No mainstream Christian theology claims that the entire Bible is the word of God. Not even Jews do so. The problem with Islam is that the very foundation of Islamic belief is "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet" and the Qu'ran is written as first-person messages coming directly from God as claimed by Muhammad. Which means that to doubt ANY part of it means to doubt either Muhammad's status as prophet or God's perfection. The Qu'ran is impregnable in Islamic faith, and this is a document of pure, unfiltered hate towards non-believers. This isn't cherry-picking, read it and you will see.
To think that the Bible and the Qu'ran are the same is to demonstrate huge ignorance. To insist they are despite that ignorance is ignorance compounded by arrogance.
"And yes, Jesus came to "set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in-law against her mother-in-law." He says he comes not to bring peace, but a sword. Those are Jesus' own words, which you would know if you'd bothered to look up my citations of Scripture."
And that is cherry-picking, especially considering how most of Jesus' comments in the Gospel are obiously allegorical, not litteral. The most evident reading of that passage is that Jesus warns his followers that they will be opposed and face repression, not to go out and murder people in his name as you seem to pretend.
"The Roman Emperor Constantine the First converted to and favored Christianity after his Christian banners rallied his forces against his brother in law and rival for the throne, and promptly outlawed worship of any other gods after securing victory. "
False. The outlawing of other religions came much later. Constantine wasn't a Christian until that battle you mention, and indeed the Empire minted coins with Roman gods for 8 years after his victory. Constantine adopted an edict saying that the Empire was religiously neutral, stopped the persecution of Christians, gave back seized goods and favored the Christian Church in his appointments.
The Christianization of the Roman Empire was a long process that you clearly have no knowledge of. You just assume it was purely repressive because it's convenient for your ideas regarding the equivalency of all religions. Usually, the main process was that priests would evangelize among the nobility, get them to convert, using the prestige of the Empire as a tool, and when the upper class was mainly Christian, the masses would follow over the next two centuries. Wars to convert pagan peoples largely didn't occur until the 13th-14th century, with the Baltic crusades for example.
"And do you really expect me to believe that Christians today DON'T want their faith written into the laws of our lands? Abortion. Gay marriage. Prayer in schools. These are just a few issues I have heard Christians say should be informed, if not outright DECIDED, by Scripture."
I know atheists who oppose same-sex marriage and abortion. If you believe that a fetus is an human being, no matter your faith, you must oppose abortion, because then it would be murder. I personally don't think so, so I'm fine with abortion. If you think marriage is mainly about founding a family, then you may not support same-sex marriage as same-sex couples cannot reproduce naturally. So opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, though positions that can be influenced by faith, are not necessarily about writing faith in the laws. Prayer in school would be imposing faith in the law.
However, it's quite ironic for you to whine that those evil Christians want to force their laws on everyone, when America was overwhelmingly Christian while it adopted the separation of Church and State in the Constitution and upheld it. If Christians had really wanted to impose their faith through the law, they would have done so, they had the power and democratic legitimacy to do it. It's like accusing white Americans of being racist and opposed to other races as a blanket statement... a 80+% majority of racists and xenophobes do not allow millions of people of other races to migrate to their country.
You know what is forcing faith on the law? Sharia law, which is an entire legal system drawn directly from the Islamic holy texts and which has governed most of the Muslim world for more than a thousand years. It's only after European colonization and influence that it was dropped, but even now, many islamist parties strive to reimplement it in countries where it had been removed.
"You want violence against slaves? Here's Exodus 21:20-22; "If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property." "
The versions I've seen say "if he recovers after a day or two", not just survives, but that's not really important. AGAIN, you choose to obfuscate the difference between the Bible and the Qu'ran. For instance, Christians don't have to uphold the law of Moses, hence why circumcision is not a Christian practice (though Americans practice it for BS 19th century anti-masturbation reasons) based on a passage from Galatians where it is written that Jesus redeemed Christians from the curse of the law of Moses. The Qu'ran has no out and provides none. To ignore it is to reject Islam, which is punished by the death penalty in Sharia law.
If you don't understand that difference, you don't understand anything to Islam and you should learn from the famous proverb "better to stay silent and look like a fool, than to speak and confirm you are one".
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@MarlenaWatches
No mainstream Christian theology claims that the entire Bible is the word of God. Not even Jews do so. The problem with Islam is that the very foundation of Islamic belief is "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet" and the Qu'ran is written as first-person messages coming directly from God as claimed by Muhammad. Which means that to doubt ANY part of it means to doubt either Muhammad's status as prophet or God's perfection. The Qu'ran is impregnable in Islamic faith, and this is a document of pure, unfiltered hate towards non-believers. This isn't cherry-picking, read it and you will see.
To think that the Bible and the Qu'ran are the same is to demonstrate huge ignorance. To insist they are despite that ignorance is ignorance compounded by arrogance.
"And yes, Jesus came to "set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in-law against her mother-in-law." He says he comes not to bring peace, but a sword. Those are Jesus' own words, which you would know if you'd bothered to look up my citations of Scripture."
And that is cherry-picking, especially considering how most of Jesus' comments in the Gospel are obiously allegorical, not litteral. The most evident reading of that passage is that Jesus warns his followers that they will be opposed and face repression, not to go out and murder people in his name as you seem to pretend.
"The Roman Emperor Constantine the First converted to and favored Christianity after his Christian banners rallied his forces against his brother in law and rival for the throne, and promptly outlawed worship of any other gods after securing victory. "
False. The outlawing of other religions came much later. Constantine wasn't a Christian until that battle you mention, and indeed the Empire minted coins with Roman gods for 8 years after his victory. Constantine adopted an edict saying that the Empire was religiously neutral, stopped the persecution of Christians, gave back seized goods and favored the Christian Church in his appointments.
The Christianization of the Roman Empire was a long process that you clearly have no knowledge of. You just assume it was purely repressive because it's convenient for your ideas regarding the equivalency of all religions. Usually, the main process was that priests would evangelize among the nobility, get them to convert, using the prestige of the Empire as a tool, and when the upper class was mainly Christian, the masses would follow over the next two centuries. Wars to convert pagan peoples largely didn't occur until the 13th-14th century, with the Baltic crusades for example.
"And do you really expect me to believe that Christians today DON'T want their faith written into the laws of our lands? Abortion. Gay marriage. Prayer in schools. These are just a few issues I have heard Christians say should be informed, if not outright DECIDED, by Scripture."
I know atheists who oppose same-sex marriage and abortion. If you believe that a fetus is an human being, no matter your faith, you must oppose abortion, because then it would be murder. I personally don't think so, so I'm fine with abortion. If you think marriage is mainly about founding a family, then you may not support same-sex marriage as same-sex couples cannot reproduce naturally. So opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, though positions that can be influenced by faith, are not necessarily about writing faith in the laws. Prayer in school would be imposing faith in the law.
However, it's quite ironic for you to whine that those evil Christians want to force their laws on everyone, when America was overwhelmingly Christian while it adopted the separation of Church and State in the Constitution and upheld it. If Christians had really wanted to impose their faith through the law, they would have done so, they had the power and democratic legitimacy to do it. It's like accusing white Americans of being racist and opposed to other races as a blanket statement... a 80+% majority of racists and xenophobes do not allow millions of people of other races to migrate to their country.
You know what is forcing faith on the law? Sharia law, which is an entire legal system drawn directly from the Islamic holy texts and which has governed most of the Muslim world for more than a thousand years. It's only after European colonization and influence that it was dropped, but even now, many islamist parties strive to reimplement it in countries where it had been removed.
"You want violence against slaves? Here's Exodus 21:20-22; "If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property." "
The versions I've seen say "if he recovers after a day or two", not just survives, but that's not really important. AGAIN, you choose to obfuscate the difference between the Bible and the Qu'ran. For instance, Christians don't have to uphold the law of Moses, hence why circumcision is not a Christian practice (though Americans practice it for BS 19th century anti-masturbation reasons) based on a passage from Galatians where it is written that Jesus redeemed Christians from the curse of the law of Moses. The Qu'ran has no out and provides none. To ignore it is to reject Islam, which is punished by the death penalty in Sharia law.
If you don't understand that difference, you don't understand anything to Islam and you should learn from the famous proverb "better to stay silent and look like a fool, than to speak and confirm you are one".