Quoting Scriptures

Submitted by Jack Matterhorn (United States), Feb 15, 2003 at 17:04

I find the Christian and political right's avid use of Koranic quotes to attack Islam quite interesting.

I saw a few examples of this typical stance in some postings here. This is a straw man approach that can be used to effectively discredit any world religion, especially the big monotheistic three, by taking scriptural snippets out of context.

What would you feel about a religion whose scripture declared the following:

"And the Lord said, "Go through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have you pity. Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women."

"As for the towns of [your enemies], you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them . . . just as the Lord your God commanded."

"And the Lord said unto Moses, "Avenge the children of the Mid'an-ites" . . . They
warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses, and they slay the males. And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles with fire. Moses said, "Have you saved all the women alive? Now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that has known a man by lying with him, but all the young girls keep alive for yourselves."

These are all quotations from the Old and New Testament. So to those who want to attack Islam by pulling scripture out of context, should realize that Judaism and Christianity can be just as easily maligned as religions that are not peace-loving and tolerant.

As a secularist agnostic, I believe we should take the spirit of the religion espoused by moderate and mainstream believers to be the true ethos of the faith.

Just some food for thought.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".