Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:
I don't anywhere in the bible where same sex relationships are punishable by death - I don't see any Christian country that practises that - maybe I'm wrong?
I don't think in the bible it suggests honour killing your daughter is not only allowed but positively encouraged - again perhaps I'm wrong.
Good job Monty Python didn't do a life of Brian on Mohammed - do you think Salman Rushdie was have got the same response if his book was about Christianity?
Leviticus 20:13
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.'
This is the old testament though, and although homosexuality is never acceptable in Christianity, it is not punishable by death in the new testament.
As for honour killings... Again from the old testament:
Deuteronomy 22
20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21 Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
Again, this wasn't really condoned in the new testament.
The fact is, all religions are usually violent and oppressive if followed orthodoxicly. Ask the Muslims in Myanmar if they think Buddhism is a peaceful religion for example. So it's not just as simple as saying one is any worse then any other, especially when there's so many other factors that motivates someone to do something.
It's also important to realise Islam is approximately 600 years 'younger' than Christianity, and at approximately the same point in Christian history the Spanish inquisition was taking place in Europe, so it doesn't necessarily mean Islam won't go through the same reforms as Christianity has. Having said that, it could be argued that those reforms were a result of social and economic changes, as opposed to religious modernisation.