Several on here are....probably due to misguided minority defending principles...are very quiet over criticizing this religion...but I for one can hardly be accused of being soft on the Islamic faith....The only good spin I can put on it is that most Muslims aren't interested in trouble making....But that doesn't mean that all their views are acceptable, that its influence isn't felt or that they will allow their religion to be altered in any way.

The big difference is in how seriously Muslims are told to take their texts....Not for them the 'inspired by God' of the other Abrahamic faiths. They are taught that the Qu'ran are the perfect and unchanging words from God and that old Mo was the perfect man.

Death or jail and nearly always career punishment and social exclusion for apostates...and lord above don't be an atheist or agnostic.

No other religions are allowed to be preached or expand in Islamic lands..They are banned from schools yet the Qu'ran will be taught..So in most lands where Islam is the majority all other religions are effectively silenced....This is why the percentage of Muslims in some lands is in the nineties.

Prosecution of homosexuals......apparently not such a big deal for our culturally relativistic friends....Not much from them even when the thud of them hitting the pavement from rooftops is available to watch on YouTube...But God forbid a Christian bakery turn away a pro gay marriage cake.

The treatment of women.....they are treated very differently within the eyes of the religion. Some women love it but others view it as oppressive and restrictive.....But if you are born a Muslim you have little choice in many families.

Prosecution of critics......Hell you can't even draw cartoons involving this religion due to the number of nutters within it and how seriously their take their version of the texts. The more public and well known the criticism the more dangerous it is.

Prosecution of reformers...similar to critics....The vast majority of these only exist in the west of course...and even these are under serious threat...Probably the most damning aspect of the ideological left in the west is their complete and disgraceful lack of support for this group. These extremely brave people risk their lives to reform their religion to more western values and they receive death threats and indeed are murdered....Plenty of them have security details traveling with them.

Yet all you hear is how Islam is prosecuted. Down is up with these people...until they are personally affected of course.

All religions are bad ideas but Islam is the most damaging one out there.

Not all religions are equally harmful.

Edited by Stirlingsays (12 Apr 2017 3.09pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Calling them 'mindless' is mindless really. They think about these things and choose to believe in them, just as communists and fascists do with their 'religions'. Many people also believe that the universe just sprang into being of its own accord. People believe in all sorts of stuff.

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]

I know more about it than probably anyone on this board, not only am I a Christian I have read dozens of books about it, by Christian commentators and secular historians. Have you?

I know all about Constantine's part in the spread of Christianity thank you.

If some secular people realised that not all religious people are uniformed there'd be a lot less judgemental people in the world.

Irony anyone?

My point remains, to infer than Christianity is a derivative of Catholicism isn't even a debate, or a matter of opinion.

Jesus came, Christianity was born, Catholicism came several centuries afterwards.

My username has nothing to do with my religious beliefs

The Easter Bunny?

My username has nothing to do with my religious beliefs

No, but the defining factor of Christianity in Europe outside of the Orthodoxy, is established on the basis of Catholicism - including the modern bible we all have at sometime read - Is really based on that established around 320AD by the Council of Nicea, which was already heavily under influenced by the militancy that was the Catholics. Increasingly, they came to dominate the early church, resulting in the schism - and ruthlessly pursued the gnostic sects into a relative extinction.

Protestantism, is historical a reaction to Catholicism that survived. Most of the other faiths, such as the Cathars were purged with fire and torture, or confined to the middle east, and eastern Europe.

Modern Evangelism is really an off shoot of Protestantism, with its basis in the assorted different protestant faiths, and the revivalist movements of the 18th and 19th century. But these have their basis very much in a reaction to the Catholic church, and then later Protestantism.

Many of the Evangelicals seem to me, to be similar to the Protestant reformation, rather than the 'pre-Christian' Gnostic sects - and use the same book, first edited and controlled by the Catholics and then the Protestants.

But if you look, there are a lot of materials from non-Catholic influence out there (the Nag Hamandi scrolls for example are probably the most reliable historical collection - having been buried for nearly 2000 years). The truth is historically, there are far far more than four Gospels, and some are historically reliable than those in the bible.

But few of the Evangelical movements I've come across are really much more than variations on the theme of dogmatic Christianity, based on the 'accepted bible' - They bare little or no resemblance to the Gnostic and pre-Christ Christian faiths (yeah that is also a thing, there were proto-Christian faiths). Those movements were expunged and very effectively suppressed by the Catholic church, and then the Protestants.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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