Is Islam Really a Religion of Peace?

[Sheoldred]

Islam killed the science focused arabic culture, what we have left of it are names of the stars, number system and algebra (both the name and majority of content). Unlike science in Europe after over thousand years, it seems to never have managed to shake the religion off, either. No matter if it is Islam or something else, when religion comes to picture reason leaves.

Harshly put, but I tend to agree.

As a Muslim, you cannot really claim that Islam is not compatible with science because that would mean the Quran isn't 'perfect' and afaik you're meant to believe that Muhammad was the most perfect man to walk the Earth, at least given the time period he lived in, and that the Quran, as the word of God, is immutable despite having been written 1400 years back. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So, if a Muslim scholar is telling me two things:

*Islam is actually a religion of peace and everybody who says otherwise is somehow taking things out of context.

*Islam is fully compatible with science because it describes the Big Bang and embryology before we had microscopes and all that.

The second claim is clearly wrong, and there's no way you could ever convince me otherwise, and to me, to think otherwise, is delusion. So who is to say they aren't deluded in regards to the first claim as well?

[DarkAngel111]

It is very possible to conceive a holy(or not) text that can leave little room to interpretation about its message to the followers. At least in terms of adversity towards other groups. Quran leaves a mixed message, so you have apologists that cry about Islamophobes quoting things out of context, which comes back to my argument if the Quran is a 'perfect' book and the unalterable word of God then no matter whether you take things out of context or not they should sound squeaky clean but that's just me.

you have answered your own question here, its a different matter if you choose not to admit it, because as I have said previously there is no convincing someone if they are not ready to believe something.

Quran is a Perfect BOOK.  That means its Balanced in its Entirety, not in each verse on its own.

It is the very flaw of language itself that no matter how much you try to put it perfectly everything can be written out of context to mean something else.

[consortium11]

Islam killed the science focused arabic culture, what we have left of it are names of the stars, number system and algebra (both the name and majority of content). Unlike science in Europe after over thousand years, it seems to never have managed to shake the religion off, either. No matter if it is Islam or something else, when religion comes to picture reason leaves.

That doesn't strike me as accurate; science continued to flourish in the Islamic world which, in addition to the things you mention, brought huge developments in mathematics and biology (primary around medicine) while also contributing to the development of the scientific method which set the stage for the scientific revolution. Now, technically most of the people behind these developments were Persian rather than Arabic... but most of the science from that area before the Islamic conquests was from Persians rather than Arabs. For example al-Khwarizmi, the man associated with developing the number system and algebra you mentioned was Persian (and actually developed his theories under the Abbasid Caliphate).

People have debated quite what the nature of science in the Islamic world of that period was; simply reinterpreting existing Greek science or being innovative itself, whether Islam was directly related to amount of science done or not. But I don't think it can be denied that there was an awful lot of science done and done on a scale the world simply hadn't seen before. While science did eventually stall in the Islamic world, it is generally accepted to have happened in roughly the 15th century... long after Islam came to power.

[Valthazar]

Sheoldred, proving Islam as not being peaceful will achieve very little, if anything, for the western world.

Even if your arguments (hypothetically) were used by a government agency or other international organization to define Islam (as a religion) as inherently violent, what would this serve to achieve?  On a short-term basis, this may prompt stricter immigration policy and increased monitoring of Islamic centers and mosques.  However, 23% of the world's population is Muslim - and one can reasonably assume that such a scenario where Western governments openly criticize Islam will only serve as a much more effective recruitment tool for ISIS and other radicalized groups.  Given how many Muslims there are in the UK and Europe, one can only imagine that mass civil unrest would result from such a scenario, and the radicalization of many otherwise moderate Muslims.

The Quran and Bible alike have many references which are reprehensible by today's standards.  The violence associated with Islam today has more to do with sociocultural and political influences, than the religion itself.

[Sheoldred]

That doesn't strike me as accurate; science continued to flourish in the Islamic world which, in addition to the things you mention, brought huge developments in mathematics and biology (primary around medicine) while also contributing to the development of the scientific method which set the stage for the scientific revolution. Now, technically most of the people behind these developments were Persian rather than Arabic... but most of the science from that area before the Islamic conquests was from Persians rather than Arabs. For example al-Khwarizmi, the man associated with developing the number system and algebra you mentioned was Persian (and actually developed his theories under the Abbasid Caliphate).

People have debated quite what the nature of science in the Islamic world of that period was; simply reinterpreting existing Greek science or being innovative itself, whether Islam was directly related to amount of science done or not. But I don't think it can be denied that there was an awful lot of science done and done on a scale the world simply hadn't seen before. While science did eventually stall in the Islamic world, it is generally accepted to have happened in roughly the 15th century... long after Islam came to power.

That's true, and I wouldn't disagree with that, there are and were scientists among Muslims, whether they were/are of Persian descent or not. But are any of scientific discoveries and contributions by the Arab world even remotely related to the Quran? Didn't the numeric system exist BEFORE the rise of Islam? And before Islam Arabia was very advanced, if not the most advanced, region when it came to mathematics and astrology.

[consortium11]

That's true, and I wouldn't disagree with that, there are and were scientists among Muslims, whether they were/are of Persian descent or not. But are any of scientific discoveries and contributions by the Arab world even remotely related to the Quran? Didn't the numeric system exist BEFORE the rise of Islam? And before Islam Arabia was very advanced, if not the most advanced, region when it came to mathematics and astrology.

For number system I assume we're talking about the decimal positional number system and Arabic numerals; both were developed by the previously mentioned al-Khwarizmi (who was born in about 780 and died in about 850) and introduced to the Western world when his original works were translated into Latin during the 12th century. al-Khwarizmi did most of his work in Baghdad seemingly between about 813 and 833, when Baghdad had been transformed into the centre of the scientific world following the Islamic conquest of Persia in the mid 7th century.

I doubt that the scientific discoveries had anything directly to do with the Quran, but the conditions during the Islamic Golden Age were such that science was allowed to flourish. To separate that completely from the religion seems a step too far to me. During the Sasanian period Arabia was a strong centre for science but not particularly in mathematics or astrology (most of which were basically translating existing Greek and Indian pieces) instead focusing on medicine and philosophy.

[kylie]

         

Somehow I'm not so comfortable with the thread title, or perhaps what has been done in its name.  A bit of fidget on that for anyone who still cares.

  I haven't read every post.  I've peeked in later, a little surprised that it's still even viable, and I've purposefully skipped on by stuff where I couldn't stand some of the premises I gathered or people just seemed to not be on the same page to discuss it anyway... 

      Basically, I'm very skeptical on however one could 'prove' all or even a majority of members of some religion that size to be relatively more peaceful than others of similar sizes.  A handful of verses in only one particular translation a thousand years later don't really convince me, any more than they do coming from Christianity.  And in the case of Christianity which I've heard slightly more about, I have also been told by specialists, if you care to get a historical basis claim involved -- that many translations are patently wrong given more scholarly linguistic and historical evidence.  In a manner of speaking sure, anyone "could" illustrate some trend in something somewhere somehow, but with so many angles, extrapolating that to conclude about the whole religion through history in the world we have out there?  Through which parts of history, again?  I'm just afraid it would probably be a case of preaching to a witchhunt choir.   

      A zillion ready ways to slice this and talk past each other much of the while.  Seems like something that's wide open to all sorts of rigged comparisons and unlikely sweeping assertions.  I do notice that the OP, despite the title, asked mainly about scripture -- which I can't be bothered with about this sort of question so much personally (as I just explained) -- but I grant you there was some sort of attempt there to focus it.  And the thread later went all over taking other approaches, although I suspect that was kind of unavoidable.  Anyway, I haven't pored over every post or fixed on some to repost, so this is not going to be a quote and riposte fest.

         Anyway... I will drop in a wave to a piece by Rozsa in Salon. 

         This happened to be in reference to some events on Bill Maher's show, but that isn't what concerns me just now.  I haven't gotten on to reading just what happened on the show yet.  Without reviewing Maher himself much in any depth, I thought some of this was probably fairly well phrased and relevant to that very broadly (if rather awkwardly) phrased question in the thread title. 

          There may be a few roughly cut corners in this outline of history too.  Well, it's rather hard not to cut something short with a titular question this big and shotgun.  And then someone else who doesn't like a point of view often rushes to fill that gap, frequently enough with rather hotter air of their own that sometimes doesn't even deal with those parts of the question where a cited author or poster's material did make sense to apply.  Nevertheless, this piece mentions broad contours that I think, are often conveniently forgotten or played down in American media and even sometimes in classroom discussions.

          To sum up the early portion, Rozsa reports that Maher attempted to argue that Islam itself (yes the religion somehow or other), generally, leads disproportionately toward human rights abuses.  I'm not sure if multiple, more or less violent human rights abuses are precisely the opposite of "Peace" for everyone in this thread... But I imagine it's still within the (I think vastly extensive if vague) scope of some arguments that have passed through here.  Some snippings:

There is a reason Enlightenment values became dominant in the West, to the point that even religious Westerners are usually far less fundamentalist than their pre-Enlightenment antecedents. While Muslim countries were being conquered and economically exploited by Western imperialist powers, affluence spread in North America and Europe thanks to the twin economic engines of the Industrial Revolution (as well as subsequent scientific revolutions) and free market capitalism. This same unregulated capitalism, of course, has also done more than its fair share to create massive inequalities of wealth in Muslim countries; when combined with a widespread awareness of colonialist abuses committed by the United States, Great Britain, France, Israel, and other Western nations, it creates a hotbed for ideas very different from the ones preferred by Enlightenment thinkers.

When militant Islamism is viewed not as a primarily religious movement but rather as an intensely emotional response to the legacy of Western colonialism, its character makes a great deal more sense.

.....

In short, the closest any participant in the debate came to a true liberal understanding of the deeper forces at play in the Muslim world was Ben Affleck when he observed: “We’ve killed more Muslims than they’ve killed us by an awful lot. We’ve invaded more – and somehow we’re exempt from these things because they’re not really a reflection of what we believe in.”

Whether it’s the anti-Islamic policies implemented by government leaders in France and Germany, America’s preemptive war in Iraq, or Israel’s bombardment in Gaza, the point here is not that there is an inherent problem in Judeo-Christian theology that needs to be viewed as a threat; after all, those conflicts were motivated not by the Jewish or Christian faiths but by nationalist ideologies (usually backed by powerful business interests). While the average Westerner may not agree with these measures, they are nevertheless genuine reflections of the mentality of First World privilege that continues to be a dominant factor in world politics today. The spread of the ideals of militant Islamism is a dangerously popular response in large parts of the Muslim world to these issues – but it must not be forgotten that the fundamental power struggle between the West and postcolonial countries is the underlying issue here, not the tenets of the religion through which the hatreds of the one side has manifested itself.

-----------------------
      You can read the rest in the link, but given that I basically agree with this is a general outline...  Now in regard to the OP:

There is no excuse for what Muhammad did, in or out of his historical context.

This is a cute quote, but really...  Doesn't everyone make ethical decisions more or less within their historical context?  I imagine you could argue that a leader or someone who claims to give advice on social order for a whole people should be more progressive, and we might prefer that they are.  But there are plenty of possible excuses.  The question is whether you accept that sometimes people are limited by the social context they live in -- they may mistakes, they may be ignorant, they may face impossible choices.  This is partly tall tale after all (certainly once you start comparing it to the New Testament), so maybe they even fail to assume that they might come back from the dead to give more lessons and put things "in context" for others.  I dunno. 

         Sure now we colloquially say those who do things we abhor cannot be allowed as examples...  But I'm not sure this makes analytical sense.  For it to make moral sense in today's world, you have to compare it to someone.  Jesus came back from the dead, so what kind of comparison is that.  I don't think M. had that luxury?  Not that I have been studying the Koran much -- so please do tell me if he arose from the dead to make his incentives and intentions clearer for a then conquered people, too.

        And what was Jesus' context then?  Could some reasonable argument be made that perhaps the Jewish people of his presumptive historical time would have been more justly served by an exodus a la Moses...  (He was prototyping walking on water, no?)  Or even with a violent uprising (at least that Moses had plagues to get things moving)... 

        How about by getting on with that apocalypse thing that is promised in Revelation anyway.  Why I know that's hugely popular with some Christian denominations; I grew up hearing it fairly often among Methodists and constantly among Pentacostals, and it's popped up pretty much whenever I've read about some very large Southern churches...   Yet that is actually another book (or compilation and compromise between how many different sources, refurbished periodically over the centuries) and perhaps another society at the time of writing.  But that isn't stopping you from stringing together some catchall, shotgun case against Islam it seems.  I'm pretty sure quite a few Christians prefer to emphasize that kind of massive violence and survival and matyrdom and punishment story.  And quite a few picking some part is all it takes for you to conclude Islam itself is somehow just rotten, yes?

Even if we assume that the verses which preach Jihad are 'outdated' there's obviously an alarming number of Muslims who believe the Jihad verses override the peaceful ones.

I think maybe this has been argued here before, but I would say there are an alarming number of people in other faiths doing much the same thing, Christianity being the one I'm most familiar with...  You know.  And by the way, a whole lot of people who I suspect don't know the actual history of many verses they (sometimes quite mistakenly) cite as excuses for fire and brimstone policy either. 

      It's one thing to say certain crimes are abhorrent in themselves.  It's one thing to say do we stop this particular thing here or there if we can.  But the attempts to paint a faceless, totally uniform and nigh-mindless force of barbarians or even a whole religion(!) "over there" somewhere behind it with no relationship to anything the West has ever done ('obviously') because see, they're so evil we have never in our domestic or international history done anything that compares?  And therefore we can't understand them, for they are just wacked?  Now that's just a kind of converse hyperbole.

This conflict will never end simply because Islam is dualistic and rotten at its core. And if you ignore roughly half of what the Quran tells you to do, as a Muslim, can you even be considered a Muslim anymore? That's not how religion works. It's all or nothing.

If the world and society as I know it were this brutally simple, I don't even know where to begin.  I would have never seen most of the world -- certainly not Asia -- because in my hometown, most of the authorities and especially the more fervent religious elders told me it was nigh impossible to understand and rather unpatriotic to think others could be doing anything useful to learn from those places rather than sitting at home where they could tell me better how to interpret, and some thought even destabilizing or dangerous.  Now if I didn't believe anything they told me at any level about honesty or progress or a fundamental good in many people in the world, then I probably would have either killed someone or gone off and gotten myself killed in a still more risky adventure somewhere, or both. 

       I do understand the sentiment that people are expected to follow a certain degree of letter of the book...  But you should be aware that if that is taken literally, parts of the Old Testament alone appear at least in the letter, to conflict.  And some parts would have people in great trouble today, and perhaps something worse than avoiding shellfish or synthetic clothing?  I don't claim to adhere to all that sort of "all in" or "all out" when it comes to a whole aged (compilation) tome myself but I think I have heard enough passing references to this sort of thing.  So I leave it up to you whether you want to google things like verses that conflict and find more or not.  Your own logic could be flipped against your case:  How can anyone ignore those verses that do say do dastardly things?  So it's a knot where you can't do or not do, if that is your whole argument.

There's also this alarming habit of pointing at other religions and saying they are just as murderous to somehow diffuse responsibility.

What if instead of starting out claiming one religion obviously must be just better or worse on the whole...  What if a good part of the international system as we know it could be rotten at its core?  You don't have to be blowing stuff up to notice there is a lot of inequality out there and a lot of bad history on many different levels, going simultaneously in so many different directions, that still is built into what we have now.  What's striking is in the West we more often tend to insist we personally have no control, or else (often simultaneously) we must have "better" self-control, more civilization and maturity we say, because we don't respond to the gross inequity we benefit from (and our corporate masters benefit from thousands of times more) by getting angry and becoming even more prone to selectively cite religious texts than umm, you know, we already do? 

     I know we often end up in situations where people in power get to demand the minorities or the less armed or less funded side 'stop the violence' first (and then, maybe, if we're lucky, there will be some little concessions? hmm?).  But I don't think the basic point of comparative study is really to blur the picture until no one can find practical problems.  Or it shouldn't be.  It's hard sometimes because often when you start talking about a particular case, a lot of damnation rhetoric or even hyper-violent police action comes out about things that really, most people in say, America aren't taught or talking a whole lot about to begin with. 
       

[Sheoldred]

This is a cute quote, but really...  Doesn't everyone make ethical decisions more or less within their historical context?

To justify Muhammad's behavior compared to Jesus, and Buddha, who are the most relevant founding figures of religions practiced today, you need volumes more apologetics. He's the Misunderstood Mitch of history.

I think maybe this has been argued here before, but I would say there are an alarming number of people in other faiths doing much the same thing, Christianity being the one I'm most familiar with...  You know.  And by the way, a whole lot of people who I suspect don't know the actual history of many verses they (sometimes quite mistakenly) cite as excuses for fire and brimstone policy either. 

I'm not denying that extremists who identify themselves with other major religions, such as Christianity, are doing something bad right now, but according to the info I've been exposed to a far more overwhelming number of Muslim-identifying extremists are doing much more.

Anyway, I've already said this before in other posts. Think at this point we'll only be going in circles.

[Callie Del Noire]

Islam killed the science focused arabic culture, what we have left of it are names of the stars, number system and algebra (both the name and majority of content). Unlike science in Europe after over thousand years, it seems to never have managed to shake the religion off, either. No matter if it is Islam or something else, when religion comes to picture reason leaves.

I would argue that this didn't occur in a vaccumn. The West had a LOT to do with the conditions that cultivate the last CENTURY of Islam's growth and attitudes.

[Oniya]

I would argue that this didn't occur in a vaccumn. The West had a LOT to do with the conditions that cultivate the last CENTURY of Islam's growth and attitudes.

I'd take it back a bit further than that.  The European folks in Richard Coeur d'Leon's time didn't really 'endear' themselves to the local population of the Middle East.

[Steampunkette]

The Crusades never ended. We're still there.

As for the violence inherent in the Koran... I snicker in delight at memories of King David being blessed by God to send his men into the houses of the men they'd just killed to rape the dead men's wives and daughters and thus make "Honest" wives out of them.

Of the stonings. Of the demand to keep women, unclean by their monthly cycle, outside of cities. Of God encouraging the slaughter of his enemies and the destruction of their lands. And then I remember that most of the Biblical account of the Jews of the Old Testament is really just the Jewish people rewriting history to make themselves into quiet shepherds who didn't do anything, while all surviving records of the era point to the violent and bloodthirsty conquering Jews who destroyed entire cities.

Yeah. The Koran has violence in it. However Mohammed preached peace right around the time Jesus told people to stop killing each other with stones. When you look at the Fundamentalist Imams what you're seeing is people reaching back into the equivalent of Old Testament fire and brimstone to advance their own political agendas. Just like in America with constant quotes of Leviticus to cement how evil and dirty homosexuals are and why "Real Marriage" is between a man and a woman...

Are there violent Muslims? Fuck yes. Is Islam a religion of violence, predation, or war? Fuck no.

It's politics using religion to prop itself up into a position of divine, and thus unquestionable, authority.

[Kythia]

I'd take it back a bit further than that.  The European folks in Richard Coeur d'Leon's time didn't really 'endear' themselves to the local population of the Middle East.

That's a mighty odd place to take it to.  I think you could make a pretty decent case that the third crusade was a defensive war from Europe's point of view.

[Steampunkette]

Suuuure... You could. You could.

It'd be pretty whacky to do so!

"Hey! We invaded your country and stole your holy city, murdering every man, woman, and child within it's borders, fair and square! You can't try to take it back! Bad, Saladin! Bad! Finders Keepers, dude."

[Kythia]

We invaded your holy city almost two centuries ago and etc etc etc.

Would your argument be that a British invasion of the US was reaonable?  The situation is the same.  2 centuries ago you took that land from us.

EDIT:  Can't count.  Almost one century ago.  Fact remains though.

[Oniya]

That's a mighty odd place to take it to.  I think you could make a pretty decent case that the third crusade was a defensive war from Europe's point of view.

I was having a hard time remembering names from the first and second.

[Kythia]

I was having a hard time remembering names from the first and second.

LOL.

God brought righteousness but just failed.

Godfrey, Baldwin, Richard, Boniface, John, Frederick

Leaders of the 1,2,3,4,5,6 crusades.  We can argue with most of those names, but they've always served me as a starting point or a mental marker of who we're talking about.

[Steampunkette]

No. It wouldn't. Because there is a difference between secession or independence and displacing a native population. The Americans didn't kick out the British Population. They -were- the British Population.

If the Native Americans had risen up sometime in the 1700s and kicked the British Colonists out it would have been a similar situation. Or in the 1800s and kicked out the American population, that would be comparable.

But it also ignores the continued aggression during the century between the Genocide and the third crusade. It's not like the Europeans STOPPED killing Muslims and Jews. They just weren't exporting their criminals and unwanted violent offenders across the countryside at the time.

Antioch, Jeruslem, and the other Crusader States were still doing a hell of a lot of murdering, rape, and pillaging of settlements not under the protection of the Catholic Church during that century. The Crusades were a series of major wars, but there was endless fighting to be had. Just not nearly so large of Troop Surges.

[Kythia]

But that's neither here nor there.  Long before any of the combatants were born, that patch of land was conquered.  Settlers and suchlike lived there.  It was then invaded by the original holders.  I fail to see how anything you've said challenges:

... the third crusade was a defensive war from Europe's point of view.

which was what you initially took objection to.  Are you claiming the Frankish territories in the levant weren't invaded by Saladin?  Because they were.  Are you claiming that the Third Crusade wasn't to defend existing holdings and reclaim lost land?  Because it was. 

The rightness or wrongness of the First Crusade is utterly irrelevant to the statement "this was a defensive war from Europe's point of view"

[Oniya]

LOL.

God brought righteousness but just failed.

Godfrey, Baldwin, Richard, Boniface, John, Frederick

Leaders of the 1,2,3,4,5,6 crusades.  We can argue with most of those names, but they've always served me as a starting point or a mental marker of who we're talking about.

That is a hilariously appropriate mnemonic, and will therefore stick in my head.  Thanks! 

[Kythia]

No. It wouldn't. Because there is a difference between secession or independence and displacing a native population. The Americans didn't kick out the British Population. They -were- the British Population.

Also, the Caliphate weren't the native population.  They held Jerusalem prior to the First Crusade because they had captured it.  Why draw an arbitrary line saying it was "their" city?

[Steampunkette]

Europe's point of view is irrelevant is what I'm saying.

From an external and objective viewpoint the Crusades were an endless series of bloodshed in cycles that have continued to the modern day. Wherein invaders used military superiority to invoke -their- will over the will of the native populace, slaughtering or subjugating them as they saw fit.

Arguing that it was a defensive war implies it was justified. It wasn't. It can't be justified. Sure the people who fought in the Third Crusade aren't the ones who committed genocide in the First Crusade. But many of them continued it from the Second Crusade. And most of the rest were not locals raised in Jerusalem (most of whom were killing Muslims and Jews before the Third Crusade in a continuation of the brutality) but people who came from other lands specifically to reinforce the invasion and explicitly support the brutality of the people who came before them.

There is just no way to extract their moral obligations and infractions from the bloodshed they supported, from the moment they arrived all the way back to the Jerusalem Genocide itself. It doesn't work.

"From their perspective" doesn't matter. It's a defense of people who did things that are, flatly, indefensible. They might have -convinced- themselves it was a defensive war, might have believed it, but that doesn't make it a defensive war. It was just a continuation of genocidal brutality perpetuated for centuries.

You don't get to pick up a sword covered in blood of the innocent, stab innocent people and warriors alike, and walk away with hands as pristine as pure Hydrogen. No matter what your religious authority tells you.

The Caliphate part is a good point, but kind of moot, still. It wouldn't be up to Europe to invade and take it for themselves. For it to be a just and defensive war the native population would have to retake it. That would be like China invading America because we stole it from the Native Americans. It doesn't make it right for China to take it, either. They're still an invading army in this scenario committing genocide.

[Kythia]

OK, see, you're arguing a different point to the one I'm making.  Frankly it seems like we agree. 

"In the Third Crusade, Europe took up arms to defend its territories" or, in my original formulation which I don't feel changes anything "From Europe's point of view it was a defensive war" 

There are a whole lot of things that aren't remotely relevant to that statement including but not limited to how Europe got that territory, the religions of the participants, prior atrocities - no matter how recent - in that area, the moral weight of arguments, etc.

You objected to the statement, or minimally it seemed to me you did.  However, your objections seem to be to a slightly different statement - something akin to "Europe was morally correct to take up arms to fight a justified defensive war", which isn't the one I made.  You initial objection was about how we couldn't call finders keepers because it was Saladin's people's city.  It seems you've abandoned that point now though, leaving only "Europeans were kinda jerks about the whole affair" and "I, unlike most people, think you must be in the right morally to defend your territory".  Sure.  But that has no bearing on what I actually said.

As I say, it seems to me - when we take that in to account - that we agree.

[Steampunkette]

In that case what we have here is a significant misunderstanding which I apologize for my significant portion of. :)

[Steampunkette]

I'm going to suggest anyone who sincerely asks this thread's title of themselves and the world around them watch the Farscape Season 4 Episode 17 "Constellation of Doubt"

In it, Utu Noranti Pralatong discusses religion and killing.

She asks a boy "What constitutes a good religion" and the first words out of his mouth are that we shouldn't kill and should do unto others. Her response? "Hypocrite!" Because all religions condemn killing outright, and then make allowances that suit their needs. It's okay to kill Infidels. Or witches. Or homosexuals. Just make sure you know who you're stoning to death.

This is a direct quote: Religions are grand, lofty ideals. Religious followers - now that's a different story.

Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, Shinto, Hinduism, Ancestor Worship... All are religions with high ideals and peace as their primary tenets. It's the religious that act on the people they perceive as acceptable targets.

[Sheoldred]

Speaking of which has anybody read any of Bat Ye'or's books? Haven't had success in finding any of her books in eBook format. She's labelled a loon by some but her books are supposedly backed up by historical data, just curious if anybody who has read it can tell what she's on about.