Re:I Met Paul Graham Once
by selimthegrim on Monday January 20, 2025 @01:44PM
(#42771712)
To pretend that every Muslim area in the world was converted by the sword is just totally unsupportable
I haven't said that every Muslim area in the world was converted by the sword.
But Muhammad led a lot of wars, in which thousands died. Which is fairly untypical among the founders of currently widespread religions, though the Old Testament heroes like Joshua can be categorized into a very similar slot.
This is something I considered a brazen lie in the interest of stability.
I believe in existence of individual peaceful Muslims, but I don't believe in inherent peacefulness of a religion founded by a warrior who converted Arabia by the sword and which had since seen an endless series of holy wars initiated in the name of Islam.
You can't really build societal understanding on a foundation of such misinformation.
To be clear, Christianity and Judaism aren't "religions of peace" either. Some explicitly anti-militaristic sects like the Amish maybe. But the Abrahamic faiths as such, no.