Reza Aslan absolutely destroys CNN and Bill Maher on Muslim violence

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Disconnected observations.

It's worth remembering that the outstanding pioneer of many of the tactics associated with Islamist terrorism was the not-exactly-Muslim LTTE in Sri Lanka.

While it is true that Islam had a historic tendency to spread via conquest rather than via evangelism, it isn't as though other religions (or, for that matter, formal irreligions) were exactly immune from this tendency. And there are cases of Islamisation via evangelism (parts of Indonesia, probably). Besides conversion is a complicated business and the process of converting an entire society requires more than the threat of violence.

Anyway, this is a predictably dismal thread. The idea that Islam is uniquely violent - or that the forms of violence associated with the Islamic world are unique to it - is bogus and bigoted, but the well-intended defences of Islam that tend to get wheeled out (and have been here) are pathetically weak and all too often rely on bad history.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

..but the well-intended defences of Islam that tend to get wheeled out (and have been here) are pathetically weak and all too often rely on bad history.

Saying Islam has a complex history and exists in various shapes is neither a defense, nor a display of "weak history". Its just a warning against the simplistic arguments made by many in this thread.

That's not what I was getting at.