BF2S Forums The Difference Between Christianity and Islam

No flaming yet, points made, full sentences, dictionary evidence.  I'd say that's an odd conclusion to draw.

Bubbalo wrote:

2)  Apparently I need get a clue before I can post?  Because apparently the Church wasn't part of the fuedalist power structure?

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ A LENGTHY HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES, SKIP THIS POST.

Hey, Bubbalo, hope you find the time to read this.

*************

In the beginning, there was the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire was big, and the Roman Empire had lots of power and armies. And the Roman Empire ruled over the Jews. And among the Jews there came Jesus, and many people believed that he was the Messiah. And he was crucified. But his disciples spread the word of the Christ to the gentiles.
Then over the next few hundred years, many of the poor and the slaves in the Roman Empire came to follow Christ. Then later the merchants and politicians spoke the word of Christ.

Then about 320 AD the Emperor Constantine called all of the important Christians together and said "Many of you are arguing with eachother about who Jesus was. Today, you are going to debate until all of you agree on one description of Jesus." And Christianity was a little bit more unified as a Trinitarian creed.
Then Constantine made Trinitarian Christianity the religion of the whole Roman Empire. And the Trinitarian Christians got a little bit organized, and they called themselves the Roman Catholic Church. And they had nice hats, and a little bit of power, and many people believed in them.

But in those days, the Roman Empire was already falling in the West. The economy, the military, and the politics of the Empire were collapsing. Civil war and barbarians and depression ravaged the Empire, and they ravaged it until it fell.

All that was left standing in the brutal chaos of those years was the Roman Catholic Church.


And the barbarians who ravaged the Empire became petty kings in their different lands. And they fought over the spoils of the dying civilization.

Thus, after the 500s, Europe was ruled secularly by many warring barbarian kings. But Europe was also ruled religiously by a single Church and its pope.
The kings could burn and pillage the churches and monasteries, but the Church could cause people to lose faith in the kings. So the kings and the Churches watched eachother carefully, and each wished they could enslave the other. But their standoff was eternal.

Thus, the common people could use both Church and State against one another to try and get what they wanted. And thus feudalism, although a cruel and oppressive way, could never be as oppressive or cruel as the other ways of those ages. For if ever the people were too heavily taxed by the Church, they could bring their greivances to their kings. And if ever the people were too heavily worked by the kings, they could bring their grievances to their Church.

***********

And that's sort of how it was from 500 to around 1300 AD, give or take.

I should have been more clear on why I was writing that, Bubbalo. Sorry.

I'm not saying the Roman Catholic Church wasn't part of the feudal power structure, I totally agree with you that it was. Heck, popes had armies and huge treasuries, created and destroyed kings, etc. etc.
I just wanted to show that although feudalism, like all political systems, was about "maintaining power structures" it wasn't nearly as authoritarian and dictatorial as most people think. This isn't because of Christianity, but because of the historical accidents of the way the Christian establishment survived the fall of the Empire.
Definitely this is a tangential issue to the main discussion, but one of my personal passions. I couldn't resist a lengthy description.

Back to the main issues:
I think Christianity was much more politically submissive before the Fall of Rome. It got very political in the Middle Ages (see above).
What I'm saying is that the New Testament does not give guidelines for how to be a ruler.
The Qu'uran and the Hadith do.

Although the Old Testament has guidelines for laws, Christians tend to take very little from the OT (for instance, the OT OKs genocide and forbids eating shellfish. Most Christians disregard these things).

Finally, I thoroughly agree with you that the formation of a definition of who Christ was 300 years after his death is unlikely to be terribly accurate. There were lots of other formulations besides the one we know today that died out or were killed off in the years after Constantine. Some people believed Christ was not a human. Some believed that Christ was not God. Couldn't one of them have been the right view of Jesus?

Actually, I think you'll find many moderate Muslims follow the word of the Koran to the letter, but they ignore other books written later.  It is these books that extremists tend to rely.  I could be wrong though, I'm not a student of religious theory.

For those that don't follow it as is, sure.  But many people try to follow their religious doctrines as closely as possible, even if they believe that the tales in said books are symbolic and allegorical rather than literal.