The Qur’an Promotes Violence
Islam’s holy book teaches warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers:
“O ye who believe! Fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him” (9:123).
“O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, an evil refuge indeed” (9:73). The Arabic word translated as “strive hard” is jahidi, a verbal form of the noun jihad.
Muslims must fight idolaters: “…slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful” (9:5).
Muslims must fight Jews and Christians (the “People of the Book”) as well: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya [the special tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29).
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Both the Bible and the Koran can be and have been used to justify violence and cruelty. There is no getting round this. All can be faulted in this way. It is only when people of all religious persuasions renounce violence that we can hope for any lasting peace.
M. Glass
In the Christian and Jewish scriptures God is never found giving a command to kill innocents and the righteous. God never commands to kill others just simply because they don't believe Him.
Please read the Bible throughly. God only commanded the destruction of peoples who totally abandoned morality and righteousness. Those nations that the nation of Israel was commanded to destroy were nations that sacrificed their children to the fire in worship of demon gods or gave themselves over to every kind of debasing form of lust.
God tells Abraham that his decendents will go into captivity in Egypt hundreds of years before it happens, when He tells him, God also reveals to Abraham how the sins of the Amorites are not enough for God to judge them.
Genesis 15:13-16 (ESV) "13 Then the Lord said to Abram, 'Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs [Egypt] and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
However, the god of Islam, "allah" is not the same god of the Jews and Christians. Mohammad progressively moves toward a more aggressive stance and after being rejected as a prophet by the Jews, becomes enraged with pure evil and hatred, thereby commanding all his followers to kill anyone who won't convert to Islam.
Michael Z says:
"In the Christian and Jewish scriptures God is never found giving a command to kill innocents and the righteous. God never commands to kill others just simply because they don't believe Him."
If there is ONE incident in the whole of the Bible where God or the LORD commands indiscriminate slaughter then this statement is demonstrably false.
M. Glass
I'm sure you don't agree with what I'm about to say, but that's OK with me because it's not my opinion, but God's truth.
All humans are guilty. There are no true innocents. There are only degrees of sinners. We're all sinners. We all fall short of God's holy and righteous glory.
[Psalm 51:5 ESV] "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." -King David of Israel. (He doesn't mean he was born from an illegitimate relationship)
[Romans 3:10 ESV] - "as it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one;'"
[Ezekiel 33:13 ESV] - "'Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die."
God's standards are high and He expects us to be perfect, so that's why He had to come to us Himself as the Son, Jesus Christ, and satisfy His own standard for righteousness in our stead, and died in our place.
This is the grace and mercy of the true God, not Islam's. Islam's god wants you to meet a standard and if not your dead. Too bad for you. There is no plan by Islam's god for a substitute Redeemer.
No so with the true God. However, people love their self-righteousness and sins and so they hate Jesus Christ, because they have to live honestly and truthfully; confessing their sins openly.
The command for the slaughter of men, women, children and babies in Ai:
"Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear or be dismayed: take all the fighting men with you, and go up now to Ai. I have handed over to you the king of Ai with his people, his city, and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king;" Joshua 8:2
So what did they do to Jericho?
"Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys." Joshua 6:21.
Jericho and Ai are two examples of genocide by order of the LORD. It is texts like this that explain why a crazy like Baruch Goldstein went on a rampage of killing in modern-day Israel.
Is the Koran any better? Of course not! That is why I stated that both the Bible and the Koran can be used and have been used to promote violence.
M. Glass
Michael Glass,
You should really do some deeper research into the practices of the people of Jericho and Ai.
Let me give you some questions to ask and research.
Did they (people of Jericho and Ai) do likewise to the peoples around them? Did they go out and wipe out villages indiscriminately? Was God repaying them for the same evil they perpetrated on others?
You are jumping to conclusions without doing the fact finding.
What if in the future people said that the English and the rest of the Allies were perpetrators of violence and evil on Europe and the Germans during the 1940's. Ignoring the fact that Hitler and his Reich were murdering millions of Jews in ovens, and dropping bombs on England.
Even if the men and women of Jericho and Ai slaughter their neighbours, does this justify genocide?
If there is evidence that they behaved just as badly towards their neighbours, does this justify the indiscriminate slaughter of children?
You made the claim that God never promotes violence against innocents. I gave two instances of the slaughter of children as part of an act of genocide when the ancient Israelites invaded the promised land and dispossessed the people who lived there. These two instances occurred, we are told, because the LORD told them to do it. Now you mightn't like me calling it genocide. You might quibble about who was innocent and what this means. However, there is no getting around the text that the LORD ordered the mass slaughter of the people of Jericho and Ai.
I put it to you that your statement about God never promoting violence against innocents is either false, or it is a trick, as no-one is really innocent. Or, maybe, you would argue that God and the LORD are not the same.
Once more I state that both the Bible and the Koran can be used and have been used to promote violence.
M. Glass
We may see nothing but innocent people. If there is a a god and he judged people as guilty, then in his judgement they are guilty. We wouldnt have a say in the matter if god is indeed god. We might, however, disagree and ask god 'why', though. Considering Jericho and Ai at the time, the question 'why' is certainly valid.
The point being this: if your god orders you to kill somebody, for example, you had better be very sure that you are were not imagining things when you recieved such instructions and your god is who he/she says he/she is and that he/she has the authority to make such pronouncements and most importantly that you did not make any of the above up.
Could the Bible and the Koran both be used to justify violence ? Yes. Could the Bible and the Koran both be used to justify violence as originally intended? That is a different question. It is certainly possible to make a hash out of any religion by taking its scriptures out of context. One might call this 'sound bite doctrine.' Many atheists , agnostics, and believers of many faiths believe that way...unfortunately.
Michael Glass wrote, "Even if the men and women of Jericho and Ai slaughter their neighbours, does this justify genocide?" and "...does this justify the indiscriminate slaughter of children?"
You're understanding is limited Michael.
Every human has a spirit. Our spirits will live forever.
Jesus told a parable about a man who died and went to the grave were he joined all the others who had died before him.
The scripture tells us another thing about Jesus, that He went and preached the gospel of forgiveness to all the captives in that place. This place included the children and people of Ai, and Jericho; Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.
Also when Jesus came he taught us to turn the other cheek and to pray for those who persecute us, and to not fear those who kill the body because they have no power over the destiny of our soul.
What happened since before Jesus? Did God change? No, but rather God knew His plan to make a way for all mankind, past present and future to find forgiveness and salvation in Christ.
The souls who were judged in the flesh in Ai, Jericho, Sodom and Gomorrah; they were all sent to the grave to wait upon Jesus who would give them a final chance to change.
Now our Savior has already come, so now you don't hear of God commanding nations to be totally wiped out (not from true followers of the true God) because there are no more chances after death. Today is your day of salvation. This is the age of grace that you and I live in. While you still draw breath you should be seeking Him, the truth!
Because after you die there is no place but hell or heaven.
I note your beliefs. Of course these beliefs are your business. However, you have not addressed my assertion that both the Bible and the Koran can and have been used to justify violence. I have provided chapter and verse to back up my assertion. You have not.
I therefore ask you to provide chapter and verse to back up your belief:
*That Jesus preached the gospel of forgiveness to all the people of Ai and Jericho who were killed in the genocide.
However, even if you can, it is still a fact that both the Bible and the Koran have been used to justify violence.
M. Glass
(I'll provide you verses in my next post)
Let's get it right here.
I assume you hate religion, and so feel a duty to prove that it's the source of violence.
You are just plan wrong. Do you think that a man who beats his wife uses the bible as his reason, not in every case. Do you think that a robber who kills a store employee in a robbery used religion for his/her motivation? Hardly.
Man is violent by nature. Sold under sin. Captives to depravity. Religion is just an excuse to act out his/her natural tendency to commit injustices against his/her neighbor. Man is selfish, that's why he commits violent acts.
The violence you read about in the Bible is a result of this fallen nature of man. Not the cause of it.
God is responding to man's fallen nature. I'm not going to continue to argue this obvious point over and over with you.
What the Muslims do in the name of 'their god' isn't what the real and true God has commanded. Jesus showed us the character of the true God. Read His words for yourself in the Gospel of John for starters.
As for the rest of your argument; I'm sorry you can't understand why God would bring judgment down on a fallen and depraved human race that kills their own kind. Ask any murder victim's family why and they'll explain it to you.
You have stated that man is wicked and sinful. I have no argument with this point. Of course much of the Bible records the wickedness of people. This is not at issue. We both agree on this point. As you so rightly see, arguing about a point on which we agree does not make sense.
The point at issue is whether the Bible and the Koran can be used and have been used to promote violence. I say YES, and in the case of the Bible I have quoted chapter and verse to back up my point. (Other people have quoted chapter and verse from the Koran, and that is not at issue between us.)
I assume you have no problem when I state that the Koran can be used and has been used to promote violence. You take that for granted. However, when I said the same thing about the Bible, you have reacted quite negatively.
It is obvious to me that both the Bible and the Koran have been used to promote violence. The only question at issue is whether this is because of human wickedness or because the wording of some texts lend themselves to such interpretations. I agree that human wickedness can account for much of the violence recorded in the Bible. However, there are other texts that do appear to promote violence. In this, the Bible and the Koran are similar.
You may or may not agree with this. That is fine by me. However, please don't make ad hominem attacks. I don't attack you personally, and I would appreciate the same courtesy in return.
M. Glass
This is the equivalent of taking specific passages from the Bible, like in Samuel 15:1 thru 15:34 (where the events that happened can only be described as genocide carried out in God's name), and saying that the Bible promotes ruthless violence.
Islamic terrorists represent all of Islam as much as Fred Phelps and his church represent all of Christianity.
before judging you should read each verse (ayah) in the context.
One should not separate a comment from its context because it may be connected with other sentences meaningly.
To study the whole sura (Ultimatum) you can follow the link below:
http://www.efarsi.org/quran/sura9.htm