Christianity or Islam?

[TCPeppyTc]

Christianity and Islam, while the target of vitriol from from fundamentalists on either side, actually seem to have a lot in common, for better or worse. Both believe in God and Jesus, and both say they are relgions of peace and tolerance. Both have had somewhat troubling histories, but both have over 1 billion adherents.

My question is do you think one is either better/worse than the other? are they equally fictitious? is there anything to gain by studying either of them?

What do you think?

[unoservix]

What the hell is with you and Islam, man? Did Islam kick your puppy or something? Judging by your previous posts, I have a feeling I already know what the real reason for this thread is.

How would you even decide what faith is "better" anyways? On what criteria is a faith better or worse? Better or worse than what?

[TCPeppyTc]

Eachother. Christianity had the crusades, and disease to the americas, and slavery.

Islam started off pretty good and progressive, but sadly got to be worse.

[unoservix]

That's the history of an organization and a region, not the faiths.

And holy Christ, man, Christianity did not bring disease to the Americas. Seriously, what the hell? It was Europeans who brought disease to the Americas and they didn't even know they were doing it. In fact, the Pilgrims who landed in the future United States looked out at the natives, saw them dying off in massive numbers and/or saw abandoned villages and whatnot, and interpreted it as a sign that God was giving this new land to them.

[TCPeppyTc]

True, but the spanish missionaries in South America used their faith as means of justification to conquer

[Harmony Descent]

I'll give you guys some clearance and backstory to how Christianity spread so quickly: For starters, it began in the Roman Empire known as Roman Catholic, or Catholic, whichever. Once the Roman Empire burnt was burnt to the ground, The Church was the only remaining power to look to and was well organized at the time, and stepped in to become the leading power. Of course, it lasted a good bit and spread throughout the world, but it was eventually divided off into several different forms of Christianity: Roman Catholic, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Protestant (Lutherans go under that), yada yada yada.

Also, it's the narratives and forms of biblical literature are NOT -- I repeat, are NOT -- considered history, but mostly aimed to be mythology. In my class, biblical mythology is "a truth that points beyond itself to a greater truth." Hard to explain, but you can look it up yourself.

Anyways, I think that both religions were just spread far and broad too quickly and too descretely, and soon became a common religion to turn to. Plus, it's quite easy to become a Christian, to say the least.

As for Islam, I'm not quite sure if it's easy to become one or not -- it probably is easy, but I could be wrong.

Regardless, the two are somewhat different, but share a similar god. But, they share a god that is seen as either a cosmic deity and/or personal deity.

Correct me if I'm wrong

[Xortberg]

I'm hesitant to start accusing people of doing things, but it really seems to me that basically every topic you make is either an attempt to stir up controversy or try and get people to bash something you don't like. Sometimes both. You're asking to judge which of to hotly contested faiths is better, never minding the fact that there is no objective criteria as to what's the best. At best, this topic would just be an excuse for people to talk about how much their particular religion kicks ass, and at worst - also the most likely scenario, mind you - it'd devolve into a bigass flamewar between religions.

[unoservix]

The short version of why Islam spread so quickly and so far is that there is no short version. But here's a not in any way exhaustive list of some factors:

-The areas that the Muslims went after first were ruled by the Christian, Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines made no friends for themselves with their onerous tax burdens and zealous enforcement of rigid doctrinal conformity. The areas that the Muslims first attacked were dominated by the Syriac, Armenian, and Coptic Churches, which had all been alienated one way or another by the Byzantine Empire's various ecumenical councils, and were now living under Constantinople's boot heel as Heraclius and his successors tried to enforce unity after the extremely devastating war with Sassanid Persia in the 7th century. Hence, when the Muslims swept in, many of the people in those areas welcomed them, because the Byzantines were dicks and the people of those areas were happy not to have to deal with their shit anymore.

-Not only that, but it should not be underestimated just how devastating the Byzantine-Sassanid war really was. The areas of modern-day Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and much of Turkey were occupied by the Persians for about twenty years. An entire generation grew up without ever knowing Byzantine control. And the Muslims swept in soon after the Byzantines managed to defeat the Persians, so the empire was completely unprepared, and the people in the empire's eastern provinces weren't all that attached to Constantinople anyway.

-Speaking of which, the Muslims had some unusual-for-the-time military practices. For example, Muhammad and his followers forbade their troops from sacking towns that had surrendered, and made it a point even to feed the armies of defeated nations. They showed a remarkable amount of mercy when you consider how brutal ancient warfare was. Compare this to the already-mentioned ruthless Byzantine tax collectors and persecution of Christian minorities; to those Christians, the Muslims seemed to make for a better master, because at least they respected you as fellow "people of the book" and weren't about to take all your shit and sell you into slavery or whatever.

Some historical accidents (like how Islam just happened to arise as the Byzantine and Persian Empires were grinding each other to dust), some traits unique to Islam (like not being total massive toolbags in war), and some traits that represent one empire's failings or another's strengths (like how the Byzantines kind of screwed themselves over with their attempts at doctrinal unity).

There are a whole lot of reasons why Christianity spread so far so fast that Harmony didn't really touch on. For example:

-It helps when the emperor is on your side. Emperor Constantine's patronage put Christianity on the map. The Edict of Milan put an end to the persecutions. Constantine showered the Christians with largesse by building churches and things. He favored Christians throughout his time on the throne. His very devoutly Christian mother became very visible. He was baptized on his deathbed. Constantine got the ball rolling in a long and gradual process of Christianization, in which the pagan Roman Empire transformed into the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire. Theodosius I took that even further by outlawing pagan sacrifices and making Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.

-Many pagan Romans noted that the Christians had an odd sort of charity about them. They took care not only of the downtrodden and needy among their own people, but the downtrodden and needy of other people as well. This is no small feat, because the Roman government in the 2nd century AD was in trouble and couldn't afford to support much in the way of social services (not that it ever really did); nor could the wealthy private individuals who usually took care of public works. The Christians took over those tasks and they did it inclusively, which helped win them all sorts of converts. Christianity in general was more inclusive towards every person from every walk of life at any rate than the pagan beliefs of the ancient Romans.

-Christianity was far more organized than the pagans. That organization helped it integrate, if patchily, church and state into one entity in the Byzantine Empire. The pagan religions just couldn't keep up with that; Emperor Julian, for example, tried unsuccessfully during his very brief reign to promulgate a new version of paganism based heavily on Plotinus. It didn't really work. 'course, he did die after less than two years on the throne, but it was probably too late for him to turn back Christianity by then anyways.

-Constantine repealed the law preventing the church from inheriting lands. Since rich people liked to secure their place in heaven by making large donations or selling everything they owned so they could go follow the path of the ever-popular ascetics, this meant a great deal of wealth quickly accumulated in the church's hands. And he who has the money has the power. With wealthy individuals no longer doing public works and the government busy taking everything you owned to support the army, it fell to the church to provide for the public good, and that helped endear them to many people.

-And of course, Christians were more than happy to resort to violence to get their way (just ask Hypatia about that).

[Steve]

Wow how can you even debate about religions being better than the other

Oh, that's right, you can't--this isn't even a veritable discussion

Every religion is different (each having their own bad times in history and flaws) and this topic seems to be singling out two for some sort of competition

No thank you, man

That resumed what I wanted to say, I'm locking this. "facepalms"