Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Spencer
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 26786
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 264
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1596985151
Dewey Decimal Number: 261.27
EAN: 9781596985155
ASIN: 1596985151
Publication Date: August 13, 2007
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Product Description
Christianity or Islam: which is the real "religion of peace"? Almost any liberal pundit will tell you that there's a religion bent on destroying our Constitution, stripping us of our liberties, and imposing religious rule on the U.S. And that religion is . . .Christianity! About Islam, however, the Left is silent--except to claim a moral equivalence between the two: if Islam has terrorists today, that's nothing compared to the Crusades, inquisitions, and religious wars in Christianity's past. But is this true? Are conservative Christians really more of a threat to free societies than Islamic jihadists? Is the Bible really "just as violent" as the Qur'an? Is Christianity's history really as bloodstained as Islam's? In Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer not only refutes such charges, but also explains why Americans and Europeans must regain an appreciation of our Christian heritage if we ever hope to defeat Islamic supremacism. In this eye opening work, Spencer reveals: * The fundamental differences between Islamic and Christian teachings about warfare against other religions: "Love your enemies" vs. "Be ruthless to the unbelievers" * The myth of Western immorality and Islamic puritanism and why the Islamic world is less moral than the West * Why the Islamic world has never developed the distinction between religious and secular law that is inherent in Christianity * Why Christianity has always embraced reason--and Islam has always rejected it * Why the most determined enemies of Western civilization may not be the jihadists at all, but the leftists who fear their churchgoing neighbors more than Islamic terrorists * Why Jews, Christians, and peoples of other faiths (or no faith) are equally at risk from militant Islam Spencer writes not to proselytize, but to state a fact: Christianity is a true "religion of peace," and on it Western civilization stands. If we are not to perish under Islam's religion of the sword--with its more than 100 million active jihadists seeking to impose sharia law--we had better defend our own civilization.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 52 more reviews...
 Sobering and timely October 1, 2008
Robert Spencer has become one of my favorite writers after this effort (Religion of peace?). He is articulate, reasonable and, has an elegant writing style.
This book is interesting and well researched. The author puts to rest a lot of misconceptions about the Judeo-Christian civilization while, at the same time, he indicts Islam for the numerous alleged transgressions of modern civilized ways.
This is the best book on this subject that I have read so far.
 Not worth the paper it's printed on September 20, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
The title of the book is full of prejudice ... obviously the author has a very set, pre-judgment, which he wants to make the world aware of. Just because Robert Spencer writes something and it's published, doesn't make it a fact. If he knew 100 people, who each knew 100 Muslims who lived up to the unoriginal stereotypes and blatant lies this book is filled with, that would still only make 10,000 Muslims. That is less than 1/100th of 1% of the world population of the nearly 1 Billion Muslims alive today (and growing). Statistics based on so small a sample of the population cannot produce significant results; nor could they be generalized to the whole population. If cancer researchers exaggerated their findings as Spencer does his, we would all live under SPF 100 windows, clothing and glasses from sunrise to sunset and never let our bare skin see the sun. A real scientist has integrity as well as the scientific method. Spencer is not a scientist and though he may write a good game, his rhetoric, as well worded or carefully reasoned as it may seem, is all hear-say, rumor, and unoriginal stereotypes that any 12 year old could put together from an evening of watching CNN, or any other fascist-controlled anti-Islam media source. Read the book if you want to get a good idea of how hate-filled and lacking understanding the majority of scared Christian radicals are. Spencer does more than just describe the monster he imagines under his bed, he becomes it. His portrayal of lies and slander turn him into the very hate-mongering zealot he wants to convince you Muslims are. Keep this book away from children. It could very well inspire a few to join the KKK or another hate organization.
 Yeah, Right! September 7, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This volume by Robert Spencer should be placed alongside Paul Fregosi's "Jihad In the West", Andrew Bostom's "The Legacy of Jihad" and Ibn Warraq's "why I Am Not a Muslim". Spencer et al show conclusively that the notion that "Islam is a religion of peace" is one of the greatest frauds ever pulled upon the human race.
The Work of a True Scholar in Islam. August 6, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Don't listen to the reviewers who say Robert Spencer is not knowledgeable enough about Islam. He could teach quite a few Muslims about their own books and history, I have studied it deeply for seven years myself.
Also bear in mind the doctrine of Al-Taqiyya and Kithman or kitman, which began as a shia practice (they claim)but is widespread in all of Islam to protect the faith from outside critcism for some of it's questionable teachings. I deal daily one on one with Moslems real time, online and they very frequently use this practice. Even posing as non-muslims in order to decieve others. It really is amazing how proud they are of outwitting.
Mohammad himself said it was ok to lie to enemies (and that all infidels are enemies) as well as to your wives, and instructed a few of his followers to join the enemy camp by claiming they were friends and abhorred Mohammad. Islam is in no way, shape or form similar to Christianity, so one must bear this in mind and not assume the religion says to be kind to unbelievers or love your enemies. It is actually the opposite school.
I have known of Robert Spencers work for some time now and he has always been impeccable and non judgemental in his work. This book is as equally fair and a valuable addition to anyone's library who wants to have concrete knowledge about Islam.
I do not hate Muslims. But I have come to strongly dislike Mohammadism amd what it has been doing to the people as a whole, who choose to closely follow Mohammads teachings.
An evil book June 13, 2008
8 out of 29 found this review helpful
Robert Spencer produces a hateful, revisionist, and triumphalistic argument about why he thinks Christianity and the Western world (he conflates the two) are superior to Islam. Christianity is a religion of peace and dialogue and Islam a religion of terror and suppression. He accuses Christianity's detractors of "cherry-picking" evidence of the support of violence in the Old and New Testaments, but then goes on to do the same in his treatment of the Qu'ran and Christian history itself.
But the most basic error he makes is to dismiss the long and bloody history of Christian cruelty, forced conversion, slavery, destruction of native cultures, and environmental disaster with a flick of his temporal wand. Yes, there were Christians who did such things in the past, he notes, but this was not essential to Christian's message of peace and love for others. Besides, most of these more troublesome episodes of Christian history were not as bad as they seemed and have now passed. Christian anti-Semitism was not all that bad (especially compared with Muslim anti-Semitism). Slavery was a mistake and Christians finally figured that out.
Even if one accepts the latter point that such Christian atrocity-mongering has diminished (which is eminently debatable with good Christians in America still enthused for racial and gender inequality and positively foaming at the mouth for guns, capital punishment, and a vast nuclear arsenal) it is patently false to suggest that it was anything other than the Enlightenment, the throwing off of theocracies, and the embrace of secular, constitutional democracies, that spurred our best, though always fragile, efforts to live with our differences without killing each other.
No one is arguing, as Spencer seems to believe, that there are not Islamic terrorists and theocrats who wish to suppress people with Sharia law. They use religion to justify their violence. Yet Spencer ignores the consensus that most of the anger that drives such things is political rather than religious. It is anger at Western cultural hegemony, globalization, and the inequality of wealth that feeds the discontent of radical Islam.
Why should Christians who do evil get the benefit of the doubt that they simply missed the point of their faith's deeper teachings on peace in the pursuit of more worldly and self-serving ends, while Muslims do so because they are just following their religion? Because Spencer wants to goad on the great "Clash of Civilizations" view of the world and take up good, loving, Christian arms, if necessary, to defend the great Western civilization of peace and reason. With books like these, he and his ilk may just succeed.
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