After September 11th, I read the Qur'an[1] to see what the fuss was about. I encourage others to do the same. Unlike the Bible, it is not a long text. Even if you take notes while reading, you can finish it in a few days. Unless you're indoctrinated in the faith, it will be obvious that the Qur'an preaches violence toward the infidel much more than nonviolence.
1. Or more correctly, an English translation of the Qur'an.
Look on the life of Prophet Muhammad for instance (you'll find plenty of non-Muslim accounts on His life that are non-biased) never you'll find any instance where he punished someone just because he ridiculed him.
Forget about prophet, just when Europe was going through the dark ages and Muslims were building knowledge cities in Spain etc. There were departments specifically reserved for scholars to come and discuss and question each other's religion! It's part of our history books, and a fact.
What we're seeing today is some radical Muslims dominating the majority and just because they have taken up guns people have started associating violence with Islam.
Do you know that the most number of people that have suffered from these extremists are infact Muslims themselves? I'll urge you to dig this further :)
p.s "Islam" when translated to english means Peace. Do I need to say any further?
Abu 'Afak seems close. He wrote a politically charged poem against Muhammad and was killed. Perhaps not just for ridicule, more for political opposition but even so it seems bad form.
Then you didn't read the actual Quran. I will not claim that the Quran is more violent than other holy books, but it certainly has its share of calls to violence.
A more common translation is "submission".
Religions really do cause their hosts to have different propensities for violence.
1. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/affiliates/jainism/jain...
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-vegetarian-...
When religious folk say that the other religious folk are misinterpreting religious text x, I can't help but think they are in no position to make that judgement fairly unless they have their own sense of ethics that overrides the ethics fed to them by their religion. Their view is simply another interpretation of their texts on the broad scale of interpretations of their religious texts.
If their ethics are therefore not derived from their religion, seems like a large chunk of the utility of their religion is an illusion. They are not good or better people because of their religion, their ethical foundation is already formed inside them regardless of what religion they pledge membership to.
Then you can't have read the bible very well, let alone any other holy texts.
At the risk of going slightly off topic, quoting Hitler:
“I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were."
And to quote the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie:
"Without centuries of Christian antisemitism, Hitler's passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed...because for centuries Christians have held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus."
So the acts may indeed have been related. Not so much to the teachings of Jesus but to the various churches that followed.
Have you read the Book of Revelation?
(2) Religion does not preach, people preach. It doesn't really matter what is in the text of these old books - the only relevant question is what people do. I couldn't care less if their theological thoughts are sound or not.
* Well, its way more complicated, but he did not claim to act as he did because of his Christian faith. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler
I´m sorry if you see anything more in it.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/blame-for-charlie-he...
Peaceful stuff eh? "This verse is often cited to justify attacks of Muslims on non-Muslims both in classical exegesis and in contemporary jihadism" according to Wikipedia.