Hey, at least we can take comfort from the words of the Orlando shooter’s father

[Burney]

So any violence carried out in the name of Christianity, not to mention slavery since you brought it up, is automatically OK because the new testament is against that sort of thing? Wheras anything carried out in the name of islam isnt as it's equivocal about it?

It's almost as if you're starting from a point of double standards and assembling a backwardly compatible justification from there.

Nonsense, I'm afraid. Nowhere have I said any religious violence is OK - that's simply a slur you've chosen to throw at me for some reason.

Christianity has certainly been abused and used as a justification for all sorts of dreadful things - from anti-semitic persecution to the Crusades and God knows what else. However, none of those justifications stands up for a moment when you actually look at the teachings of Christ. Any justification for 'Christian' violence requires monumental levels of sophistry and self-delusion such as those practised by St Thomas Aquinas in his 'Just War' nonsense. Such efforts are notable for their transparently self-serving attempts to ignore or circumvent Christ's rather inconveniently explicit strictures against all and any violence.

Where Islam differs is that it does not require any effort of sophistry on the part of those seeking to justify 'Islamic' violence to do so. Much of it is there in black and white not merely justifying violence, enslavement and subjugation of unbelievers, but actively encouraging and even demanding it.

That is the point I am making - that Christianity's doctrine is explicitly non-violent and Islam's is explicitly not. And therein, I'm afraid, lies both a fundamental problem with Islam and the reason why it is not valid to draw equivalency between the respective holy texts of Christianity and Islam.

The question is not whether people will always find some justification for their violence. That, unfortunately, is a given. The question is whether these two religions explicitly offer such justifications. One doesn't, while the other clearly does.