But here's the problem, when you blame the religion, you blame it everywhere, not just in the places where it dominates the culture.
No that is what you (I presume) do when you blame a religion and you are assuming that I think the same way you do, or you have come up with this model of how my mind works without any internal reference. You should not do that, or at the least you should not assume you must be right about your assumptions. When someone says something there is a possibility that they mean something differently than what you think, that you have misinterpreted them. You should not insist that they think what you think they said, but try to understand what they actually think and then criticize that or their communication of their thoughts, but before you get to that point you have to not insist that you know their thoughts better than they do. In this particular case I, personally, make a very significant distinction between an ideology and the people who follow it. I can attribute things to the people and the ideology independently, that is how my model of things works. If you don't deal with that then we are talking past each other.
In places where it does dominate the culture, it's the culture that is to blame, not the religion. So why not simply cut to the chase and put the blame where it actually belongs?
Perhaps when I say religion I mean something different than what you think.
Religions are living things (figuratively speaking) that are more than their texts and separate from the cultures that they interact with, they have communities that transcend cultures. Religions have attributes that lead to their ability to influence the people who follow them to certain states. Just because you have the cancer gene doesn't mean you are going to get cancer, it just means you have a higher chance of it. Just because you belong to a religion doesn't mean you are going to be just like every other member of that religion. But if you belong to a religion that says that blood transfusions are a sin, you have a much higher chance of refusing (or having refused for you by someone else) a blood transfusion when it is the only thing that will save your life. It doesn't mean you definitely will, but it raises the chances of it (significantly). If this religion (and I'm totally not talking about Jahova's Witnesses here) is found in disparate parts of the world that have little involved with each other culturally (say due to missionaries) then this attribute of the religion it's self will be affecting people, It really wouldn't be accurate to say it was the result of the cultures, would it?
The part where I completely lose you:
In the case of Islam the religion as it exists today, it seems to prescribe a number of things that I believe have contributed to increasing hostility, insularity, hypersensitivity, exceptionalism, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism among the people who follow it (reread my last paragraph) and the cultures it dominates. Mohamed was a political leader, he wrote up governmental documents, this is considered part of the religion, when governmental documents written by the infallible founder are part of a religion it is very hard for communities following that religion to not seek a unification of political and religious powers, and for those powers to of course be dictated by their religion. This also makes it very difficult to separate Islam the religion, from Islam the political movement, because in a very significant way they are one in the same. To this day Islamic nations often derive legitimacy by claiming some sort of succession from Mohamed, this is literally what a caliphate is, the title Emir is connected to this as well. Islam dictates in minute detail how you are to live, Islam is the cause for the expression "wrong side of the bed", it tells you in extreme detail the god defined perfect way to wipe your ass. It is totalitarian, EVERYTHING in your life is supposed to be about Islam according to Islam, every bat of your eye, every breath is suppose to be according to the will of Allah. This also leads in to the authoritarian aspects, Mohamed is defined as the perfect man, by definition nothing he did can be wrong, The Koran is the perfect book, if the Koran says something that is contradicted by reality, reality is wrong. In order to worship god properly you must be in the correct sort of community, guess what type of community. Combine all of this with numerous calls for egregiously inhumane consequences tor things I consider basic human rights and you have what I feel is a very bad combination for a social/cultural force strongly influencing a very large portion of the population.
No one particular trait is really that unique. Christianity has all of this too, and it is having similarly bad effects in some parts of the world but the christian community has made changes to it's self that it by and large no longer interprets things so literally in most cases. As a result the Christian religion changed into a form that was far less bloodthursty, corrupt, despotic, and autocratic. Islam has had forms in the past that were very enlightened, it can have that again, I would like to see it have that again, there are muslims following a form like that right now and are working towards fixing their religion (though they certainly would not phrase it that way) and could be thought of as being on "our" side (whatever the **** that means, people who would like Islam to not have it's problems anymore?). I hope Islam will have that golden age again, but to me it does not look like much progress is being made and I don't think lieing to ourselves about that is going to help. (for anyone thinking "being biggoted about them isn't going to help either" please don't, the fact I just predicted your thoughts shows you are more reacting to my tone and language than thinking about what I am saying). I am not part of the ummah so I cannot (and arguably should not) do much to change it, all I can really do is observe it and try to position myself and my community, and my country, and my metaculture/civilisation/whatever in the best position to deal with what I observe from it and try to make sure we don't **** ourselves up internally in the process.
I'm not going to say they are the same thing. But you claimed there was something special about Islam making middle-class people go off and act like nutcases. I pointed out that the same thing occurs in Christianity, it's just channelled in a different direction for now.
oh, that's not what I meant, I was more referring to the conquest and subjugation. Islam is totally unremarkable in it's ability to make people of all social strata act insane. It is specifically the "direction" I was referring to. I cannot think of anything happening that has convinced thousands of people to quit their jobs and try to set up a new country in the middle of a bunch of currently existing countries and rule it by the will of god.
...I suppose Israel might count? though that was more than half a century ago.
