Alan Henning dead

[Northy]

Um... this is true for Christianity also... martyrdom and spreading the faith(by the sword or otherwise). But it has moved on from that, as a religion. Islam can be just as peaceful as the other religions, and in most cases people that are Muslim are. It is the fanatics that ruin it, and the states that adopt literal translations, and follow the rules to a T.

This does not happen anymore in the two other major religions. They became secular, and Islam used to be secular as well, until it started to decline in the 14th century, due to various reasons. Unfortunately, it has not recovered (yet) from that decline.

Christianity went through its growing pains in terms of butting heads with science, logic, and reason. This phase is largely over with (aside from the willfully ignorant/bible belt/fox news types) for the majority of western civilization. I'm actually looking forward to the time when Islam finally has to do the same. On this I agree with you.

On the issue of literal translations being the problem, there are just too many blatantly hateful passages in Islam (and many other religions) that simply cannot be interpreted in any way but literal. This isn't Shakespeare writing we're talking about. It's very blunt and truly not open-ended.

With stuff like: "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not." Is this not to be taken literally? I can assure you the context doesn't help. It's just violent on the face of it, no interpretation required: you don't like fighting, but Allah says you should, and he knows what's best for you, so go do it.

There are over 109 verses blatantly calling for violence. Claiming the problem is reading it too literally just seems silly. There is no other way to read it.

[Xargoth6634]

If you're going to be anti-religion, at least acknowledge the part where Christians did exactly this, but on a much more massive scale, and for many hundreds of years.

Might as well show how bad they all are, so you can't be accused of racism / intolerance.

Yep, and stopped hundred and hundreds of years ago. Whereas militant Muslims continue to this day. Interesting...

[Aehl]

Executed?

You mean murdered in cold blood.

[moremana]

If you don't want to get abducted and murdered, don't go to where the abductors and murderers are?

I agree, just not so bluntly, I am not saying he deserved it, however, those that go to these places know the risks.

RIP Alan, its a shame that good people have to die for no reason at the hands of terrorists.

[Zangeiti]

So, ISIS is just going to keep killing people till they get enough people riled up? k. watch how good that works.

[Notchris]

One group is always promoted by the West so that the other one hates it with passion. Then they switch sides, like it was with Hussein and Gaddafi. USA aren't stupid, they don't shove their hands into fire after Vietnam when there's locals that can be divided and conquered.

Sunnis hate Shittes and it has nothing to do with the West "promoting" them. You desperately want this to be a war against the West, but it just isn't so.

[Brubear]

There are no Christian theocracies left in the world. Can you say the same for Islam?

Here is an interesting poll for you:

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/0...leaving-islam/

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...Shariadolikeit



Also, scroll up a bit, you will see I took some of what I said back in the thread.

How many of these theocracies have had to deal with the meddling/subjugation of the Christian western world?

Take a gander at this page, yes it's wikipedia but it's a nice summation of the religious dispersal of Christians and Muslims within Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Africa

Notice anything how almost half of Africa are predominantly Christian, including ones that have major humans rights issues?

What about the Middle East? When was the last time they were able to go a significant portion of time without one of the "civilized" countries performing some sort of military action in them?

Maybe if we had left them alone for the last 100 years to develop naturally there wouldn't be as many Islamic theocracies? Or do people just think this sort of thing exists in a vacuum?

[Haven]

Sunnis hate Shittes and it has nothing to do with the West "promoting" them. You desperately want this to be a war against the West, but it just isn't so.

It's not the war against the West. It's war created by the West.

[AeneasBK]

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/..._Alan_Henning/