I’m an American and a Christian but I spend a lot of time arguing with my friends about this very issue.

I believe that Islam has a problem with violent radicalism in certain wings of the religion but, even so, that is still a very small percentage of Muslims.

From my rather extensive interaction with Muslims, I guess that 99.99% have no participation in violent radicalism. Don’t fund anything. Don’t plan anything. Don’t do anything.

If you count Muslims who merely attend mosques led by radical clerics, maybe you could inch that number up a little. But, still, the vast majority of Muslims are just normal people living their lives best they can.

>>> ..Your original comment wasn’t about bloodthirsty *christians*….it was specific to *American Christians*…….

As an evangelical Christian, myself, I have don’t believe everyone in America is really a Christian. But when people generalize whole Muslim cultures then — to keep the terms straight — I also generalize all Christian cultures.

So, if you speak about “bloodthirsty Muslims” it’s fair to speak about “bloodthirsty Christians.”

My hope is that sincere devout adherents to either religion would never be bloodthirsty killers.

>> I repeat what I said before….name the last time an American Christian beheaded a Muslim, or Buddhaist, or a Hindi….on television no less. When was the last time American Christians attacked the Muslims in our cities, burning their Mosques … [snip]

You’re missing my point. Listing differences in the way we kill and mame doesn’t make Americans any more superior, in my way of thinking.

For example: Muslims behead people on camera. Americans emoliate them with white phosporus off camera. (among other cruel crap we do.)

We don’t burn their mosques in our country but we do bomb them in their country. We don’t demand the death of converts but we do disappear and torture Muslims based on nothing more than the most vague charges.

Yes there are difference in the way we abuse each other but I don’t see how that makes us any less militant than them.

How can you look at the amount of money and energy we put into our military and conclude that we aren’t highly militant. It’s practically our#1 priority as a nation. We’re obsessed with killing, death and destruction as a nation.

Your original comment wasn’t about bloodthirsty *christians*….it was specific to *American Christians*…….I repeat what I said before….name the last time an American Christian beheaded a Muslim, or Buddhaist, or a Hindi….on television no less. When was the last time American Christians attacked the Muslims in our cities, burning their Mosques, protesting against the anti-christian cartoons regularly shown in America’s newspapers? When was the last time 500 irate American Christian clerics demonstrated to have a Christian who converted to Islam beheaded publically(or privately).

I never said American Christians weren’t militant, but guess what, so are American Atheists, and American Muslims. But the difference you can’t seem to see is there is a big difference between goverment policy of war, and the American Christians rioting, and looting and killing non-christians . America dosen’t pledge Holy War to kill all the Muslims, just for being Muslim. But the Muslims(not all of course) want all *infidels* (read: christians, Hindi’s, Buddhaists, etc, etc) killed for being non-believers.

It dosen’t matter to me how you feel about Bush, or the Iraqi war. What matters is that you don’t seem to grasp that it’s different with a large majority of the Muslim faith. It’s their duty to convert or kill non-believers, according to the Koran. I don’t see that written in christian bibles. It’s strictly religious with those Muslim’s who take the Koran literally.

Sorry, but at their worst, I’ll take the religious fundlementalists of this country any day over the religious fundlementalists of the Islamic world.

But how could you not also make a list of all the innocents killed at the hands of Christians. Even in a recent history the list is very very long.

Can you claim, with a serious face, that our American Christian culture is not militant? AMERICANS GROOVE ON WAR. Have you forgotten America’s unbridled GLEE during the whipped up war hysteria before the Iraq invasion?

One of the constants of war is that we make ourselves believe that the enemy does not have the same souls we do. I refuse to do that.

I accept that Islam is not always a peaceful religion but I also accept many Christians are just as eager to see death unleashed on others.

The biggest difference, it seems to me, is that we have airplanes to deliver our bombs.

To Milo They’re already here!

No, al Queda is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the body count of innocent civilians killed by western “Christian” wars. Or just America!

The 5,000 people killed on 911 was a horrific tragedy but just remember our bombing of civilian targets in places like Hanoi and Dresden; the fire bombing of residential neighborhoods in Japan; and, of course, the nukes we dropped on CIVILIAN TARGETS. (I’m not even counting military targets.)

No. al Queda has a long long way to go before they match us.

“On November 20, 1979, about 500 militants seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of the holiest sites in Islam. Affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the militants were members of a Sunni sect who believed their spiritual leader was the Mahdi, the approximate Islamic equivalent of the Messiah. Some experts claim Mahrous bin Laden, a brother of Osama, may have collaborated in the assault, which was intended to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. Although the militants were defeated, the Saudi victory came only after a long standoff that incited a great deal of hostility toward the royal family. The debacle was one factor that led the Saudis to begin exporting extremism around the globe, rather than allowing it to foment at home.”

“On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led a revolutionary force that drove out Iran’s U.S.-supported monarch and instituted an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy — in the very heart of the Assassins’ ancestral homeland. Although Khomeini was a Shi’ite Muslim, the overthrow of a secular Westernized regime in favor of an Islamic government reverberated across the Middle East, resonating with Sunnis as well as Shi’ites.”

“Conveniently, the Soviet Union created the perfect destination for those extremists when it invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, just days after the standoff. The country’s Communist bloc government was on the verge of collapsing in the face of an Islamic revolution, and the invasion caught everyone off guard. Two major powers set their sights on reversing the invasion — the United States of America and the Islamic ‘umma, (world community). The resulting war, though fought largely in secret, would permanently change the face of the world.”

Wanna scare the crap out of yourself?

http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/al-qaeda-and-the-assassins/

Wow, I actually guessed correctly on the first try…

You can have peace or freedom.

“al Queda and their allies will have to kill many more millions of people before they can match the Christian west!”

They’re already here!

When was the last time American Christians blew up a sky scrapper filled with civilians, or a commutor train, or a nightclub, or a tube station, or a Marine barracks??

When was the last time Pat Roberstson beheaded a Muslim or a Buddhaist or even a Hindi??

I no longer buy the arguement that Islam isn’t really a violent religion. I stopped buying it when I watched the hundreds of thousands of Muslims cheering and celebrating as the towers came down. And the cartoon icinidents just made me feel stronger in my belief.

There really are Muslims that genuinely don’t follow the Mullahs or the Imams, and think that they have gone to far. But they are a MINORITY.

I don’t like what the American religious right does most of the time, but I think your way off on this one.

al Queda and their allies will have to kill many more millions of people before they can match the Christian west!

(I’m a Christian, BTW… I just try to be an honest one.)