Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 6

[Husky]

^ The manner of writing didn't seem like GSub to me. And so here's the link for the above material:

worldnews.hometips4u.com/scott-atran-understanding-how-the-privileged-become-violent-fanatics

Scott Atran: Understanding How the Privileged Become Violent Fanatics





1. www.huffingtonpost.com/clay-naff/bible-vs-quran-the-evolut_b_511080.html

Clay Farris Naff

Science Writer, Editor, Broadcaster, and Blogger

Posted: March 24, 2010 02:12 PM

BIO



Bible Vs. Quran: The Evolution Of Violence In Religion



Barbara Bradley Hagerty, National Public Radio's religion correspondent, ruffled some feathers last week when she posed this question: is the Bible more violent than the Quran?



Religion scholar Phillip Jenkins was on hand to answer that question. No contest, he argues in his new book Jesus Wars. Whereas the violence prescribed in the Quran is mostly defensive [color="#800080"](<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' /> If it isn't jeebus/christian apologetics, it is islamic apologetics - can't one ever be spared both?)[/color], Jenkins says, the Bible is packed with genocidal commands from God. That drew a sputtering response of incredulity from Andrew Bostom, a self-taught scholar of Islam whose writings are most about the malevolence of jihad. "This is just preposterous!" he exclaimed in the same broadcast.



Since most Americans have at most read selected passages of the Bible, I expect they will agree with Bostom. But here are some hard truths: Christianity and Islam are the world's dominant religions because they have used every possible tactic, including large-scale violence and intimidation, to get that way. There are no clean hands in this quarrel.



[color="#800080"]<Snipped apologetics of the type "All religions are evil.">[/color]



To be sure, there are suras in the Quran than can be read as highly aggressive. Take this choice morsel: "Then, when the sacred months have passed -- that is, [at] the end of the period of deferment -- slay the idolaters wherever you find them, be it during a lawful [period] or a sacred [one], and take them captive, and confine them, to castles and forts, until they have no choice except [being put to] death or [acceptance of] Islam; and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush, [at every] route that they use ..." Of course, the passage ends with an offer of mercy if they convert to Islam, but still ...



And yet, consider: Muslims believe the Quran to have been dictated, word by word, by Allah -- that is, God. Taken literally, the above sura amounts to a command to go out and kill or convert nonbelievers every year. How many Muslims actually do that? Not even one in ten thousand, I daresay.

[color="#800080"](Why do these people forget to look at islamania's history to work out "how many muslims do that". Before islamania had conquered ME and Asian lands, that and other Koranic verses/commandments of islam's allah are *exactly* what the faithful muslims of the past carried out, as the faithful today do as well. Eventually they had amassed enough lands and therefore now appear more "settled down" - well, only when compared to those earlier days of continuous invasion and mass-genocide - into a Jihad-When-Necessary/Jihad-When-Ready state.

Besides, islam needs demographics for jihad, so a random headcount of jihadists among the world's ummah is not representative for any kind of meaningful consideration. A better impression is gained by looking in the countries affected by islamism. Dar-ul-islams export jihad. Whereas in those Dar-ul-harbs where islam has reached the necessary percentages, the populations experience jihad. The more favourable the demographics are to islamism, the more continuous the jihad experience.

So one can rather consider the way islam=terrorism makes its presence felt in those places, to get something more representative of what islamism actually is in practice: a reflection of the Koran.)[/color]



Only a minority of Muslims even laud the few who do practice jihadi violence [color="#800080"](and yet, as per news, IIRC entire schools in the Netherlands - islamic schools, from memory - applauded the attack on the WTC)[/color], characterized by the suicide bombing. A 2007 poll of tens of thousands of Muslims in various Middle Eastern countries found support for violent extremism falling even among Palestinians. None of this is meant to dismiss the threat posed by Muslim extremism, which remains all too stark, nor to discount the humdrum violence and oppression that characterize all too much of the Islamic world. Nor do I mean to overlook the violence of Christian extremists such as Scott Roeder, who murdered Dr. Till in church last year.

[color="#800080"](Muslim "extremism" IS islam. It is the non-extremists among muslims that are not following their religion. Islamic extremism is what the koran extols.)[/color]



On the contrary, both Christianity and Islam owe their global success not so much to the magic words in their scriptures as to their effectiveness in practicing forced conversions. [color="#800080"](The practice of which derived from those same "magic words in their scriptures". See said scriptures.)[/color] Oh, yes, we all know about the growth of the Islamic Empire, whose berobed foot-soldiers held a scimitar in one hand and the Quran in the other. But pull that beam out of your eye, dear Christian reader, and remember the Celts, the West Africans, the Indians of the Plains, the Hawaiians, and countless other peoples whose religions and languages were violently suppressed that they might know salvation through "our Lord Jesus Christ."



There are no clean hands in this quarrel.

[color="#800080"](He is speaking of the quarrel within christoislamania. I.e. between christianism and islam.)[/color]



Follow Clay Farris Naff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/claynaff

Instead of excusing islam as not being terrorist/jihadi at core (which it is, see Koran), he can just have said "christianism=islam" and stopped there. That, at least, would have been a point the free/unconverted world wouldn't feel any need to dispute him on.





2. The final line in the following by Dawkins is funny:

newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2010/04/everybody_should_be_disinvited.html

British evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins

Former Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford; author of "The God Delusion" and "The Greatest Show on Earth."

[color="#800080"](People here might instead be familiar with him from his book "The Selfish Gene".)[/color]



Everybody should be disinvited



Q: Did the Pentagon do the right thing by disinviting evangelist Franklin Graham from a National Day of Prayer event next week? Should government officials decide who can or cannot speak at such an event? Should the government proclaim a National Day of Prayer? Was a federal judge right to rule it unconstitutional?

[color="#800080"](Jeebus-fan Frank Graham said something factual about islam - he hypocritically forgot to include his own christianism - and was referred to the door.)[/color]



The very idea of a National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, and this has been confirmed by Judge Crabb's landmark ruling in the case brought by the Freedom from Religion Foundation on April 15. Therefore not only should Franklin Graham be disinvited, so should everybody else. Unfortunately, Mr Graham was in fact disinvited for uttering what may well be [color="#0000FF"]the only sensible thing he ever said[/color], namely that Islam is "a very evil and wicked religion."

[color="#800080"](Can't disagree with that excerpted statement by Graham. But one wants the whole truth please. As it stands, the sentence is incomplete: it should end "and so is christianism. They're the same religion, or rather, ideology.")[/color]

3. www.ffrf.org/publications/freethought-today/articles/The-Christianization-of-the-Military/

The Christianization of the (US) Military (2006/2007)

I do a lot of speaking around the country and was really happy I could be here today. This is the kickoff of the book tour. I know there are a lot of people in the Pentagon who are cringing about my book, With God on Our Side, being released, and I hope they keep cringing for a long time.

Etc.

"Sadly":

www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10642108&ref=rss

US kids too fat to fight (2010)

Rising rates of obesity among young Americans could pose a risk to the future of the military, two retired generals are warning.

[...]

They say more than a quarter of American youth are now too fat to fight and that weight is ruling out more potential recruits than any other medical factor.