RE:The Shamoun-Nadir Debate
(Date Posted:03/24/2008 06:35:52)
Guest is committing a typical fallacy here.
The Bible supporting genocide is a matter that relates to the early Israelite religion, not the Christian faith. Notice also that genocide in the Old Testament was or either a full launch of God's wrath, such as Canaan which is comparative to Sodom and Gomorra, where God annihilates everything that breaths, even the Qur'an supports this, we may even consider hell in this category. Well as to Canaan and the Amalekites God used people rather than fire or plague.
Other types of genocide in the Torah relate to the rules of war. In ancient it was difficult to control a occupied territory, and unless careful your enemy would quickly launch a second attack and misuse the draining factor of a occupation force; thus in ancient days you killed all males. The Israelites were told to follow the same rules, but there are a few points to consider here. Firstly, while and unlike Muslims who used the same practice of war, the Israelites were not occupiers who sought to bring other nations under Jahweh, secondly, the rules were applied since God knew that the nation of Israel would not always follow the one true religion, under those terms the protection and blessing of Jahweh would be withdrawn, and the nation of Israel would not survive unless it used the common ways of surviving as a nation.
In the time of Jesus, things have changed drastically, and the ancient of genocide is no longer a necessity of a national survival. Hence it is questionable whether Muhammad and the early Muslims butchered the enemy to prevent further escalation of war or whether they genocided for other means.
Furthermore, and this is the important part, in the debate between Christians and Muslims, we are concerned with the issues regarding Islam and first and most the Christian sources, which is the New Testament. While we Christians recognise the Israelite revelations as God's word and even read them, we also recon these as merely a part of progressive revelation that particularly concerned the circumstances and situation of the early Hebrews, whereas the New Testament, that is the Gospels and the Epistles provide the foundation for the Christian faith.
Therefore, guest, if you want to compare Christianity and Islam in terms of moral and ethics, in this case genocide, then provide support for genocide in the New Testament Scriptures.
Unless you are able to do this, we can simply conclude that Islam compared to Christianity is a religion of war and terror.
As for the debate between Shamoun and Nadir the issue was that of Islam not Christianity nor Judaism nor early the Israelite religion; I find it amazing that you Muslims find it so difficult to keep to the subject.
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