Transcript [EN]: DEBATE: Christianity or Islam, Which Is More Violent? | Apostate Prophet vs. Javad

You have a selected quote. I agreed reluctantly to the title because I know that you guys I agreed to the title. What? Okay, I'm I'm speaking now. You would see that the majority of the wars that are being fought are fought because Islamists or Muslims tend to be violent, including, by the way in Israel. One of the major side effects of inbreeding is irrational anger. Uh do you think this is why Muslims are so violent? That was not a serious argument. that was just meant to be insulting a racial ethnic kind of undertone to it. And um I don't even know how to respond to that. I can respond. I hope that I I'll let you I'll let you respond. [Music] Thank you for being here. Very excited for this next debate. Uh a couple of quick housekeeping things before we get to that. So, tonight at 6:30 in this room in front of the banner is going to be the final photo op. If you didn't get your photo op, if you're from the super VIP and up, and then we'll email those to you after. Also, if you are super VIP or higher for the different ticket tiers, we have the signed emblem pages that we want to make sure that you get. We are going to start handing those out at the end of this debate and then we'll hand out the rest if anybody didn't get it already at the uh end of the final debate. Now we have Christianity or Islam. Which is more violent for our debate. First, Dr. Javad T. Hashmi is a physician, ethicist, and PhD candidate in the study of religion at Harvard University. He specializes in the topic of religion and violence. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Javad Hashmi. Thrilled to have you here. I'm very excited for this debate. It is going to be a good one. Also, introducing Apostate Prophet who whose channel focuses on critiquing Islam and has over 595,000 subscribers. Please join me in welcoming Apostate Prophet as well. Your mics. as well. Thank you very much. We're going to start with Dr. Javad Hashmi. The floor is all yours. Are you Is the mic on? Hello. Okay, perfect. I'll start on your first word. Okay, sounds good. Thanks. All right. Oh. If someone can close, if you could close that. Oh gosh. One thing. Hold on. We haven't started the debate. Bob, can you do me a favor and just close that door just so we don't have the static noise coming through? Is it right if I grab the mic? It definitely is. And both of you, if you can hold the mic right about this distance from your uh face hole. Okay, here we go. Thank you, gentlemen. And I'm ready for you, Dr. Ash. The floor is all yours. Yeah, I'm already. Thanks so much. All right. Which is more violent, Islam or Christianity? The answer is neither. It's an invalid question. Both are vast traditions with both warlike and peaceful expressions throughout history. Uh but the reality is is that most Christians are blissfully unaware of the dark side of their tradition. So that's what I'd like to share today. That doesn't mean that's what I think Christianity is overall, but this is a side that I think people should be aware of when they compare other religious traditions. My thesis is quite simple. My thesis is that Islam is no more violent than Christianity. And I will make this argument based on three subpoints. On scripture, tradition, history, and the modern period. When it comes to scripture, I'll be judging it based on uh just cause, just conduct, and just peace. All right. When it comes to the Quran uh and just cause uh it endorses a very strict defensive war principle and even then calls for a higher ethic of forgiveness. It endorses a non-aggression principle. It says uh quite literally do not aggress for God does not love aggressors and a no harm principle. If they let you be do not make war on you and offer you peace, then God does not allow you any way to harm them. As far as just conduct in the Quran, it clearly says to fight only those who fight against you. And it also calls for a strict proportionality principle. Only use like force against the enemy. When it comes to just peace in the Quran, there's a very clear peace principle. If the enemy inclines towards peace, then you incline towards it. A forgiveness principle and a grace principle. When the war ends, you're to free the prisoners of war, which as we'll see is very unlike the Bible. Now there are some militant sounding passages what professor Patricia Crona calls blood curdling passages but she also notes that the blood curdling passages are mobilizing rather than legislating that is give them hell it's not about how to fight and she says though the language of the Quran is often extremely militant the principle of forgiveness is reiterated between the assertions of the right to defend oneself the Quran also prohibits compulsion so there are no wars of compulsion that are endorsed in the Quran it says very clearly let there be no compulsion in religion. And this is repeated throughout the Quran. Whosoever will, let him disbelieve. Unto you your religion and unto me my religion. And notably, there is no punishment for worldly a punishment for apostasy in the Quran. Now, there is a document called the Constitution of Medina, which historians consider universally to be authentic and goes back to the prophet. And in it he endorses liberty of worship for the religious minorities in Medina and equal treatment. And notably at this time there's no additional tax. Let's move to the Bible. Is there a religious compulsion? Yes, there is. In fact, idolatry uh any person who apostatizes and engages in idolatry calls to worship other gods shall be devoted to destruction. This is in Deuteronomy. Stone them to death. You should surely kill them. In fact, entire towns, if they apostatize and worship idols, are to be destroyed and offered as burnt offerings to God. As far as the justifications for war, it has nothing to do with the enemy attacking you, but rather their sinfulness and idolatry of the enemy and the fear of religious contamination if you were to live with them, as well as a divine command. God simply wills it and gifts this land to you. When it comes to war conduct in the Bible, well, the general ethic is this. You're supposed to quote unquote offer peace to the enemy, which means that they become your slaves if they agree. If they don't agree, then what are you to do? You to massacre the men and take the women and children as serious slaves. Now, Christian apologists will say this has nothing to do with this is a uh timebound historical commands only within the promised land and the seven nations. But that's not true. This is a generalized rule specifically about towns that are very far from you, not in the promised lands. And it specifically says which are not towns of the seven nations. Now this what about the ethic as far as within the promised land. Within the promised land, it's genocidal haram warfare. Utterly annihilate everyone who lives there. Leave nothing alive that breeds. While the Quran endorses a peace principle, the Bible offers the opposite, a no priest principle. You shall make no treaty with them. Now, the Christian apologists will say again, that's a time bound thing. It's only the seven nations. Wait a second. Let's look at this. Amalecch. What does it say about Amalecch? It says, "Now go and attack Amalecch and utterly destroy them. Kill both men, women, children, and babies. Blot out remembrance of Amalecch." So, who are the Amalachites? Well, they're not one of the seven nations, and there's no historical evidence for their actual existence as a specific ethnic or national group. Instead, scholars think Amalecch is a mythical, archetypal, and typological term used to refer to quote all of your enemies throughout time and space. This flexible and expansive use of Amalcch is already present in the Bible. There is in fact a perpetual command to engage in genocide if you say someone is Amalecch. This is because the Bible says the Lord will have war with Amalch from generation to generation. So every generation there could be Amalecch. And that's why today the Palestinians are called Amalch by the Zionists. So what is the biblical war ethic? Well, let's summarize. The milder ethic is ethnic cleansing. That's the general default rule. And if it's within the promised land or if it's against anyone labeled Amalecch, then it's to total extermination, genocidal warfare. Now, Muhammad is often accused of being a warlord prophet. Oh, yeah. What about Moses? Moses engaged in several genocidal battles in which entire cities were devoted to the sword. Let's look at this one. This is the Midionites. Moses tells his men to go and kill everyone. They only kill the men. What does Jo Moses say? Well, he's upset. He says, "Have you allowed all the women to live?" No. Kill every male among the children and kill every woman. Who do you leave alive? Only the young girls. Why? To say to keep as sexual slaves for yourselves. Notably, the Midionites are not of the seven nations and reside outside the promised land. Again, punching a hole in the apologist talking point. What about Joshua? He's actually probably the most violent prophet and he's typological for Jesus. He engages in the genocidal annihilation of several cities including Jericho. I in which 12,000 people are said to be have been slaughtered, men, women, and children. And that was all commanded by God. There's so many genocides that I can't mention all of them, but I'll just list these that Joshua engaged in city after city devoted to God. What about King David's expansionary wars? Again, outside of the promised land, which shows that it's not restricted to some specific geography. Now, the Christian apologists will say, "But that's just the Old Testament. Jesus came." But actually, Jesus says, "Do not think that I've come to abolish the law. Not one jot, not one letter will pass away from the law." What about Jesus's turn the other cheek? In fact, Professor Dale Allison says, "These verses are not a repudiation of the law of Moses." And in fact, this is only speaking about interpersonal relations. And this is a widespread view among scholars that I've listed here. In fact, what Jesus is calling for is non-resistance to the state imperial authority which can still wage. It has a military and there's nothing against that. So for when it says love uh the enemy, it means love the Romans do not join the resistance against state imperial power. That's why it says pray for those who persecute you. That is the Romans. Just like the Bible says slaves obey your masters. Honor the emperor. Slaves accept the authority of your masters even if they're abusive. So there's always been this connection between Christianity and the imperial power. Jesus did not condemn military service and said highly praised the faith of a Roman soldier. Paul also opposed personal vengeance while simultaneously endorsing imperial state violence. He said the authority does not bear the sword in vain. And this has a long history in Christian interpretation that we'll look at. As far as Jesus, although he opposed personal vengeance, that's because he believed in deferred violence. He believed that the world was imminently about to pass away and soon they will face the wrath of God or as later uh Christians believe that Jesus himself will return to torture the enemies of Christians. He will ultimately destroy, burn or torture them. This is in Jesus's second coming which will be incredibly violent. He will come with his robe dipped in blood. He would judge and wage war, utterly destroy his enemies and rule them with an iron rod. So that's the Bible. Let's look at Christian tradition and history. Now the early church initially endorsed this ethic of deferred violence because they believed the end of the world was coming and they did not have power. But the church was not uniformly pacifist. And even the pacifists amongst them endorsed as origin did quote a holy war concept in which God fights alongside pagan Roman armies with Christians aiding the battle with spiritual prayers. Now once Christians came to power with the conversion of Constantine very shortly after they immediately began opposing freedom of religion and wanted to use force against the pagans to convert them to Christianity against their will and they cited the Bible for this Deuteronomy and that's why an edict was passed very shortly thereafter in which all peoples were said to that they must become Christian and all others will be punished. This is an official Roman imperial edict. Paganism was outlawed. Pagan temples were destroyed, converted to churches, and paganism attacked on a wide scale. In fact, pagan devotional acts became punishable by death. By 407 AD, non-Christians were considered outlaws. How was Europe converted? Converted by the sword. Here is a scholar. It writes in his book conversion of Europe that all of Europe except for Great Britain and Ireland was converted by violent force. Here is a list of the major force conversions or where violent pressure was used uh uh around all of Europe. And this was endorsed on a doctrinal level. Here's St. Augustine who as scholars say he endorsed the idea that temples and idols should be destroyed as long as it's done by the state authority. and he agreed with coercion of pagans, heretics and schismatics. He endorsed the idea of just persecution and even the idea of killing in love. This is why scholars say that Christianity, medieval Christianom, became a persecuting society. And this was the case for a thousand years. Here are some of the many, many expulsions of Jews throughout Europe. And look where many of them fled. They fled to the Islamic world, many of them where they were treated much better. Here are the pilgrims against Jews throughout the centuries. Once again, you'll notice that there's this big gap in southern Europe right there where the Ottoman Empire was because they didn't com they didn't do pilgrims against the Jews. Outside of Europe, Christianom kept expanding and they used that uh their interpretation of the Bible. That was their interpretation of the New Testament, the belief of the emperor as God's rod on earth and their Old Testament interpretation and their own conception of Christendom as the new Israel. And so they had a doctrine of the equivalent of perpetual warfare that we'll look at. And so they waged hundreds of years of warfare of of the northern crusades. So he's going to argue that the crusades were just defensive. These are the northern crashes waged for hundreds of years against the pagans to forcibly convert them. There were crusades inside Europe in against heretics and finally crusades against the Muslim world which involved the sack of Constantinople and which led to the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. So this was a doctrine of perpetual warfare, a permanent state of war as uh the scholar says in infidels and empire and infidels could be attacked because of either their infidelity that was the stricter opinion or their blasphemy and idolatry as pope innocent IV declared. These were the two views and so the church endorsed the doctrine of discovery. Papal bulls said told Christian Europe to go and invade, capture, vanquish and subdue all Muslims and pagans whatsoever to reduce their persons to perpetual servitude. Multiple papal bulls here where it was said that you should use force to spread Christian rule and bring people to the faith. That's why the concistadors uh went and conquered the new world and they considered themselves crusaders. Their slogan was for God and the king. Now, critics of Islam will always point to Islamic expansion. Yes, that's true. But what about Christian Europe's expansion? Here, we'll just start from the 1500s. Let's look at the world expansion over the centuries. We'll see it conquering the new world and most of the rest of the world. That brings us to the modern period where you see that 80% of the world has been occupied by Christian Europe. And this is associated with now the Christian apologists will try to disassociate this from Christianity. But this is a history of conquest, forced labor and exploitation which was justified to spread the gospel and civilized the quote unquote savage. This resulted in multiple episodes of ethnic cleansing and genocide of entire continents, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa. Tens of millions of people were slaughtered. One minute left. I need a fiveminute warning. Okay. All right. If I could get just a couple minutes then um French and British colonialism was done for Christianity to civilize the savage. And the same thing is with America where the native Americans were called Amalch. Even the Korean war and Vietnam war was in order to Christianize those regions against godless atheism. Modern genocides have been done in the name of Christianity. The Congo, the Congolese genocide, the Namibian genocide, Guatemalan genocide, the Rwanda genocide when the Tootsies were labeled as Amalcch and the Bosnian genocide. Aparthide South Africa, they also called their enemy Amalcch and considered themselves new Israel. And the Nazis and Christians will always try to claim that they were pagans. I'm sorry. The Nazi party platform says they represent the view of positive Christianity. Adolf Hitler was a self-described Christian. He wasn't an Orthodox Christian, but he was still a Christian. Hitler considered it a divine mission to carry on and complete the mission that Jesus started the Aryan Christ in his view and the mission of Luther. He believed he was involved in a true crusade for the Christianity of the Lord. And it's in mine come when I defend myself against the Jews, I'm fighting for the Lord's work. And you don't believe me? Here's a bunch of academic works that you can read on this instead of the apologetic stuff that you read. And these genocides continue to this day. The Gaza genocide. Palestinians are labeled Amalch by Jewish and Christian Zionists. And you see my interlocutor here unfortunately endorsing this kind of thing and saying there are no civilians in Gaza. This is a long history of Christian violence. Thank you. Thank you very much for that opening. We are going to kick it over to Apostate Prophet for his opening as well. AP, the floor is all yours. Thank you so much. Uh is this good enough his distance or what? I would hold it closer. Really? We had issues with it earlier where there was feedback otherwise. All right. So, uh you starting now? Yeah. Okay. Good. So, um I'm going to mostly respond uh later on in during the rebuttals. Uh first I want to go through a few things, but I do want to address one thing because I it came up at the very very end. I'm a little bit disappointed when uh an opponent in a debate becomes uh very clearly dishonest. uh a tweet of mine was put on there which said there are no civilians in Gaza. The funny thing is that that is a cropped post because I was replying uh to something else and I would ask my opponents maybe to find and post the entire context of it because my argument was not that there are no civilians in Gaza. My argument was simply to uh reverse a statement that somebody else made which was there are no civilians in Israel and to simply apply it to Gaza to see what that sounds like and what the reaction then would be. So there is a clear context here. I wasn't just saying there are no civilians in Gaza. Not that I need to justify that. Now if I asked a room full of random people which word they associate with which religion is it would be very interesting. I can't really try it out here. It's going to be very biased, but I want to give you a sample of that just so that you can um maybe try it out somewhere else. So, um let's say I'm going to say a word and you can just tell me which religion you think of. Elephant figure. Thank you. Love your enemy. Thank you. Chosen people. Meditation. Violence. Now, of course, this was very predictable because it's very because it's very biased environment, right? The point is you can try that out somewhere else and then see what happens. When you speak in public about how there is one religion that is of course very violent and very uh divisive and very hateful and very dangerous, people will immediately start reacting without even knowing the context and think, "Oh this is getting Islamophobic." So, uh everybody can tell that when we talk about violence and religion, we are talking about Islam. uh and people then start to make it about but what about Christianity for example to uh to take the attention away from Islam. Now of course I'm not saying that popular opinion tells us everything we need to know about uh what is and is not true. I cannot say people associate popularly Islam with violence. Therefore Islam is violent. For example, if I you know talked about child marriage uh most of you guys would probably think it's about Islam which would be very unfair. uh unless of course we can establish that Muhammad married a child and most uh Muslim scholars agree that that is okay therefore which is the case. Um so of course it is not unfair to associate child marriage with Islam. Similarly it is not unfair to associate violence with Islam. If we associate violence with Islam we should probably look a little bit further and see where that exactly comes from. It comes from the Quran. Islam is indeed more violent. It is more violent than Christianity. It is more violent than other religions. It is more violent than other ideologies that we are that we face. In Quran 8:39, it says after it gives a context in the preceding verses uh where it is explained that the polytheists dare to prevent the Muslims from entering the holy sites from entering uh the Cabba which until then was a pagan temple. It says fight them until there is no more fitna which is oppression or corruption. uh and religion is entirely for Allah. Further, there is another verse which makes it which which makes it all as clear as possible. Chapter 9 verse 29. I love that verse. It goes as follows. Fight against those who do not believe in Allah or in the last day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and his messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth that is Islam from those who were given the scripture. So the Christians and Jews, if they do not accept Islam, if they do not believe in Allah and his messenger and do not accept the laws of Islam, they are to be fought until they pay protection money Jiza willingly while they are humbled. Notice that it says fight those who do not believe. It does not say fight those who do who fight you. It does not say fight those who oppress you. It says fight those who do not believe until they submit and pay protection money. It continues then further on in the next verse and says, "The Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah." I recently went to Israel and asked a bunch of Jews uh whether they believe Ezra is the son of Allah and they had no idea what I'm talking about, which is very funny. And the Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their statement from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of those who disbelieved before them. May Allah destroy them. How are they deluded? Uh Islamic scholars throughout history, uh the interpreters of the Quran, very very popular. Ibn Kafir is a go-to guy. Um have consistently explained this as a direct uh sanction from the Quran to simply aggressively fight all those who do not believe in Islam and to subjugate them to coers them. I want to contrast this with uh the Bible. We know most of the passages. Matthew 5, you have heard that it was said eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. Again, Matthew 5. Later on, you have heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 26, put your sword back in its place. Jesus said to him, "For all who draw the sword will die by the sword." Luke 6, love your enemies. To him who strikes you on the cheek over the other also. Luke 9, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? to the Samaritans. But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. So he even rebuked them for simply invoking such a curse upon them. In Romans, it says, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Never avenge yourselves. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. Overcome evil with good." Hebrews 12, "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." 1 Peter 3, do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with a blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. I want to also depart here from the direct scripture from the primary scripture and go to the secondary scripture in Islam which my opponent often has uh difficulties dealing with uh which is the hadith. uh Muslims universally the vast majority of them do not just believe that the Quran is the only source of our conduct. They the majority of them believe that the Sunnah the hadith the the the narrations about Muhammad the things that he did and said are equally or almost as important. Those tell us in Sah Muslim which is considered authentic by Muslims around the world that Muhammad said, "I have been commanded to fight against the people until they justify until they testify that there is no god but Allah that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah and that they establish prayer and so on. So according to Muhammad's own words considered authentic by the majority of Islamic scholars by Muslims around the world, Muhammad said that he has been sent to fight the disbelievers until they testify that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. He also said by the way that whoever leaves his religion shall be killed. But my opponent will say that it's not mentioned in the Quran. Therefore, we can't really count that. Well, Muslims do count it. Let's go to history. A book that I recommend uh very very much is uh by Robert Hyland um in God's path. It is a book that explores uh the development of Islam from the beginning until uh the early spread of Islam and a little bit later on. He says Muhammad initially attempted to spread his message solely by preaching but he received a hostile reception for most of his fellow Meccans uh and had to make a journey in search of a refuge to Medina. He ended up in a nearby oasis town of Medina. the time of peaceful preaching was over now he decided and it was time to use force to carry out what he perceived to be God's will. So the the development of Islam and the development of Christianity are very different. Christianity as we know started out as my opponent will also agree as a religion that was considered meek or even weak. that started out with preaching, that started out with with Jesus coming and uh suffering, with him dying on the cross and resurrecting. And the early centuries of Christianity were all about preaching, were all about love, they were about persecution. Christian martyrs are not considered martyrs because they were amazing fighters who humiliated and slaughtered the enemy. They are martyrs because they were persecuted, because they were killed, because they suffered. With Islam, the situation is a little bit different. Islam started out directly in Muhammad's lifetime as a as an aggressive force. Muhammad was sent to a different town away from his people who didn't like him and who wanted to allegedly persecute him. So he started building up an army with which he began raiding the mechanists and provoking the first war, the battle of B, which led to the first major war. And it continued with wars from there on. He participated in over 20 of those wars himself and led 60 others. It only continued that way from then on. With Christianity, things changed. When Christianity became popular in the Roman Empire, uh Christians did adopt certain methods and actually developed uh a just war theory which was not part of Christianity in the very beginning. It was developed as a necessity because now Christianity had become part of the governing rul rulers, governing power. So they had to somehow uh establish a doctrine on how and when to fight and this doctrine is not one that advocates for aggressions. It is very very clear both in the teachings of Augustine and later on Thomas Auinus in just war theory that wars should only be fought against those who wrong us those who are aggressors. It should not be used as an offensive. early Christian uh church fathers. Basil the Great is very well known for having said, "Our fathers did not consider killings committed in the course of wars to be classifiable as murders at all." On the score, it seems to me, of allowing a pardon to men fighting in defense of sobriety and piety. Perhaps though, it might be advisable to refuse them communion for 3 years on the ground that their hands are not clean. This is one of the most important Christian theologians early on. Uh especially well known among Orthodox Christians and uh he considers it a necessity but nevertheless an evil that makes your hands impure to go out and fight people even in a just war and he would personally deny communion to people who even in a just war killed somebody. Justin Marter said that uh that we would rather die than go out and kill people even if it is in a war. Augustine said that it is a necessity uh and that that if we are running to somebody's self-defense, we should strive not to kill somebody even in self-defense. Ambrose of Milan uh famously known uh was a bishop of Milan. He excommunicated Theodosius the first the Roman emperor for committing a massacre. It is the bishop, the religious authority directly condemning and excommunicating the emperor in charge and saying, "You have just massacred people. Shame on you. Disgusting. Repent before you come back to the church." And didn't allow him to come back. These are the Christian authorities. Ambrose also said, "God who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner did not desire that a homicide should be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide." So even if somebody uh by secular standards deserves to be executed for a crime, he considered it a shameful and disgusting thing to execute somebody. Now I'm not going to argue that uh Christianity is a completely nonviolent religion. Of course uh the early church fathers and others also established that there is a time to fight. There is a time to make peace and that if people come to threaten you and your community, it is of course better to fight back and to defend your people and to defend yourself. However, uh in Christianity, violence is regarded as an evil. Nevertheless, even if it is justified, killing is regarded as an evil even if it is justified. In Islam, it is u not really frowned upon to say the least. In today's time, we have multiple scholars like Davis Brown um in his study, the influence of religion on interstate armed conflict, said something very interesting. I quote, "In a nutshell, interstate armed conflict initiation is found to be negatively associated with Christianity, mildly positively associated with Islam and not associated with Buddhism." He also said, "A state with median non-zero Muslim GRP is 84% more likely to resort to force than a state with no Muslim GRP." uh uh the terms can be explained later on but uh what he's saying is that he continues versus an analogous Christian state being 37% less likely. So a state that is a Muslim state is significantly more likely to resort to force in conflicts whereas a state that is a Christian state is significantly less likely to resort to violence. These are his findings. He tested the model. Um, another study by Joshua Joshua Wright, uh, why is contemporary religious terrorism predominantly linked to Islam? He says, I quote, Islamist terrorism makes up the majority of religious terrorism and is the most deadly form of religious terrorism in the world today. It's no coincidence. He also further adds factors such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of education do not appear explanatory. In fact, the majority of terrorists are employed and live in middle inome countries. So the factor that is counted here is Islam. Islam. Islamists tend to be significantly more violent and engage in terrorism compared to any other group. Another study conducted by um Davis Brown and Shong Wan Choy at the University of Illinois says we find that countries with greater Muslim populations are likely to experience more suicide attacks. Countries with greater Sunni Muslim populations are likely to encounter more suicide attacks. Countries with greater Hanafi Muslim populations in contrast to Sunni face greater challenges and so on. Islam is likely to be a strong and consistent predictor of suicide attacks. This is a quote. How much do I have? 30 seconds. Okay. Um Davis Brown further says in a book uh Christianity with its restrictive war ethic is negatively correlated with the measured outcome and Islam with its permissive war ethic is positively correlated. So Christianity is less likely to cause violence. Islam is much more likely to cause violence. The real world implications of these religions show us very clearly Christianity is less violent. Islam is more violent and time. Thank you very much for that opening as well. I want to quick take a moment to say thank you to our friends at Mainfirst Project for sponsoring Debatecon 6 as they also believe in the values of free speech and fair debate. Mainfirst project is fighting for conservativism in New England and beyond. So check out their link in the description box below and we will go into the rebuttal portion now. This is six minutes. Javad, thank you very much. The floor is all yours. Uh thank you so much. Uh is this on? Okay. Uh thanks for that. Uh first and foremost, if that was tweet was taken out of context, I apologize. I probably should have looked at the rest of that. So that's the first thing. Um but aside from that, I'm afraid to say that not a single point can be considered serious. Uh not serious scholarship at least. Uh I think the first point that he raised after that is the real point which is leaning into stereotypes. I'm looking at the room today. I'm guessing that the majority of people here are Christian. I don't see anybody who I think is a Muslim. Any if they're Muslim, raise your hand. Um so obviously you're going to think that your religion is more peaceful. Of course you do. You ignore all of the violence that your tradition has done. You don't learn it. That's that's called propaganda. You've lived in a country that's waged wars, multiple wars across continents and controlling as military bases all over the world. This is the war on terror. You've been propagandized since the day you were born. Most of you were born in America has been at constant perpetual warfare since then. If you ask the same question of Palestinians or in other countries that are neighboring Israel, what country do you think that they're going to say? What religion are you think they're going to say is the most violent? There's studies on this. They say it's Judaism. That doesn't mean Judaism is actually more violent. It means that you're obviously influenced by the context that you live in. Now, uh he did some sort of uh you know, he always has to mention child marriage and this kind of nonsense which is like not the real debate. But let's talk about the actual points that he brings up. He he raises verse 839 which is literally about defensive war. Fight them until there is no persecution and religion is for God. I have a peer-reviewed paper coming out which says which shows very in a detailed fashion that this is fight them until persecution is no more and your religion is for God. And then the very next verse says but if they cease fighting then you cease fighting. This is such a bad verse to to claim. Then as far as verse 929, this is the most popular verse that uh apologists will will cite. And that's as Patricia Crona says in her study that of all the verses that she looked at, this was the toughest verse. It was the only one that didn't have an obvious reference to self-defense. So if you have one isolated verse versus all of these verses that I've cited that are defensive, how do you interpret it? Now, what she argues is it's only that way if you look at it in isolation, but in fact, you should look at it with all the 28 verses that come before it. And in that case it is against uh repelling aggression. And you don't even have to take Patricia Crona's word for it who's a big scholar of Islam. You could take Aean Ibrahim's word for it who's a Christian academic and does write books against Islam. He specifically has studied this and said and he admits that actually 929 is not against all Christians and Jews but only against a specific subset of them. So and that is in this book right here. I know we don't like reading books, but it's good to do that. As far as Ezra, again, this was addressed in a recent academic conference, but it's off topic. Uh, so it's good to like learn these things. Um, all right. As then a bunch of Bible verses were cited where I've already said that the Bible says no against New Testament calls it just like the some verses of the Old Testament say don't do personal vengeance. That has nothing to do he quotes Romans 12. But what about Romans 13 which gives a blank check to the state uh imperial authority. Same with Peter. It's again giving blank check to the magistrate. He also quotes hadith. Now it's important to note that historians, historical critical scholars don't think it goes back to the prophet Muhammad. But it's fair that traditionally Muslims have. But how have they interpreted the hadith he cited? He said the ver the hadith he cited is I have been commanded to fight against Anas the people. What did they think Anas refers to? Well, in the Quran already, Anas refers to a specific subset of people, the Meccan people. And in fact, there's a counter nar there's a different narration which alternate nar narration which says, "I have been commanded to fight against the associators, the polytheists of Mecca." And that is how even medieval Muslim scholars interpreted it. The majority of them because they didn't inc they didn't want to forcibly convert Jews and Christians. They actually just wanted to get the tax from them the Jiza. All right. So that's how they interpret it. All right. Uh as far as whoever should leave Islam should be killed. That's true. That didn't actually Muhammad didn't actually say that. We know that from the Quran and historians, secular historians believe he didn't say it. But even if we look at it, let's say where did where did this law come from? It actually came from Byzantine Christian Roman Empire. They had a punishment throughout medieval Christianom. There was a punishment for apostasy, heresy, blasphemy. That's where Islam got it from. So if you're going to look down on Islam for it, look down on your own tradition for it. All right. As far as Christianity starting out as meek, um I already told you that they were not in power, but they still believe that Jesus would come back imminently and kick everybody's ass. Three minutes left. All right. Thank you. Uh as far as martyrs are concerned, the martyrs weren't just peaceful. There's studies on this. Martyrs would aggressively go and attack go into pagan temples cause violence. Imagine if there was people who were just attacking and desecrating uh religious places trying to get a violent response back so that they they could die in a blaze of glory. There's studies on this. All right. uh he mentioned uh that the prophet Muhammad raided uh that was a raiding is a normal part of warfare and that was done against caravans as a counter to his enemies blocking them from their own homes in Mecca and that was considered it was a non very there weren't a lot of civilians killed unlike in the Bible he didn't Moses Joshua entire cities annihilated and he lists 60 battles no I'm sorry But actually, he's listing everything, even the peace expeditions. If you mention every single battle of World War II, it would be like a billion, right? You don't actually do that when you talk about things. But only when Islam, when you're trying to be an apologist, is when you try to exaggerate things. As far as just war theory, I'm sorry, but just war theory did not invol first of all, it developed over time. And secondly, those regulations were only between Christians and Christians. It did not apply against infidels until the modern period in which it shifted. And there's a good book here on that if you'd like, the forgotten victim, a history of the civilian. He he cited uh Ambrose and Augustine. Augustine endorsed collective punishment against enemy populations. He said they could all be killed. Why? Because anyways, if they were killed and they were innocent, God would would reward them. So, it's no problem. Um all right. Uh this is what an actual scholar says. Professor David Lantigua in Infidels and Empires on page 40 says, quote, "The singular importance of punishing idolatry as a case for religious war in Christian imperial expansion is difficult to overstate." That is the actual medieval doctrine, not the apologetic one that you've been taught. Now, he cites uh Joshua D. Wright as a scholar. Joshua D. Wright is not a scholar. He doesn't have a PhD. He's a government official. Use actual sources, please. Yes, there is an association today with Islam and civil war because of the instability. This is since the 1960s there have there's been this turn. Do we judge all of history based on this? And by the way, the Islamic world, the Muslim majority world was turning towards secularism, towards uh uh socialism. And but what happened during the cold war? The United States supported fundamentalist radical Islam to use it as a a weapon against the atheist Soviet Union. If you want to read on this, read uh uh there's two books. One is by Mark Curtis called Secret Affairs and the other is uh called The Devil's Game. Uh I'm forgetting the I'm slipping the author's name, but uh this is uh why the Islamic world has become destabilized. When you attack and devastate countries, it creates a vacuum. So terrorism spiked. There's studies on this since the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. It went way up compared to other places. And it's not a coincidence why. Thank you. Thank you very much for that opening. And I actually gave you eight minutes because that's what I was supposed to give you. And I'm going to give you the same eight minutes apostate prophet. And then we'll do the six minute rebuttal. That's what I said last time. So AP, the timer is set for you on your first word. So uh I want to address one very very important thing here which is that um just because Javad claims that uh that is scripture is violent just because he claims that the Bible is violent it doesn't mean it is. There is a very important distinction to make here which people often do not make especially when they come from a Muslim background or from a background that is critical of Christianity. What matters is not what you think the scripture says. What matters is the real world implementation of the religion, not what you think the religion should look like, not what uh you think should be the truth according to your own readings. Even if he was right, even if he was right and the Bible was indeed more violent and indicated and commanded more violence, it wouldn't be true. it wouldn't matter because what matters is what the religion actually does in the real world. So if we read it and we conclude, oh look, this is definitely more violent than the Quran, it doesn't matter what we think. What matters is what the what the religion does in the real world. Right? So the debate is about which religion is more violent, not which religion should be more violent according to my understanding of the text. Very very important distinction to make here. I'm also a little bit confused by uh by the topic because so uh to my understanding um I actually pulled up the quote from Javat here. I think to my understanding the proposed topic actually came from him and the proposed topic was um Christianity or Islam which is more violent. This was um after he initially proposed uh the Quran or the Bible which is more warlike which I I rejected. So we agreed on the topic Christianity or Islam which is more violent but uh his proposition today is neither. Why did we agree to this topic? I don't really understand. It I mean if you don't want to make the point don't agree to the topic. I I don't really get it. Um so I will not say that neither religion is more violent. I will not say that they are equally violent. One is definitely more violent than the other and it is Islam. Um he talked about the apostasy rules, the apostasy laws, killing uh those who leave Islam. Once again, I will tell you it doesn't matter where they took it from. It doesn't matter whether he believes it is part of Islam or not. It doesn't matter whether he thinks it goes back to Muhammad or not. Muslim scholars have concluded for the majority of the last 1,400 years that it is part of the religion that Muhammad commanded the killing of apostates which is why it is still a law today in multiple countries which is which is why it is still part of the Sharia rulings in multiple countries that we have today. And some of them even if they do not believe in executing people believe that they should be jailed for example or or or think that for example uh at least preaching to Muslims and trying to convert them to Christianity should be considered a crime and it is considered a crime in multiple countries. Um most of his appeals to demonstrate that the Bible is actually more violent or that Christianity I'm sorry Christianity is more violent are about the Old Testament. Everybody has noticed this. These are Old Testament rulings about um how Moses fought a war here, how Joshua fought a war there, uh how the war uh how the war against Amalecch was fought and so on. Uh here is the issue. Um this is not necessarily Christianity. So if at some point in history, the Bible is a historical document in many ways, a war was fought against a certain tribe, against a certain people, that does not mean that Christians are thereby commanded to act that way from now on and forever. I'm sorry, but that is the case with Islam. In Islam, uh you will have commands such as fight those who do not believe in Allah. I I pointed this out earlier, but apparently it's not being addressed. fight those who do not believe in Allah and his messenger and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and his messenger have made unlawful. That is a command in the Quran. He said that uh throughout history in early Islamic history or even uh in medieval times this was clearly seen as only against a certain group. It's not that's not true. I have I cir here before me the most respected most regarded most important scholar. He says that this is a clear ruling to fight the disbelievers, to fight those who reject Islam, to fight those among the disbelievers, the Christians and Jews foremost, but also others who reject Islam. That this is a general ruling which abrogates other rulings that normally would have commanded peace initially. Another issue is I'm not sure why Javad keeps going back to Israel and Zionists. I mean, that's not the debate topic. if you wanted to have a debate about that. Um I'm not sure if I would actually have have done that, but uh that's really not the debate topic. I'm not sure uh what that is about. But um he did mention one thing which is that the this the state of Israel refers to Palestinians as Amalcch. When somebody misrepresents things so badly, it's very difficult to take it seriously because um the Israeli state did not refer to Palestinians as Amalch. Within context, the speech was clearly about Hamas. It was clearly about those who attacked on that day. Now, if you want to go ahead and say it wasn't actually just Hamas that attacked, it was actually all Palestinians, that's on you, really. So, um just war theory is clearly uh as is known about uh fighting in defense or fighting for justice, fighting to protect yourselves, fighting for a Christian environment within your borders. The only case where where Augustine for example thought that it would be a noble thing to fight uh against the the disbelievers an offensive war was in um when at the border there are barbaric tribes that generally or constantly u pose a threat to the well-being and safety and practice of the Christians in the land. So in that case the Christians were considered justified in attacking those tribes especially if they are historically known to have to have engaged in raids and to deal with them. Right? Later on this uh theory developed further especially by Thomas Aquinus with whom it is very very much associated that um it is meant to be a purely defensive war method. It is only out of necessity. It is not for aggression. Once again, Islam is about aggression. He said that most of Europe converted uh converted by by force which I don't know I'm not sure where he's getting that from. Um and we have multiple uh readings on that. We have the book the rise of Western Christendom which is actually a summary um by Peter Brown. It says that most of European conversion about 80 to 90% was through preaching and persuasion whereas only 10 to 20% were done through force by Charlemagne and similar campaigns. For example, I want to also briefly break down what the Islamic perspective actually is. A very very uh well-known quote in early Islamic history or medieval Islamic history is by Ibn Khalun, a very very respected Islamic scholar and historian. He said in his book Mukadima which is very widely renowned in the Muslim community the holy war is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Therefore, caliphate and royal authority are united in Islam so that the person in charge can devote the available strength to both of them. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission and the holy war was not a religious duty to them. Save only for purposes of defense. This is not me saying it. This is a an Islamic historian and scholar saying it. Only Islam has this concept of going out and fighting and converting others. Whereas Judaism and Christianity according to him were only religions of self-defense. and they concerned themselves not with royal authority but rather with religious authority for religious matters whereas uh fighting only came into existence as a result of Christians dividing each other and then fighting against each other for better authority. I will continue with this reference later on. All right, we'll go from there into the six-minute rebuttals. I've got the timer set for you Javad and floor is all yours. All right, thanks so much for that. Um so did I bring this topic? No, I was very clear from the very beginning. I had the emails. Uh we did not comm communicate directly. So Rwan, you wouldn't you wouldn't know. I communicated to James. I said very early on that I am a scholar of religion. And so I would not make the simplistic, reductive and silly case that one religion is more violent than the other because religions are internally diverse and not monolithic. There is unanimous consensus amongst religious studies scholars who are serious about this. So no, I would never bring that up. I'm not here to claim that Christianity is more violent. I'm showing that if you're uncharitable to a different religious tradition, you should apply the same standard to your own. That's common sense. All right. Um now, uh as part as far as the real world implication of religion, he said that oh, we know that Islam is violent. I just went through the entire historical record to show you that there was non-stop violence committed by Christianity. Hundreds of years of missionary war and crusades and even into the modern period. I mentioned Gaza because Christians are the biggest supporters of Israel. My colleague here is a supporter of uh sorry of not of Gaza of Israel. Okay. Committing an act of genocide which would not be possible without their support. And Israel says that it themselves. All right. Um as far as the apostasy law, uh like I've said already, there was throughout medieval Christianom a law against apostasy. Okay? And now modern scholars, Muslim scholars have shifted and said, "No, actually it's only if they commit treason." And so they have shifted as well. The Catholic Church didn't give up the idea of force until the 1960s when they were stripped of their power due to secularism. So it's secularism that has to do with this, not uh Christianity that suddenly uh gave up that power. All right. Um he wants to throw away the Old Testament. So he's taking a Marcianite heresy. But if he is going to do that, I got no problem with that. But if you're allowed to do that interpretive move, then you have to extend the same charity to your Muslim interlocutor and say, "Okay, then you can interpret your scripture charitably as well. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, but we want a double standard. That's what we want because we want to show ourselves as nice and peaceful and them as violent so we can continue to attack and destroy them." All right. Again, the claim that these are just these biblical commands are just uh timebound historical things. I already said that that's not the case. But if you're going to say that about the Bible, then you have to extend the same charity to the Quran which talks about Juan Cole has talked about this. When the Quran is taking those commands about fight them, it literally says who them is. It's the Meccan enemies, the pagan enemies who don't exist today. So you have to extend the same charity. He said Iban Kafir is the most important exe. I'm sorry that is not the case. All right. No scholar of Islamic studies would say something like that. The only reason he thinks that is because I kir is the one that's been translated into English and that's the only language that he can read. All right. So, and that's same with uh Islamophobes. That's the only language they could read. So, they think I kir is the most. I kir was marginal historically compared to the other exites. All right. Um Amalch. Oh, it's just Hamas. There are numerous statements where government officials say that there are no civilians in Gaza, that they're all either Hamas or they're supportive of Hamas and therefore they are guilty. So, I'm sorry that doesn't work either. of soldiers dancing and jumping and saying amalch amalch as they're throwing bombs and terror bombing the entire place. That doesn't work. Just war theory. I already told you again and again that just war theory in the preodern era did not have to do with Christian politics against non-Christian polities. You have to deal with the fact that Pope Innistant IV who whose uh view on this was extremely influential said that you can attack other states if they engage in infidelity or blasphemy. And then there's the other opinion which is even stronger by Hostius who was a very influential jurist who said that actually just for their infidelity you can attack them. Again, you need to address the papal bulls that were passed by the church that said to go and vanquish, conquer, subdue the whole world for Christianity. We're just going to keep hearing, oh, you know, Islam is violent. Just trying to lean into your stereotypes. But we should learn, we should read, we should learn and expand our minds and try to challenge ourselves, be self-critical. By the way, I am not here saying Islam is peace, Christianity is violence. I know the dark side of my own tradition. I hope you can learn the dark side of yours as well. As far as Thomas Aquinus, Thomas Aquinus, let's see what actual scholars say about Thomas Aquinus because he cited Thomas Aquinus. Let's read what Gregory Reichberg says in a book called Thomas Aquinus on war and peace, page 263. Quote, "Infidels should be compelled by the faithful if it is possible to do so in order that they do not hinder the faith by their blasphemies or their evil persuasions or even by their own persecutions." And this by the way is Pope Innocence fourth's view that uh got propagated that actually we need to exterpate pagans because if we don't they're going to persecute us. So it's prophylactic. So let's do that against the whole world. A minute. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Um another quote. It is for this reason that Christ's faithful often go to war against unbelievers. Not indeed for the purpose of forcing them into believe. So he he does take that softer view but in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ. Again, prophylactic war. Reichberg writes, quote, as late as the middle of the 20th century, this same teaching can be found asserted in documents of the magisterium. Again, prophylactic war. We need to wage war on the pagans so that we can send our missionaries. If we don't do that, our missionaries will be under attack. And this was uh in the Canary Islands is when uh that doctrine really got formed where it was like decided that we can't wait for the persecution. We have to just act now and occupy pagan lands. And that's why the Native Americans were attacked. Uh they're dispossessed. Why? So we can Christianize them, but we're scared that, you know, if we do this, they're going to persecute us. So we'll just exterminate them first. That is the real tradition that you need to defend. Time. Thank you very much. We will switch it over for our final rebuttal. This is six minutes. I have the timer set for UAP. So Java just uh quoted partly um Thomas Aquinus. Uh, I'm going to actually read you guys the the full quote here. I'm sorry, this is going to be a little bit bad for you. The real quote here goes as follows. I answer that among unbelievers, there are some who have never received the faith, such as the Heedens and the Jews. And these are by no means compelled to the faith in order that they may believe because to believe depends on the will. Nevertheless, they should be compelled by the faithful if it be possible to do so so that they do not hinder the faith by their blasphemies or by their evil persuasions or even by their open persecutions. So he left out the first part here of the quote which clearly says I repeat um these are by no means to be compelled to the faith in order that they may believe. It is for this reason that Christ's faithful often waged war with unbelievers. Not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to believe because even if they were to conquer them and take them prisoners, they should still leave them free to believe if they will, but in order to prevent them from hindering the faith in c of Christ. So even if they are to wage war against the disbelievers, they should allow them to continue believing in whatever they want to believe. This is literally the quote that he just half read. I'm sorry. That's really, really bad, man. That's really, really, really, really bad. So, uh, did I just come here and say, well, Islam is more violent. You know, that's just how it is. Christianity is not violent, so therefore, just just believe me. That's not what I did or that that's what he claims I did. I um I went into the sources and I also actually very uh clearly went into today's statistics. Um we have today's statistics laid out to us for us the real world implementations of these religions. Once again as pointed out um the Islam is significantly more highly correlated with uh violence initiated against others and also amongst each other. uh prior to and postc cold war Islam is the religion that is most associated by numbers statistically with war with conflict internally and externally Christianity is less associated with war in fact if a state is a non-Christian state um and then it uh it is compared to a Christian state the Christian state is significantly less likely just because it is a Christian state to engage in uh violent armed conflict. These are today's numbers, today's studies. I once again um quoted that the majority of religiously motivated terrorism is Islamic terrorism. The majority of religiously motivated terrorism today is Islamic terrorism. It is the most deadly form of religious terrorism. This is very well known and we have the statistics, we have the data. Factors such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of education do not appear explanatory. So to make this very simple to very easy to understand because as Daniel Kikachu said um different uh civilizations that are you know suffering from Islam might not be able to understand this very clearly as he pointed out yesterday in very mild terms but um he said that different that different uh factors such as poverty, unemployment and lack of education do not appear explanatory. So these things cannot be explained with with anything else. Terrorists often tend to be people who are uh middle class, who are employed, who don't have any other problems. They happen to go out and carry out terrorist attacks. The only factor that matters here that makes them significantly more likely to carry out terrorist attacks is that they are Muslims. That's it. Not that they are poor, not that they are unemployed, but rather that they are Muslims. So um Davis Brown once again as I as I mentioned says that uh Christianity has a restrictive war ethic whereas uh Islam throughout history has a very permissive war ethic. But I'm going to continue once again uh with two issues. I I I cited Quran chapter 9 29 earlier. He hasn't responded to it uh properly. He keeps saying that um he keeps talking about the the the exites. Yes, maybe I kir is not the best uh Muslim or or interpreter of the Quran. I'm not even sure if I said he was the best or the greatest. I'm I think I said one of the greatest. If I said the greatest, okay, it's fine. But uh he's definitely one of the greatest uh exiges of the Quran. He's one of the most respected of all um among people who speak English or who speak Arabic. And he is very clear on it. And um of course he wants to contest I kir because of what I kir says. He says that this is a clear permission to fight the disbelievers no matter if it's defensive or offensive. It is a it is a permission to fight the disbelievers just because they are disbelievers. He even points out and says that um that in the Quran by Islam by Allah disbelieving in Islam believing in different things is considered corruption in the land. and corruption in the land according to Quran 5:33 should be fought and those who cause corruption in the land including those who believe in different things should be massacred or should be crucified or mutilated or expelled. That's what the that's what the Quran indicates according to him. So um we can talk a lot about what we understand from the Old Testament, what we understand from the Bible. Oh by the way interesting um interesting response there from him. I said that the Old Testament verses have a certain context that do not um imply that we have a universal mission as Christians to go and fight. I never said that the Old Testament doesn't count at all. That's not what the Marcite heresy is. I'm pretty sure that you know what the Marcian heresy actually is. There would be something like Islam. Thank you very much. We are going to jump into the open dialogue. This is broken into 90 seconds just to be sure there are minimal interruptions. Ready for you gentlemen. All right. Thanks a lot, Rudan. I appreciate that. So, just to be clear, you claimed that, oh, this is really bad for you. I never claimed that Thomas Aquinas said that they should be waged war to compel people to the faith. I said that they should be I literally said what you quoted. I said that they should be attacked to prevent their persecution prophylactically. And if you're going to take an issue with that, then what's your problem with uh the view in premodern Islam which said that you should attack people not to coersse them but to uh prevent them from attacking you. This is the exact same viewpoint. They had prophylactic both preodern can you deal with this that both preodern Christianity and preodern Islam both justified aggressive expansive warfare. Do you accept this point or the quote that you read from Thomas Aquinus says that? Are we doing the 90 seconds thing, James, or are we just Oh, are we doing 90 seconds? Oh, I didn't know that I had 90 seconds. You don't have to take uh the full 90 seconds though if you don't want to. No, I'll I'll keep taking it. Okay. Because I write down everything that my opponent says and I make sure to address every single thing instead of repeating myself on points that have already been addressed. All right. um today's statistics yes there is a uh correlation but those statist he he's leaving out the major variable the major variable is foreign wars there have been multiple studies on this the terrorism goes up in the countries that the United States and the western powers invade and occupy so Iraq and Afghanistan it's even called the Iraq war effect so yes there is an association yes those wars cause an up a huge spike in religious fundamentalism and terrorism which I'm opposed to but there's another thing that he needs to discuss there. Um all right. Um he talks about prior to the cold is that okay sorry I'm going to say that of course it is it is conceivable to think that uh certain um people among Christians in the uh you know prior to the modern period did think that um expansive wars are justified or justifiable. Uh I can however as I did before go back to the uh early church fathers and other religious authorities that are very very much respected and point out that war was always considered um a uh a necessary evil, something evil. That killing in war was considered something bad, not something to be proud of, not something to be happy about. It was considered something that is done that should however not be celebrated that should actually be uh that people should be sad about and concerned about. Whereas uh in Islam we don't really have the sentiment. it is very much glorified. Islamic history is full of simply being proud of fighting for Allah, being proud of humiliating the disbelievers, being proud of defeating them, rejoicing over it, um, and so on. I just want to ask uh, since we want to get back to the to today's implementations and today's realities of Islam versus Christianity, um, I want to ask Javad one very sincere question. Do in your opinion most Christians or even half of Christians in the world think that people who leave their religion and who criticize it should be executed? And then do most Muslims or even just half of Muslims in the world believe that those who leave their religion and criticize it should be executed or you know lynched or killed. Please answer me this question. I'm really curious. That was 90 seconds exactly. Go ahead. Okay. So I've uh ruan thanks for the question. I've already said that there has been a very much a right-wing surge in uh the Islamic world post 1960s and so that is a major problem as far as why uh most people in so you've said that in Christ in Christian world it's less associated with violence and um uh endorsement of apostasy. Yeah. That's because of liberal secularism. So as countries secularize those viewpoints drop. You have the same thing that happens in the Islamic world. You can take a look at Turkey. Although Turkey now has had definitely a right-wing surge, but they had the views against apostasy. So that has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. It has to do with what what system of government you choose to endorse. So I support a liberal secular state. And if the Muslim world secularizes, you'll see a similar change in religious interpretation because religions are not static. So, uh, that is what I would say to that. Um, now it's not that I cited one or the other medieval. He he kind of avoided that point. It's this is the dominant preodern Christian viewpoint. Number one, let's at least acknowledge this that there was no concept of non-combatant immunity in premodern Christianity compared to Islam which unanimously held that women and children should not be killed. Can you please address this point? So the question hasn't been answered and I'm not sure why. Um so I want to repeat the question one more time. uh do you believe that most Christians or even half of Christians in the world believe that people who leave their religion and who openly criticize it should be executed? And second question is do you believe or do you think that most Muslims around the world or half of Muslims think that those who leave their religion and criticize their religion i.e. Islam should be executed. I would really really appreciate an answer to this question. I don't really care why this happened, you I don't really I don't really care about uh what you think caused this or what you why you think Christians don't believe in this uh stuff anymore. U I would really appreciate an answer to this question because um we can go back to the early church fathers to the the most respected figures in early Christianity and look at uh what they thought about um killing people who do not believe or killing people who have left the faith. You cannot find a single church father who actually condoned uh violence or killing or yeah violence against against people who left the religion. You you cannot find a single one of them who actually uh who actually celebrated or condoned or ordered such a thing. It was generally considered a condemned thing to execute people to kill people. Yes, Christian empires, Christian kingdoms, Christian realms may have turned at some point violent, may have turned expansive, may have justified things, but uh look at the roots of the religion. Look at the roots of the of the faith in question. Look at the real world implementations. You have phases that are bad, but look at the reality of it. Please answer the questions. All right. So, context matters. We're talking about the early church. I've already addressed this issue. The early church endorsed deferred violence because they believed that the end of the world was coming and Jesus would destroy all the unbelievers plus they didn't have power. So it didn't matter as soon as they gained power. The dominant viewpoint for a thousand plus years so not a little phase here and there was that infidels should be coerced. And this is why scholars have looked at non uh sorry uh religious minorities between the Islamic world and Christianom. where did they get treated better? There's multiple studies on this, okay? And they're not done by Muslims, okay? There's one book by Cohen called under crescent and cross which compares the treatment of Jews in Christendom verse uh the Islamic world and also um uh another book called Jews uh under Islam and also shows the exact same thing and this is the dominant view uh almost unanimous view of western scholars that religious minorities were treated better in medieval Islam than Christianom. Now as the west secularized of course these views started to change. If the Islamic world does the same then those views will change. So to answer your question yes in a traditional religious society that has not yet secularized. Of course people are going to hold on to those religious views. That has nothing to do with the religion intrinsically or inherently. It has to do with the fact that it hasn't liberalized or secularized yet. Who liberalized and secularized first? it was the west. So that goes without saying, but that has nothing to do with Christianity itself. Can I just get a Can I just get a quick yes or no answer from you if I ask you these questions? Do you agree with that right now? I I I'm I'm not here for a yes and no. I I I am well well. Okay. I'm talking I'm talking, Joan. I'm talking. Sorry. Well, you ask me a question. I I know, but I know I know, but it was a yes or no question. You didn't agree. So I can continue. You can address it later Will will you answer yes and no for me then? Can I do yes and no for you? No. I want to kick it over. All of a sudden that's not that's the whole thing. So my question was very clear. Do you think that most Christians or half of Christians believe that people who criticize their religion or leave their religion should be executed? Everybody knows the answer is no. You cannot you can't find a single person if you walk around believing in that kind of stuff. you you will find it as a popular opinion among Muslims among most Muslims in the Muslim world and even here I mean we had a Muslim apologist yesterday debating here uh telling us that that that is completely okay in fact I um I actually asked uh one of the most popular Muslims Muslim apologists online Ali Dawa he's the most popular Muslim apologist I wouldn't necessarily cite him as a scholar he's a complete dumbass but um he has over a million subscribers and uh he clearly said that he that that Muslims think that people like me who leave the religion and who spread corruption should be executed. And he said, "We're proud of that and uh we'll be watching." He said, "And Muslims have no problem with this. Muslim scholars have no problem with this. They platform this. They appreciate this. They approve of this. It's because Islam is violent. If you want to Islamic societies to become secular, yes, I agree. Islamic societies should become secular. That means they should become less Islamic." [Music] All right. So actually that's a great question that you're talking about views of Muslims towards apostasy. What are the views of American Muslims when it come to that? In fact, they've done studies. They endorse freedom of religion. Okay. Uh they endorse freedom of religion. He's taking Daniel Hakeikachu as representative of Muslims. Give me a break. That's not representative American Muslims. Yes, the da gangs online, but that's not American Muslims. He's not even allowed in most mosques. All right. Ali Dawa does not represent American Muslims. So what we see is that when Muslims live in liberal open societies they like everyone else embraces those views just like by the way in Judaism. So Judaism had these views in medieval Christian uh in the medieval uh times as well and the western Jews they also adapted to that. So it's again the variable of secular liberalism it has nothing to do with Islam per se or Christianity per se. The sources the scriptures he hasn't addressed that issue. He's just said that's the Old Testament. That is a not a I'm not saying it's a fully Marcite view. It is a quasi Marcenite view. And maybe I should have been clearer of that, but you should have known what I mean by that. And uh as far as mocking me for not knowing, come on, man. How many books do you read? I mean, come on. You're like you you're citing like uh government officials and not doing real scholarship. And uh yeah, so that that is that is the fact. So you haven't dealt with the three points. If you could deal with the three points scripture on its face, what is the ethic of war in the Bible versus the Quran? Can you accept? Can you concede? And then we can move on to the next point. Can you concede that the Bible ethic is far more bloody than the Quranic ethic? And the Bible ethic is what? One, ethnic cleansing. That's the milder form. And two is uh genocidal war. And the New Testament you can't use because that's talking about personal vengeance. Whereas you're getting a blank check to the state authorities. The the answer is no. This working. Is it working? Okay. Yeah. The answer is no. Um I just want to address one thing here. It's it's very funny. Um so I I was wondering where the confusion comes from. Uh so I Googled Joshua, right? And yes, uh there is a there was a politician named Joshua, right? The thing is there's also a scholar named Joshua, right? So and I was citing the scholar. Where does he which is I I also gave you the name of the study. I mean it's it's it is uh where does it it is it is part of this it is part of the opening statement uh I gave you the the source of it it's Joshua it's Joshua D right if you want to get it right so just because just because it happens to be also the name of a politician that doesn't mean that I'm talking about the politician what I already talked about it in the opening statement you can go back and listen to that so um once again I agree that uh that Islamic societies should become more secular so I at least there we have something in common uh because Because as Islamic societies stay Islamic, we have a problem. It turns out that these societies are unlivable societies that are full of terrorism. Um, and yes, they will say, "Oh, but most of terrorism targets Muslims." Well, you like killing each other. Just, you know, stop killing each other. Stop killing others. That's, you know, I would be fine. I would be fine with that. Therefore, I also agree that Islamic societies should indeed become more secular. Did Christians um frown upon and only begin condemning the idea of killing apostates and of applying uh violent punishments upon people after secular liberalism? No. Just to refute that point that he made, I went back and and went to the early church fathers upon which he responded, "Well, they then they didn't have power." I'm sorry. I don't I don't really I don't really understand how this works. First the claim is that u that people that Christians only stop believing in violent punishments because of secular liberalism. Then I go back to the early church fathers like well at that time they were they didn't have power. I'm sorry the early church fathers are the most important teachers and theologians in Christianity. They unanimously rejected violence and violent punishments against uh blasphemers and apostates and things like that. So that is what matters. whereas early Islam advocated for it and pushed it and loved it. Joshua D. Wright is an American economist, attorney, and former government official. He is not a PhD uh in a scholar in that field. He's an economist. All right. Um as far as uh going back to the church fathers, I already explained to you that they believed the world was imminently coming to an end and therefore Jesus would come and utterly destroy his enemies. As soon as Christians got power, they changed their viewpoint. So yes, it is true that initially they embraced religious liberty when they were being persecuted by the Roman state. As soon as they wielded power, these views shifted. Bartman talks about this sudden shift which is pretty impressive. As far as the Islam Islamic sources are concerned, Islam also endorses religious freedom. It's in the Quran. It's throughout the Quran. There is no punishment for apostasy. So if he's saying that the church fathers, they're the most important. Well, for a Muslim today, the Quran is the most important. It says repeatedly, let there be no compulsion in religion. So why can't Muslims look at their most important sources? Why is there one standard for Christianity and one standard for Islam? The reality is is that both medieval Christianom and medieval Islam based on influence from Christianom and other societies enforced a punishment against apostasy and blasphemy. This is a part of all traditional medieval societies because the states were run on a religious basis. All right? And that only changed with modernity. And Muslims who live in western countries shift their views on this just like other religious traditions shift their view when they start secularizing and liberalizing. So again, it's not inherent to Islam or Christianity. He has not dealt with the fact that the Christian scripture itself is more violent on a face on on face value. [Music] So um I would like uh anybody who is actually interested uh to look up Joshua D. Wright. Why is contemporary religious terrorism predominantly linked to Islam? Four possible psychosocial factors by Joshua D. Wright who is not a politician. Uh I mean multiple people might have the same names. Surprise surprise. So um once again uh when we go back to what these religions are about and how they are how they emerge, how they are practiced, how they are understood, we go back to uh the beginnings of how these religions came into existence, how they were uh explained, how they were practiced. Uh I'm an I strive to want to be an Orthodox Christian. Um in the Orthodox church it is uh it is it is very very important primarily to go back to the church fathers when it comes to matters of theology. Um among the Catholics it's very very much uh similar although they have uh a lot of focus on different people like uh Augustine and Thomas Aquinus. Uh among Protestants it's very uh it's very common to try to go back and um look at and interpret and understand uh the Bible as it was initially understood. None of these uh people think that we should take uh as authorities the Byzantine Empire or certain emperors or certain rulers who at some point in history came to certain conclusions such as it is good to execute apostates. People take the Bible or uh the early theologians and others as authorities who unanimously agreed that there shouldn't be no such thing as executing apostates for example. Whereas in Islam the rulings are quite clear. Apostates are to be executed. So um I also went back to look up uh the request. It was actually Javat himself who proposed that uh I would not be agreeable to this topic but I can make do with this initial suggestion. Christianity or Islam which is more violent although I prefer the wording it's Islam more violent than Christianity then we agree to the topic Christianity or Islam which is more violent. So why are we debating now neither is violent? I don't get it. [Music] What does it matter if I will show you the actual um uh emails that I sent you? You you have a selected quote. I agreed reluctantly to the title because I know that you guys I agreed to the title. What? Okay, I'm I'm speaking now. While I simultaneously asserted and I asserted this closer to the debate as well that this is going to be my thesis. Okay. The reason why the title is chosen is for YouTube clicks because we want to keep it simple and flashy. I don't have that. I'm I'm I'm saying that religious traditions are internally diverse and complex. What doesn't matter? You should be able still be able to defend your tradition which you are not aware of at all. There are multiple scholars who have talked about the orthodox tradition and warfare. In fact, this is something that scholars have reassessed in the last couple decades with now the scholars shifting on their view when it comes to holy war and the orthodox tradition including uh with when it comes to Bzantium and even the viewpoint that all wars were considered holy wars. Uh why? Because the emperor was considered God's agent on earth to defend Christianity and to spread the message of Christ. This is the viewpoint and this is derived from the New Testament itself. I've cited those verses. He has not addressed those that the magistrate becomes the force of God on earth. Do not resist the magistrate. Um so I think we're just going in circles now because he's just saying, you know, we all know that Islam is more violent, but we don't. All right? We know what we grow up with stereotypically. You live in a Christian society. you've been waging war against Muslim countries. Of course, you're going to think that, but I hope that you can start studying your own tradition and being a little bit self-critical, which by the way, I encourage Muslims to do as well. I'm known for doing that. I'm telling Muslims, hey, we need to look at our own tradition critically and change certain things. So, I am very much definitely disturbed by certain trends, but those trends are not isolated. They happen due to certain reasons. And it's important to understand those reasons. one last 90 seconds then we have to go into Q&A and then closings. So we have established that um the Islamic texts um as far as what they command are more violent than the Christian texts. We have established that early Christian that early Islamic history is more violent than early Christian history. We have established that early is Islamic authorities are more violent than early Christian authorities. We have also established that in between that throughout history it gets a little bit complicated and there might have been times where uh the Christians were during the times of empires and kingdoms maybe more violent than than the Muslims. Whereas the Muslims never stopped being violent. It was always a a feature of Islam until the Islamic Empire gladly fell apart and the west forced the Islamic caliphate to its knees never to rise again that Islam stopped being a violent force. I mean at least as an empire, a violent force in the world. We all know it's violent wherever it goes. So uh we have also established that in today's time Islam is more violent than Christianity. So the problem has been solved. Islam is more violent. That's it. That's that's really all it is. The discussion is about which religion is more violent. The answer is very clear. Islam is more violent. Nobody is afraid around uh Christians. Nobody is afraid to offend Christians. Nobody is afraid to to say whatever they want about Christians. People mock Christians and Christianity all day long. It's because Christianity doesn't have an inbuilt uh mass violence whereas Islam does. Nobody uh calls himself an ex-Christian and is afraid of being brutally murdered. Ex-Muslims like myself are constantly under threat of that, which is why we need to have security around us because we dare to talk trash about Islam. So, um it's it's it's very clear, you know, I'm not just saying we are fighting wars. If we came to the wars that are being fought, uh, you would you would see that the majority of the wars that are being fought are fought because Islamists or Muslims tend to be violent, including, by the way, in Israel. How much? We're done with Good. We are going to jump. We're going to jump into the Q&A. And thank you very much, gentlemen, for that excellent discussion. If you have questions, folks, come on down. And we are going to get rolling. Oh, thank you. And [Music] I'm ready. As as usual, I want to ask if you can be your regular respectful selves to the speakers. We do appreciate them coming to this event. We want them to feel welcome and to come back and so I know you'll be your regular friendly selves. With that, we are ready for you. All right. So, uh this is for Dr. Javad. So, one of the things that I notice um that proponents of Islam never cite the Shariah law and saying that oh is, you know, Islam is great, but then how come the Quran says you can uh homosexually is bad, but you can sodomize boys? How come it says you can You're right. Give me a second. Yeah. Uh how come you can rape uh anally and vaginally girls starting at age eight? How come they're saying that if a woman is raped, she too many things. Give you three things and I'll respond to three. I can't respond to 10 things. Okay, give me three and I'll respond to them. So, the last one then is how come a woman has to have four male witnesses to prove she was raped otherwise she made it up. And what was your first point on the Quran? How come homosexuality is denounced but sodomy of boys is allowed? Of boys. Okay. All right. Uh, thank you for the question. and I appreciate it. So, uh first of all, I appreciate that you asked the question. So, that gives me an opportunity to educate. Um so, first of all, uh the Quran when it comes to uh same-sex marriage, um all it does is prohibit pedarasti, which is literally what you were asking about. So, the Quran itself nowhere says that you can uh sodomize boys. In fact, it says it's the the greatest um uh uh it's fahisha, which means sexual abomination. Um so that's that's simply not in the Quran and uh no there are cultural cultural practices but that has nothing to do with the religion. Um, number two, uh, rape in, uh, analys, you know, I don't see that in the Quran. In fact, the Quran, uh, actually I just presented on this. The Quran specifically says not to coers your slave girls into whoredom, uh, which means illegal sexual intercourse. Whereas the Bible says that you can and I've shown you the verse that says that you can keep the sla uh the children the young female children alive for your own pleasure. That's in the Bible. So u as far as four male witnesses for rape again simply not in the Quran. That is some extremist interpretation that even the conservative traditional Muslims disagree with including the scholars. So those things I know you've heard of those things. Um, as far as Sharia law, Sharia is simply the word for Islamic law. So, Sharia law is a bit redundant, but that's okay. I understand. Um, just like Jewish law is halaka. Um, and so me praying, me avoiding certain foods, that's all part of Islamic law. Um, so that's important to keep in mind. And so, again, I've already said I support secular liberalism. And uh I don't think Muslims, the majority of Muslims in America don't want to, and we know we have the studies on this, that they don't want to import uh impose Sharia law. That's just a right-wing fear-mongering talking point. But thank you so much. Uh thank you both for being here today. My question is for both of you. So, can you both explain who and what group you believe Amalcch refers to in the Bible and then give your opinion on who or what group it is referring to in a modern context? So um in the Bible the context is very clear. It refers to a specific population, a specific people that uh according to the implications and the uh the story were um were uh open enemies of uh of God and his people and went be and went to uh unthinkable transgressions um based on which an endless war was fought. And even there um when when a war is fought to exterminate them all, they're not completely exterminated. they still continue existing later on. But uh so according to the traditional Jewish understanding, this was generally that it is an actual uh tribe, but it also serves as um a symbolic reminder of the enemy that is brutally cruel to you and should never be forgotten. And then later on, this was also turned into a spiritual thing. The same thing happened in Christianity. In Christianity, it was used uh against it was used to describe uh aggressors who brutally persecute uh the Christians. I believe if I'm not wrong that at some point in early Christianity it even referred to some of the Jewish authorities who persecuted Christians uh ironically but then um later on it also u it also be began emerging as a spiritual concept of simply fighting the absolute evil uh which can be find in in uh in in Christian writings. So it is an all-encompassing um thing that can be used to describe the most evil thing or the most evil people and oppressors. Uh yeah, that's pretty much it. All right. Uh thanks. So from my perspective, there are two answers. One is a historical critical reading of what the texts are actually saying and then two is reception history. How have it how has that been interpreted? So let's answer those one at a time. As far as uh a historical critical reading, Amalecch, as far as we know, does not refer to a specific historical, ethnic, or national group. Instead, what we see in the Bible is that it's applied to various groups for, you know, across centuries and even applied to um Hmon who was in Persia. So, we see that it is a term that is flexible, typological. And so, already in the Bible, you have this uh expansive typological use where it can be used to refer to an ardent enemy who you feel has attacked you from behind. So, it's typological from that standpoint. Now as far as the second which is interpretation look interpretation uh of texts is up to believers and there are peaceful interpretations and they're warlike interpretations. So I am absolutely not claiming that the only interpretation is that it is a perpetual command and that you need to do it. No, I at Charitable Reading there have been many thoughtful interpreters who have said, "No, let's restrict this to a historical command that no longer applies, just like there are thoughtful Muslim interpreters who say the same thing about many of the war commands in the Quran." But it is also a fact that we must admit that this command has been used throughout history to justify the slaughter, ethnic cleansing, genocide of various peoples, including the Native Americans. It was used in South Africa. It was used in the Rwanda genocide. and so and it's used today amongst Jewish I was just listening to a Christian Zionist that's why I mentioned Gaza and he was saying that yes it does apply to the Palestinians so thank you so much I appreciate it thanks for coming appreciate it uh just to clear uh that whole issue uh could you possibly have been confusing Joshua Daniel Wright the economist with the scholar Joshua David Wright of Simon Frasier University uh and also Given that you said that Christianity went through this reform of like secular uh liberalism and Islam hasn't yet as you said would you then have to agree that until it goes through the reform currently the Islamic world is more violent? That's uh thanks so much Michael. Thanks for uh joining us today. Um so as far look I I'm going to have to look at who this scholar is. I just Googled it as he was speaking. I had never heard of this person. But the reason why that's also important is that I think you should site scholars that are wellknown in the field. Um I don't think that's a scholar well known in the field but I'll take a look at this later and maybe that's a mistake. I'm just googling while he says it. Um I have here today cited mainstream historical scholarship that my interlocutor is wholly unaware of the entire scholarly literature. Uh as far as the second question uh so yes it is true that the western world has secularized and liberalized um and the Islamic world has not but that does not mean that the violence committed uh is less by the secular world um and in fact there's a really good book by William Kavanaaugh called the myth of religious violence that answers this question thoroughly so there's two answers to this number one is that myth of that religion causes violence is used to wage wars against the Islamic world on the basis that look these savages they still uh justify wars of uh uh of religion and so we should bomb them with our rational secularity and as Mike as you would yourself admit secular nationalist ideologies can cause all sorts of violence and warfare and uh I think a peaceful Christian interpretation would be much better than some warlike secular interpretations. Um and then the number two point on that is um Christians uh are often supporters of wars of aggre of of aggression. Uh and you'll see strong support amongst Christians in America, for example, on the war on terror, strong support for the genocide in Gaza. And without that kind of support, there would not be um the wars that kill millions of people and engage in terror bombing. So, we always complain about a bus being bombed by an extremist, which I'm of course opposed to, but we don't oppose uh a fighter jet dropping a bomb that kills that blows up not only the bus, but the entire city. Um, that's actually called uh terror bombing. It's an actual term. And America and the UK and Israel have pioneered and defended the use of terror bombing. No, I I just want to be sure if you want one, I can give you a pathy response just like Javad I think had a rebuttal earlier, but it's got to be pathy. Okay. A very short one. So, I would say that um uh I don't know how to put this mildly, but you have an obsession with Israel and Zionism and and and and is with you. You just came back from there, buddy. So, but it's not part of the debate. Why do you keep bringing it up? I don't understand. So, um I I I do indeed support the war on uh the war that Israel is fighting um that is uh being fought primarily against Hamas. It is also a war that is fought not only against Hamas, but also against uh organizations that are allies of Hamas. And um many people might not know here, but on October 7, Hamas uh together with other terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, uh PfLP and others infiltrated and also civilians participated in the attacks and the majority of the Gazan population supported the terrorist attacks and the mass killing of civilians. So if in retaliation, in response that Israel is fighting against these people, I am completely in support of that. Am I in support of genocide? Uh no, I'm not. But I also don't think that there is such a thing taking place. So I I do just to be sure that I know that you've got another round in the chamber ready to fire Javad, but we just because we have a brief Q&A because we actually have five minute closings from each side too. So I do want to wrap up with one last question and then we'll go to the closings. Hey, this is uh for both of you. Uh according to uh MU peerreed studies, uh one of the major side effects of inbreeding is irrational anger. Uh do you think this is why Muslims are so violent? Thank you. It's sad that that question got laughs. I'm very worried about where this country is headed. Christian nationalism is on the rise and many of you here are supporters of Christian nationalism. You've come for Andrew Wilson. um we just said that we like secular liberalism and yet we want to go back to Christian nationalism and that statement was that was not a serious argument. That was just meant to be insulting a racial ethnic kind of undertone to it. And um I don't even know how to respond to that. I can respond to I hope that I'll I'll let you I'll let you respond. I don't know if that's necessary. We may just give the last word. It was to both. It was to both of us, wasn't it? Yes. If you since it was for both. Yeah. So, um, this this question came up because Andrew Wilson, uh, by the way, applause for Andrew Wilson, please. [Applause] Um, Andrew Wilson had a fantastic debate yesterday with Dan Kikuch where he actually uh, to my great surprise, I didn't expect this at all, he crushed it. um he put on the on the on on the screen the statistics and showed that uh there is no other religious group except Islam that is highly highly associated with cousin marriage and that even when you put the statistics out there onto a map you see that only the Muslim world has extremely high numbers of cousin marriage including in Pakistan it goes up to over 60%. So, and that statistically and scientifically causes major problems. So, that did come up and uh Daniel Nikkichu's response to that. So, it's not just uh this person here or Christian nationalism to blame. Daniel Kikachu's response to that was that he's actually okay with his his society being So, um I would think that that is uh that is a big problem and yeah, you shouldn't have Islamic uh traditions. Just a 10-second response since I realized that context that you told me. Thank you for that. Um, what I would say is let's think about this seriously. Do you really think that it's cousin marriage that is causing violence or do you think it's the wars of aggression that have been going on for decades in Iraq, Afghanistan, and like 13 other Muslim countries that have been bombed, some sent back to quote unquote the stone ages? Which one do you really think is causing violence? Would you the first one? I hate to do this, but we we do want to be sure we get these closings in as the speakers requested a special format. So, I do want to give you guys that time starting with Javad. I forgot about that. Five minutes. Five minutes each. Yep. It's okay. I I forgot about it, too. I just want to recap. I argued at the start of this debate that Islam is no more violent than Christianity. I bought three points, sub points. Number one, scripture. I I told you that when it comes to scripture, the Bible endorses two war ethics. This is in Deuteronomy. And those ver verses, by the way, if you look at handbooks of religion, ethics, and war, those verses have always been used throughout Jewish and Christian history to talk about what doctrine of warfare to use. He's ready to throw the Jewish tradition down the toilet by saying, "Oh, that's just the Old Testament." Okay. But also, Christians use the same verses. They use the same verses because they noted that the New Testament doesn't have a doctrine of war. That's true. But it does give a blank check to the imperial state to wage to use violence. And so they they noted this is the Augustinian interpretation. This is the interpretation throughout medieval Christianom. And if you want to justify just war, either you're going to be a pacifist in which you're going to say Jesus's uh words abregate everything before it, then be a pacifist. then stop waging wars, showing me Christian love by bombing different countries. But if you're going to endorse just war, the problem you have is that you can't find just war in the Bible. You cannot find an ethic of self-defense. You cannot find proportionate retaliation. You cannot find don't uh attack non-combatants. Simply not in the Bible. What you do find is in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, what they looked for, they found annihilationist warfare. kill men, women, children, and babies. Whereas in the Quran, you find it consistently. Fight only those who fight against you. God does not love oppressors. And if they incline towards peace, you incline towards peace, which is repeated numerously, even in the verses that he accidentally cited. So that's scripture. There is simply no comparison. And scholars of religion have said this. Philip Jenkins has done studies on this and Juan Cole said they've said there's really no comparison. Number two, the second point was tradition and history. This can be divided into doctrine and the actual history. When it comes to doctrine, I've shown you that the early church had no power and believe that the world was imminently coming to an end and Jesus is going to destroy everyone. And that's why yes, they were not uniformly on this, but there was a pacifist trend for sure. But as soon as they got power, they shifted on this. It was an instant shift to say now we should use force and that was the interpretation that existed throughout medieval Christianom that that's why paganism is ban was banned in all of Europe. He's saying that actually only a small percentage of people were forcibly converted. Paganism itself was outlawed. You weren't allowed to go to pagan temples. Those were closed down, destroyed, converted into churches. If you sacrificed to the pagan gods, you were guilty of treason and and guil and could be executed. So yes, that's force. And compare that to Islam in the medieval tradition. Yes, it did say that you should fight uh the infidels just like it did in Christian in the Christian history. But because of this very verse that he cites 9:29, there was always the viewpoint that as long as they pay the Jiza, the tax, which they interpreted, it's a later interpretation. It did become, it was definitely a discriminatory tax. There's no denying that historically, but as long as they paid the tax, they would have religious liberty. So when scholars have studied minorities in medieval Christianom and medieval Islam, they've unanimously come to the conclusion that yes, there was it was secondass citizenship when it came to religious minorities in the Islamic world. There's no such thing as liberal equality as we have in the modern day, but at least it was a type of citizenship. This is what Mark Cohen writes in his book under Crescent and Cross. Meanwhile, Jews under Christianom, it was worse than dimitude. It was perpetual servitude. They were literally the property of the emperor or the ruler. And that's why they would always be dis they didn't pay just a small the reason why the Jews in the Islamic world were like okay this tax it's not great but I'm glad that we pay it so that at least we discharge our duty and we get the protection of the state. Meanwhile as Mark Cohen writes the Jews in Christendom they were continuously taxed and fleeced until the point they would be completely dissolute and then expelled. And you can look at the historical expulsions of Jews across Europe and I showed you the list. So it's not even any question when it comes to the preodern world uh it was better in the Islamic world and by the way liberal theorists themselves John Lock compared the treatment of uh in Ottoman uh the state as it was actually relatively better than Europe and that is what led to secular liberalism which yes that did lead to um you know like I said secular liberalism does cause people to shift their viewpoints but Muslims also shift their viewpoints when they live in secular liberal societies they're not all Daniel like eikachus that's an extremist that doesn't represent us. Thank you for that closing. We will switch it over to AP for his closing as well. So Daniel Kikucha most certainly represents uh the ideas of most uh Muslims although I would say that he doesn't indeed represent the ideas of Javad which I'm glad that Javad is actually not like most Muslims. So you know that's that's that's a good thing. Um so here's the issue. This is why at the very beginning of this uh of this conversation of this debate I said that uh a distinction should be made and something should be made very very clear. Uh throughout this entire debate we have seen the example of that. Um it is one thing to read the scripture to read the texts and say look it says this therefore it should be like this. It is another thing to look at what the religion actually preaches. You can look at the Old Testament. You can look at the Bible and you can uh read the verses. You can interpret them for yourself and you can as he just did say, "Yeah, the New Testament didn't have uh you know a just war theory or war theory. So there was no concept of it. However, it is ready readily available in the Old Testament." Well, that's not how it works. The way it works is that Christianity itself is a religion. Now it doesn't matter whether you want to now use the Old Testament and say it says something in the Old Testament therefore I think it should be part of Christianity to I don't know go and fight and eradicate Amalcch. That's not how it works. What matters is what the religion itself teaches. The religion itself never taught uh these ideas that you want to read into it. What matters is not how you understand the religion or the scripture. What matters is the real world uh implementation of this religion. The real world implementation of Christianity is that it is not for violence. That it does not glorify violence. that uh executions, that brutal and violent punishments are considered an unfortunate thing. That even according to the Apostle Paul himself and the early church fathers, if if somebody sins or blasphemes or apostasizes and you kill that person, then you are basically murdering that person and possibly denying them the chance to repent, possibly denying them the chance to change and to become better. Whereas in Islam it was from very early on uninterrupted until today's time until secularization. This is very very important and very ironic. Uh Javad and Dikuchu like to say that uh Christians changed because of secular liberalism. Christians didn't change because of secular liberalism. Muslims changed because of secular liberalism. Muslims did consistently believe in uh killing apostates in fighting the disbelievers in subjugating them in killing the blasphemers and so on. They only recently for the first time ever began changing and although most of them still believe in executing apostates they have began to adopt this idea that you know maybe we shouldn't be doing this. I mean uh the west seems to be doing much better than than we do. So uh the Christians early on did not hold such beliefs. At some point empires took over and they did adopt such beliefs. But throughout history, the Christian scholars, the bishops, the patriarchs and others have maintained the idea that killing is nothing to be proud of. It is nothing good. It is nothing that should be uh gleefully and gloriously done. It is an evil. It is an it is a necessary evil. Of course, they developed uh ideas of just war theory because yes, they now live in a in an environment where their religion has indeed become uh dominant in the empire that they live in, but their religion is also one that preaches that you should not harm or hurt others, but they still have to deal with the real world where uh enemies advance and where people want to kill them and persecute them. So, they begin to explain how exactly they should deal with aggressors, how exactly they should deal with threats. So they begin forming uh ideas of just war theory. That's not the case in Islam. Islam from the very beginning was for fighting, for subjugating, for killing. Uh the Quran has from the beginning said that that Muslims should go out and fight the disbelievers. Um we should not downplay the whole uh Jiza uh second citizen secondass citizen treatment. It was a pretty brutal one. um where if you live under Muslims as Christians or Jews for example um it was so messed up that uh so you cannot build mosques or uh you cannot build churches or synagogues uh you cannot do this you cannot do that you have to wear huge heavy crosses on your necks you have to wear uh calves on your necks that weigh you down uh you you have to open your doors your home to a Muslim if the Muslim passes by and says hey I'm tired I want to get get in and rest you have to open your door because you're just a dumb subject. Um, Islam has been consistently oppressive and and brutal. Christianity has not been. We have today established that past, present, and future and in general, Islam is more violent than Christianity. Case closed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please join me in applauding our speakers. It's been a tremendous debate. Fantastic. Thank you guys. It was excellent.