Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?
8th June 2009
Hint: No.
“There is far more violence in the Bible than in the Qur’an; the idea that Islam imposed itself by the sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of the Crusades when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting brutal holy wars against Islam.”[1] So announces former nun and self-professed “freelance monotheist,” Karen Armstrong. This quote sums up the single most influential argument currently serving to deflect the accusation that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant: All monotheistic religions, proponents of such an argument say, and not just Islam, have their fair share of violent and intolerant scriptures, as well as bloody histories. Thus, whenever Islam’s sacred scriptures—the Qur’an first, followed by the reports on the words and deeds of Muhammad (the Hadith)—are highlighted as demonstrative of the religion’s innate bellicosity, the immediate rejoinder is that other scriptures, specifically those of Judeo-Christianity, are as riddled with violent passages.
The truth is that the “violence” in the Bible is in the Old Testament, and isn’t of the “go forth and conquer the world” type that Islam promotes. And there’s no sponsorship of violence — indeed, not even any endorsement of it; quite the contrary — in the New Testament. So this is “cultural equivalence” meme is all bullshit promoted by ignorant partisans.