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I'm not sure where you're coming from here. Christianity and Islam have roughly the same value system: Patriarchy, authoritarianism, traditionalism, (varying degrees of) hierarchialism and a pronounced martyr complex.

Of course, those values are sufficiently misanthropic all by themselves to ensure plenty of conflict anyway.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 06:03:29 PM EST
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To suggest that the Christian faith is misanthropic is completely off the mark. The message of the New Testament is one of love, tolerance and forgiveness, NOT hate and destruction. The very objective of the "wise men" of the time who put the philosophy together, was to bring man out his emotional, instinctive past into a new age of harmony with his neighbor. The fact that The New Testament has so often been used by man to mobilize, inspire or lead other man into intrinsically criminal enterprise is a true regret - for man. But that doesn't change the philosophy behind the New Testament.

The differences between Christianity and Islam are numerous, starting with the religious, textual  philosophy to it's modern day application.

On a textual level, the major difference between the New Testament and the Surats is precisely  the tolerance which in one is apparently called for while being outright rejected in the other. The Koran openly calls for the elimination of the infidels. The New Testament doesn't. Other differences are also apparent, namely in terms of the role of religion in society, the role of woman in society and the relationship between men and women in a family.

In terms of modern day application, the most blatant difference is that Moslems overwhelmingly favor incorporating their interpretation of Islamic Law into the political apparatus of government. Christians do not, partly because the faithful represent a minority in today's Europe and partly because ... we've been there, done it & moved on. The fact remains that there is a clear separation between the church and the state.

by vladimir on Fri Dec 14th, 2007 at 02:46:46 AM EST
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