Not verses, but core ethic, separate Islam and Christianity

Submitted by Jeff Gulleson (United States), Jul 31, 2002 at 20:14

Mr. Pipes quotes Quaranic verses but that is not enough. If you tried to compress the basic teaching of Islam into two or three words you come up with power, fear, submission. That is the tone of Islam and the tone of their holy books. It is not so much what one or two verses say, it is the central focus of the religion that should concern us. The question is "What does the religion emphasize?"

New Testament Christianity is decidely different. Sum up Christianity in a few words and you note: love, forgiveness, kindness. These concepts permeate the New Testament. A Fundamentalist Christian is bound by the ethical demands of the New Testament. Jesus forbade the use of the sword. He patterned love and forgiveness.

The true, fundamentalist Christian is loving, forgiving and kind. The true fundamentalist Moslem must think power, fear, absolute submission. The Christian core concepts support democratic concepts and ideals, the Muslim concepts do not.

The bad news is that most Christians do not live according to the New Testament. If they did the world would be a better place. The good news is that most Muslims do not live according to their religion either. If they did there would be a lot more extreme Islamic fundamentalists in the world.

Yet it needs to be said that the vast majority of Muslims, like the vast majority of Christians just want to be left alone, live in peace and raise their families.

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