stoning, cut off right hand, etc.

[Athena]

Because some have looked down on Muslims for practices that are part of the Christian bible, I am bring this to people's attention.

We are all familar with the story of Jesus stopping men throwing stones at a prostitute, saying the person who has never sinned can throw the first stone. The bible is fall of stone throwing, so I hope it is not necessary to prove, the bible has advocated stone throwing.

However, when it comes to cutting off body parts, we may be less familar with this one:
Mark 5:30
"And if thy right hand shall cause thee to sin, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell".

Holy books have the effect of holding people back in time. What is curious is how Christians progressed past the Muslims, because at one time it was the Christians who were the most backwards and the Muslims who were the most advanced. Christian Europe was extremely oppressive and backwards and superstitious, until the crusaders returned from the much more advanced Muslim countries with Arab math, astronomy, medicine and the documents the Arabs had perserved from ancient Roman and Greek libraries. Christian Europe was also helped by the Mongol invasions which carried to Europe advanced Chinese technology. Especially important was the technology of printing which came from Europe, and which Martin Luther set about translating in German and printing so people could read the bible for themselves. However, this was during the witch hunts, one of the most brutal periods of Christian history.

It is not my intention hear to bash Christianity, but to stop the bashing of Muslims. Islam is the same religion as Judaism and Christianity, only it is the Arab intrepretation. It is only slightly culturally different. However, the basics, the prophets and concepts of morals, sin and our relationship with God is basically the same. The big disagreement is only Jesus's, and then Mohammed's, role in the God's plan.

Watch your local Public Broadcasting Station tonight, for an explanation of why some cultures developed and others didn't. It isn't the whole story as another way to understand the same thing is the distribution of mineral resources. Arab countries have only oil, and not all the other mineral resources that caused the US to advance to where it is today, and our advancement was very much because of democracy, not Christianity. We should not assume the right to bomb others, and to determine what is best for them, without a better understanding of shared religious ideas, and why we have evolved differently. WE SHOULD STOP THROWING STONES.