I'll bet you a dollar that in 500 years, Islam is harmless.
And this is the most slanted comparison a person could write up in 2 minutes. Thanks for proving my point.
The 2 religions worship the same god, proclaim peace and love, and are literally traced back to 2 brothers!!! They both believe in heaven and hell, both believe in Satan, both believe in the afterlife, both believe Jesus was born of a virgin and that Jesus will return. Both religious texts promote spreading the religions and how is that done? We all know - by force or murder. They both advocate for women to dress modestly. Christianity has evolved past this, gradually, over time.
Anyone holding Christianity above Islam or better than Islam is taking a snapshot of a race where the 2 religions started 500 years apart. Period.
Any horrific message you can find in the Quran you can easily find in the Bible. Yet thanks to having a 500-year head start, many of us are able to ignore the absurdities and just plain errors in the Bible. Today's Christitans have the luxury of cherry-picking because of that 500-year head start.
500 years from now, Islam will be radically more liberal. Easily. Obviously. The orthodox followers will dwindle over time, just as they have in every other religion.
There will be Saudi women in crescent moon bikinis drinking beer by then. It's virtually certain.
First your $1 bet is no different than a religious persons' affirmation of faith. Since neither of us would be around to collect on the bet it is obviously rhetorical. That said, I'd be inclined to agree.
If I had proved your point you'd be able to refute something, anything that I said. Since you can't, you apparently proved mine.
Look, I gave you a source that I chose specifically so that YOU would respect it. The Source is the author of "God is not Great". I couldn't possibly have come up with a source more to YOUR liking. I gave you that much, give me something back or go away as a troll. It would be appreciated if you would at least respect THAT enough to actually engage with it rather than brushing it off with assertions that can neither be proven nor falsified and/or outright falsehoods.
Your statement that "... started 500 years apart." is outright false and I explained why, quoting Hitchens above. If you aren't able to deal with that, go away. Hitchens was much smarter than you or I and I already gave you a source that you should have no objections to. Engage or go away.
"Any horrific message you can find din the Quran you can easily find in the Bible." No. I already gave several but since you implied that the Bible commands Christians to spread their religion by the sword I'll add that. The Quran does, the Bible doesn't. Period. Similarly, the Quran has the 72 virgins thing for adherents who die in a holy war, the Bible has no such passage.
As I stated above, the Bible teaches it's adherents to treat everyone under the same rules. The 10 Commandments, for example, are not appended by a notice that they only apply when dealing with other Jews/Christians. Three of the 10 deal with religion so they are irrelevant to outsiders. Two more deal with intra-family relationships so they are only relevant to an outsider if that outsider is either the spouse, parent, or child of an adherent. Two more command adherents not to covet the things that other people have so again this is largely irrelevant to an outsider. The final three are:
- Don't kill
- Don't steal
- Don't lie
Note here that in the Judeo-Christian tradition these commands are general. Don't do these things, period. In Islam similar commands exist but they are understood to mean "Don't kill other Muslims", "Don't steal from other Muslims", and "Don't lie to other Muslims" and NOT as commands for dealing with outsiders.
This is a major fundamental difference.
Also, nowhere in the Bible does it command adherents to spread the faith by the sword. This is NOT true of the Quran.
That said, many horrible things have been done in the name of religion but that is a completely different question.
