Should you be worried about the hundreds of millions of people who subscribe to a religion whose “holy” book includes this?:
“Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones … cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.”
That same “holy” book also says this:
“If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ … do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death.”
And this:
“If you hear it said … that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ … you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock.”
Surely there is reason to fear anyone who would openly profess a belief in such a barbaric religion! Would not belonging to such a death cult, in and of itself, constitute a threat to all free people, and would not holding such beliefs justify defensive force, to keep out or forcibly evict such believers from civilized, enlightened society?
Well, no.
No, you don’t need to worry about them. And no, you don’t need to violently attack them for merely subscribing to a religion. In fact, it would be absolutely immoral for you to do so. Unless and until an individual uses or directly threatens violence, it is not morally justified to attack him merely for the label he uses to describe his faith. If you disagree, there's something you should know...
I don’t mention this only as a “gotcha” thing (although that in itself can be entertaining). Having publicly quoted those passages on several occasions, I find that only a tiny percentage of self-described “Christians” even know that the Bible says such things anywhere in it. So no, we don’t need to be scared of all of the Christians who revere the Bible—the book which includes the savage, brutal quotes shown above. Why not? Because what that book says does not match what the vast majority of self-described “Christians” believe, and does not match how they behave.
Most of the time I avoid talking about people’s religious beliefs, because it usually just offends people and makes them defensive, rather than making anyone think about anything. However, this point justifies making an exception. It was only a couple of years ago when something rather significant occurred to me:
There are plenty of passages in the Bible which can be used to justify being a judgmental, obnoxious, hostile, uncaring, even violent asshole. At the same time, there are also plenty of passages that instruct people to show empathy and compassion, exercising kindness and forgiveness. And most of the self-described Christians I know try to abide by the latter, and essentially ignore the former. In other words, they pick and choose which parts to believe and follow, and their picking and choosing makes them far more moral and righteous than if they literally followed everything the Bible tells them about how they should behave.
To be blunt, most people who call themselves “Christians” are Christians purely by accident, and by default. They grew up around people who held certain beliefs, and naturally tended to just adopt those beliefs, and articles of faith, without question. They didn’t choose it at all; they merely accepted a system of faith handed to them by others. And that is true of most members of most other religions, too. If it wasn’t, the world wouldn’t look like this, with one's place of birth being the primary determining factor in what religion one subscribes to:
Furthermore, very few “Christians” even know what all is in the Bible. They remember a few of the nicer passages about “love thy neighbor as thyself,” “turn the other cheek,” and even “love thine enemy,” and then they try to be good, charitable people. Brace yourself, because here comes the part that the statist fear-mongers don’t understand, or don’t want you to understand:
Most people, regardless of what word they use to describe their faith (or lack thereof) try to be nice, try to be good and loving, and for the most part practice “live and let live.” Of course, this is not true of everyone. It is easy to find people of every faith who are nasty and violent. And while the percentages may differ (for example, I haven’t come across many militant Buddhists), the fact is that most people follow their own consciences more closely than they follow whatever church, religion, or “holy” book they claim to believe in. And the world is a lot better off because of that. If, for example, most Christians followed the literal instructions found in chapters 12 and 13 of Deuteronomy (excerpts shown above), we would be seeing hell on Earth.
Of the Muslims I have met personally, most behave in a kind and considerate manner, just like most Christians, and most Jews, and most atheists, and so on. As a result, I don’t really care what labels people use to describe their religious beliefs. If they believe in and abide by some variation of “do unto others as you would have done unto you”—as most of them usually do in their daily lives—then anything else they profess to believe in is, to me, secondary and unimportant.
Even if there are passages in the Koran that condone intolerance and violence (as passages in the Bible do), being afraid of anyone who calls himself a “Muslim” is still just as ridiculous as being afraid of anyone who calls himself a “Christian.” Unfortunately, fear really is the mind killer, and those opportunistic political parasites in the U.S. who have been using scare-tactics to demonize all Muslims have done such a good job that there are many millions of scared Americans crying to Big Daddy Government to save them from scary brown foreigners, while failing to notice many self-evident truths. For example, if the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world all actually wanted to murder all Christians, you would already be dead. They don’t. And claiming otherwise is just laughably stupid, given the numbers involved. As another example, the over three million Muslims currently living in the U.S. must be amazingly incompetent and/or lazy, if their goal is really to slaughter all “infidels,” since bathtubs kill more Americans annually than radical Muslims do. (Maybe they should take some pointers from bathtubs.)
Some will of course respond with stories of self-described “Muslims” doing violent, nasty things. And the individuals who do such things should be condemned, and their acts of aggression should be combatted with whatever level of force it takes to stop them, up to and including deadly force. But to point to such stories and say, “See what Muslims are like?” is no more reasonable than pointing to such stories and saying, “See what men are like?”, or, “See what vertebrates are like?”
In conclusion, what most self-described “Muslims” believe is the same as what most members of other religions believe, and what most atheists believe: try to be good, and nice, and live a peaceful, productive life. And while most religions have teachings that are downright nasty and violent, most of the people who say they subscribe to such religions either ignore, or don’t even know about, such passages. So no, someone choosing to describe himself using a certain religious label does not by itself mean you have to be scared of him, or condone state violence against him.
There is one big exception: all statists advocate the initiation of violence against their fellow man. Every single one. So if you really want a religion to be scared of, be scared of the cult of “government.” The average person walking into a mosque, or a temple, or a synagogue, or a church, is a trivial threat to humanity compared to the average person who walks into a voting booth.
Great points. I suspect in Islamic countries you may see a mirror image of these things - the hilarious thing is how similar we all are even when it comes down to prejudice and stereotyping.
A lot of this is a function of our tribalistic nature.
We project our fears onto whatever seems alien to us.
Politicians and those in power take advantage of this, as do the media.
Good points about the state too.
I am not an anarchist - I believe the state is a necessary evil but we often lose sight of the great violence and warfare perpetrated in our names by these massive organisations.
Droning civilians and carrying out extra judicial killings does not benefit anyone except those who are in the arms trade.
You have hit on some very good points.
People are very much the same all over the world. I've travelled to approx 70 countries and I've spent 3 months+ in approx 25 of them and years in some of them. People are essentially good and they just want to be left alone and allowed to get on with living their lives, caring and building a better future for their families and enjoying life.
The globalists don't want that scenario so they use a divide and conquer strategy with the aim of keeping us distracted, deceived and in constant fear of each other (and many other things) while they move us towards a one-world government that they want to control.
I had a girlfriend from Kuwait - a Muslim, for three years and she substantiated your claim that people are very much the same all over the world. She was a phd candidate and like a lot of us, went to school to get educated and improve herself and the world. She also believed in treating people as you would want to be treated - the golden rule. I have been an atheist for many years and she did not talk much on religion except a few times like I should believe in some god. I had no fear all those times lying in bed with her as she used her cell phone sometimes to call her mom on the other side of the world and talk in her foreign language!
Thanks. I'm not sure if they need a one world government - there are a handful of corporations that control pretty much everything already.
I do agree on some of the points on the posts, however, the Bible verse taken out of text is disturbing.
I want to add a few points. First, Islam is a very political religion. Muslims want to replace the laws of the constitution with the laws of allah. Their goal is to undermine and eventually replace governments. They do not agree with other humans giving them orders, only allah can guide them.
The Quran also says: "The Creator has taught us in the Qur'an and Sunnah that all other `religions' and ways of life are unacceptable to Him if a person is aware of Islam". This is why many muslims are not tolerant towards other religions and cultures. They are not mixing with other communities, they are creating their own little echo chambers.
Lastly religion in the west is considered by most to be a private matter whereas Islam is more public, muslims are very outspoken about their religious beliefs.
The reason religions are so effective at dividing people is that they are preaching very different things.
A lot of Muslims are peace-loving,not divisive.I guess it depends on where you experienced those things you mentioned.
Just to clarify I never said muslims were not peaceful or loving individuals. I just said that real muslims don't mix with people from other religions, you can verify this fact in every major city in the world they create their own little districts. If you know any muslims community that live with and share the lifestyle of other communities I'm interested to hear about it.
I have worked in Saudi arabia and now in London so yes I have interact with some Muslims socially and not just work.it might surprise you then if i'll say some Muslims are very western in their social lives compared to some non-Muslim groups and nationalities?they have their own rules or protocols to adhere to but not religiously.
There is a big difference between someone who believes in the religion and someone who practice it. Muslims who practice Islam follow the Quran word for word and the Quran says that "all other `religions' and ways of life are unacceptable if a person is aware of Islam"
If believing and practicing as well as interacting with non-Muslims is the issue then yes, there are Muslims who are like this..in my experience. If you say that through this interaction,they dont practice their religion, some still do. It's the real world, its not just theirs, even in Saudi. Fanaticism tend to just do those, believing and practicing.
This post is a great topic for discussion. However, I cannot agree when a Bible verse is taken out of context because it gives it a completely different meaning from what it really is. The Book of Deuteronomy is really about Moses giving his final speech/lesson to the new generation of Israel that had just come out of slavery and wondered in the desert for 40 years and are about to enter the promised land.
The speech is broken up into three large sections: Ch. 1-11 highlights Israel’s rebellion and resistance while they were in the desert. This is also when Moses reminds them of the Ten Commandments and saids, “Listen Oh Israel, The Lord is our God, the Lord Alone. ‘Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.” Why would Moses find it necessary to give this reminder? For 40 years in the desert, not everyone was faithful to God, some became idol worshippers, and now they are about enter a land where people are worshipping many different gods. So it became imperative for Moses to “remind, remind and remind” their loyalty to the One God.
The second section: Ch. 12- 26 is really an explanation/clarification of all the previous laws given by God. Here Moses expands on the meaning that is relevant to the new generation of Israel. Such as how Israel is to worship God, laws about leadership structure, laws about social justice, etc. After all this, Moses warns them about the consequences about their obedience and disobedience which will result in blessings or curse. Abundant blessings if they are obedient and faithful to Gods laws, or famine, plagues and forced off their land if they are disobedient. We have to remember the warnings were very harsh because the curse will only be far worse if Israel were to disobey God and worship lesser gods.
Here’s one video of Dr. Michael Heiser (Biblical Scholar PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic languages) explaining about worship of lesser gods in the Bible.
The third section: Ch. 27-34 is a final section of Moses’ speech. Here, he is explaining to Israel that they have a choice of “life” or “death,” - blessing or curse, so to choose life. This section is also a reminder of the Original Sin in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve was also blessed by God, just like Israel, and given a choice to trust and obey God. However, we all know how that turned out.
Facile article. The "gotcha" only works on Christians. I oppose all Abrahamic religions, so none of that is a problem for me. Moreover, is there really no difference whatsoever between the social views of Muslims and western Christians?
(Right click and open in a new tab to expand)
Based on this data, it would seem to me that the average Muslim is not the equivalent of the western moderate Christian, but instead holds views that we would identify as extreme far-right if held by Christians. This represents a danger to the rights of gays, women and apostates in countries where Muslims become sufficiently numerous to gain political influence.
You claim no Christian or Muslim actually lives according to the dictates of their religions, but when it comes to homosexuality they certainly do. To come out as gay in a Muslim country is a death sentence. To come out as gay in Mormon controlled Utah is a death sentence, as evidenced by the teen suicide crisis happening there. There's still much of the US in which coming out as gay, even in predominantly mainline Christian communities, means being disowned and kicked onto the streets.
You came at this from the starting point of wanting to throw these verses in a Christian's face, and make Muslims out to be identical. You're not helping. There are gay youth dying in the Middle East and languishing in "reparative therapy" camps inside and outside the US because of you, and people like you.
Wow, there are some good conversations going on! Thank you @larkenrose for your well framed considerations. I have experienced the warmth of Muslims and Jews and Catholics and so forth. If one overlays the preachings of the world's religions there is a paltry difference which is pure semantics.
The Golden Rule, as has been cited, "Do as you would be done by." It should suffice; maybe add on "judge not lest ye be judged."
Unfortunately, as @cryptofiend , pointed out, Human nature is a powerful force honed over centuries. It has a very strong self-preservation aspect to it. The unknown induces fear. Fear induces auto-response triggers - we sometimes are unaware of what we are doing or saying. Sounds ridiculous! It is not about what you say or do, though we all justify! I only did ... or I only said ... It is about how those words and actions are received. Culture, conditioning and trust have to be acknowledged on a 2-way basis.
Trust is the basis of Society.
Islam is a religion of interpretation rather than directive, whereas Christianity and Judaism tend to be more linear. Conversely, Islam has very clear directives as to what to do if a person steals, commits adultery. It is a bit like Roman Law versus English Law. We see Islam as being mysogenous - they see our point of view as a serious punishable offence.
This gulf is exacerbated by there being no papacy in Islam and the voices who try to be heard are too frail.
The biggest word in Islam is Peace; in Christianity it is Love; ironic is it not!
Living within a community with a large proportion of Arabic speakers from Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan there are a few issues which are physical. Arabs speak from their throats, near the epiglotis. This makes a large percentage of them sound gruff to a western ear. Sometimes it is actually painful to listen for too long and the words fall on fallow ground!
Neither community appreciates having their culture, religion, traditions criticised. This all adds up to a gulf of communication understanding and genuine respect. We are apart and no matter how hard you try, you are not going to get a relationship with a whole community without a pre-emptive and genuinely selfless gesture. Expect to build the bridge right the way across.
If you do not have the capacity or opportunity to build a big bridge, build a small one. Your reward will astound you because these people are more afraid and more concerned at our threat than we are of theirs.
The core meaning of the word Alla (or Allah), is the same as the core meaning of the word God.
Funny that!
Sorry I have rambled on - this is a theme which I care about strongly.
So far the most horrific dids in human history, the greatest genocides, the most cruel enslavements, the harshest tyrannies were not really realted to religions. So I don't know if religion is the thing we must worry about most.
I think human nature is the real problem. We all have the capacity for great good but also unfortunately great evil too.
This I have to agree. More often, a sane person couln't even believe himself/herself of the wrong act just committed unthinkingly.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zadong, Pol Pott
Just saying.
So fascism and bolshevism are "godless religions"? What the hell does that even mean? And were does it put the balme? Doesn't it mean that religious extremesim is just like any extrismism? And if so then what's your point?
So back to my original reply indeed. Did I say that human nature is the problem?
When you say "A is the cause of B", that implies that if we want to stop B, we have to stop A.
I say, "C is a much more significant cause of B", to which you reply, "no, it's C+A that causes B".
I say, "C+A is a subset of C and all C causes B. Also, C+A is just a subset of A. Ergo we should eliminate all of C, not all A"
Is that clear?
All religions have been created to divide and rule over the centuries.
And yet many religious people use religion as a way to try to be better people.
Exactly my opinion. To emphasize bad verses of the bible doesn't make the coran better.
Wars happen mostly about oil and religion. Religions can be abused - the best example is IS.
All priests please get away from me. Every religion is potential dangerous to all others who don't believe.
Therefore no upvote for this post of @larkenrose.
I'm not sure why you think any of that disagreed with what I said.
Perhaps because you made this not clear enough. The main statement should be at the beginning. If I misunderstood you, pardon me. I'm not a native english speaker.
I fear the raising of the Islam in Europe. OK, peace, you got my upvote.
Hey @larkenrose, Thanks for a beautifully clear exposition of who the true culprits are. By the way, Jesus gave us a pretty good guide to interpreting and applying Deuteronomy:
Though a Christian, I can peacefully and happily co-exist with anyone who is on board with Jesus' elucidation of the second great commandment. I can even be very happy around those who would subset that commandment to a minimum of "Leave your neighbor alone." ;)
I often credit you publicly with my final conversion to anarchy. If we all could only clearly see that belief in human government deludes us into violating our most cherished and important "religious" beliefs, the world would be a far better place. Thank you for your grand contributions in that direction.😄😇😄
I have been living in the Middle East for 15+ years and must say that so far the only radicalized Muslims I have met are the ones living (or being directed to is the better expression) in my own home country Germany. It seems that the hidden hand who orchestrates the refugee movement only wants to bring radical and fundamentalist Muslim people (many of them aren't even religious at all) to destroy the West.
No Muslim person in the Middle East has ever bullied me, tried to convince me to adopt Islam or coerced me in any way to accept Islam as the only true religion. As a woman I feel safter in the Middle East than in my own home country Germany. So what we see is a totally upside down version of Islam.
You can't really judge any religion on it's "holy books" since many of the things that are written in them were written at a time when those things were the accepted way to deal with society's issues.
It was probably completely accepted to destroy a whole village or town if they were worshiping another religion. It was probably totally acceptable to kill your wife if she tried to entice you into another religion.
I think you can look through any holy book which is hundreds or thousands of years old and find all kinds of things in there that modern society would find reprehensible.
The best solution is to live and let live, and show respect to every human being, regardless of their race, religion, or sexual orientation. That is what we, as a supposedly "enlightened" race of people, should do.
One day I hope that everyone can just live in peace. The way things are going now, however, it looks like I won't be around to see that day.
The Book of Deuteronomy is found in the Jewish Torah and it was written by the Jews.
Is there a particular reason that you omitted Judaism from the article?
You mean other than the fact that I DIDN'T? What I described applies to people of all religions, including Judaism, which I specifically mentioned.
And "Let's be scared of all Jews!" isn't any less silly than "Let's be scared of all Muslims!"
It seems logical to me that anyone writing about a group of people that subscribe to the teachings of a said book would mention the author, and origins of the said book - you failed to do so.
Naturally, I must then ask myself why did you fail to mention the author and origins?
If you read some of my articles you will know that I don't fear any man, not one. It would be very silly to group any large group of people into one basket which is why I didn't.
That would have been an over-reaction and over-simplification - almost as silly as omitting the people that wrote the Book of Deuteronomy, the same people that control the global financial system, the same people that control the media and literally every Government in the world.
Surely I'm not the only person that can see the irony (and/or omissions) in your post?
And maybe I should post something about why the semite codexes seem to us as so cruel... Augh so much to write about and so little time...
Cheers, @larkenrose! Fantastic article that's full of truth.
I read the entire article hoping there would be a comment about the most dangerous superstition - and I was not disappointed. Perhaps the best article yet!!!
Interesting piece, @larkenrose.
I think the problem is not a religion itself but the way people exploit it. I can believe in whatever I want to, I could even be a peaceful muslim I guess. But when it comes to actions, no book or paper in the whole World could ever justify violence. That´s my point of view on religion in general.
LOL - Hey Larken that quote "“Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones … cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places" - from the Bible, isn't that what the U.S. and its allies have been doing to the non-Jews in the Middle East for decades now? Ironically the Muslims have been used as the bogey man when the real terrorists imposing the holy book have been the Judeo-Christian-based governments!
Muslims are better than you and I because they are not tempted by the 'drink'.
Very good post, thank you. I wish the media would pick up some of these points as well instead of alienating a whole religion based on a few lunatics who claim to be muslims but are not.
The difference is that every Muslim is a statist. It is the core of what their religion teaches. Sharia Law is a political system, and every Muslim must believe in Sharia Law, or they aren't Muslim. Many Catholics, on the other hand, are anarchists. For example Servant of God Dorthy Day has passed step one of three towards being declared a saint. She was an anarchist.
"The true anarchist asks nothing for himself, he is self-disciplined, self-denying, accepting the Cross, without asking sympathy, without complaint. The true anarchist loves his brother according to the new law, ready to die rather than compel his brother to go his totalitarian way, no matter how convince he may be that his way is the only way... Anarchism is personalist before it is communitarian. It begins with living a disciplined life, trying to be what you want the other fellow to be." Servant of God Dorthy Day
Fantastic article. Upvoted and resteemed. But, I'd like to give my 2 cents.
Bible is not one book by one author. It is multiple books by multiple authors.
Deuteronomy is the fifth book of Torah, a Hebrew bible, and the Old Testament, which is based on Hebrew bible.
Christianity is a religion based on teachings of Jesus Christ, whose story is told in the New Testament.
So, Deuteronomy is not supposed to apply to Christians. The only words Christians are supposed to follow are the words of Christ. Those nasty passages that you quoted are not told by Jesus, and those nice are.
Whenever I discuss religion with my atheist friends, who claim religion is bad, poisons everything blah blah, I asked them this question:"Is there anything wrong about the teachings of Christ?" They usual response is:"No, Jesus is fine, his followers are not."
Actually, His true followers are those who obey Jesus. Unfortunately, most of us claiming to be Christians do not fall into that category and we give true Christians a bad name.
Jesus, however, IS the God of the Old Testament as well, so we cannot simply dismiss the Old Testament as inapplicable. The fact of the matter is that God often decides to weed his garden. This is not popular with weeds, but it is God's right as the gardener to do so.
True, in this phase of History, we have Jesus' command to love our enemies as part of a new Covenant with his people. But that does not mean that in prior times God did not command that many weeds be pulled up by the roots. This often includes His own disobedient people. We all start out as weeds.
I can understand why people who believe that all religions are the mere inventions of men would try to draw a moral equivalence between God's revealed Truth and all the counterfeits.
The difference is that God has the right to weed His garden and the rest of us don't.
There is more than one form of christianity. Gnostic christians, for example, do not believe the god from the Old Testament is the same as the New Testament. Personally, I ascribe to the Gnostic beliefs, so your comment would not hold true to me.
My comments were for Christianity defined as "what it says in the Bible."
Teaching anything that is not consistent with that is simply the inventions of men.
I agree that there are many such spin-offs where people choose not to believe what God's prophets and apostles wrote down for us.
Exactly.
I don't claim Old Testament is inapplicable. I believe that the words of Jesus from the New Testament have more weight than anything else in the Bible. If the Deuteronomy says we should burn the whole town if there is a non-believer in it, but Jesus says to love our enemies, Christians are supposed to obey latter.
That's a fair statement. Jesus did a lot to help us understand the Scriptures that already existed at the time. He showed us how to love our enemies, even to the point of dying for them. But He is God, and we should not take Him for granted. He doesn't hesitate to discipline His children and decimate his detractors.
Well said @stan.
Except that Jesus himself said that all the stuff in the Old Testament is still relevant, see Matthew 5:17-19:
Matthew 23:
Of course it's relevant. Jesus himself quotes last 5 Commandments: Mt 19:16-19
The Old Testament = old covenant and The New Testament = new covenant. It's not that the Old Testament doesn't apply (I don't know of many Christians who would say the 10 Commandments don't apply for instance) but where there is disagreement between the old and the new, the new takes precedence. It's not quite that simple I suppose but to me it's a good starting point in terms of how to think of it.
Exactly my thoughts.
But to be fair and reinforce the point of the article, are you anywhere near this fluent in what most Muslims believe about their holy texts? Maybe there are similar caveats.
It's too bad you had to ruin an otherwise great post with that last paragraph. But I gave you an upvote anyway.
Why, did I offend your god ("government")?
I love the last paragraph actually.peace!
Terrific post. Thank you.
1 bitcoin 1 god
LOL
Any religion coming from the middle east is like that. Jews, xtians , muslims... no difference.
Funny after reading the first quote I knew where the story is going to end - the bible
all religion is utter bullshit
A well thought out argument, seammeeh42, please clarify giving due regard to ALL religion!
Throughout history religion is contrived dogma attempting to explain the inexplicable. The same for science but...science has zero regard for tradition or sentiment and casts away the bullshit when it's disproven
Fantastic article.
I just joined steemit a week ago and I grew up as a Christian totally by accident. I have researched all the religions and went on various pilgrimages.
Would love to hear from you.
Did you read the quotes he provided? Dust off your feet after putting them to death or what?
Damnit, you're such a smart guy, still so stupid when your beliefs are questioned.
You should be able to Google yourself, but here you go...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism
Don't become that guy please ;)
That was just the most recent example, and that guy reminded me of you (drug use: check. Sex outside of marriage: check. Mental illness: invisible friends are a pretty clear sign)
But as you don't believe atheists anyway this discussion is useless. Screw the facts, praise the invisible man.
So it's okay for your God to command others to kill non-believers? Surprise, Muslims have the old testament too. You all believe in the same cruel asshole God, you're just arguing which impostor prophet is "real".