Christian Violence as Compared to That Committed by Islam, Isis, Or Muslims.

1.     If you refine heroin (which has many MEDICAL advantages and uses) for a living, but you have a moral objection to liquor, you may be a Muslim. Or, if you have connections in Mexico but also manufacture “designer” drugs which have no other use than to poison the users—who just happen to be mostly children, you are undoubtedly Christian—likely North American but perhaps Hispanic..

2.     If you own a $3,000 machine gun and a $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes, you may be a Muslim. Or you may be a Christian, senior citizen,  formerly a Military collector, and formerly living in the United States of the Americas, but, also a Canadian and now living in Canada.

3.     If you have more wives than teeth, you may be a Muslim. Or, you may be a member of the Seventh day Adventist/Mormon/Christian faith

4.      If you have nothing against women and think every man should own at least four, you may be a Muslim. Or, if you believe they should all be your wives and under the age of twelve, you may be a Christian living in Bountiful British Columbia Canada.

5.     If you wipe your butt with your bare hand but consider bacon unclean, you may be a Muslim. Or, you may be a Christian, senior citizen, living in North America-- who keeps up with the news about the food supply.

6.     If you think vests come in two styles: Bullet-proof and suicide, you may be a Muslim. Or, you may be a Christian member of the North American Military Or A Canadian Police force.

7.     If you can't think of anyone you haven't declared jihad against, you may be a Muslim. Or, if you cannot think of any country that you have not attacked, assassinated people in, bullied, declared as an axis of evil, deprived of “human rights”, committed  atrocities in, dictated to, engaged in a cold/hot war, you may be North American. If you have engaged in many wars but cannot think of any that your country has ever won you are probably from the United States of the Americas.

8.     If you consider television dangerous but routinely carry explosives in your clothing, you may be a Muslim. Or, you may be Christian, North American, up on medical research reports, and out celebrating one of our monthly, long weekend, holidays.

9.     If you were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs, you may be a Muslim. Or, you might be a member of North American military, police, or security organisations.

10.             If you believe in either of the world two most violent religions, you may be muslin—But most likely—your Christian.

11.            If, you find this offensive, You undoubtedly are a Christian.

Killings for Christianity

The Church started killing unbelievers as early as the 4th century. The killing (often with torture) of heretics, church splinter groups, dissenters, atheists, agnostics, deists, pagans, infidels and unbelievers was supported by almost all mainstream Christian theology for over a thousand years, starting with the intolerant St. Augustine (died 430 AD). Much (but not all) of Christianity's killing is in the past. Christianity had a long run as the world's most violent religion.

Judaism

As I am what many people now call an atheist (my higher power being Nature, Creator of All), I do not regard Judaism as any more rational than any of the other commerciality orientated, manmade religions. Judaism itself has a benign (indeed very impressive) history, but other religions have an appalling history of inexplicable violence towards Jews.

Ronald Reagan often called religion the world's mightiest force for good, "the bedrock of moral order." George Bush said it gives people "the character they need to get through life." Millions hold this view. But the truism isn't true. The record of human experience shows that where religion is strong, it causes cruelty. Intense beliefs produce intense hostility. Only when faith loses its force can a society hope to become humane.

The history of religion is a horror story. If anyone doubts it, just review this chronicle of religion's gore during the last 1,000 years or so.

Muslims must with honesty recognise the violence that has existed in their history. Of course, there are Muslims who deny many parts of this past, just as there are British people who still deny the atrocities of colonialism; citizens of the Unite States of the Americas  who deny the massacre of the Native Americans; and Germans- Christian and non-Christian-who deny the Holocaust of 6 million Jews. However, the fact remains that Christian civilization has given rise to many more atrocities than has Islamic civilization, even relative to its greater population but same age.

CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE

Nowhere in Islamic history can one find a doctrine similar to Saint Augustine’s cognite intrare (“lead them in”—i.e. “force them to convert”).

 The Qur’an says the exact opposite: There is no compulsion in religion.

Augustine’s frightening idea that all must be compelled to “conform” to the “true Christian faith” has unleashed centuries of unparalleled bloodshed.

 Indeed, Christians have suffered more under the rule of Christian civilization than under pre- Christian Roman rule or any other rule in history.

Millions were tortured and slaughtered in the name of Christianity during the periods of the Arian, Donatist and Albigensian heresies, to say nothing of the various Inquisitions, or the Crusades, when the European armies were saying, as they slaughtered both Christian and Muslim Arabs: “Kill them all, God will know his own.”

These transgressions— and indeed all the transgressions since Christians were created together—at the same time—in the same place—have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ and or even the New Testament as such. Indeed, no Muslim by definition would ever, or will ever, blame this on Jesus Christ.

By no means was such indiscriminate violence limited to Europe’s “Dark Ages” or to one period of Christian history.

The Reformation and Counter Reformation took inter- Christian slaughter to new extremes; two thirds of the Christian population of Europe being slaughtered during this time. Then there were (among many others wars, pogroms, revolutions and genocides) the Napoleonic Wars ( 1792-1815 ); the African slave trade that claimed the lives of 10 million; and the Colonial Conquests. Estimates for the number of Native Americans slaughtered by the Europeans in North, Central and South America run as high as 20 million within three generations.

Despite the ravages of Europe’s violent past, in the 20th century, Western Civilization took warfare to new extremes. A conservative estimate puts the total number of brutal deaths in the 20th century at more than 250 million.

 Of these, Muslims are responsible for less than 10 million deaths. Christians, or those coming from Christian backgrounds account for more than 200 million of these!

The greatest death totals come from World War I (about 20 million, at least 90 % of which were inflicted by “Christians”) and World War II ( 90 million, at least 50% of which were inflicted by “Christians,” the majority of the rest occurring in the Far East).

Given this grim history, it appears that we Europeans must all come to grips with the fact that Islamic civilization has actually been incomparably less brutal than Christian civilization. Did the Holocaust of over 6 million Jews occur out of the background of a Muslim Civilization?

In the 20th century alone, Western and/or Christian powers have been responsible for at least twenty times more deaths than have Muslim powers. In this most brutal of centuries, we created incomparably more civilian casualties than have Muslims in the whole of Islamic history. This continues even in our day—witness the slaughter of 900,000 Rwandans in 1994 in a population that was over 90 % Christian; or the genocide of over 300,000 Muslims and systematic rape of over 100,000 Muslim women by Christian Serbs in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995.

The horrible but undeniable truth is that, numerically, and statistically, speaking, the Christian/Western Civilization is the bloodiest and most violent of all civilizations in all of history, and is responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths.©Al (Alex-Alexander)D. Girvan. All rights reserved.