it may be interesting to confront these two different doctrines that christianity and islam suggest when their members find themselves in a danger situation.
Taqiya is a form of
Islamic dissimulation or a legal dispensation whereby a believing individual can deny his faith or commit otherwise illegal or blasphemous acts while they are in fear or at risk of significant persecution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya
martirdom in christianity is the will of a believer to go as far as giving his life in order of not giving up his faith. It was common during the early years of christianity, before the edict of Milan, and Roman couldn't really get the point of that, they considered the christians as completely mad cause of the joy the displayed when facing their death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_martyrs
i find it interesting that two religions so tied togheter adopt two approaches that are as far apart as they could be. What's your opinion on such subject? wich approach do you find more honest?
for example Taqiya may seem a very deprecable act of cowardice, denying your god in order to have your life spared looks extremely unreligious. On the other hand is extremely practical fundamentally because it makes you stay alive.
But also it may suggest a not complete faith in your god otherwise you would not hide your faith to save your life, considering the fact that in theory you believe in a wonderful afterlife.
Martirdom on the other hand can be seen as the highest form of sacrifice in the name of your faith, but on the other hand it may looks pointless and silly, because a dead man is of no use to no one and because it shows how careless a man can become when believing in a god.
It's also interesting that Peter himself in the gospels ended up adopting Taqiya to save himself from the people that were accusing him of being a christ follower. It's also interesting that Peter later in his life ended up being a martyr
On the other hand is also interesting how martyrdom is adopted as a war tactics today in muslim world, even if it's a very different thing from the martyrdom i was talking about cause christians were persecuted while today muslim bombers kill themselves in order to kill as many people around them as they can. So i think this last thing should not be debated because it's basically a totally different thing. instead it may be interesting to talk about what i would call "reverse Taqiya", by that i mean people who simply pretend to be muslim under muslim regimes just to not put their life at risk because if they were to speak their true feelings they would be put in prison or to death, like saudi arabia costantly remind us on a daily basis.
so what are your toughts about martirdom and taqiya?
