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Right now I am taking a class on Islam and it is pretty interesting so far. My only real comment is how Islam is split up much like Christianity.
Here’s a quick comparison:
Christians number around 1.25 billion or so in the world and Catholics make up over a billion of those, Orthodox 100 million+ and Protestants (non-Catholic Christians) are the rest and obviously a very small minority with many, many splinter groups and “sects” or denominations.Muslims number about 1.25 billion and are split up into 2 main sects – the Shi’ite and the Sunni. Sunni means “orthodox” (I think) and would basically be comparable to Catholics and Orthodox in that they maintain that they are true to the faith and continuing it on like it was established. Well, the Sunni are the largest group making up all but 150 million Muslims (which is well over a billion Muslims!). Within the group of Shi’ites, the 150 million of them, there are many smaller sects as well (like Protestants).
Now the reasons for the split in Islam is much differant than that of Christianity, but I just wanted to point out this striking similarity.
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yet, as Cathoilic answers is quick to point out, Islam’s history does not support that message. millions of Muslims are peaceful people, but the religion was not built on a history of peace.
Even today, predominantly Muslim nations have, for the most part, a deplorable human rights record.
I will agree. It seems as if most of the lands they seized were in conquest in the name of the one, true God. I find it hard to reconcile that Islam itself is supposedly a peaceful religion (like many imams will tell you) but yet the only way it seemed to advance was through war.
It is probably important to note that Islam was born of nomadic peoples that had barbaric practices compared to what was understood as civilized at the time. This could be why these sorts of things still happen today in Arab nations – it is so embedded in their heritage and culture to understand human rights in such a fundamentally different way than we do.
I’m not saying it’s right, but I am highlighting possible explanations.
But I thought Christians, namely Catholics, are the largest religious group in the world? I didn’t think there were that many people in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. practicing Islam, when we have “disciples of all nations” including the Middle East.
Christians are the largest religious group on Earth, but a close #2 is Islam.
[quote:1yvt5890]I didn’t think there were that many people in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. practicing Islam, when we have “disciples of all nations” including the Middle East.[/quote:1yvt5890]
Then you would be astonished to see this: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fac … os/xx.htmlJust look at all those different countries that you named. We do have disciples of all nations, it’s just that those disciples number very few in certain areas of the world.
[quote:ujmama06]
Christians number around 1.25 billion or so in the world and Catholics make up over a billion of those and Protestants (non-Catholic Christians) are the rest and obviously a very small minority with many, many splinter groups and “sects” or denominations.[/quote:ujmama06]Just a minor correction, but could I point out that there are about 100 million Orthodox Christians and I’m not sure how many (but a large number) Oriental Orthodox. Neither church is Protestant, as I’m sure you’re aware. The Orthodox Church is, in fact, the second largest church after the RCC, though Protestantism is larger if it is considered as a homogeneous whole – which is terribly unrealistic.
James
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