08:43.

Ah Mr demisci
how easy it is to confuse the uninitiated about the glory of the jew on a stick.
Islam is evil no second toughts.But Islam gets it's inspiration from the dead jew on stick. People keep lying all the time about truning the other cheek etc.Read about killing verses in new testament.These are as awful as the old testament.Some idiots say Old testament is not bible at all!
You christians have made fools of a lot people but I am happy to say I was not fooled either by the dead jew or the followers
A typical claim that many Christians are fond of making is that while the Old Testament contains many verses commanding God's followers to smite and slay his enemies, the New Testament doesn't contain anything that advocates this sort of thing.

The New Testament is the "good" news for humanity and serves as a model for how humans should behave toward their fellow man. The New Testament doesn't contain the harsh rhetoric found in the Old Testament.

Christian assertion:
No person can possibly quote from the words of Jesus or the New Testament and rightly justify doing the same things endorsed in the Old Testament with regard to destroying various groups of people.
The New Testament doesn't say anything that can be construed to mean anything close to the commands given in the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy or Joshua.

Commentary:
Believers who put forth this nonsense need to take off the sanitized mask of the New Testament that is so often used to deceive children in Bible study classes.
Christianity has carefully cultivated and ingrained the "sweet" Jesus image on society, primarily aiming this form of propaganda at young children through the use of chants, colorful Bible story books, and assorted other gimmicks, as part of its indoctrination procedure.
The New Testament, although well masked, is just as intolerant as the Old Testament, and the dark side of Jesus and the Christian doctrine casts a long shadow throughout the New Testament and history as well.
While the New Testament does contain "love thy neighbor" sayings, it also exhibits the same smite and destroy rhetoric found in the Old Testament.
Peel away the fluffy portions of Jesus and an intolerant religious zealot is exposed.

The Biblical character called Jesus demands complete submission and tolerates no other opinions.

Matt 12:30
He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

Jesus made it quite clear that anyone who offends him would be violently destroyed.

Matt 13:40-42
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.( oooo I am scared of this hell waiting for me the fellow not believing in the dead jew on a stick)
History has shown that conducting scourges in order to usher in and help the plans of Jesus are easy to justify.
Anyone who displeases the Lord Jesus will and should be destroyed.
The burning of heretics was easy to justify by believers who wanted to help their Lord Jesus with his plans.
Threats were often present in the teachings of Jesus, revealing the intolerant and bullying nature of this "savior".
Anyone who doesn't believe in the new savior called "Jesus" will have the wrath of God on them.
John 3:36(Jesus speaking)
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Anyone who doesn't bow to the Lord Jesus deserves to be slain.
Luke 19:27(Jesus speaking in a parable)
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Killing unbelievers and heretics was easily justified in history through application of this particular teaching by the Lord Jesus. By killing anyone who disagrees with you, you're helping the Lord Jesus with his work and advancing his kingdom on earth.
Jews who didn't buy into the new religion Jesus was preaching were condemned as being children of the "Devil", the very spawn of evil.

John 8:44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Also, Jesus speaking to the Jewish clerics, defined them as being "evil" vipers.

Matt 12:34
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

This particular view of Jews, or anyone else who doesn't bow to Jesus, is also expressed in the writings of St. Paul.
Anyone who taught anything that opposed Paul's version of the truth was vilified and cursed by God through his holy appointed servant Paul.

Gal 1:9
As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

Paul depicts the Jews as the killers of Jesus, they displease God, and are contrary to all mankind.

1 Thess 2:14-15
For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:

Paul's continued vilification of Jews who did not bow down to his gospel follows.
Jews are described as being completely defiled, abominable, and reprobate creatures, unfit to voice their beliefs.

Titus 1:10-16
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision(Jews):
Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.
Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

Justification for actions against Jews can easily be derived by applying Paul's instructions to stop the mouths of anyone that would disagree with the Christian version of "truth".

The influence of New Testament intolerance are also clearly manifested in the writings of the great Christian leader and reformer, Martin Luther.
The holy inspired father of the Protestant Reformation had no problem urging a direct application of Paul's decrees.
The Jews were to be silenced and punished for the error of their ways.
These actions were part of the duty as a good Christian to honor God and show him the strength of your faith..
As Luther wrote concerning the Jews:

"First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly - and I myself was unaware of it - will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know."

"Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:
First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward."
-Martin Luther, excerpts from The Jews And Their Lies(1543)

Adolf Hitler took the words of the great Christian leader Martin Luther seriously.

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
-Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf

For those pious Christians who try to convince skeptics that Hitler wasn't a "true" Christian but simply a false Christian, their accusation would have to apply to St. Paul and Martin Luther as well.
Trying to claim that Martin Luther wasn't really a "true" Christian fails and falls into the classification of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
Luther was just as much a Christian as anyone else who claims to be one.
The roots for Hitler's policies against the Jews were laid down by Jesus, Paul, and Martin Luther.
Hitler took their words about Jews seriously and applied their teachings to his social order.

From the Book of Psalms, regarded by Christians as being scriptures containing wisdom about God:
According to this revealed wisdom, the saints of God have the honor of executing vengeance and wrath in God's holy name.
They're to use violence and weapons of war on the enemies of their God.
Since many Christians regard Jesus as God, the instructions pertain to Christians who wish to earn honor and praise for their Lord Jesus.

Psa 149:5-9
Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand;
To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;
To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;
To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.

The followers of this deity are urged to execute judgment and punishments in "his" name.
Such is the glory and honor of being a saint, and these saints have the full endorsement of the scriptures in doing their violent actions to others.
Praise the Lord and pass the two-edged sword!

If Christians attempt to dismiss these verses as not applying to believers anymore, or that this "God" changed his mind and no longer endorses violent purges of heathens, then this God endorses and establishes ethics based on situation.
And for those many Christians who think Jesus is God, then the God of the Old Testament is Jesus.
Attempting to distance Jesus from these smite and slay instructions of the Old Testament is a dishonest ploy.

The New Testament also makes it clear that there will be plenty of blood and killing under the rule of Jesus the Lord as part of the new world order that he will impose on earth
The glorious kingdom of Jesus will be ushered in through violence and death.
In an orgy of death, Jesus himself will smite the nations with a sword and will rule them with a rod of iron.

Rev 19:11-15,21
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he(Jesus) that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

These destructive actions are part of the great "dinner" party that Jesus will hold.

Rev 19:17
…Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God

Any violent actions taken by believers against others that help the Lord Jesus implement his plans are easily justified by these gory verses.
The popular Christian assertion that the New Testament doesn't contain the type of smite and slay commands found in the Old Testament is pure hogwash.

Footnote:
The Christian prime directive, which is to expand and dominate, often uses its own God as justification for the aggressive and unsubstantiated theological claims it makes to the world.
Believers will frequently employ the "God orders me to do it" rationalization to explain their behavior.

Christian assertion:
Jesus did not say to His followers, let everyone do what they want to do.
Jesus commanded His followers to preach the gospel. He said to baptize all the nations.
A Christian is only doing what God demands of us.

Commentary:
This believer doesn't know what Jesus may or may not have said to his followers.
They only know what some writers claim he said, assuming that there was an actual "Jesus".
The various writings in the Bible were selected and deemed canon by various councils of male religious clerics, and none of them ever knew the Biblical Jesus character, if such a character existed.
How very easy it is to take the next step in the rationalization and proclaim that any actions you take against unbelievers are also desired by God. This rationalization has been employed throughout Christian history.
At least now I expect the peddler of lies to stop peddling the same crap.OT is not NT and NT does not preach killin.

Hi, PK, I get the impression

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 09:21.

Hi, PK,

I get the impression that you forgot that I am a Darwinist. I reject the basic Christian tenets. I have disputed them in discussions with my own family, a Jehovah's Witness, who I speak regularly. I have internalized all the arguments why Christianity is not TRUE.

You and I, the FFI-forum-members are anyway among the few who give a shit. How the 21st century will turn out to be, in regard to religions and democratic rules, human rights, the golden rule. How many of mankind debates like us? Most are sheep or oppressor, interested in materialistic things, holidays, relations, moviestars, the weather and everything that takes them away from "difficult thinking".

And then there are the culture-relativists, or politically correct maybe. You know them well in India too. They will say to all of us; What the heck are you going through all this trouble for? Proudkafir, they would say, we already have the same conclusion as you have, Christianity is sooooooo bad, with all these violent verses, all that despicable history, these vile practices of mercenaries etc.

But it won't comfort you when they say that, because they will go on saying; But if we look in the scriptures, the behavior, customs, of the Hindus and Buddhists, or Darwinists, then ........

We find EXACTLY the same garbage, stupidity, cruelty, unjustness, contradictions, unhumaneness in your own preferred precious culture of Hinduism or Buddhism or Darwinism. You just don't see it because you were born in it or indoctrinated by it". I would never say that, but they would.

So let us either submit to these culture-relativists, who will always gainsay any perceived advantage or disadvantage of any civilization. Or state our preferences, in past and present, defend and promote that, always prepared to adjust our opinions when more facts, better theories arrive. While we are on the lookout for them, because we are the few who are interested.

Correction: Mercenaries

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 09:25.

Correction: Mercenaries should be Missionaries.

Dear wagamama,(response for

Submitted by PramodCosmopolitan (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 10:54.

Dear wagamama,(response for No.31)

Thanks for the facts .i was unaware of those.You have made a right point.
But shall we hate WEST for pope's failure to apologize for the mentioned
barbaric acts .?
Agree Hindus are being hated for being iconoclasts .But like the Jews Hindus should reply with its ancient wisdom and tolerance .
After the Holocaust the Jews have made tremendous progress winning one noble prize after other .They didn't hate or despise west or Christianity.similarly Hindus should make progress yet remain tolerant which is its uniqueness.

Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (in Sanskrit means The whole world is our family)
shows the inherent tolerance of this faith. let us follow the example of the jews
and instead focus on our development.That will earn us respect worldwide.

I wont deny what Christianity might have done but at the same time remind you
(which you are well aware of) that ISLAM is the biggest curse to humanity with
no tolerance at all.

Christianity has evolved and still evolving.See majority Christians are not blind followers of the Church like the followers of Islam.

The west has finally understood what religious intolerance can threaten global
peace and those as mentioned by Mr ARYAVATT

"A group of Hindus who just wanted to worship God, are getting beaten by an Orthodox Cristian policeman in Russia.
Most of the European countries don’t even recognize Hinduism is a valid religion. The only existing temple in Uzbekistan was demolished by the authorities and we could do nothing except stand and watch."

are a tiny minority.there are many Hindu temples in west.how many churches
and temples are there in ARAB countries.

Like Majority of Hindus are ok with Christianity similarly majority of Christians
are ok with Hinduism.

i am defending neither Christianity nor Hinduism ,neither of which is a threat to the world.i am interested in defending the spread of Islam which is the biggest
threat to universal brotherhood.

Thanks for your information.But let us not forget we should all be united against Islam. United we stand divided we fall.

#37. PramodCosmopolitan ;

Submitted by A0000Z (not verified) on Sat, 07/11/2009 - 15:01.

#37. PramodCosmopolitan ; While saying ---

"" i am defending neither Christianity nor Hinduism ,neither of which is a threat to the world.i am interested in defending the spread of Islam which is the biggest
threat to universal brotherhood. ""

Sorry to disagree with you : Hinduism was /is never a threat to the world is a fact, but as far as vile Christianity is concerned , one can't say that. Never forget the fact that Islam has it's root in evil Christianity, the old testicles of Bible. Just read the history of 20th. century and the two world wars, both were caused by Christians like Hitler.

And the present day Islamic terrorism??? Most Islamic terrorists like Taliban and Alqeida were groomed by the mostly Christian Americans.Most violent killing Cults are the Christianity and the Islam only.

I suggest just leave those killing Cults alone and they will end-up killing each other.

[...] New research shows that

Submitted by 1- The Impact of Islam | Faith Freedom International (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 01:09.

[...] New research shows that it was Islam that destroyed the Classical Civilization and halted the progress of Europe for nearly 1000 years. [...]

PramodCosmopolitan, thank you

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 03:30.

PramodCosmopolitan, thank you for your magnificent post, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While I am a Darwinist, I defend Christianity only because of your "United we stand, divided we fall".

Let us concentrate on what kind of world we like to defend and develop in the 21st century and then what group of people does threaten that the most. We think it is Islam, with its current demographic boom, the intentions voiced in its holy texts and by current clerical leaders, and the behavior of some of its followers, on a global scale.

Hindus are welcome to resent Christians more than anyone else, they may condemn the violent past of Christianity and they would be justified in it, but that should not blind them from identifying the biggest threat, globally speaking. They should not just look at the evil Missionaries in India and a few Asian countries. In South Korea at least both most Buddhists and most Christians see the bigger evil and threat that is constituted by Kim-Jong-Il's Stalinist regime. Stalinists and Nazi's are much worse than Christians and Muslims, but it does not make sense to say they are an equal threat nowadays.

The Americans trained and financed those Taliban and Al Qaida, but by now they are bitterest enemies. It can be seen as an American strategy to fight their former bitterest enemies; the communists.

to Mr.Demsci Thank you.

Submitted by PramodCosmopolitan (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 07:47.

to Mr.Demsci

Thank you.

>>>>>Hindus are welcome to

Submitted by olderplato (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 12:37.

>>>>>Hindus are welcome to resent Christians more than anyone else, they may condemn the violent past of Christianity and they would be justified in it, but that should not blind them from identifying the biggest threat, globally speaking>>>>Demsci-(comment 40).

My dear Demsci, why do you think the Hindus dislike Christianity more than Islam? For the mere pleasure they derive of it? Consider this. Even now there does not pass a day in India before a Christian missionary tells a gullible innocent Indian to leave his fold to avoid the fate of his dear dead mother because as her Gods are devils, she is being burned eternally in hell with new skin grafted at regular intervals on her as and when her old skin turns to charcoal and becomes insensitive so that she is not deprived of the pleasure being burned by the will of a ‘loving’ god only because she did not know that some god dammed man born in the interior of some waste land in the desert was his son and for not having accepted him as her savior.

And think of it, it is done in the name of religious freedom and constitutional right, U.N Charter, human rights and what not in an age when superstition is not considered as a virtue as was the case in the past. Can you imagine a more rabid example of hate speech? And yet it is practiced in the name of love! Any one who raises his voice against it is damned as communalist not only in India but also abroad in the church controlled corporate media.

A fanatic Muslim may kill an innocent but he destroys only his body but the missionary makes two fanatic Christians out one when he converts an innocent and inject him with the spirit of Diocletians and Pat Robertsons of this world.

@ 38 Pramod Quote //But

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 12:58.

@ 38 Pramod

Quote //But shall we hate WEST for pope’s failure to apologize for the mentioned barbaric acts .?// unquote
Wagamama: The article-- Did Islam destroy classical civilization?-- portrayed as if Christian Europe learnt most of the diabolical acts post Islamic invasion. I pointed out from history that the Christians were equally vicious. Now, where did I say we should hate the west? We should rather look at the source for the cause of these atrocities so that such incidents are prevented in future. I proved that iconoclasm is due to the poisonous verses from the Old Testament-- the literature held in high esteem by the Christians and Musalmans. If someone disagrees with this, then they should provide the correct reasons.

Quote//Agree Hindus are being hated for being iconoclasts .But like the Jews Hindus should reply with its ancient wisdom and tolerance.//unquote
Wagamama: Hindus are NOT iconoclasts. Christians and Musalmans are iconoclasts. Yes, yoga, pranayama, ayurveda, meditation are being used extensively in the west. Would you mind googling "Christian yoga"-- you will come up with surprising results.

Quote //After the Holocaust the Jews have made tremendous progress winning one noble prize after other .They didn’t hate or despise west or Christianity.//
Wagamama: They need not depise west because west is free of Christian intolerance. In fact, you will be surprised to know that Muslims are trying to annhilate Jews through destruction. Christian groups are trying to convert many Jews in Israel. One group is blinded with hatred colored by their Prophet whereas the other group wants them to accept their son of God as the final messenger on earth.

Quote// similarly Hindus should make progress yet remain tolerant which is its uniqueness.//
Wagamama: You mean remain tolerant when one semitic group places bombs in public places and the other group uses tricks and force so that you give up your culture and religion overnight and accept another religion just for the heck of it?

Quote// Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (in Sanskrit means The whole world is our family) shows the inherent tolerance of this faith.//unquote
Wagamama: Vasudhaiva kutumbhakam applies to families with virtues. It doesn't mean to accept somone who enters your home, destroys your statues, and takes your women as concubines while you stand up and repeat "shanti shanti shanti" (peace peace peace). What you preach is not Hinduism as per Gita.

Quote//let us follow the example of the jews and instead focus on our development.That will earn us respect worldwide.//unquote
Wagamama: Are Jews keeping quiet when Palestinians fire rockets into their cities? Are they keeping quiet when Palestenians kidnap their soldiers? If they were to keep quiet the whole of Israel will be in rubbles in no time. If someone slaps you for no reasons, you SHOULD NOT offer your other cheek. That is cowardice. Get up and slap him twice! After protecting your territory, culture, religion etc you can engage yourself in development.

Olderplato; Like I said, go

Submitted by Demsci (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 13:02.

Olderplato;
Like I said, go on dislike Christians, or Missionaries, more than anyone else. You seem to have good reasons for it. I myself view organised crime as the biggest evil, I consider them and Nazi's and Kim-Jong-Il's Stalinists as much worse than Muslims, many of whom I personally like. It is only in the scale of danger that we need to disagree.

The missionary you described, is a predator, who also arguably is protected by a biased press. My great hope it is that the gullible innocent Indians get ever better educated, in the tenets of all religions too. And then are able to make informed choices, rejecting this utter nonsense a missionary tells him. And letting their opinions know through a more balanced press. (Predators lying to gullibles is also arguably not the same as converting by sheer force, accompanied by forcefully silencing all opponents).

So let us all promote good education, rational thinking, honest information, political interest. Let us have patience, insuring that we have ever more, ever better democracies. India does have a democracy, it is Islam in our view, that threatens and blockades democracy. At least a part of its followers do. The Christians of the whole world, by and large, are firmly democratic.

With much respect to India, Hindus, your views and feelings.

Raisin Head, holy bible

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 13:14.

Raisin Head, holy bible preaches that earth has four corners and foundations (Isaiah 11:12 ; Revelation 7:1 Job 38:13; Psalm (104:5)). Are you sure earth has four corners and is firmly fixed?

Ecclesiastes 1:5- The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

EQUIVALENT TO

Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Number 297: It is narrated on the authority of Abu Dharr that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) one day said: Do you know where the sun goes? They replied: Allah and His Apostle know best. He (the Holy Prophet) observed: Verily it (the sun) glides till it reaches its resting place under the Throne. Then it falls prostrate and remains there until it is asked: Rise up and go to the place whence you came from..... Bingo

#45 No! Mo tried to copy

Submitted by Raisin Head (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 16:00.

#45 No! Mo tried to copy from the Jews and Christians, thus he made up and plaguarized much of the Quran. The Bible said the earth is a circle Isa 4:22. The earth moves around the sun. Four corners means North, South, East and West. Everything has that, even you.
No Bingo because Mo copied and replaced and removed al he didnt want. Satan guided Muhammad. Jews said the earth was a circle many centuries before Mo was born. The 7-8th century (BCE) before Mo was conceived. The sun shines and on earth we see it going down when we go down and around.

# 46 Hey, raisin head, why

Submitted by Moooo (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 19:02.

# 46 Hey, raisin head, why did you call my name (Mo) ?? HHmmm, mo just a barbarian who didn't know about sun, earth or moon. But the bible isn't clear either when it mentioned about that sky objects. So, it was the knowledge of ancient people that the author used. Is there any strict and simple sentence (no acrobatic words - this is not olympic) that mention earth is round or rotate around the sun (in bible or quran) ?

@46 Raisin Head Quote//Mo

Submitted by wagamama (not verified) on Mon, 07/13/2009 - 05:56.

@46 Raisin Head

Quote//Mo tried to copy from the Jews and Christians, thus he made up and plaguarized much of the Quran.//unquote
waga: My love, I too have been saying that Mo had been married to Jewish and Christian scriptures.

Quote//The Bible said the earth is a circle Isa 4:22.//unquote
waga: Isa 40:22 "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in"

The author of the Bible definitely refers to the dome (circular shape) you see up in the sky from the earth-- ie earth has a circle above it where God sits and NOT on the earth as you think. This is pontificated by all the other verses in the Bible "four corners, spread out etc".

Quote//The earth moves around the sun.//unquote
waga: Says which verse in the Bible? Pray quote that verse for me

Quote// Four corners means North, South, East and West. Everything has that, even you.// unquote
waga: It is "four directions" and not "four corners".

Quote//Jews said the earth was a circle many centuries before Mo was born.//
waga: Madam, please quote from a relevant source.

Quote// The 7-8th century (BCE) before Mo was conceived. The sun shines and on earth we see it going down when we go down and around.//unquote

waga: In 1633 AD, Galileo is subjected to life imprisonment for stating that earth revolves around sun. Basically Galileo revolted against God’s words in Bible.

THIS IS BECAUSE GOD SAID IN HIS HOLY BOOK "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises." (Ecclesiastes 1:5)

It really serves no purpose

Submitted by proudkafir (not verified) on Mon, 07/13/2009 - 08:40.

It really serves no purpose arguing with spherical idiots, who think a cricular or spherical object has corners and north, south, east and west are corners of the earth! Biblically and islamically induced stupidities are beyond redumption.
I wonder what would a slightly more intelligent person would think of these people with idiotic concepts.Sphere has a corner and when it says clearly in bible Bat is bird and also the earth has 4 corners, These are all the Inerrant, true, infallible messages of god! God please save them from your concepts!

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