Why Do Muslims Behead People?

This is not to ask whether individual Christians are all better people than individual Muslims, nor is it to suppose that all Muslims are bad and all Christians are good. It is not even to suggest that all Christians are intrinsically better than Muslims.

Instead it is a challenge to look objectively at the teachings of the two world religions, and the examples of their founders.

Yes, yes we know that some Catholics have also slaughtered people in the name of Christ, but Jesus never told them to do so. The New Testament never demands the destruction of unbelievers or the slaughter of one’s enemies. To be sure, there are passages in the Old Testament that call for the utter destruction of entire villages, but Christians believe the God of Mercy supersedes the God of slaughtering justice. Catholics may have committed terrible deeds, indeed popes and priests may have ordered torture and death, but nowhere in the holy books do we find it commanded, and no Christian would be able to slaughter others and really hold up their head and say, “I’m just being a good Christian.”

Likewise with the example of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not command war and destruction and the beheading of the infidel. He did not marry a little girl. He did not torture and mutilate and behead people.

I must stop and admit that I am not an expert in Islam. I want to learn more about this religion and I am wiling to be corrected by those who know more than I do, but from what I can observe and conclude, Christianity aims to be a religion of peace and has forgiveness and mercy at its heart.

Christianity is a religion with mercy and forgiveness at its heart because Jesus is not just a prophet like Mohammed or Joseph Smith or any other number of religious teachers.

He is the redeemer. Instead of blaming others and cutting off their heads he accepts the blame and his blood is shed. Through this action he embraces the violence and turns it over through the victory of his resurrection. This is not what a prophet does.

The only thing a prophet can do is preach his message and coerce conversions.

True Christianity never does this. Instead the religion of Jesus Christ is always about bearing the cross, taking the blame and thereby claiming the authority and power to forgive and not to blame others.

The religion of the ISIS, on the other hand,  is a form of Islam that condemns everyone who is different and has only one message: Convert or be killed.