i dont beleive islam is any more violent than any other mainstream religion, its main weakness is the culture in the countries who happen to practice it, (whether there culture is because or regardlesss of their religion ill leave to social psychiatrists), ie in turkey, iran and pakistan they are historically more prone to murmoring infighting, not enough to change the balance of power but enough to bring unrest, that kind of always on edge attitude makes them jump down the throats of anyone who critisizes them regarding religion or anything else. "conflict breeds supremacism" so to speak, the arguement i would make is that most of their conflicts have had religion at the heart of them make them double quick to jump to the defence of their religion, even if its a valid criticism.

Only extremists of Islam are violent. And people all over the world get the bad idea since some Muslims are in war with other nations.

And I'm Muslim, btw

False. The vast majority of Muslims are violent.

Similarly, the vast majority of Christians are violent.

The vast majority of people are violent.

Muslim extremists, and indeed extremists of many creeds or lack thereof, are just more violent than others.

That depends on what is your meaning of violent. Does that mean riding a plane to a tower in America? I'm sure everybody is violent, even if little, but some people are much more violent than others. Or else, less wars would take place

Extreme Coder

No it is not.You forget continental Europe,midlle and south America(just for example).And now on topic.There is not such thing as violente religion if you define religion as massage.What is violent is religion taken as ideology and in that case can be violent as any other ideology.

I'm fairly sure the majority of Christians today speak English. However, pretty much all of modern Christianity as well as historical Christianity spoke various Romance languages. Are we agreed on that?
I would say that a message can be violent. "Kill all unbelievers" or "stone your children if they don't believe" are violent messages imo.

I'll ignore your lack of spacing and most of your misspellings to highlight this gem

I agree. If you define a religion as a massage, as opposed to a message, I'm sure it would be rather soothing! Unless, of course, the religion sucked.

I'm reasonably certain there are more Christians in South and Central America, who speak Spanish, than there are English speaking Christians.

In b4 some dumb Protestant with "Catholics aren't Christian!"

However, I'll have to agree here.

The Bible says, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is lord,' and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead..." is the criteria. Every practicing Catholic I have met would qualify, regardless of what anyone else might say.

Thanks for the map.

That map, isn't surprising at all. But what does white mean? -0~-100%? :P

And BTW, Matthew, are you Christian? Just asking, for no particular lame reason(just don't forget your coffee with milk )

I am, although I don't generally like to use the title. I explain a bit more in the "What's your religion and why?" thread in these two posts:
http://socialdiscussion.com/219-post4.html
http://socialdiscussion.com/305-post23.html

Inshallah.

To Jentsu

If my broken english is joke for you,let it be.But it is not argument,exept if you think ad hominem is valid argument.

Hy!
I agree with most of what has been said but I also disagree with some. And most comments that I disagree with are made just because the person lacked information .... rather had misinformation. And the main source of this misinformation is the media, FOX News is an excellent example. I like to agree with JoshJ about Islam as the glue between different Muslim nations. One of the most important concept in Islam is of brotherhood. A Muslims has duties starting from his neighbours, to his nation and to the ummat and these duties connect him to other Muslims. I don't think caring for others is wrong, is it?

The spread of this misinformation about Islam cannot be solely credited to media because people as individuals are also resposible for this. JoshJ's post quoting verses from The Quran is another example. All the verses are quoted out of context and his quotation of the verse 190 of Sura Baqara is evidence that Quran does not advocate aggression. Quran only orders to defend, if provoked. Truth comes out in many ways!

2:190 Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.

If a person wants to inquire about Islam he is supposed to ask an Islamic scholor or a person who has deep knowledge of Islam not someone who hates Islam personally, and most people do ask these Islamophobics their questions. Who is most likely to give a correct answer, a person who knows Islam or one who hates it? You can decide yourself.

I absolutely can not understand what these people gain other than widening the already unrepairable divide between the Muslims and the Western world ......... or maybe they are trying to do exactly that.

I hate islam no more than I hate christianity, scientology, or any other religion - purveyors of bullshit for the purpose of controlling the populace.

I made no argument, dude. Please excuse me if you believe me to be intolerant of people who aren't just masters of the English language, but I just thought that line came out unintentionally funny. :P (Also, ad hom wouldn't really apply there, but let's not go into it.)

I should add a line to my sig that I'm really not trying to offend people for simple reasons such as typing skills. If I'm ever blatantly bashing on something, it's probably either a jest or an attempt to educate by crushing flawed ideas.

I don't think Muslim's are violent, I think its the people that are violent themselves. Find anywhere in any religious text where it says to go ahead kill people for your religion. You won't find it, instead what we have is brainwashing. Look up the Jonestown Massacre on google and watch some of the google videos. It's no different the what David Koresh did or any other fanantical religous leader. Basically they twist what is the truth to make people believe they say is true and to fight for it.

If you are referring to the Crusades I invite to take another look at history.

Here

And here

Well I'm an atheist, but when talking to what i would call "reasonable" Christians about the people i would call "nutjobs" they point out many things that people that call themselves Christians nowadays do that are completely contrary to the teachings of Jebus. For example, my philosophy teacher (a theologist and ex-minister) claims quite adamantly that people that are racist (and other things) are just not Christians because the ideas are completely contrary to the fundamentals of what Jesus said. I guess the same applies to many other forms of hate; after all, Jesus was a bit of a Hippie.

I agree. The early Christians stood out because of their love for one another. They treated the people around them so well everyone called them crazy.