R/P

Christianity proposes passivity and the aggression Christian countries have habitually displayed is a consequence of, where it depends at all on religious text, the Old Testament, the Torah of the Hebrews. 'Eye for an Eye', etc, which permeates Sharia law. Jesus's viewpoint insisted on the reverse, based upon forgiveness. But like most religious ideas this appears to be based on historically-rooted practicalities, the motivation for which has been lost. Where Hebrew cogitations on the nature of god were rooted in 5th century BCE political affairs concerning nationhood and kingship, and Islam in the political events of the 5th and 6th century AD, Christian ideas of forgiveness and passivity are rooted in the consequences of a small nation/religious group confronted by Rome's military expertise. Rebellion against Rome brought with it the genuine prospect of annihilation and even personal responses to Roman oppression could result in immediate beheading. A different strategy had to be formed therefore that did not entail resistance.

Islam is a completely different religion from the above in that it proposes resistance and aggressive evangelisation, although many Moslems insist on the peaceable nature of the religion. Still, it is the only global religion that fetishes violence to others to any extent, the sadism to Christian masochism. Islam insists on shared brotherhood, based upon an acceptance of unfettered, un-decorated monotheism which it shared with early Christian communal beliefs. In the case of the latter, this constituted, in its earliest days, a rejection of gender. Men and women were equal and the same.