Why Christianity Is Not Scary, and Islam Is

Over at Reason, the discussion of Geert Wilders' movie took an interesting turn when a commenter named Paul brought up this notorious T-shirt. While I'm no fan of Christianity, the cult of Christ is relatively harmless these days. The following choice boils down the difference between Christianity and Islam pretty well.

I spent some time thinking about it. Really thinking about it. Then, I imagined a scenario. Two T-shirts — pretend you have to wear one of them, publicly. One says "Jesus is a cunt", the other says "Muhammed is a cunt". Which one do you wear?

I think Paul's meaning is, "Which one do you wear without fear of violent repercussions?" And that, alas, is a no-brainer.

Comments

[Dan Hill]

Any religion is scary if people take it seriously, by which I mean treating it as revealed truth and not just a convenient social grouping or an arbitrary cultural artifact.

More people take Islam seriously than take Christianity seriously, so yes in that sense Islam is more dangerous. But Christinalty was just as dangerous 400 years ago (pre-Enlightenment).

Even today there are plenty of places in this country, especially in the South, where I wouldn't wear the "Jesus is a cunt" t-shirt for fear of my safety.

[Sandy]

Dan Hill has a good point:

Imagine you're in deepest South Carolina, in a poor, mostly white town. Now which one do you wear without fear of violent repercussions?

Now imagine you're touring the White House, or attending a speech by Bush. Which one do you think will make you more likely to be detained by the Secret Service?

Now imagine you're in Kansas. Which one do you wear? Oregon? Probably either one, but you'll get more dirty looks with one or the other.

I don't think you can break it down into "scary" and "not scary"--it needs more context than that. But yes, there are probably more muslims willing to do violence over the Mohammed t-shirt than Christians willing to do violence over the Jesus t-shirt. But I still find Christianity as potentially scary as Islam, despite its current quiescence. Eric Rudolph, for one, comes to mind.

[gospazha]

Also, the type of violence either t-shirt could incite is likely very different. Wearing the "Jesus" shirt, I'd expect an ass-kicking. I wouldn't expect to be stalked and murdered over it.

[OGRE]

Well, lets not pretend that wearing a shirt like that and getting your ass kicked for it is any comment on religion.

If you are wearing that shirt (or the Muhammed version), then you pretty much are intending to deeply insult a great many people on a very personal level. Further, even some of those not offended by the religious reference will be offended simply by the word "cunt."

Wear a "Picard is a Cunt" shirt to a Trekkie convention and see what happens. Or a "Steinem is a Cunt" shirt to a women's study rally. Or a "Barack is a Ni----" shirt to the DNC. I'd probably put your chances of survival lowest with the Barack shirt...

[Hermes Ten]

Where I live I could wear the Mohammad shirt and get thumbs up signs from anyone who isn't offended by the word "cunt." The Jesus shirt would guarantee at least a verbal attack, and probably a beating.

Unlike gospazha I'm not so confident that the Jesus shirt wouldn't get you stalked and murdered. Maybe not in New York City or some place, but down South? Having lived for years among the fundies I would genuinely fear this possibility.

Another difference is the expectation of punishment. I think there may well be as many Christians who'd want to kill you for one shirt as Muslims who'd want to kill you for the other, but because we live in a SECULAR society still somewhat based on laws, they fear the consequences. If we were really living in a "Christian" nation where a theocracy had the power it does in a Muslim State, I doubt the Jesus shirt would be so well "tolerated."

I don't think the difference between these two groups of irrationalists is one so much of tolerance or morality as it is of power. The fundamentalist Christians in this country are only tolerant because they have to be.

And if you're worried about wearing a Picard is a cunt shirt to a trekie convention, well, the best that can be said about you is that you don't understand the sci-fi culture . The fact that we're talking about being beaten or killed for words on a shirt is evidence for how primitive we still are, and how far we have to go to extinguish superstition and live in a rational and free world.

[OGRE]

I see you missed the point.

Some people, religious or otherwise, will respond violently to what they consider deeply personal insults. This has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with human nature.

I'd note that many people are willing to do violence with far less provocation than a vulgar t-shirt. I'd further note that the religious have a lot of catching up to do with the non-religious in the body count department. Mao set a pretty high standard there.

[Hermes Ten]

"Some people, religious or otherwise, will respond violently to what they consider deeply personal insults."

I actually agree with this. Religion is just another excuse bad people use to rationalize and justify such behavior.

I don't buy the "catching" up stuff though. Mao had power; our Christian dogmatists do not, as our founders gave us a secular state. And Hitler's killing machine simply would not have been possible if Christian beliefs really meant anything. All those soldiers and party members doing evil for the Third Reich were not atheists --the vast majority of them were Christians.

Also, "non-religious" is a pretty broad term. The people slaughtering Native Americans and operating our Southern Slave system weren't atheists, they were good Christians. And while there were minority Christian movements in the North who opposed slavery, many of those men of the enlightenment who fought to end it were not Christians. I hear Christians tell me TODAY that their God and their bible approve of slavery.

In my opinion, people are good, or bad, primarily for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. Most people find what they want in religion, either reasons to do good, or excuses for doing evil.

[Linda]

A little too much of the latter these days....

[Rob]

"Imagine you're in deepest South Carolina, in a poor, mostly white town. Now which one do you wear without fear of violent repercussions?"

Uh..Huge difference between the two, right? We go from the possibility of getting your ass kicked for being a tool who wears an offensive t-shirt -- to the possibility of being shot 8 times in the middle of a major European city for making a film that depicted the life of Muslim women in an accurate way. Muslim reactions are much more violent and brutal, and completely disporportionate to the offense. Overall these fundamentalist are much more dangerous then even the nuttiest Christians out there today.

BTW, in my time in the south -- Georgia and South Carolina, you would never consider yourself in danger for wearing a shirt that mocked Christianity. And even if you did it would be because you were in a scary part of town, and you would feel the same way if you had a Yankees hat on or something. The vast majority of Southerners, religious and non-religious folks, are amused at the brashness and rudeness of northerners, but they rarely get offended enough to react violently, it just confirms the stereotypes they had before.

[Hermes Ten]

Yeah Rob? I think you lived in a different South than I live in.

Your US south to Muslim comparison is apples and oranges. For one thing, if you're referring to the director, Van Gogh, there is some reason to believe his murder involved complicity with Dutch intelligence, as he was murdered by one of their Muslim assets.

For another thing, it is an isolated incident that proves absolutely nothing about the relative propensity to murder. Are Muslims killing Westerners for the messages on their t-shirts? If so, cite some examples.

More dangerous than the nuttiest Christian? Really? More dangerous than the nutty Christians shooting doctors and bombing abortion clinics, like Eric Rudolph? Since 1993: 7 murders, 17 attempted murders, 153 assaults, 3 kidnappings, 41 bombings, and 173 arsons.

And then there is the fact that, given the number of Muslims that have died in the last decade due to the actions of the US and European countries, and US Mideast polices, there are a lot of Muslims out there who have a lot more to be pissed about than what's on a a t-shirt.

We simply do not know how all our good Christians would behave under similar circumstances. Their record in just the US, as I cited above, is not so hot. There's good reason to believe that mocking Jesus would be a lot more dangerous if the people of the book thought they'd get away with it.

[Melisa]

Hello, Just found this site found this article intresting and wanted to chime in. As a Christian I would ignore it. Why? Because God and Jesus dont need me to defend them. I also would like to point out that Christians have a savoir. Jesus said he without sin throw the first stone as far as I know most christians live by this. I have yet to find forgivness in Islam a savoir that lets people forgive one another.