# Is the West kidding itself about the good intentions of Islam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [September 22, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977 "2017-09-22T15:41:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2017, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/21 "2017-09-23T22:41:01Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > **I think he meant that the Islamic advances into France were not territorial ambitions.** I’ve read that they were mainly looting and pillaging trips, and that at least part of the reason why the Moors were defeated is that individual soldiers wanted to retreat with the booty they had already secured. That’s mentioned on Wikipedia, but there’s no cite. **It may be another of those romantic myths about the battle though.** Bolding mine. Well, in that case the “fairy tale” is on the Muslim side. From the Wiki page that **glowacks** linked - > [@Wiki cite on the Battle of Tours](#): > > The Umayyad troops, under Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, the governor-general of al-Andalus, overran Septimania by 719, following their sweep up the Iberian Peninsula. Al-Samh set up his capital from 720 at Narbonne, which the Moors called Arbūna. With the port of Narbonne secure, the Umayyads swiftly subdued the largely unresisting cities of Alet, Béziers, Agde, Lodève, Maguelonne, and Nîmes, still controlled by their Visigothic counts.[37] > > The Umayyad campaign into Aquitaine suffered a temporary setback at the Battle of Toulouse (721). Duke Odo the Great broke the siege of Toulouse, taking Al-Samh ibn Malik’s forces by surprise. Al-Samh ibn Malik was mortally wounded. This defeat did not stop incursions into old Roman Gaul, as Moorish forces, soundly based in Narbonne and easily resupplied by sea, struck eastwards in the 720s, penetrating as far as Autun in Burgundy in 725.[37] > > Threatened by both the Umayyads in the south and by the Franks in the north, in 730 Odo allied himself with the Berber commander Uthman ibn Naissa, called “Munuza” by the Franks, the deputy governor of what would later become Catalonia. To seal the alliance, Uthman was given Odo’s daughter Lampagie in marriage, and Moorish raids across the Pyrenees, Odo’s southern border, ceased.[37] However, the next year, the Berber leader killed the bishop of Urgell Nambaudus and detached from his Arabs masters in Cordova. Abdul Raḥman in turn sent an expedition to crush his revolt, and next directed his attention against Uthman’s ally Odo.[38] > > The Aquitanian duke Odo collected his army at Bordeaux, but was defeated, and Bordeaux plundered. During the following Battle of the River Garonne, the Chronicle of 754[39] commented that “God alone knows the number of the slain”.[40] The Chronicle of 754 continues, saying they “pierced through the mountains, trampled over rough and level ground, plundered far into the country of the Franks, and smote all with the sword, insomuch that when Eudo came to battle with them at the River Garonne, he fled.” There’s a map on that Wiki page which can show you some ofthe cities mentioned. Autun, which the quote above shows was conquered in 725, is pretty much smack in the middle of France. Tours is northwest of Autun, in the Northren part of France. So the Ummayad forces had been occupying large swathes of French territory for years before the Battle of Tours. Martell may have caught the Ummayads when they were out on raids but to pretend like the Ummayad forces had no major presence in the region is absurd. The Frankish forces killed the Ummayad governor, Abudl Rhaman al Ghafiqi, and then called a halt to the fighting when daylight fell. The Ummayyad forces ran away in the night. In the aftermath of the Battle of Tours, the Ummayad army retreated beyond the French Pyranees. It might make some people feel better to pretend that the Muslim army ran all that way because they were just too cool to fight some stupid Frankish loser who wasn’t really all that special anyway and who even cares, right? but … come on. The Ummayad army came back in 735 and, after some back and forth, were kicked out for good by Charles’ son Pepin. I would be willing to listen to arguments that the Battle of Tours, in and of itself, is not as decisive as legend makes it out to be. It certainly wasn’t the end of the discussion. But to pretend like the Ummayads weren’t hurting, afterwards, doesn’t pass the smell test. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/22 "2017-09-24T14:15:22Z")
\*\*Is the West kidding itself about the good intentions of Islam? \*\* In order to answer that, one must first ask this question: what good intentions? We’re talking about a religion that has a fundamental core that says convert everyone to Islam and kill anyone who doesn’t. It’s really hard to say that a religion like that has any kind of good intentions, not to mention ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/23 "2017-09-24T15:33:07Z")
The fight against ignorance is going to be a long, long haul. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/24 "2017-09-24T16:15:46Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Bolding mine. > > Well, in that case the “fairy tale” is on the Muslim side. Your introduction of prejudiced knee jerking as a strawman on any scholarship is noted. However a muslim ‘side’ or scholarship has not one thing to do with this or even my comment, purely based on the modern european and very Western historians. The same page: > [@](#): > > Objecting to the significance of Tours as a world-altering event[edit] > Other historians disagree with this assessment. Alessandro Barbero writes, “Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Muslim force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours”.[71] Similarly, Tomaž Mastnak writes: > > Modern historians have constructed a myth presenting this victory as having saved Christian Europe from the Muslims. Edward Gibbon, for example, called Charles Martel the savior of Christendom and the battle near Poitiers an encounter that changed the history of the world. … This myth has survived well into our own times. … Contemporaries of the battle, however, did not overstate its significance. The continuators of Fredegar’s chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens – moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory. … One of Fredegar’s continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule.[72] > > The historian Philip Khuri Hitti believes that “In reality nothing was decided on the battlefield of Tours. The Moslem wave, already a thousand miles from its starting point in Gibraltar – to say nothing about its base in al-Qayrawan – had already spent itself and reached a natural limit.”[73] > > The view that the battle has no great significance is perhaps best summarized by Franco Cardini[it] says in Europe and Islam: “Although prudence needs to be exercised in minimizing or ‘demythologizing’ the significance of the event, it is no longer thought by anyone to have been crucial. The ‘myth’ of that particular military engagement survives today as a media cliché, than which nothing is harder to eradicate. It is well known how the propaganda put about by the Franks and the papacy glorified the victory that took place on the road between Tours and Poitiers …”[74] The broad consensus of the European historians is not in the support the mythology of a great invasion stoppage inflating the significance of the raiding party. If anyone should have a credit for no great Ummayad expansion reprise in the 800s, it is the Basque highlanders saying fuck you to both the Franks and the Muslims and fighting of any real control by both (the same ones who massacred Rolland but the later medieval Francphile propaganda gave the credit in chanson to muslims). But it does not as easily fit into the black and white narratives. The rest of the prejudiced tinged commentary insterting enormous strawmen of comments not at all made is not of any interest. > [@Clothahump](#): > > \*\*Is the West kidding itself about the good intentions of Islam? > \*\* > > In order to answer that, one must first ask this question: what good intentions? We’re talking about a religion that has a fundamental core that says convert everyone to Islam and kill anyone who doesn’t. It’s really hard to say that a religion like that has any kind of good intentions, not to mention ludicrous. Oh wonderful more of the gross prejudice and ignorant comment. Of course since all replies are masqued to him, it is not purpose a reply in factual correction. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/25 "2017-09-24T16:41:13Z")
I have been on this site for 9 years. Was a lurker for many years before that. I never thought I would see “Cecil” even entertain such a ridiculous question. Just the fact that the owners of the site felt the need to even discuss such a question and bestow it with a seriousness that it does not deserve, is horrifying. I guess I should not be surprised; same week that some poster in all seriousness asks about an oncologist in a burqa. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/26 "2017-09-24T16:58:07Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > \*\*Is the West kidding itself about the good intentions of Islam? > \*\* > > In order to answer that, one must first ask this question: what good intentions? We’re talking about a religion that has a fundamental core that says convert everyone to Islam and kill anyone who doesn’t. It’s really hard to say that a religion like that has any kind of good intentions, not to mention ludicrous. Didn’t Islam rule big chunks of “Christian” Europe for like a thousand years without forcing conversion or killing off all the infidels? What do you say to that? mc ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/27 "2017-09-24T18:16:28Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > \*\*Is the West kidding itself about the good intentions of Islam? > \*\* > > In order to answer that, one must first ask this question: what good intentions? We’re talking about a religion that has a fundamental core that says convert everyone to Islam and kill anyone who doesn’t. It’s really hard to say that a religion like that has any kind of good intentions, not to mention ludicrous. I don’t have a particularly favourable opinion of Islamic theology, but “that says convert everyone to Islam and kill anyone who doesn’t” is absolutely not normative Islamic doctrine. Islamic doctrine explicitly forbids forcible conversion of Christians, Jews, and “Sabeaens”, I’m not sure if it’s clearly known who that last group are. Other groups such as Hindus, Zoroastrians, etc. are not explicitly addressed, and there have been differences historically in how Muslim societies have treated them, but forcible conversion on the lines of “convert or die” has absolutely been the exception much more than the rule. You can see this by the fact that Hindu, Animist, and Zoroastrian minorities have existed in Muslim dominated environments for many centuries- often subject to certain legal disabilities, but certainly not wiped out by force. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/28 "2017-09-24T18:18:15Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > Didn’t Islam rule big chunks of “Christian” Europe for like a thousand years without forcing conversion or killing off all the infidels? What do you say to that? > > mc You may add to this the Middle East itself and Africa and other regions. No non-Christians survived the Christian conquests in the europe - the pagans were converted by the penalty of the death. It is the same in the Americas, it is the same with the Reconquista, it is the same of all of the areas of the direct control where full rule could be imposed. of course there is the built in incentive system in the islamic legal rulings, for the non focus on the conversion for the improved tax base for the rulership in having the non muslim subjects, and the built in system of ‘people of the book’ and ‘peoples of accords’ (that have signed peace treaty to accept the Islamic rule) that are due protection if they pay taxes. as an economist, I am perhaps cynical in the analysis, but the economic incentives I always find to be useful for understanding the long-term trends and the long term incentives even if episodic rulers may deviate. > [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I don’t have a particularly favourable opinion of Islamic theology, but “that says convert everyone to Islam and kill anyone who doesn’t” is absolutely not normative Islamic doctrine. > > Islamic doctrine explicitly forbids forcible conversion of Christians, Jews, and “Sabeaens”, I’m not sure if it’s clearly known who that last group are. Other groups such as Hindus, Zoroastrians, etc. are not explicitly addressed, and there have been differences historically in how Muslim societies have treated them, but forcible conversion on the lines of “convert or die” has absolutely been the exception much more than the rule. You can see this by the fact that Hindu, Animist, and Zoroastrian minorities have existed in Muslim dominated environments for many centuries- often subject to certain legal disabilities, but certainly not wiped out by force. Yes these minorities continued but not one native minority religion in the European realm survived (and only the non-native jews with long episodes of the expulsions). Even intra-christian minorities and deviations were bloodily suppressed. Post religion they change it only to politics but the same attitudes continue. (and no, the Sabaeans are not clear and thus are the gateway to others) I do not attribute great morality, but rulers had the useful and the intersting economic incentives and a built in structure to use to rationalize and to legimitimate minorities. Unlike the eradicationist tendency of the european christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/29 "2017-09-24T18:19:11Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Or the bloody suppression of anything the Christian church hieararchies decided was heritical. There’s a good point here which is that most religious repressions, historically, have been directed internally, towards dissidents who were promoting heretical doctrine. (E.g. Muslims suppressing Muslim heretics, Christians persecuting heretical Christians, Zoroastrians persecuting their own heretics, etc…) ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2017, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/30 "2017-09-24T18:30:01Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > There’s a good point here which is that most religious repressions, historically, have been directed internally, towards dissidents who were promoting heretical doctrine. (E.g. Muslims suppressing Muslim heretics, Christians persecuting heretical Christians, Zoroastrians persecuting their own heretics, etc…) Yes although in the Islamic tradition there is surprising indifference to heritical tendencies except the very most extreme that took aim at the basis of rulership. Kharijites survive in the Maghreb unmolested after they gave up any tendency to challenge the emirs. In the maghreb too old Shia style traditions survive like Achoura without any great care from the Malekite Sunni schools. And of course the various Sufi tariqas. There is the greater tradition of ‘doing a deal.’ Perhaps the anti-capitalist can be then critical of the transactional focus in Islamic traditions, showing the mercantile origin… :^) The rigid intolerance in the doctrine and the practice of the Salafistes and in the most particular the Takfiri salafistes, it is really a kind of Innovation in a Roman Church kind of style which is ironic given their attitudes, but they are the ones importing alien habits in their faux purism. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/31 "2017-09-25T03:13:44Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Oh wonderful more of the gross prejudice and ignorant comment. Wow. A statement of fact is now “gross prejudice”. How about a cite showing me to be wrong. Start with this: [The Quran's Verses of Violence](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/32 "2017-09-25T03:33:00Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Wow. A statement of fact is now “gross prejudice”. How about a cite showing me to be wrong. Start with this: [The Quran's Verses of Violence](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx) End with this:[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/bible\_quran.html](http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/bible_quran.html) ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/33 "2017-09-25T03:44:59Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Wow. A statement of fact is now “gross prejudice”. How about a cite showing me to be wrong. Start with this: [The Quran's Verses of Violence](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx) I can do this, too. [If Islam Is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity – Foreign Policy](http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/14/if-islam-is-a-religion-of-violence-so-is-christianity/) > **[Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran?](https://www.npr.org/2010/03/18/124494788/is-the-bible-more-violent-than-the-quran)** > > Scholar Philip Jenkins argues that scriptures in the Quran are less brutal than those in the Bible. In his forthcoming book, Dark Passages, Jenkins points out that violence in the Quran is mostly defensive, but in the Bible, it is often a method of... > [@](#): > > “Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible,” Jenkins says. > > Jenkins is a professor at Penn State University and author of two books dealing with the issue: the recently published Jesus Wars, and Dark Passages , which has not been published but is already drawing controversy. > > Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible. > Philip Jenkins, author of ‘Jesus Wars’ > Violence in the Quran, he and others say, is largely a defense against attack. > > “By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane,” he says. “Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide.” > **[Which religion is the most violent?](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/which-religion-most-violent/)** > > Perhaps this is a good time to ask the question – which religion is the most violent? ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/34 "2017-09-25T03:45:33Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Wow. A statement of fact is now “gross prejudice”. How about a cite showing me to be wrong. Start with this: [The Quran's Verses of Violence](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx) You realize of course you just cited a website rife with gross prejudice, right? I’d believe a foxnews cite before that garbage. Hell, I’d believe timecube before [thereligionofpeace.com](http://thereligionofpeace.com) ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/35 "2017-09-25T11:36:18Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > I can do this, too. [If Islam Is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity – Foreign Policy](http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/14/if-islam-is-a-religion-of-violence-so-is-christianity/) > > [Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran? : NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124494788) > > [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/which-religion-most-violent/](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/which-religion-most-violent/) This is a really dumb comparison (comparing the Quran to the Bible) because, 1) Islamic doctrine isn’t based wholly on the Quran, and 2) Christian doctrine isn’t based wholly on the bible. At a minimum, Islamic doctrine draws on the Quran + the hadiths, and Christian doctrine (for most Christians historically, anyway) draws on the Bible plus early tradition. (A lot of the sources for Christian doctrine are extra-biblical, and while I don’t know much about Islam my understanding is that a lot of the Islamic sources come from the hadiths as well). There’s also the point to be made that most of the bloody material in the Bible is in the Old Testament, and there’s a lot of internal debate within Christianity about the role the Old Testament plays today (or ever did), and the way in which it’s to be read. Sufficie it to say the majority position historically was yes, the Old Testament is to be included as sacred scripture, but no, it’s not to be read as a stand alone document but only in the light of the new. It seem to me that the _first three or four centuries of Christianity_ were less militant than the first three or four centuries of Islam, although a sophisticated Muslim polemicist could and presumably would argue that’s because Christianity mostly lacked political power until the mid fourth century, and thus didn’t have either the ability or the responsibility for running a state and making tough decisions about what to do. It’s always easier to be a pacifist when you’re out of power than when you’re in power. After St. Augustine wrote his very influential justifications for war, religious persecution and so forth in the fifth century, things changed, to put it mildly. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/36 "2017-09-25T13:42:59Z")
Considering that there have been times in history in which the Islamic world was generally less violent and more tolerant than the Christian world, and considering that Judaism, whose scripture (the Old Testament) is as violent or more so than any other scripture, is generally less associated with violence than either of the other Abrahamic religions, then I’m highly skeptical that the content of scripture has much if anything significant to do with the overall level of violence and tolerance in majority-one-religion societies. Rather, I think issues of geopolitics, history, and non-religious aspects of culture are far better explanations for these variations in associations with violence than specific doctrinal or textual characteristics of any of the religions. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/37 "2017-09-25T15:10:20Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Considering that there have been times in history in which the Islamic world was generally less violent and more tolerant than the Christian world, and considering that Judaism, whose scripture (the Old Testament) is as violent or more so than any other scripture, is generally less associated with violence than either of the other Abrahamic religions, then I’m highly skeptical that the content of scripture has much if anything significant to do with the overall level of violence and tolerance in majority-one-religion societies. Rather, I think issues of geopolitics, history, and non-religious aspects of culture are far better explanations for these variations in associations with violence than specific doctrinal or textual characteristics of any of the religions. Judaism of course was never in power after 70 AD (with the exception of brief periods in Khazaria and I think Yemen), so they didn’t have much opportunity to repress anyone. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/38 "2017-09-25T16:14:31Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Judaism of course was never in power after 70 AD (with the exception of brief periods in Khazaria and I think Yemen), so they didn’t have much opportunity to repress anyone. That’s true, but I think it supports my point – the explanation of variations in violence and tolerance is better explained by geopolitics (including who has the power), non-religious culture, and other factors, rather than text and doctrine of religious scripture. ---
**Author:** ![Harrkev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Harrkev](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harrkev)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/39 "2017-09-25T21:11:58Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > That’s been hashed out many times on this board, **Harrkev**. There are fundamentalist Christians who believe that their God wants them to kill others with different values and beliefs. Would you consider the Westboro Baptist Church representative of all Christians? There are radical extremists in every faith, and in groups without a religious figurehead. Riiiiiiiight. You said “there are.” OK. How many? How many dozens of people are in Westboro? What percentage of all Christians? “There are radical extremists in every faith, and in groups without a religious figurehead.” There is a big difference between “there are” being 0.5% and “there are” being 50%. If you cannot see this, then I weep for our future. We are talking about a MAJORITY of people in Pakistan OK will killing a woman accused of blasphemy without proof, and a sizable percentage (5%) willing to kill her with there own hands. There is a HUGE difference between a few loonies here and there, and the majority of the population. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977/40 "2017-09-25T21:30:52Z")
With over a billion followers of Islam, if that religion REALLY wanted to convert or kill all non-Muslim people, we’d have been dead already. My point is that a subset of a religion doesn’t speak for every member of that faith. The Westboro Baptist Church isn’t representative of all of Christianity any more than radical Islam is representative of all Muslims. If you want to persist with this particular bogeyman, feel free. But don’t pretend that it’s those of us who can separate the radicals from the whole of Muslims are the ones with the problem. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-west-kidding-itself-about-the-good-intentions-of-islam/796977.md?page=3)