General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: We need a response to terrorism that addresses the problem without demonizing an entire religion. [View all]Marr
(20,317 posts)has several features that make it particularly easy to use in justification of violence.
For example, both Christianity and Islam urge followers to spread the faith, but only Islam contains detailed explanations for exactly how that is to be done-- and it isn't with bake sales. It calls very flatly for murdering non-believers. Christianity has no guide when it comes to spreading the faith, which, while leaving it open to promoting horrific abuses on that score in the past, also left the faith open to being tamed and put into a sort of box. That bomber in Nice was, according to his holy book, quite justified.
Islam also calls for murdering those who leave the faith-- not a feature of any other Abrahamic religion, so far as I know.
People sometimes say that Islam is in a sort of pre-Enlightenment period, and that it will progress into a more modern, peaceful, even secular sort of state in time. But I think there's a very good reason that it hasn't had an Enlightenment period by 2016. They've been putting their Voltaires and Newtons on chopping blocks for a very long time.