What Christian Islamophobes don't see

[Tom Sawyer]

islam is 'peace' of course. There are some liberal, to some extent, muslims little doubt but how entitled are they rationally to claim that this is the islam of Muhammad, as presented in the quran and the hadith? You try to sell here the idea that liberal Christianity has the same amount of justification for its stance as these relatively liberal muslims (a minority, even in the West) which is patently false. I'm afraid the postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of texts cannot help you here, being not tenable, the basics of religions are not the bazar from where one choose whatever one wants while claiming full compatibility with Rationality, especially when extensive change is involved. There can exist however different degree of compatibility with Rationality and at this level all those honest intellectually would agree that a liberal Christian has much more justification for his stance than the muslims you talk about.

I've dealt too many times with this kind of 'arguments' from the part of the so called 'progressive liberals' (curiously I always thought i'm a liberal leaning toward the Left and not the fascist neo-con from the minds of these people) to not become amazed of how strong has this cultural relativist myth penetrated the masses. If you think that there is not a legitimate argument against islam you are completely wrong, there is one and anyone capable to understand will easily understand. Finally I'm afraid Pat Condell is absolutely right about these so called 'western progressives'...

Laughing at the new Inquisition

That's utter tripe. It's like saying that Christians who are in favour of equal rights for gays and women aren't entitled to rationally claim that this is the Christianity of Jesus, as presented in the old and new testaments.

If someone wants to make a postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of Islam, that's as legitimate an interpretation as someone who takes all of the texts absolutely literally. It's no different than a Christian taking a postmodernist / culturally relativist interpretation of the Bible and asserting that their religion is pro-freedom and anti-slavery. That's directly contradicted by other parts of the Bible, but it's fine to just ignore all of that shit and reinterpret other parts which agree with him. No matter how much some other Christian disagrees with him and rants on about how the master/slave relationship is mandated by God, both of them are making legitimate interpretations of Christianity.

That sort of thing is more common with Christianity than Islam, but this is because the cultures that Christianity is present in happen to be more liberal and progressive, despite centuries worth of attempts by Christianity to hold that back. There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.

 

[Underseer]

islam is 'peace' of course. There are some liberal, to some extent, muslims little doubt but how entitled are they rationally to claim that this is the islam of Muhammad, as presented in the quran and the hadith? You try to sell here the idea that liberal Christianity has the same amount of justification for its stance as these relatively liberal muslims (a minority, even in the West) which is patently false. I'm afraid the postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of texts cannot help you here, being not tenable, the basics of religions are not the bazar from where one choose whatever one wants while claiming full compatibility with Rationality, especially when extensive change is involved. There can exist however different degree of compatibility with Rationality and at this level all those honest intellectually would agree that a liberal Christian has much more justification for his stance than the muslims you talk about.

I've dealt too many times with this kind of 'arguments' from the part of the so called 'progressive liberals' (curiously I always thought i'm a liberal leaning toward the Left and not the fascist neo-con from the minds of these people) to not become amazed of how strong has this cultural relativist myth penetrated the masses. If you think that there is not a legitimate argument against islam you are completely wrong, there is one and anyone capable to understand will easily understand. Finally I'm afraid Pat Condell is absolutely right about these so called 'western progressives'...

Laughing at the new Inquisition

That's utter tripe. It's like saying that Christians who are in favour of equal rights for gays and women aren't entitled to rationally claim that this is the Christianity of Jesus, as presented in the old and new testaments.

If someone wants to make a postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of Islam, that's as legitimate an interpretation as someone who takes all of the texts absolutely literally. It's no different than a Christian taking a postmodernist / culturally relativist interpretation of the Bible and asserting that their religion is pro-freedom and anti-slavery. That's directly contradicted by other parts of the Bible, but it's fine to just ignore all of that shit and reinterpret other parts which agree with him. No matter how much some other Christian disagrees with him and rants on about how the master/slave relationship is mandated by God, both of them are making legitimate interpretations of Christianity.

That sort of thing is more common with Christianity than Islam, but this is because the cultures that Christianity is present in happen to be more liberal and progressive, despite centuries worth of attempts by Christianity to hold that back. There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.

Is that an incoherent argument to make? Yes.

However, it is impractical to ask all 2+ billion Christians to abandon their faith, and just as impractical to ask all 2+ billion Muslims to abandon their faith. That just isn't going to happen, so encouraging Muslims to explain away large portions of their holy book as many Christians do is the more practical solution. As Ayaan Hrsi Ali argues, if we could get Christianity to reform, we can get Islam to reform. Whether or not the theological basis of the reformation makes any sense is immaterial.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, religion is here to stay, regardless of how dumb it is. Promoting the less harmful varieties of the disease is the correct way to go.

 

[metacristi]

islam is 'peace' of course. There are some liberal, to some extent, muslims little doubt but how entitled are they rationally to claim that this is the islam of Muhammad, as presented in the quran and the hadith? You try to sell here the idea that liberal Christianity has the same amount of justification for its stance as these relatively liberal muslims (a minority, even in the West) which is patently false. I'm afraid the postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of texts cannot help you here, being not tenable, the basics of religions are not the bazar from where one choose whatever one wants while claiming full compatibility with Rationality, especially when extensive change is involved. There can exist however different degree of compatibility with Rationality and at this level all those honest intellectually would agree that a liberal Christian has much more justification for his stance than the muslims you talk about.

I've dealt too many times with this kind of 'arguments' from the part of the so called 'progressive liberals' (curiously I always thought i'm a liberal leaning toward the Left and not the fascist neo-con from the minds of these people) to not become amazed of how strong has this cultural relativist myth penetrated the masses. If you think that there is not a legitimate argument against islam you are completely wrong, there is one and anyone capable to understand will easily understand. Finally I'm afraid Pat Condell is absolutely right about these so called 'western progressives'...

Laughing at the new Inquisition

That's utter tripe. It's like saying that Christians who are in favour of equal rights for gays and women aren't entitled to rationally claim that this is the Christianity of Jesus, as presented in the old and new testaments.

If someone wants to make a postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of Islam, that's as legitimate an interpretation as someone who takes all of the texts absolutely literally. It's no different than a Christian taking a postmodernist / culturally relativist interpretation of the Bible and asserting that their religion is pro-freedom and anti-slavery. That's directly contradicted by other parts of the Bible, but it's fine to just ignore all of that shit and reinterpret other parts which agree with him. No matter how much some other Christian disagrees with him and rants on about how the master/slave relationship is mandated by God, both of them are making legitimate interpretations of Christianity.

That sort of thing is more common with Christianity than Islam, but this is because the cultures that Christianity is present in happen to be more liberal and progressive, despite centuries worth of attempts by Christianity to hold that back. There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.

You do not really understand what I said, my point is that the basis of Christianity makes much easier to defend a liberal position, Christianity was not about literal interpretations of the Bible from its good inception (even the Protestant Church distanced itself from literal interpretations just about 100 years after Luther). That's why among others stoning has never been a widespread practice in Christianity. It is this internal logic, catalysed by other cultural factors, which allowed Christians to evolve easily toward the rejection of inerrantism of the Bible which allow very important concessions to Modernity.

Those who really understand islam on the other hand know that this is not valid in that religion (the history of islam makes this point very strong), unfortunately the islam taught and lived by Muhammad, as presented in the quran and hadith, talk unambiguously about following the quran to the letter and that Muhammad deserve emulation in all he did at all times. No surprise that a vast majority of muslims still accept the inerrantism of the quran and the 'perfection' of muahmmad. Contrary to what you say there is a much stronger rational justification (relative to the basics of these religions) for the position of a Christian who accepts a minimal set of what is to be christian (Ressurection of Jesus and a few other requirements) than for a muslim (hampered by the express interdictions of such moves in both the holy book and hadith, everything there has to be believed wholesale).

Secondly you put the cart before the horses. If you had studied with more attention history you'd have seen that a vast majority of people were very devout Christian during the Middle Ages and still we had a Renaissance which produced among others the Christian Philosophers of the 17th century who contributed decisively to the apparition of the Enlightenment (there wouldn't definitely have been 'agnostics' and atheists having an important word in the society in the 18th century if Christianity was indeed like islam, with its intrinsic political dimension and where innovation at this level was crushed soon after its apparition). The role of Christianity was in fact more positive in the apparition of Modernity than you suggest be it especially for the happy fact that its basics left much more 'holes' for the forces of progress to evolve into something even more progressive.

Finally I know that I largely waste my time, maybe Sam Harris can do a better job and convince you: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2#views_on_islam, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxkq5bHe_fA&index=2&list=FLTl6O3amY10cFzHaQv664_A. But that there is indeed a totally legitimate argument against islam entirely along secular lines (yes we can make a difference between the different Abrahamic religions, some ideas are significantly worse than others) is the inescapable conclusion of all those who want really to be rational.


http://blog.theproudatheist.com/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-an-inside-view-by-kaveh-mousavi/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/02/26/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-part-2/
http://www.newenglishreview.org/Ibn_Warraq/Islamic_Enlightenment/

 

[Underseer]

That's utter tripe. It's like saying that Christians who are in favour of equal rights for gays and women aren't entitled to rationally claim that this is the Christianity of Jesus, as presented in the old and new testaments.

If someone wants to make a postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of Islam, that's as legitimate an interpretation as someone who takes all of the texts absolutely literally. It's no different than a Christian taking a postmodernist / culturally relativist interpretation of the Bible and asserting that their religion is pro-freedom and anti-slavery. That's directly contradicted by other parts of the Bible, but it's fine to just ignore all of that shit and reinterpret other parts which agree with him. No matter how much some other Christian disagrees with him and rants on about how the master/slave relationship is mandated by God, both of them are making legitimate interpretations of Christianity.

That sort of thing is more common with Christianity than Islam, but this is because the cultures that Christianity is present in happen to be more liberal and progressive, despite centuries worth of attempts by Christianity to hold that back. There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.

You do not really understand what I said, my point is that the basis of Christianity makes much easier to defend a liberal position, Christianity was not about literal interpretations of the Bible from its good inception (even the Protestant Church distanced itself from literal interpretations just about 100 years after Luther). That's why among others stoning has never been a widespread practice in Christianity. It is this internal logic, catalysed by other cultural factors, which allowed Christians to evolve easily toward the rejection of inerrantism of the Bible which allow very important concessions to Modernity.

Those who really understand islam on the other hand know that this is not valid in that religion (the history of islam makes this point very strong), unfortunately the islam taught and lived by Muhammad, as presented in the quran and hadith, talk unambiguously about following the quran to the letter and that Muhammad deserve emulation in all he did at all times. No surprise that a vast majority of muslims still accept the inerrantism of the quran and the 'perfection' of muahmmad. Contrary to what you say there is a much stronger rational justification (relative to the basics of these religions) for the position of a Christian who accepts a minimal set of what is to be christian (Ressurection of Jesus and a few other requirements) than for a muslim (hampered by the express interdictions of such moves in both the holy book and hadith, everything there has to be believed wholesale).

Secondly you put the cart before the horses. If you had studied with more attention history you'd have seen that a vast majority of people were very devout Christian during the Middle Ages and still we had a Renaissance which produced among others the Christian Philosophers of the 17th century who contributed decisively to the apparition of the Enlightenment (there wouldn't definitely have been 'agnostics' and atheists having an important word in the society in the 18th century if Christianity was indeed like islam, with its intrinsic political dimension and where innovation at this level was crushed soon after its apparition). The role of Christianity was in fact more positive in the apparition of Modernity than you suggest be it especially for the happy fact that its basics left much more 'holes' for the forces of progress to evolve into something even more progressive.

Finally I know that I largely waste my time, maybe Sam Harris can do a better job and convince you: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2#views_on_islam, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxkq5bHe_fA&index=2&list=FLTl6O3amY10cFzHaQv664_A. But that there is indeed a totally legitimate argument against islam entirely along secular lines (yes we can make a difference between the different Abrahamic religions, some ideas are significantly worse than others) is the inescapable conclusion of all those who want really to be rational.


http://blog.theproudatheist.com/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-an-inside-view-by-kaveh-mousavi/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/02/26/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-part-2/

You're right. Christianity didn't have a tradition of stoning people to death.

It had a tradition of setting people in fire, often for trivial disagreements about theological matters.

I'm not going to bother addressing your claim that Christianity has had a net positive effect on the intellectual advances of European history for the same reason I refuse to debate people who believe in the Chemtrails conspiracy theory.

 

[metacristi]

You do not really understand what I said, my point is that the basis of Christianity makes much easier to defend a liberal position, Christianity was not about literal interpretations of the Bible from its good inception (even the Protestant Church distanced itself from literal interpretations just about 100 years after Luther). That's why among others stoning has never been a widespread practice in Christianity. It is this internal logic, catalysed by other cultural factors, which allowed Christians to evolve easily toward the rejection of inerrantism of the Bible which allow very important concessions to Modernity.

Those who really understand islam on the other hand know that this is not valid in that religion (the history of islam makes this point very strong), unfortunately the islam taught and lived by Muhammad, as presented in the quran and hadith, talk unambiguously about following the quran to the letter and that Muhammad deserve emulation in all he did at all times. No surprise that a vast majority of muslims still accept the inerrantism of the quran and the 'perfection' of muahmmad. Contrary to what you say there is a much stronger rational justification (relative to the basics of these religions) for the position of a Christian who accepts a minimal set of what is to be christian (Ressurection of Jesus and a few other requirements) than for a muslim (hampered by the express interdictions of such moves in both the holy book and hadith, everything there has to be believed wholesale).

Secondly you put the cart before the horses. If you had studied with more attention history you'd have seen that a vast majority of people were very devout Christian during the Middle Ages and still we had a Renaissance which produced among others the Christian Philosophers of the 17th century who contributed decisively to the apparition of the Enlightenment (there wouldn't definitely have been 'agnostics' and atheists having an important word in the society in the 18th century if Christianity was indeed like islam, with its intrinsic political dimension and where innovation at this level was crushed soon after its apparition). The role of Christianity was in fact more positive in the apparition of Modernity than you suggest be it especially for the happy fact that its basics left much more 'holes' for the forces of progress to evolve into something even more progressive.

Finally I know that I largely waste my time, maybe Sam Harris can do a better job and convince you: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2#views_on_islam, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxkq5bHe_fA&index=2&list=FLTl6O3amY10cFzHaQv664_A. But that there is indeed a totally legitimate argument against islam entirely along secular lines (yes we can make a difference between the different Abrahamic religions, some ideas are significantly worse than others) is the inescapable conclusion of all those who want really to be rational.


http://blog.theproudatheist.com/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-an-inside-view-by-kaveh-mousavi/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/02/26/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-part-2/

You're right. Christianity didn't have a tradition of stoning people to death.

It had a tradition of setting people in fire, often for trivial disagreements about theological matters.

I'm not going to bother addressing your claim that Christianity has had a net positive effect on the intellectual advances of European history for the same reason I refuse to debate people who believe in the Chemtrails conspiracy theory.

Don't worry. I don't debate atheist fundies.

 

[fromderinside]

You're right. Christianity didn't have a tradition of stoning people to death.

It had a tradition of setting people in fire, often for trivial disagreements about theological matters.

I'm not going to bother addressing your claim that Christianity has had a net positive effect on the intellectual advances of European history for the same reason I refuse to debate people who believe in the Chemtrails conspiracy theory.

Don't worry. I don't debate atheist fundies.

I think we see why.

 

[rousseau]

What Christian Islamophobes don't see

Everything.

But then, we need something to talk about, so carry on..

 

[metacristi]

Don't worry. I don't debate atheist fundies.

I think we see why.

I bet you do. Clinging to the simplistic view that Christianity was entirely a destructive force* and patronizing people on how ignorant they are (dismissing out of hand even the possibility of legitimate contrary evidence) does not deserve any future effort. Yet the evidence is there and anyone rational can easily see it. As Gary Ferngren wrote:

"Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule

.

Contrary to the beliefs of some person here my stance has nothing in common with 'bigotry' or 'islamophobia' (sorry but I do not hate muslims and have no intention to discriminate them, yet islam itself remain a huge problem). And I have legitimate reasons for that. Finally I would have never done more than saying now and then my stance on this topic had it not been this pernicious attempt to censor fully legitimate directions of research...



*I happen to agree that there is indeed a certain degree of conflict between Science and Christianity but I have also to admit that in the context of early science Christianity was much more benign than islam via encouraging intellectual curiosity** and letting much more innovation to pass (see also Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution: A Global Perspective by Toby E. Huff).

Also in a place and a time when Christianity was a political force to reckon with enough many of its adherents contributed to the development of secularism instead of 'defending' Christianity ad infinitum by upholding the medieval religious 'Great Chain of Being' (actually easy to do via the type of 'epicycles' which Christian fundamentalists in America use today; by contrast in islam the counterpart of the medieval European religious Great Chain of Being is still largely with us, ulema can still rely on large majorities among the masses to 'defend' islam against important reforms). Finally even the existence of 'deists' and 'atheists' having great, and lasting, intellectual influence (seen by some as the sole initiators of modern Enlightenment) could not have been possible without the background provided by Renaissance and the Christian philosophers of the 17th century...

The main point here is not that Christianity cannot strongly inhibit progress (it can, I agree with the view that it was so in the period, roughly, between 391 and Thomas Aquinas when there was a partial loss of Reason also in the Christian world yet never of the magnitude of the 'closing of the muslim mind', especially after al Ghazali, with strong roots in basic Islamic traditions) but that it is much more permissive with new ideas, something which in certain conditions can lead to huge leaps forward (way less probable in the Islamic world due to the fundamentals of islam, its strong intrinsic political dimension included).


**God is Reason in Christianity, there are laws of nature which can be understood via the human intellect; in contrast the mainstream Islamic philosophy of the middle Ages was occassionalist, God is foremost Will Power, severely hampering the development of Science; unfortunately important remnants of it is still with us in the 21st century, overall the downplaying of the value of unaided Human Reason is still the norm at the average level in the muslim world. As Frithjof Schuon wrote:

The intellectual - and thereby the rational - foundation of Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslim's powers of imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the irresistible logic of things'

.

 

[Warpoet]

Contrary to the beliefs of some person here my stance has nothing in common with 'bigotry' or 'islamophobia' (sorry but I do not hate muslims and have no intention to discriminate them, yet islam itself remain a huge problem).

Yeah, horseshit. You've polluted the forum on many occasions with the batshit insane, wingnut propaganda of far-right-wing xenophobes and racists, including Fjordman, you advance paranoid conspiracy theories about Western Muslims engaging in "stealth jihad" in order to establish a global caliphate, and your only problem with Ayaan Hirsi Ali's call to openly discriminate against Muslims was that she was too soft.

And that's just off the top of my head. Come to think of it, I don't think there is a single anti-Muslim wingnut, no matter how utterly insane, that you haven't found common cause with.

You aren't fooling anybody with your interminable textwalls that drone on and on about al-Ghazali and Aquinas and other such irrelevant bullshit. You're just another dime-a-dozen Islamophobe, your only distinguishing characteristic being that you have far, far too much time on your hands.

 

[JohnG]

Ya, religion is here to stay, regardless of how dumb it is. Promoting the less harmful varieties of the disease is the correct way to go.

I agree. The civil law aspect of religion was grand idea for people who began living in agricultural communities 6000 (or so) years ago...throw in some brimstone to make it stick. Quite genius really. But times are different, the population is larger, more varied, the scale of poverty has increased, and although we still need to tame the barbarian in us, the old methods are not only not working, they're backfiring.

 

[dx713]

There's nobody who practices religion who doesn't cherry-pick the shit out of it in order to have it conform to whatever paradigms they decide they like. Middle-class Muslim bankers in Toronto have zero differences with middle-class Christian bankers in Toronto because they both have the ability to ignore whatever aspects of their religion they find inconvenient and reinterpret other parts into ways that end up having their religion become the basis of whatever ethical guidelines they decided were nice beforehand.

Christians don't have to quit their job if a woman gets hired as their manager, despite the clear conflict with very straightforward Biblical passages not allowing this because God meant that "in context". Muslims can have cake at an office birthday party during Ramadan because "Allah allows exemptions for special occasions" (seriously, that was the actual rationale). There are zero rules for religions that can't be relaxed or ignored if the people practicing the religion decide they don't like them. There is nothing special about Islam which makes it any different than any other religion in that regard.

It is, of course, the worst religion by a large margin that's around today. That's because of the current interpretations of the religion, though, not because of anything inherent in the religion.

I'd even wager to say that it's because the socio-economic status of a lot of this religion believers make them ripe for being indoctrinated with such interpretations, and that some have a geopolitical interest in pushing those interpretations.

(...)
There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.

(...)
As Ayaan Hrsi Ali argues, if we could get Christianity to reform, we can get Islam to reform. Whether or not the theological basis of the reformation makes any sense is immaterial.

Actually, Christianity WAS the hardest religion to reform.
Judaism had a tradition of dialog with God, and of compromise, with its people being dominated by unbelievers needing the compromises to survive.
Christianity originated as a rebellious apocalyptic sect rejecting the Judaism habit of dialog, trying to regain a purity of relationship with God. Re-read the gospels, Jesus path is nearly impossible to follow, what with all the "sell and give everything and leave with me" and the "if someone doesn't hate their father" implying that even family ties are an hindrance on the path to salvation.
Islam, being based on Judaism, would actually be more amenable to dialog and compromises on a purely theological ground.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That's utter tripe. It's like saying that Christians who are in favour of equal rights for gays and women aren't entitled to rationally claim that this is the Christianity of Jesus, as presented in the old and new testaments.

If someone wants to make a postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of Islam, that's as legitimate an interpretation as someone who takes all of the texts absolutely literally. It's no different than a Christian taking a postmodernist / culturally relativist interpretation of the Bible and asserting that their religion is pro-freedom and anti-slavery. That's directly contradicted by other parts of the Bible, but it's fine to just ignore all of that shit and reinterpret other parts which agree with him. No matter how much some other Christian disagrees with him and rants on about how the master/slave relationship is mandated by God, both of them are making legitimate interpretations of Christianity.

That sort of thing is more common with Christianity than Islam, but this is because the cultures that Christianity is present in happen to be more liberal and progressive, despite centuries worth of attempts by Christianity to hold that back. There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.

You do not really understand what I said, my point is that the basis of Christianity makes much easier to defend a liberal position, Christianity was not about literal interpretations of the Bible from its good inception (even the Protestant Church distanced itself from literal interpretations just about 100 years after Luther). That's why among others stoning has never been a widespread practice in Christianity. It is this internal logic, catalysed by other cultural factors, which allowed Christians to evolve easily toward the rejection of inerrantism of the Bible which allow very important concessions to Modernity.

Those who really understand islam on the other hand know that this is not valid in that religion (the history of islam makes this point very strong), unfortunately the islam taught and lived by Muhammad, as presented in the quran and hadith, talk unambiguously about following the quran to the letter and that Muhammad deserve emulation in all he did at all times. No surprise that a vast majority of muslims still accept the inerrantism of the quran and the 'perfection' of muahmmad. Contrary to what you say there is a much stronger rational justification (relative to the basics of these religions) for the position of a Christian who accepts a minimal set of what is to be christian (Ressurection of Jesus and a few other requirements) than for a muslim (hampered by the express interdictions of such moves in both the holy book and hadith, everything there has to be believed wholesale).

Secondly you put the cart before the horses. If you had studied with more attention history you'd have seen that a vast majority of people were very devout Christian during the Middle Ages and still we had a Renaissance which produced among others the Christian Philosophers of the 17th century who contributed decisively to the apparition of the Enlightenment (there wouldn't definitely have been 'agnostics' and atheists having an important word in the society in the 18th century if Christianity was indeed like islam, with its intrinsic political dimension and where innovation at this level was crushed soon after its apparition). The role of Christianity was in fact more positive in the apparition of Modernity than you suggest be it especially for the happy fact that its basics left much more 'holes' for the forces of progress to evolve into something even more progressive.

Finally I know that I largely waste my time, maybe Sam Harris can do a better job and convince you: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2#views_on_islam, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxkq5bHe_fA&index=2&list=FLTl6O3amY10cFzHaQv664_A. But that there is indeed a totally legitimate argument against islam entirely along secular lines (yes we can make a difference between the different Abrahamic religions, some ideas are significantly worse than others) is the inescapable conclusion of all those who want really to be rational.


http://blog.theproudatheist.com/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-an-inside-view-by-kaveh-mousavi/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/02/26/is-islam-a-more-radical-religion-part-2/
http://www.newenglishreview.org/Ibn_Warraq/Islamic_Enlightenment/

You sound like one of those Muslim university professors from Baghdad back in the 12th century who went on about how Christianity led to disease, ignorance and constant war, as opposed to Islam, which led to education, peace and order. You know what happened to those guys? They all got killed and Ghengis Khan made a giant pyramid from their heads outside of the city. I'm not saying that one definitely led to the other, but that's the reason it happened.

The existence of liberal Muslims in rich, first world countries means that it's not tough to come up with a liberal interpretation of Islam when you live in a society where it's convenient for people to ignore or reinterpret the less liberal aspects of the religion. It is, of course, just as stupid to make a liberal interpretation of Islam when you need to ignore a decent part of what Islam's about as it is to make a liberal interpretation of Christianity when you need to ignore a decent part of what Christianity is about in order to do so, but the only barriers there are to doing either are the ones that people put there themselves, not anything inherent to either of the religions.

 

[Draconis]

Christian persecution of Pagans starting under the rule of Constantine the Great.