That's a belief, not a point.
Nope. To both.
You don't believe I've provided convincing enough evidence that it is much less able to be reformed, more resistant to secularisation, and has the higher likelihood of being interpreted to prescribe violence? Is it all of those points or all 3 so I know what I'm working from.
Pretty dubious of a map showing The Islamic Republic of Iran as more secular than Turkey or Brazil
It's not perfect but it illustrates the point I hope. It's easily searchable.
I think to go about making your belief that Islam is more violent than other religions persuasive, you need to limit your analysis to scripture - because the moment you try to use actual events and behavior as evidence you'll end up having to contend with the crusades, the spanish inquisition, the KKK, and similar behavior. For what it's worth, I think if you limit your analysis to scripture you're on pretty solid ground for Islam vs. Christianity. Less solid for Islam vs. Judaism. But then what exactly is the takeaway from that conclusion? I'm not sure.
The takeaway is there has to be reform, and I'm not sure where it comes from/if it's even possible.
Given the history of Christian and Jewish violence, as well as violence from other religious belief, it seems that religion is just a bad idea altogether. Sure, Islam does not appear to be a good one, but it's definitely not the only one that's violent.
Hell no - the Abrahamic ones are
all violent. They are mitigated by different things, however - Christianity by the founder (Christ's) words and action, Judaism by the push to secularisation and Islam by....well that's where I hit a roadblock.
If we take religion to be an ideology that transcends time (which, let's face it, that's what they are), we have to look at how the ideology was formed, what it preaches, and how it can be shaped.
Looking at how they were formed is the easy one:
Judaism is pretty unique in this regard so we'll leave it out (i.e. there's no mitigation).
Out of the single founder ones I've had a quick look at,
Jesus, the Buddha, Guru Nanak, Zoroaster, Bahá'u'lláh, Mahavira, Confucius, Laozi, and
Mani are all preaching non-violence and lived their lives non-violently (Jesus did through a tantrum once).
Joseph Smith had the Nauvoo Legion, but his life story differed greatly in terms of violence from....
Muhammad. This one is the big outlier. I won't bore you with the details as his life story is easily searchable, but he is the
only one who was a warlord/military leader.
If people use the examples of their religion's founder as the bedrock of their faith and how to live a "pious" life, it's pretty easy to spot the odd one out.
Now for what they preach. This would come down to scripture, and we know how bloodthirsty/homicidal/genocidal the god and the tribes in the OT were as that's been done to death. With Islam, there's the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah (and others). The Quran is taken as the literal word of god, revealed to Muhammad by Gabriel. I believe the Hadith are Muhammad's sayings and deeds while the Sunnah are his practices (it would help to have an actual Muslim here). As Muhammad is seen as the most perfect human ever, logically his words, actions and behaviour are seen as something to aspire to. Here's the problem - he lived in the 7th Century so he's a product of that time. This excuse is used to justify his violent verses/actions, his marriage/intercourse with a child under 10, his owning of slaves and other things that wouldn't fly now.
As I'm only familiar at some sort of depth with Christian teachings, I have to rely on ex-Muslims found elsewhere to piece Islam together (there are communities for ex-Christians, ex-Mormons etc).
Afghanistan has just banned pictures of living things based on the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law. Thinking this is a bit extreme even for Islam I nevertheless found this:
And:
I don't have the experience of Islam as a Muslim to counter this, and I'd say it's up to Muslims to provide evidence that it's wrong. All I can logically say is that the prophet was wrong in order to justify why that isn't a thing in other countries now - but how can that be if he's the most awesome human ever?
With Judaism, look at what the father of political Zionism thought of Eastern European Jews who were fleeing pogroms:
en.wikipedia.org
This shows you how the assimilated and secular Jews of the West saw themselves: mixed in with the non-Jewish populations, embracing Enlightenment values and spouting antisemitic rhetoric and in the case of Herzl
teaming up with white antisemites. It showed that their laws could be interpreted in various ways - there was no "perfect" founder - and that they continued in a tribal mentality.
Christianity? Well we've been through that over and over and it's really only the OT that prescribe such things.
That's not to say there aren't sects that go by the OT, but my point is Jesus's teachings and life allowed it to secularise/reform.
I maintain that the closest founder Muhammad resembles is Joseph Smith, but their stories differed
greatly. Each had funny ways of convincing their followers that they were the real deal (and it is a laugh to see ex-Muslims talk about how absurd it all is) but as Islam punishes people leaving the religion with death and discourages Muslims from actually facing up to what Muhammad did it'll take a brave group to change it.
www.independent.co.uk
