This thread has bought out a lot of very different viewpoints but the one overarching theme has been the condemnation of evil and the calling of evil as evil and that is a worthy outcome of the barbarity that initiated the thread. I fear that the only way for me to fully answer some of the points made would be to turn this toward a full theologic discussion and this is not the place for that discussion so I will hopefully conclude with this one conected aspect that may be missing from some of the posts. The one area of much of the foregoing that I would contend with is not that evil has been done in the name of every belief ever held, or that many have done these deeds in the name of God, in whatever form or forms (we musn't forget the animists or the pagans) he, she or they are held but the understandably excepted holy word of God or god or gods from which these evil deeds is the only basis for discussion in whether these deeds were indeed inspired by "God" or by the adulterated word of man.
Of the many references posted above I only see scholars or teachers writings or beliefs but no reference to the Bible with the Old Testament for Judaism or the Old and New Testament for Christianity as such as the excepted revealed word of God that has been over ridden in all of the cases mentioned by the word of man. By taking verses out of context and making them means something that context denies is not the revealed word but mans adulterated self agrandisment.
Forgetting all the hadiths and other suplementary writings, and only using the koran there is a marked difference in how the supossed revealed word enjoines the followers to act toward and think of those who do not or will not follow the same creed.
There have been many excepional-isms over the years from the mongols to the hunns to the nazis and the japanese bent on domination and they all have gone which does not diminish the evil they perpetrated but the mindset that drove them was mans mind using warped words of god to support thier intentions.
Admittadly, Rome used force and many of the same evil methods to enforce its doctrines but they were not much removed from the pagan roots that were incorporated into thier mindset and the ignorance of the actual bible was almost universal with this lack of actual bible understanding lasting right through to the reformation and even then there was a lack of actual Christianity in the outworking of the different factions but IF YOU WERE TO TAKE THE ACTUAL BIBLE AS THE BASE OF YOUR UNDERSTANDING there is no doubt that the actions should have been much different. It is not the Word of God that causes the evil mcommitted in His name but the perverted mind that uses His Word for thier own purpose.
If on the other hand you were to take the actual word of the koran as the basis of understanding of your actiuons then the evil that has been commited in the name of the satanic entity known as allah, then the outpouring of evil everywhere that islam has stained the world with its footprint would still have manefested itself the way it has and continues through the last 14 centuries to today and will do so while it exists.
Of the many references posted above I only see scholars or teachers writings or beliefs but no reference to the Bible with the Old Testament for Judaism or the Old and New Testament for Christianity as such as the excepted revealed word of God that has been over ridden in all of the cases mentioned by the word of man. By taking verses out of context and making them means something that context denies is not the revealed word but mans adulterated self agrandisment.
Forgetting all the hadiths and other suplementary writings, and only using the koran there is a marked difference in how the supossed revealed word enjoines the followers to act toward and think of those who do not or will not follow the same creed.
There have been many excepional-isms over the years from the mongols to the hunns to the nazis and the japanese bent on domination and they all have gone which does not diminish the evil they perpetrated but the mindset that drove them was mans mind using warped words of god to support thier intentions.
Admittadly, Rome used force and many of the same evil methods to enforce its doctrines but they were not much removed from the pagan roots that were incorporated into thier mindset and the ignorance of the actual bible was almost universal with this lack of actual bible understanding lasting right through to the reformation and even then there was a lack of actual Christianity in the outworking of the different factions but IF YOU WERE TO TAKE THE ACTUAL BIBLE AS THE BASE OF YOUR UNDERSTANDING there is no doubt that the actions should have been much different. It is not the Word of God that causes the evil mcommitted in His name but the perverted mind that uses His Word for thier own purpose.
If on the other hand you were to take the actual word of the koran as the basis of understanding of your actiuons then the evil that has been commited in the name of the satanic entity known as allah, then the outpouring of evil everywhere that islam has stained the world with its footprint would still have manefested itself the way it has and continues through the last 14 centuries to today and will do so while it exists.