Je Suis…

When Muhammad is mocked, Islamic extremism kills and says:

We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!

When Jesus is mocked, Christianity hopes and says:

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

We are called not to avenge him, but to identify with him and accept the same disgrace.

Je Suis Charlie. Et Je Suis Jésus.

12 thoughts on “Je Suis…

  1. And when a terrible atrocity has taken place, Gervase takes the opportunity to post offensive generalizations and prejudice, stirring the fires of strife and intolerance.

    Let he who is without sin; glass houses; take your pick of applicable expressions.

    When Christian sensibilities are offended, people were burnt at the stake, and wars were fought. The Old and New Testaments are both full of easily quotable offensive statements that would deeply offend any person with a shred of morality; that doesn’t make all Christians terrible people. Religious intolerance and extremists can be found in every religion.

  2. And when a terrible atrocity has taken place, Gervase takes the opportunity to post offensive generalizations and prejudice, stirring the fires of strife and intolerance.

    I don’t quite understand your point. You think that the phrase “Islamic extremism” also covers some non-violent viewpoints which I am unfairly tarring with the same brush?

    When Christian sensibilities are offended, people were burnt at the stake, and wars were fought.

    If you want to discuss in detail, be more specific, but in general: do you think such actions would have been approved of by Jesus?

    I notice you continue to be anonymous; are you afraid of violence from me? If not, why not? Could it be that there’s a difference?

  3. If you want to discuss in detail, be more specific, but in general: do you think such actions would have been approved of by Jesus?

    Do you honestly think violence is approved by Muhammad? If so, show me excerpts from the Quran where it says that. You’re being unfair. You’re comparing excerpts from the bible with what other said about Islamism. Everyone could go round, kill other people and say “I have avenged Cheese-us Christ” or whatever. Your religion is not better than any other religion. There have been violent incidents on the Christian side as well, most of which can be found here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

    Anyway, thanks for not syndicating this! :-)

  4. Do you honestly think violence is approved by Muhammad? If so, show me excerpts from the Quran where it says that.

    As I’m sure you know, Muslims do not claim that Muhammad was the author of the Quran.

    Anyway, I do think Muhammad approved of violence. In the last ten years of his life, according to the accounts of his life that Muslims reference, he was a leader in around 30 battles. The Qur’an, as I’m sure you also know, can be divided into “Medinan” and “Meccan” sections, with the commands of the former overriding the latter as they were written later. The Medinan sections contain a number of incitements to violence, one of which is Surah 2:190-193. These particular verses are exactly what ISIS are currently doing in Iraq and Syria.

    Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors. And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.

    By contrast, there are no verses in the New Testament which exhort Christians to kill anyone. Anyone who takes it upon themselves to kill others in the name of Jesus is not following the man who said “love your enemies”.

  5. Gerv,

    I am not as knowledgeable about different religions as you are (unlike you I openly admit not knowing something). But, anyway, I got other stuff to do in my free time (that’s way more joyful than religion).

    What’s your point? That Christianity is better? That Christian people are less violent?

    Those aggressors are like you in that they take a written word literally. The world needs to learn to come to a consensus.

  6. What’s your point? That Christianity is better? That Christian people are less violent?

    My point (for you) is that Christianity and Islam are very, very different, so it might be a good idea to stop lumping them all together under the term “religion” and start making some distinctions.

  7. Right. But in order to make useful statements about them, you need to recognise the many differences. If I said “eat this”, you said “what is it?”, and I said “organic matter”, that would be a true description, but in order to make a good decision about whether to take my advice or not, you would want me to be more specific!

    Same here. Saying “religion is X” or “religion does Y” makes no sense when e.g. Christianity and Islam, to name but two, are so different.

  8. Terrible atrocities happened under both religions. Also, as a general rule, you should know that I don’t take advice from you (as if you were in any way superior to me, ha ha).

    Whether you try to justify your life with religion or not is besides the point. If you wanted to do something bad, you would find a reason in your religious scriptures if you really wanted to find one.

    There are countless examples in the bible that could motivate people as fundamental as you to kill for their religion. But since you are one of those pitiful people who rather fight for their religion online than do bodily harm to other people, so be it.

    It’s quite a shame, one could say that your judgements about other religions does as much harm as killing other people in the name of a religion. It’s a different kind of harm, though, but that does not matter much.

    Live and let live is the principle we shoulld use.

  9. Pingback: The Oatmeal and Religion | Hacking for Christ

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