Islam is not bad, too many of you are ignorant of history.

[ProdigyBam]

superchunk said:

Joelcool7 said:

Who are you kidding using the Crusades. The whole reason the Crusades happened was because Muslim armies conquered it from Christians in 1076. Muslims were threatening to capture Constantinople. Christians were being massacred and persecuted by the Muslim over lords who had taken over Israel and Jerusalem.

When the Muslims moved towards Constantinople in 1097 over 10,000 Christians mounted in Constantinople to take back the holy land from the oppressive Muslim's. The first Crusade managed to recapture Israel in 1099. The Crusaders butchered everyone within the walls, pretty much. However during that time period the Muslim armies did similiar acts of genocide against the Christians.

During the four crusades horrible acts of genocide and war crimes were commited by the Muslims and the Christian's alike. Muslims killed and persecuted thousands of Christians if not millions, this was the reason the Crusades happened to begin with. If Muslim armies hadn't taken over Jerusalem in the first place none of the crusades would have occured.

It was Islamist oppression that sparked the Crusades. Though I agree the Crusaders did horrible things the Muslims weren't much better.

Also during the second Crusade Muslims were allowed to visit Jerusalem and worship in their mosques. Saladin also took all those who couldn't afford a ransom into slavery when he took Jerusalem.

In the end Christianity matured. Islam did not. The Bible (New Testiment) preaches peace and love with all non-believers where as the Qur'an tells Muslims to kill infidel. Their is a drastic difference between the two faiths. Today Muslim countries force Christian's to convert or be killed and kill any Muslim's who convert to Christianity.

Islam is stuck in the dark ages (In the Middle East), the rest of the world has matured. Islam as a religion is extremely oppressive. I love my Muslim brothers but what the Muslim Governments are doing in the middle east and north africa is unnacceptable.

1. I mentioned Crusades as one small part of an overall topic.

2. While the first Crusade was a military defensive initiation, the others were not.

3. The Holy Land had already, peacefully, been under Muslim control for over 300 years by the time of the firts Crusade  and during all that time, and all the time after, Muslims freely allowed Jews and Christians to worship at their respective sites. However, during the Christian ruled times the Jews and Muslims were allowed no such freedoms and in fact the Dome of the Rock and entire Temple area were used as a trash heap and horse stable.

4. The Christian bible in has numerous war related verses about defeating your enemies. While primarily existing in the OT, it also exists in other parts. Principally, you have to realize the time frame it was written, Christians were a small minority under duress from Jews and Roman power and/or it was stories about Jesus, a single Jew whose purpose was to redirect Jews. Not start a revolution and new religion.

5. EVERY verse in the Qur'an about fighting others is:
 A) not referring to jews/christians as they are considered beleivers and/or people of the book, not infidels.
 B) always prefaced by talk about existing wars (at the time of the writing) and conflicts with other polytheist Arabs
 C) always followed by talk about reconcilation, push to get peace, accepting peace, treaties, etc and that the aggressor in a war is not liked by God.

6. Yes Christianity has changed and matured into a religion far closer to its actual teaching, while Islam is definately not there. But, that is the point of my thread. To demonstrate that this is not new to any religion and its not the basis of Islam. People of all faiths, espeially nonMuslims, need to quit reiterating and trying to prove that Islam is evil and violent, but instead need to focus on the real message Islam was and is defined as in the Qur'an.

In other words, by trying to continuously prove and show Islam as violent and evil, you are only supporting the cause of the extremists. But, by focusing on what the Qur'an actually says in total and the history of Islamic culture before the 1800's, you can then start a process where modern Muslim societies will realize that they are not following Islam.

Finally, Islam is not stuck in the Dark Ages, because that implies Islam acted like this during those centuries, when in fact it did not. The Dark Ages left Christianity and centuries later developed in the Islamic world. However, just as Muslim controlled Spain helped ignited the philosophies and ideologies that pushed the beginnings of the Renassance, Christian controlled western world should help ignite the modern philosphies of democracy, peace, freedoms that had already existed in Islamic cultures for centuries before.

I would LOVE to to respond to your other things, but my i guess my english isnt good enough for something complicated like that (do you speak german perhaps? ^^), so i will just say something about the bolded part. (5)

Christians and Jews are clearly no believers just because they are called the people of the book (why the fuck shoud a believer pay the jiza anyway, when a muslims doenst have to)

Whatever, verse 5:17 and 4:44-59 among others show clearly that christians and jews are "kuffar" or in english language infidels according to the quran.