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Which Religion is more "pushy?" Christianity or Islam?

Which Religion is more "pushy?" Christianity or Islam?

  • Total voters
    65
How is this question even serious? Islam. Without a doubt.
No intellegent person could think otherwise, given modern history...
 
but many intelligent people do. not, i think, because they truly believe it... but because they want to believe it.
 
I think the best way to answer questions such as these would be to quantify the beliefs in some way. What percentage of Muslims, for instance, would punish apostasy by death vrs. the percentage of Christians holding the same views. You want pushy? It doesn't get any pushier than that.

People have a habit of comparing two things that are not the same in such a way as to try to portray them as the same. The inevitable moral equivalencies they create are necessarily crafted in specious ways BECAUSE the two things they are comparing are not the same. If one group wants people join them so much that they snub those who leave their group, while another group wants to kill them for the same reason, the differences are in degree. Killing people is a much more strident approach than snubbing. If a large percentage of one group wants to kill them and a tiny percentage of another group wants to kill them, the difference is in terms of prevalence. In both cases, the parallels drawn are dishonest in nature if they are being portrayed as equatable.
 
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cpwill said:
but many intelligent people do. not, i think, because they truly believe it... but because they want to believe it.
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Ok then... Intelligent PlUS grounded in reality. ;)
 
Le Marteau said:
Oh, please, come up with something better than that. If you want examples of how bad religious extremists CAN be, I'll match you on both sides. How's Jim Jones and his cult doing, then?

The point is, there are extremists from both beliefs, but the governments of our respective nations aren't bowing down to those extremists, and they never will.
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Do you suppose 9/11 was less pushy than Jim Jones's cult?
 
Dutch said:
"Did" is past tense. Looking at the present world and the rise in attacks in christians worldwide by muslims would seem to indicate there is very little to debate if we only consider the present.
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What I sincerely wonder is why this point continuously goes unnoticed.
 
it's inconvenient.
 
Guy Incognito said:
Yeah, a few Muslim bandits really justified the Crusades :roll: The fact is, there had been so serious Muslim threat to Western Europe since the Battle of Tours in 732.

Why, oh why, would anyone be an apologist for the Crusades? You realize that's what you're doing, right? Think that over.

The Crusades were a series of wars of aggression that were directly motivated by the Christian religion. You want to defend that?
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I am constantly amazed at how anti-Christians continually misrepresent historical events such as The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition...
 
Well let's accept the fact that both have been mandated to spread the word of God.

In history Christianity has been full of missionary work. But it was Islam that exploded out of the Arabian peninsula into the northern Balkans, east towards Afghanistan, and across northern Africa into Spain toppling empires along the way. During the Crusades, Christians went back into lost lands and fought with Muslims over what used to be Byzantine. After Christians lost the Crusades (and so did Arabs), the Ottoman Turks carried Islam into Europe as far north as Poland and on the door step of France. In fact, Prince Vlad III the Impaler (famous for inspiring the Dracula story for all you simpletons) is one character in history famous for fighting against the expansion of Islam into his territoriy. After a thousand years and a couple defeats at Vienna with the help of Poles, the Christian world finally managed to fight back the Islamic spread in what would become to be known as "Western Imperialism" thereby implying that the Muslim world are mere hapless victims. But the truth is that they are vgictims of their own aggressive culture and determination to conquer in the name of religion.

Today, the Crescent and the Cross is no longer a featured source of friction. There is only the Crescent and the Western world. Islam continues to be "pushy."
 
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ludahai said:
I am constantly amazed at how anti-Christians continually misrepresent historical events such as The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition...
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You could not be more incorrect in your implication that I am anti-Christian. I could not be more in favor of the Church. And it is in line with the Church's mission to repent for its own sins. The Crusades were a war of aggression, no bones about it, and would certainly be considered a war crime today. The Church has committed all manner of atrocities. To acknowledge it and make the Church account for it is hardly anti-Christian, it is healthy and necessary for the Church to account for its transgressions. Indeed, I would argue that to sweep it under the rug and be an apologist for the Church's bad behavior, as you are doing, is truly anti-Christian, because it is against the spirit of Christ's message of penitence and humility.
 
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Goshin said:
Historically? The Crusades and Inquisition are often mentioned, but less commonly spoken of is the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim invasion of Eastern Europe, the Moors invasion of Spain.

Modern Christianity does not expand by the sword, or execute "heretics".

Modern Islam does.

/thread
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How is modern Islam spreading with war? If you mean terrorists, I highly doubt the terrorists are attracting people to the religion... it's have the reverse effect
 
SheWolf said:
How is modern Islam spreading with war? If you mean terrorists, I highly doubt the terrorists are attracting people to the religion... it's have the reverse effect
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Nigeria and Thailand are examples.
 
I didn't take this poll seriously so I voted for Christianity, just because Muslims don't go house to house in my neighborhood trying to convert people. I do have a Jewish friend, and some church is always trying to get her to go to their church and convert. It's kind of disrespectful if you ask me....

I was recently having a conversation with a man about directions and the local area. I was trying to help and be friendly, and then a man in his party approached me... shook my hand and said, "Can I ask you a question?" And I said yes, and he asked me if I were a Christian... :shock:

I just said I believed in god, because I didn't want any awkwardness... and that was all he wanted to know.
 
Your Star said:
Depends on what area you live in, depends on what time period your talking about. There are alot of variables
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This is probably the best response in the thread...
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
Nigeria and Thailand are examples.
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What are you saying exactly? That Muslims are supporting wars inside those countries to spread Islam, or that terrorist acts are causing people to convert from Christianity to Islam in those countries?
 
Draco said:
Do you suppose 9/11 was less pushy than Jim Jones's cult?
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You think 9/11 was more tragic than the Jim Jones massacre... well, ok. If you want to think that you can, I can't debate that. I wasn't alive when the Jonestown Massacre occurred but I have watched documentaries on in it, and it's one of the most upsetting programs I have ever seen on TV. It was tragic in a different way than 9/11... but it was definitely tragic.

But we aren't talking about which one is more tragic, we are talking about which one is more pushy...

Jones was abusive. He raped some of his followers, and physically abused them to make an example out of. Thinking for yourself or questioning him was reason enough to be abused. He ran Jonestown with fear and with lies. He didn't let people leave, and held them captive with heavily armed guards.... He finally snapped and forced his followers to drink poisoned kool aide at gun point, and kill their children.

The terrorists on 9/11 hijacked planes and slammed into buildings... They lied to people on the planes and told them there were bombs.. People died, but they were not "pushed" to take their own lives. The terrorists didn't try to "push" the victims to think like a group or believe anything.

... so depending on how you want to look at it, I'd say it's fine to think Jones was pushier. However, defining these things as simply "pushy" is an understatement and always was. That's why I didn't take this thread very seriously from the beginning.
 
Guy Incognito said:
You could not be more incorrect in your implication that I am anti-Christian. I could not be more in favor of the Church. And it is in line with the Church's mission to repent for its own sins. The Crusades were a war of aggression, no bones about it, and would certainly be considered a war crime today. The Church has committed all manner of atrocities. To acknowledge it and make the Church account for it is hardly anti-Christian, it is healthy and necessary for the Church to account for its transgressions. Indeed, I would argue that to sweep it under the rug and be an apologist for the Church's bad behavior, as you are doing, is truly anti-Christian, because it is against the spirit of Christ's message of penitence and humility.
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The Crusades were not a series of wars of aggression, they were a RESPONSE to centuries of Islamic aggression. You DO know that the areas that Islam conquered in the 7th century were largely CHRISTIAN at the time of Conquest and were part of the Roman Empire, and had been for CENTURIES. You ARE aware of this, right? I presume you are also aware of the fact that in the late 11th century, the Great Seljuk Empire was marching through Asia Minor and threatening the capital of the Roman Empire, namely Constantinople? I presume you know these things.

Is the Church perfect? Of course not. Humans are ALL fallable. However, at the same time, let's try to be somewhat objective about the matter at hand and look at HISTORY, not at anti-Catholic revisionism common in the English language.
 
ludahai said:
The Crusades were not a series of wars of aggression, they were a RESPONSE to centuries of Islamic aggression. You DO know that the areas that Islam conquered in the 7th century were largely CHRISTIAN at the time of Conquest and were part of the Roman Empire, and had been for CENTURIES. You ARE aware of this, right? I presume you are also aware of the fact that in the late 11th century, the Great Seljuk Empire was marching through Asia Minor and threatening the capital of the Roman Empire, namely Constantinople? I presume you know these things.

Is the Church perfect? Of course not. Humans are ALL fallable. However, at the same time, let's try to be somewhat objective about the matter at hand and look at HISTORY, not at anti-Catholic revisionism common in the English language.
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Christianity is older than Islam... so Christianity was aggressive before Islam was
 
Christians want to convert you and Muslims want to kill you... Christianity is more pushy... Islam is more destructive.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Christians want to convert you and Muslims want to kill you... Christianity is more pushy... Islam is more destructive.
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You're leaving out one very important aspect here. Muslims also want to convert you, plan B is they kill you if you won't convert. You could argue that Christians espoused this same approach 500 years ago....but times have changed....unfortunately radical Muslim doctrine has not. Therein lies the difference.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Stay on topic please...
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On the topic of murderous Muslims? LOL...

Christians want to convert you and Muslims want to kill you... Christianity is more pushy... Islam is more destructive.
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How many Muslims have you met? How many wanted to kill you?
 
ludahai said:
Please go and learn a little bit of history before commenting on historical threads.
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I was actually messing around because I knew somebody would take it seriously and get offended... but your response is funny, because I said nothing incorrect.

As for history...

Christianity is older, and it was aggressively spread... Have you ever heard of the Inquisition?

Inquisition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Did you know Pope Urban II of the Catholic Church lead the first crusade, and it's known and accepted that the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church waged the crusades, not the Muslims?

Pope Urban II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't think I said anything historically incorrect...
 
ludahai said:
The Crusades were not a series of wars of aggression, they were a RESPONSE to centuries of Islamic aggression. You DO know that the areas that Islam conquered in the 7th century were largely CHRISTIAN at the time of Conquest and were part of the Roman Empire, and had been for CENTURIES. You ARE aware of this, right? I presume you are also aware of the fact that in the late 11th century, the Great Seljuk Empire was marching through Asia Minor and threatening the capital of the Roman Empire, namely Constantinople? I presume you know these things.

Is the Church perfect? Of course not. Humans are ALL fallable. However, at the same time, let's try to be somewhat objective about the matter at hand and look at HISTORY, not at anti-Catholic revisionism common in the English language.
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How can you argue that any war is not aggressive?

Non Aggressive War = Oxymoron

About the Crusades and their legacy of hatred:

The mid 7th century to the mid 10th century CE saw the gradual expansion of Islam. Half of the Christian world was conquered by Arab armies; this included countries in which Christianity had been established for centuries, such as Egypt, southern France, southern Italy, Sicily, Spain, Syria, Turkey, etc. 4

By the late 10th century, Europe and the Middle East were divided into Christian and Muslim spheres of influence. Christian pilgrims from Europe regularly visited Muslim-controlled Jerusalem in reasonable safety. Such pilgrimages were very popular. The were believed to be one of the major acts by which a person could reduce their exposure to the tortures of purgatory after their death.

By the middle of the 11th century, Christianity had formally split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire: The Emperor/Bishop of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome had mutually excommunicated each other. In 1071, the Turks defeated the latter at the Battle of Manzikert. This left Constantinople exposed to attack from Muslims. Meanwhile, Christians were being ambushed during their pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

Emperor Alexius asked Pope Urban II for assistance. On 1095-NOV-27, the Pope called on Europeans to go on a crusade to liberate Jerusalem from its Muslim rulers. "The first and second wave of Crusaders murdered, raped and plundered their way up the Rhine and down the Danube as they headed for Jerusalem." 1 The "army" was primarily composed of untrained peasants with their families, with a core of trained soldiers. On the way to the Middle East, they decided that only one of their goals was to wrest control of Jerusalem from the Muslims. A secondary task was to rid the world of as many non-Christians as possible - both Muslims and Jews. The Crusaders gave the Jews two choices in their slogan: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!" 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed as the first Crusade passed through. Some Jewish writers refer to these events as the "first holocaust." Once the army reached Jerusalem and broke through the city walls, they slaughtered all the inhabitants that they could find (men, women, children, newborns). After locating about 6,000 Jews holed up in the synagogue, they set the building on fire; the Jews were burned alive. The Crusaders found that about 30,000 Muslims had fled to the al Aqsa Mosque. The Muslim were also slaughtered without mercy.

The Roman Catholic church taught that going to war against the "Infidels" was an act of Christian penance. If a believer was killed during a crusade, he would bypass purgatory, and be taken directly to heaven. By eliminating what might be many millennia of torture in Purgatory, many Christians were strongly motivated to volunteer for the crusades. "After pronouncing a solemn vow, each warrior received a cross from the hands of the pope or his legates, and was thenceforth considered a soldier of the Church." 3

These mass killings were repeated during each of the 8 additional crusades until the final, 9th, crusade in 1272 CE. Both Christians and Muslims believed that they were fighting on God's side against Satan; they believed that if they died on the battlefield they would be given preferential treatment in the Christian Heaven or the Muslim Paradise. Battles were fought with a terrible fierceness and a massive loss of life. Over a 200 year period, perhaps 200,000 people were killed. The Muslim warrior Salah a-Din subsequently recaptured Jerusalem from the Christians.

By the end of the crusades, most European Christians believed the unfounded blood-libel myths -- the rumor that Jews engaged in human sacrifice of Christian children. A long series of Christian persecutions of the Jews continued in Europe and Russia into the 20th century. They laid the foundation for the Nazi Holocaust.

The result of centuries of conflict among followers of the three main Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) was a "deep mutual hatred" and mistrust among the three faiths. Memories of these genocides still influence relationships among Jews, Christians and Muslims to the present time.

Among many Jews and Muslims, the term crusade evokes visions of genocide, mass murder, and mass extermination of innocent people. However, among many Christians it has become a positive term, frequently used to refer to mass rallies and campaigns to win converts - as in the Billy Graham Crusades.
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Christian apology for the Crusades

Professor Israel Jacob Yuval of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published an article in 1993 that argues that blood libel may have originated in the 12th century from Christian views of Jewish behavior during the First Crusade. Some Jews committed suicide and killed their own children rather than be subjected to forced conversions. Yuval investigated Christian reports of these events and found that they were greatly distorted with claims that if Jews could kill their own children they could also kill Christian children. Yuval rejects the blood libel story as a fantasy of some Christians which could not contain any elements of truth because of the precarious nature of the Jewish minority's existence in Christian Europe.
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Blood libel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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