I've seen this speculation that this is just a phase that Islam is going through. When Christianity was going through a similar conflict with Science, there were no real fruits of Science to validate it as a system of learning about reality. Christianity came first and had its roots firmly planted before that upstart Science came along. The power struggle was understandable in that progression.

These days, the results of Science are all around us. We have computers, cell phones, nuclear power, and robots exploring other planets. There's really no excuse for the utter dismissal of reality exhibited by large swathes of the Islamic world.

Islam doesn't just demonstrate a different stage of maturity for a religion. Islam demonstrates a radically staunch level of belligerence for a religion. There's no real reason to believe that it's going to outgrow it.

And all Muslims are suicide bombers, right?

You're making an incredibly common mistake here: judging the religion in its entirety — some quarter of the human population — by the behaviors of a very scant minority. Yes, it happens that the minority in question hold positions of power, but are they behaving that way because they believe that way, or because it seems to help them keep that power? (Put more pointedly, are they pandering to a pre-existing, cultural ignorance, or are they manufacturing an ignorance that's easier to control?)

Most Muslims aren't belligerent. Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace, and only justifies violence in direct response to direct attack, whether against the individual, or against the faith. Most Muslims are in the unfortunate position of being kept from the knowledge that would allow them to participate fully in the modern world. They're being kept from that knowledge not for anything to do with the religion, itself (though the religion is often twisted to justify their being kept that way), but to preserve the temporal power of the people that happen to have that power right now.

So, yeah. Let's blame Islam for that.

or against the faith

Wrong answer.

When "against the faith" includes calling for the death or even censorship of cartoonists in other countries who draw disrespectful pictures of a religion's "prophet", the belligerent label is very justified.

And all Muslims are suicide bombers, right?

I didn't say "all". I believe the words I used were "large swathes", meaning enough of those societies to dictate policies that are indistinguishable from the nut job radicals that you claim don't represent everyone. For example, see the stories regarding the destruction of ancient monuments in Afghanistan. See the killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt. See the jailing/killing of Christian preachers in Iran.

Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace

That's a bumper sticker and something politicians have to say because they rarely speak simple truths. The Koran is pretty clear regarding the need to commit violence toward infidels. The Judeo/Christian texts (the Bible) aren't a whole lot better, although the mixed books and accounts in it are so imprecise, contradictory and watered down that there isn't a consistent call for domination of others in the world.

Taliban? 20-50,000, by the US military's own estimates. Hezbollah? 1,000 active, with another 6-10,000 volunteer fighters. Hamas' militant wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades? Maybe another 10,000.

No, that's by no means all the bad apples in the Muslim world, but the remainder are even smaller and less well-organized. That should be enough to give some sense of the actual numbers of actual "bad guys".

So, summing the three most widely-known militant Islamist groups, we haven't yet broken a six figure count of people, and you'll apparently happily judge a population five orders of magnitude larger by their actions. Let's also judge all Jews (some 14 million) by the actions of Bat Ayin, a comparable ratio (to within an order of magnitude, anyway), shall we? Let's judge all Christians by the behavior of the Westboro Baptist Church and Anders Behring Breivik.

Or, how about this for a novel idea: let's not judge anyone by the behaviors of someone else.

The Koran is pretty clear regarding the need to commit violence toward infidels.

The Qu'ran is clear about justifying the defensive use of violence. It's also very clear that violence must never be used against the innocent, women, children, anyone with whom you have a treaty or pact, anyone who ceases their active attack against you, or anyone otherwise not actively involved in actively attacking you. And, no: "attacking" doesn't mean calling names. It means physical violence.

As for "violence towards infidels", I assume that like most people with this attitude about Islam, you're referring (knowingly or otherwise) to 9:005, which says, in part, "...kill the idolaters wherever you find them..." ("idolaters" is regularly mis-translated as "infidels").

What everyone blithely (or worse, deliberately) ignores about that verse is that in the verses immediately preceding it, "idolaters" are explained to be people who had declared war on Islam, and were actively, militarily attacking Mohammad and his followers — which is what is meant by attacks "against the faith". The verse is also typically shortened to omit the fact that a Muslim should only "kill the idolaters" after suffering their attacks through the holy months, during which fighting of any kind is not allowed.

But what about 2:190 "Fight for the sake of God those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love the aggressors."?

That sounds awfully bloodthirsty to me...

Look, we can go 'round and 'round about this, but I'm only trying to make a simple, specific point: you're judging a huge portion of the human race by the actions of a tiny portion of the human race.

Should all Americans be judged by the fact that a small number of Americans lied us into invading another country about a decade ago?

And my only point is that excusing Islam for being hostile to Science because it's "younger" than Christianity is a demonstrably poor argument.

All the rest of this discussion about "billions or trillions of nonviolent Muslims" is pretty useless. When a religion and culture seems to produce suicide bomber after suicide bomber and assholes who take over planes to kill thousands of innocent people - at some point the rest of the world has to ask "WTF?"

Should all Americans be judged by the fact that a small number of Americans lied us into invading another country about a decade ago?

What are you talking about? Everyone thought Saddam had an arsenal of dangerous weapons because HE pushed that belief because he was scared of Iran. Numerous non-American intelligence sources supported the belief that Saddam had WMDs. I didn't actually support going into Iraq due to the cost, but military reasons to do so were there. Saddam could have ended the whole thing any time by letting the inspections happen.

Sure, there was a lie. Saddam's. There was also incorrect intelligence. However to still call it a lie by the American government is itself an untruth.

I didn't knew much about Islam, but that is serious.

The many many Muslims who called for the death of the Dutch cartoonist a few years back would disagree with your assertion.

Also, the cartoonists, plural, were Danish.

Don't forget that Islam is nearly some 600 years younger than Christianity and please don't equate Christianity with the west. This is so contrastingly different, Islam is still predominantly present in regions from where it spread. What you know of Islamic countries today is hardly a measure of Islam because the mix of culture and religion there is so perfect you won't be able to tell one from the other.

If you compare the Muslims of Arab with somewhere like India, you will wonder if the Muslims in India have anything common at all, apart from worshiping a common god. Now compare this with Muslims in Afghanistan, you can't really compare a culture of a warrior race(who happen to be Muslims) with some Muslim in Australia.

?

The Catholics were extremely hostile towards forks in religion - Heresy got you the full weight of the ban hammer. Christians were a fairly broad group, larger than just the Roman Catholics.

As for Galileo, he wasn't a religion he was a man and some other men (including one Pope more than the other Pope) really didn't like him. This wasn't so much Christianity or more specifically Roman Catholicism, being opposed to Science, more some people in power not likely someone they regarded as a disagreeable dick. There were supporters of heliocentric models within the church at the time, supporters of Galileo were harder to come by.

Cathedrals didn't build themselves or innovate their own designs; contemplating the natural wonders was once considered equivalent to looking upon the works of God.

I'm not religious, my passions are science, mathematics, history (, and the Oxford comma); the narrative that "Religion Hates Science" has as much depth as spelling Microsoft with a $ or describing Americans as sheeple.