Quote:
Originally posted by johnny:
quote:
originally posted by True_Moose
Violence is rooted in human nature. For a holy book to ignore it is to deny a facet of human existance, and since holy books are meant to explain, such an omission would be extremely harmful to the proliferation of said religion.
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Not ignoring i can relate to, but preach things like "go out there and kill all non believers" is a little extreme, don't you think ? [/QUOTE]I agree with you on that point, johnny. However, is it really that different from the Bible, which states (I believe, and I'm not sure how exactly it is worded, and I know there are different interpretations), that if you don't believe in (Christian) God, you will go to hell?
Jihad, originally was as a defensive exercise. Jihad, in the Koran ( [img]graemlins/offtopic.gif[/img] How exactly
do you spell it?) was meant as a form of faith self-defense: the heathens being referred to are those trying to remove the system of belief of Muslims. I am unsure of what particular parts of the Koran (I am not exactly a religious scholar) you are quoting, but I know that there is a large section that deals with the (self-defense, not flying airplanes into buildings) Jihad.
I believe that the martyrs of which are spoken in the Koran are those who choose to die
for their religion, and the ones who go to a lesser heaven are the ones who don't have the guts to fight for their religion. They are expressly forbidden from killing innocents, IIRC.
I also am forced to wonder whether there is simply a culture gap between Muslims and Christians. For example, some parts of the Bible are considered folklore. There are few people who will take the Bible literally word-for-word (and I mean no offense for any who do, just saying.) Could there possibly be a misunderstanding? I agree that the language seems strong, and I could be wrong (no offense, but I haven't seen
any of the quotes in greater context (obviously)), but I think we both have a long ways to go in the sense of comprehending each others' different cultures.