The Catholic apologetic line seems to be that ugly old Islam was “spread by the sword,” while the immaculate bride of Christ swayed her converts on the strength of the gospel. When presented with the account of Charlemagne’s forcible conversion of the Saxons (where the penalty for refusing baptism was death, and where thousands were massacred for the crime of being unrepentant pagans), an apologist will typically want to insist that such instances were rare (and regrettable!), and that the faith was largely dispensed by missionaries, not warriors.

How true is this? Not very, I suspect. The Church killed thousands to quash a Gnostic heresy in the Albigensian Crusade, and the paths of the missionaries in the Americas were blazed by military conquest. The Slavs weren't all converted peaceably either.

Meanwhile, Islam’s early success in spreading into North Africa and West Asia was, I think, accompanied by a relatively greater tolerance. While conversion to Islam was offered, the alternative for those living in dhimmitude was simply to pay a yearly tax and to continue practicing one’s non-Islamic religion.

Isn’t the history of Christianity just as violent as that of Islam, if not more so? To which one does the prize go for goriest?

I'm not very knowledgeable of Christian history, but it seems that the better part of the past two thousand years the church had a position such that public descent against the orthodox views could be punishable by public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, and even death. Even now in places where this is not done there is still social punishment (outcast, family/friends disowning, etc). I've always wondered how long Christianity would have lasted (or any religion for that matter) if it were not for this.

pcCoder wrote:I'm not very knowledgeable of Christian history, but it seems that the better part of the past two thousand years the church had a position such that public descent against the orthodox views could be punishable by public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, and even death. Even now in places where this is not done there is still social punishment (outcast, family/friends disowning, etc). I've always wondered how long Christianity would have lasted (or any religion for that matter) if it were not for this.

That's why, when those religions are in the driving seat, they oppose secularism, with a vengeance.

pcCoder wrote:I'm not very knowledgeable of Christian history, but it seems that the better part of the past two thousand years the church had a position such that public descent against the orthodox views could be punishable by public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, and even death. Even now in places where this is not done there is still social punishment (outcast, family/friends disowning, etc).

True. The Church, actually, has traditionally been willing to tolerate a quiet atheist—so long as you’re willing to make an outward show of things and show up at Mass on Sundays. Keep your dissenting views to yourself. But don’t scruple to make your doubt public—and whatever you do, don’t get creative and concoct any unorthodox religious ideas. Nothing draws the ecclesial wrath like a rival religion.

It’s been noted that (in ages past) the Jews, for the most part, could’ve statistically hoped for a better deal in an Islamic caliphate than in a Christian kingdom. It was in Catholic Europe, after all, that the blood libel was spread. Much of the Jew-hating propaganda that radical Muslims nowadays can’t get enough of had its origins in Christian thought. Oddly enough, they would probably appreciate the policies of Pope Innocent III more than they would those of many Andalusian caliphs.

If you think about it, religionists have to be violent because there are so many resisters.

Was listening to Radio 4 last week, The History of Germany. I forget the name of the town and the battle name, but in the name of Catholicism the entire town/city everyone was massacred. 10s of 1000s, men, women, children.

EDIT: Magdeburg. Of 30,000 citizens only 450 were alive after the Catholic empowered army left.

This assault was part of the Thirty Years War, an event pitting Catholics against the evil (often overwhelmed) Protestants. The example above (do read it, it is grim and worth knowing) is one very sorry tale amongst many many more. Poor Saxony was a fucking horrible place to live, especially if your flavour of religion was almost the same. Almost.

Islam seemed to be a whirlwind of sabres as it crossed N Africa and penetrated Europa, it seemed to me to be more singular in it's god/world-view so less likely to suffer infighting or deviation of scripture - but the Christian war-machine destroyed populace with wild abandon. Islam crushed armies, I am not to sure if it massacred entire towns or cities to spread, I believe the victorious Muslim warriors demanded conversion OR protection tax.
I am sure others know more.

('scuse the grammar, i'm v tired)

I'm under the impression that the Muslims massacred as well, I'll have to look it up.

Quite probably, I believe the Maltese had 'issues' with them. The Muslims allegedly floated crucified screaming people across to the Knight's fort at Valletta (?) in their effort to terrify and oust the paladins.
However, from what I read there were choices for the population (not necessarily the enemy fighters); to die, to convert or to pay Jizya, the protection tax.

I do wonder, until I see more vicious examples (they will come, i'm sure), whether this sweeping and bloody sabre is just our (mostly) Western impression, from a Xtian POV. The Islamic world, like I said, was less prone to infighting than the Xtian world - they may have been a breath of fresh air to the peasants of Europe and N Africa; also the Sassanid Empire collapsed leaving an easily filled vacuum, the rise of the Arab Muslims seemed very fast, and probably quite frightening to rulers (leading them to tell us of the Arabs bloody sweeping conquests).
(lord, I hope my history is right lol)

Sovereign wrote:I'm under the impression that the Muslims massacred as well, I'll have to look it up.

I suppose it could also be pointed out that using violence is both sanctioned by the founder of Islam and personally employed by him extensively. A violent death in the name of Allah is a Muslim’s one sure way of gaining heaven. The later Chapters of the Koran repeatedly sanction violence. Not surprising therefore that his followers should have employed the same methods on occasion.
What I find more difficult to understand is how the Christian Church managed to interpret the life of someone who never advocated or indulged in violence as an excuse for their barbarity.
As for who killed the most I have been trying to find authorative estimates myself recently and they mostly look far too speculative and biased to be worth posting here. What does look likely is that the Muslim treatment of Hindis and Buddists & Christians is among the largest if the not largest example of bloody religious suppression/conversion ever. Timur Lenk’s wars alone 14th C probably accounting for more deaths than all the Christian crusades put together. Steven Pinker in his new book ‘The Better Angels of our Nature’ ascribes a figure of around 17m deaths to Timur’s campaigns although that figure probably includes other Muslims.
This wiki on the subject of Islamic war says little about numbers but certainly itemises numerous murderous conversion events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_war#Crusades

Ironclad wrote:Was listening to Radio 4 last week, The History of Germany. I forget the name of the town and the battle name, but in the name of Catholicism the entire town/city everyone was massacred. 10s of 1000s, men, women, children.

EDIT: Magdeburg. Of 30,000 citizens only 450 were alive after the Catholic empowered army left.

This assault was part of the Thirty Years War, an event pitting Catholics against the evil (often overwhelmed) Protestants. The example above (do read it, it is grim and worth knowing) is one very sorry tale amongst many many more. Poor Saxony was a fucking horrible place to live, especially if your flavour of religion was almost the same. Almost.

Thanks for that, Ironclad. It seems, then, that the Saxons had the misfortune to be massacred twice by Catholics: first by Charlemagne, and later by the Catholic League. Interestingly, one of the most visible Catholic commentators in the U.S., the vein-popping falsetto-shrieking Bill Donohue, has named his own organization the Catholic League.

Richard46 wrote:

Sovereign wrote:I'm under the impression that the Muslims massacred as well, I'll have to look it up.

I suppose it could also be pointed out that using violence is both sanctioned by the founder of Islam and personally employed by him extensively. A violent death in the name of Allah is a Muslim’s one sure way of gaining heaven. The later Chapters of the Koran repeatedly sanction violence. Not surprising therefore that his followers should have employed the same methods on occasion.

Christianity had the initial advantage of being an urban religion, whereas Islam began out in the wilds of Arabia in an age when the clans there would routinely undertake raids upon each other. Violence was pretty much par for the course, so it's to the credit of Islam that it managed to have something of a civilizing influence at all. The Qur'an is more schizophrenic than the New Testament—there are passages about slaying the infidels, but then there are proverbs about letting unbelievers be: "to you, your religion; to me, mine."

What I find more difficult to understand is how the Christian Church managed to interpret the life of someone who never advocated or indulged in violence as an excuse for their barbarity.

Well, Jesus did mention that he hadn't come to bring peace, but a sword; he predicted that his revelation would cause even family members to become set against each other. And he took up a whip when he drove the money-changers of the temple and kicked over their tables. Indeed, these instances aren't as explicit as the Qur'anic exhortations to violence, but nevertheless there they are. Christianity, more so than Islam, yoked itself firmly to the Old Testament, so the conquering heroes of Israel became models of Christian valor. There's also the fact that the Church held up the pope as Jesus' mouthpiece on Earth, so Adrian I's endorsement of Charlemagne's bloody purge of the pagan Saxons could be viewed as having the divine stamp of approval.

As for who killed the most I have been trying to find authorative estimates myself recently and they mostly look far too speculative and biased to be worth posting here. What does look likely is that the Muslim treatment of Hindis and Buddists & Christians is among the largest if the not largest example of bloody religious suppression/conversion ever. Timur Lenk’s wars alone 14th C probably accounting for more deaths than all the Christian crusades put together. Steven Pinker in his new book ‘The Better Angels of our Nature’ ascribes a figure of around 17m deaths to Timur’s campaigns although that figure probably includes other Muslims.
This wiki on the subject of Islamic war says little about numbers but certainly itemises numerous murderous conversion events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_war#Crusades

The savagery of Timur's campaigns do seem to dwarf most of the Christian massacres. Prize to Islam?

ah timur, I heard that name. He did kill a lot in India. Also there is a lot of political correctness as far as Islam is concerned in this part of the world and in this country particularly, because the govt is scared that to speak truth will give ammunition to the hindu right and act as a way of giving reasons for the muslims to be disloyal and start favoring pakistan and bangladesh which will be terrible for India. So, keep the simple truth down and invent lies, or other reasons. The marxists say it is not islam but the barbarian hordes in afghanistan and central asia who were responsible for this violence and not islam, or most muslims in India were escaping the caste structures in India and found islam liberal and converted to it (they dont mention buddhists ofcourse, why didnt India become entirely buddhist by same logic). And buddhism was supposedly already collapsing about 5-7th century AD, about the time Islam makes its appearance in India's border. 7-14 century , Islam fought on 2 sides, with christianity in the west and persians,buddhists and hindus on the right, They destroyed zoroastrians and buddhists and it is from here that they gain their knowledge. Defeated the Hindus and put out the lights on some of the longest surviving early academies in the world, and lost to christians on the left.
But we need to consider, africa and other continents too if we want to be fair.

All in all, Islam was willing to wait to squeeze and crush the opponents and was pragmatic in its approach to such a goal, they imposed trading barriers to the traders and that must have forced a lot of poor who survive on trade to convert, also to escape discrimination and in particular economic discrimination(but the marxists in India and western academics with regard to india call it as converting for social mobility ),christianity on the other hand had no such concept , they had to kill because they were right, they were fascist in absolute sense of the word if one considers crusades or vlad dracul. (islam too did that but they liked to squeeze, they were going to taxes aret they?). It is only in this century that christianity turned into this we are meek like jesus apology.
So, my answer is that becasue Christianity had no such mid ground strategy, it was all or none on average more often than Islam. Also there seems to be a sort of apologia i find in historians to this and especially to Islam and christianity as though they intrinsically know that if they dont defend one then people will begin to scrutinize the other too.

I am willing to throw all of the above I had written except
1) Islam was eventually responsible for beginning India's dark age about the same time as europe was coming out of it and no Historian I know from this part of the world is willing to look and ask this question" when did rationality,education universities,skepticism begin to fall in India".

My interest is where are these religious interpretations now and where will they take us in the future? There are certainly Christians with violent views ranging from the American extreme right to rabid persecution of homosexuals in Africa by fundamentalist Christians.
Most of the violence I see in the world that is carried out with the claimed specific endorsement of a religious scripture however is Islamic and Zionist. i.e. No Christian nation in recent times has demanded that another nation becomes a Christian nation at the point of the gun. Iran demanded that Iraq become a Shia Muslim nation to obtain peace in 1982.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

Blair and Bush; both in my opinion Christian crazies found numerous reasons for their aggression but they where not able to cite religious reasons for them. No I think Islam and the potential for its scriptural messages to be interpreted (rightly or wrongly) as endorsing violent conversion and domination represents a bigger threat to the future world than Christianity.

I say that as one who thinks Christianity is a big enough problem; but of a different kind.

Moses de la Montagne wrote:

Ironclad wrote:Was listening to Radio 4 last week, The History of Germany. I forget the name of the town and the battle name, but in the name of Catholicism the entire town/city everyone was massacred. 10s of 1000s, men, women, children.

EDIT: Magdeburg. Of 30,000 citizens only 450 were alive after the Catholic empowered army left.

This assault was part of the Thirty Years War, an event pitting Catholics against the evil (often overwhelmed) Protestants. The example above (do read it, it is grim and worth knowing) is one very sorry tale amongst many many more. Poor Saxony was a fucking horrible place to live, especially if your flavour of religion was almost the same. Almost.

Thanks for that, Ironclad. It seems, then, that the Saxons had the misfortune to be massacred twice by Catholics: first by Charlemagne, and later by the Catholic League. Interestingly, one of the most visible Catholic commentators in the U.S., the vein-popping falsetto-shrieking Bill Donohue, has named his own organization the Catholic League.

My bold. Seriously, a mistake.. do you think?!

Richard46 wrote:My interest is where are these religious interpretations now and where will they take us in the future? There are certainly Christians with violent views ranging from the American extreme right to rabid persecution of homosexuals in Africa by fundamentalist Christians.
Most of the violence I see in the world that is carried out with the claimed specific endorsement of a religious scripture however is Islamic and Zionist. i.e. No Christian nation in recent times has demanded that another nation becomes a Christian nation at the point of the gun. Iran demanded that Iraq become a Shia Muslim nation to obtain peace in 1982.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

Blair and Bush; both in my opinion Christian crazies found numerous reasons for their aggression but they where not able to cite religious reasons for them. No I think Islam and the potential for its scriptural messages to be interpreted (rightly or wrongly) as endorsing violent conversion and domination represents a bigger threat to the future world than Christianity.

I say that as one who thinks Christianity is a big enough problem; but of a different kind.

I disagree, I agree with hitchens, ultimately everyone of them are dangerous given a circumstance and that includes jains and quakers.

cavarka9 wrote:,,,

I disagree, I agree with hitchens, ultimately everyone of them are dangerous given a circumstance and that includes jains and quakers.

Oh I agree all religions are dangerous for any number of reasons. If it was not clear I was just addressing the specific question of which of them has most employed the 'sword' in pursuit of conversions and religious hegemony. Plus the related question of which of them is directed or encouraged by their scriptures to employ such methods.
I think that was what I was doing anyway, I probably should have said Islam is a bigger threat to the world in the context of directly encouraging and sanctioning violence.

well yeah, I get that but in doing that we lose out on the big picture and end up narrowly focusing on whos the baddest. Nothing wrong in doing that but it loses moral ground.

OPs question was: Isn’t the history of Christianity just as violent as that of Islam, if not more so? To which one does the prize go for goriest?
I'd like to see more examples of wild Islamic conversions by the sword or serious overkills, because the other side has some fine examples - and it's seemingly endless.

Ironclad wrote:OPs question was: Isn’t the history of Christianity just as violent as that of Islam, if not more so? To which one does the prize go for goriest?
I'd like to see more examples of wild Islamic conversions by the sword or serious overkills, because the other side has some fine examples - and it's seemingly endless.

Did you check out the wiki link I gave above? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_war#Crusades

Quite a few to be going on with there.

oh, I can give that, because hindus are infidels! and we can go to both the right wing hindus and wiki etc. There is a lot of over moderation to this ofcourse because it isnt right to say!!!
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/arti ... ocide.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_con ... bcontinent
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/book ... /index.htm

Be warned! these are the right wingers speaking who are thrashed by the secular and marxist community but strangely never reply.

Negationism in India

Concealing the record of Islam


By

Koenraad Elst
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/book ... /index.htm

Arun shourie (a right winger but one of the heroes during emergency who relentlessly took on the govt during Indian emergency, he never got a reply!)
http://arunshourie.voiceofdharma.com/ar ... 981020.htm

http://arunshourie.voiceofdharma.com/ar ... ogwash.htm

be warned, I didnt read through it all so I have nothing to do with it, You want leads and sources, well this is a start if you are so inclined.
http://arunshourie.voiceofdharma.com/ar ... 890205.htm

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud
by Arun Shourie

and this is an article of tehelka on arun shourie (tehelka is a magazine which has exposed a number of issues against right wing hindus and BJP and did good job against congress but not on the same scale as they support them ideologically).

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp ... dreams.asp

Or for his demolition job on Left historians. It is true that Left historians cornered State patronage and wrote histories that suited their theses. But if Shourie objected to the ICHR being colonised by the Left, why didn’t he speak out against it being captured by the Right under the BJP?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Temp ... ed_to_Them