Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't

by Robert Spencer

Christianity or which is the real "religion of peace"?
Almost any liberal pundit will tell you that there's a religion bent on destroying our Constitution, stripping us of our liberties, and imposing religious rule on the U.S. And that religion is . . .Christianity! About Islam, however, the Left is silent--except to claim a moral equivalence between the if Islam has terrorists today, that's nothing compared to the Crusades, inquisitions, and religious wars in Christianity's past.

But is this true? Are conservative Christians really more of a threat to free societies than Islamic jihadists? Is the Bible really "just as violent" as the Qur'an? Is Christianity's history really as bloodstained as Islam's? In Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer not only refutes such charges, but also explains why Americans and Europeans must regain an appreciation of our Christian heritage if we ever hope to defeat Islamic supremacism. In this eye opening work, Spencer

* The fundamental differences between Islamic and Christian teachings about warfare against other "Love your enemies" vs. "Be ruthless to the unbelievers"

* The myth of Western immorality and Islamic puritanism and why the Islamic world is less moral than the West

* Why the Islamic world has never developed the distinction between religious and secular law that is inherent in Christianity

* Why Christianity has always embraced reason--and Islam has always rejected it

* Why the most determined enemies of Western civilization may not be the jihadists at all, but the leftists who fear their churchgoing neighbors more than Islamic terrorists

* Why Jews, Christians, and peoples of other faiths (or no faith) are equally at risk from militant Islam

Spencer writes not to proselytize, but to state a Christianity is a true "religion of peace," and on it Western civilization stands. If we are not to perish under Islam's religion of the sword--with its more than 100 million active jihadists seeking to impose sharia law--we had better defend our own civilization.

Genres: Islam, Religion, Politics, Nonfiction, Christianity, Christian, History

264 pages, Hardcover

First published July 17, 2007

About the author

ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of seventeen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). Coming in November 2017 is Confessions of an Islamophobe (Bombardier Books).

Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a consultant with the Center for Security Policy.

Spencer is a weekly columnist for PJ Media and FrontPage Magazine, and has written many hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism. His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, Fox News Opinion, National Review, The Hill, the Detroit News, TownHall.com, Real Clear Religion, the Daily Caller, the New Criterion, the Journal of International Security Affairs, the UK’s Guardian, Canada’s National Post, Middle East Quarterly, WorldNet Daily, First Things, Insight in the News, Aleteia, and many other journals. For nearly ten years Spencer wrote the weekly Jihad Watch column at Human Events. He has also served as a contributing writer to the Investigative Project on Terrorism and as an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.

Spencer has appeared on the BBC, ABC News, CNN, FoxNews’s Tucker Carlson Show, the O’Reilly Factor, Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File, the Sean Hannity Show, Geraldo Rivera Reports, the Glenn Beck Show, Fox and Friends, America’s News HQ and many other Fox programs, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, CTV News, Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News, France24, Voice of Russia and Croatia National Television (HTV), as well as on numerous radio programs including The Sean Hannity Show, Bill O’Reilly’s Radio Factor, The Mark Levin Show, The Laura Ingraham Show, The Herman Cain Show, The Joe Piscopo Show, The Howie Carr Show, The Curt Schilling Show, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Michael Savage’s Savage Nation, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Rusty Humphries Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Peter Boyles Show, Vatican Radio, and many others.

Robert Spencer has been a featured speaker across the country and around the world and authored 17 books. Spencer’s books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Italian, German, Finnish, Korean, Polish and Bahasa Indonesia. His Qur’an commentary at Jihad Watch, Blogging the Qur’an, has been translated into Czech, Danish, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

Spencer (MA, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth since 1980. His work has aroused the ire of the foes of freedom and their dupes: in October 2011, Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups wrote to Homeland Security Advisor (and current CIA director) John Brennan, demanding that Spencer be removed as a trainer for the FBI and military groups, which he taught about the belief system of Islamic jihadists; Brennan immediately complied as counter-terror training materials were scrubbed of all mention of Islam and jihad. Spencer has been banned by the British government from entering the United Kingdom for pointing out accurately that Islam has doctrines of violence against unbelievers. He has been invited by name to convert to Islam by a senior member of al-Qaeda.

Reviews

[Don Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some would call it hate speech, but Robert Spencer dares to tell the truth about Islam, particularly its roots and traditions that most western writers either don't know, or would like to pretend didn't exist.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a little bit of trouble getting through this one, because I get angry at what people don't just don't see or understand. Anyone who really wants to understand current world events needs to understand Islam, the Crusades and Christianity. Then you will understand that none are blameless, but Islam has no forgiveness without conversion. Islam is spread by force, their soldiers are their missionaries, ultimately, it's convert or die (with a chance to first live as a sub-class person with hardly any rights or protections). Christianity, on the other hand, (when practiced properly) is based on free will and love for one's neighbor. I am convinced that Islam is the "great and abominable church". I highly recommend this book to anyone who has enough critical thinking ability to want to see the world as it really is, and not just how the media wants us to.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The liberal West is much more comfortable attacking itself and condemning the Christians and conservatives in its midst than breaking the multiculutralist taboo and admitting that Western civilization might be better than Islamic civilization." I don't think this book is going to do much to change that, despite its effort at setting the record straight and overturning some anti-Christian propaganda.

The book was a bit repetitive at times and could have been written in a more engaging manner. It makes some necessary and salient points, but I do have one criticism. Spencer does something I see done often in books aimed at critiquing Islam: he tries to have it both ways--he claims to want Muslims to reform Islam, but when certain Muslims claim that the Koran and "true Islam" offer no support for violence and oppression, he says they are obfuscating and ignoring the obvious (i.e. violent verses, traditional teachings, actions done in the name of Islam, etc.). Well, that may indeed be true, but how are religions liberalized except by interpreting the immoral actions of their practitioners as being contrary to the scriptures and "real teachings" of the religion? Religions, as a whole, aren't changed by asking their practioners to chuck their scriptures or regard them as false. Religions are changed by trying to convince their practioners that their scriptures say things other than what they are currently (or traditionally) thought to say.

Perhaps it's not true that Islam offers no support for violence or oppression, but if you WANT Islam to become a religion that offers no support for violence or oppression, you have to allow Muslims to reinterpret the Koran (and the religion) accordingly. I understand the difficulty of the situation: it is annoying if not outright dangerous that there is a denial of the existence of a problem with radicalism within Islam. Nevertheless, Islam is not going to cease to exist as a religion, and most people aren't going to be persuaded to change by being told that their religion is false and inherently inclined to provide support for bad things. For example, you would be more likely to get an 18th century Christian to oppose slavery by showing him all the Bible verses that imply the immorality of such an institution, and by quoting all Christian thinkers who have opposed slavery, than by telling him, "Christianity supports slavery. Christian scriptures support slavery. If you say they don't, you're just ignoring the fact that Christianity is an inherently slave-supporting religion and that lots of Christians own slaves. Your scriptures and religious tradition support an evil thing."

I'm sympathetic to the authors of these kind of books. The self-flagellation of the West has grown tiresome. It would be nice if we could allow ourselves to be as proud of our cultural heritage as so many Muslims seem to be of theirs. The insistence that there is no difference, TODAY, between the danger posed by radical Islam and that posed by fundamentalist Christianity has also grown tiresome. So I'm sympathetic. But if I force myself to think practically here, I'm not sure that simply pointing out what is wrong with a religion, without emphasizing what is right, is going to lead to any kind of lasting, overall change. I know myself as a Christian how easy it is to become hardened and entrenched, often in assumptions you would otherwise be willing to question and explore spirtually, simply because you feel your religion itself is being attacked and you find yourself in an instinctive position of defense.

Of course, this book isn't for Muslims. It's for secular, liberal Westerners, and I suppose, given the audience, compiling the long list of negatives is done in the hope of getting them to stop pretending that Pat Robertson is as great a threat to liberty as Osama Bin Laden. Of course, that's not the audience that will actually be reading this book, so what we have, in the end, is a great deal of preaching to the choir. Oh well. The choir likes a sermon now and then.

The best part of this book, and a theme I wished he had developed more, was his argument about why it is morally essential that societies allow much freedom (and consequently tolerate much decadence). This, which he touches on only toward the end of the book, I think would be a much better line of argument to take—i.e., argue that the separation of church and state is the only thing that really makes Muslim (or any religious) virtues possible. "The secular West, with all its irreligion and debauchery, provides the only authentic framework for genuine virtue. Without the freedom to choose evil, choosing good is not a virtue. It's nothing more than submitting to coercion."

But can this idea of separation of church and state ever be translated to Islam? One hopes, but Spencer reminds me that the very idea of separation of church and state is itself a radical Christian teaching: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but render unto God the things that are God's." Christ's teachings were teachings for the individual, and not for society as a whole, because there is a "higher good than the purity of the community. And that higher good is in the development of genuine virtue in the individual, by means of choices."

There's a lot to chew on here. Some of his arguments are weak; some are strong. In the end, I think most of the points he makes have been better argued, one by one, by others, but he puts it all in one place.

[BJ Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents some very valid and salient points... unfortunately, those who really need to read this book will almost certainly never pick it up.

When picking up any book by Robert Spencer you pretty much know what you are going to get. His stated goal is to educate the West about what Islam truly is, rather than what Liberals wish it were. This book is an issue by issue comparison between what Christianity and what Islam does. While I agree with most of his points, I'm not the type of person who needs convincing. Those who do are almost certainly not going to be reading this book. Both the title and tone of the writing will almost certainly put them off. I firmly believe that the message Robert Spencer is bringing is an essential one both for Muslims and those who have been deluded into believing that it is a religion of peace and little different from Judaism and Christianity. But I believe that the means RS uses in communicating that message is counterproductive and will do little beyond preaching to the choir.

[Foxglove · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ignores the history of Christian anti-semitism (downplays the Crusades, the Inquisition) and the wiping out of indigenous cultures under the guise of missions to present Christianity as more moral than Islam. In other words, if Muslims do right, it's downplayed, if they do wrong, it's shouted from the rooftops. Calls exposing the history of Sex abuse in the Catholic church "anti-Christian"

[Gina]

The book discusses the two religions: Christianity and Islam. A very timely topic given the state of affairs with the NY ground zero mosque debate and Iran's nuclear weapons.
Very insightful. There was a lot of research done into Christianity and Islam and it's presented in this book very well. I appreciate the information and I now have a better and broader view.

[Sakjames · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not about faith and religion. It's about politics. It's main message is actually for republican vs democrat in USA, not about Islam vs Christianity in the world. He knew that most of the republicans are devout christians, so by writing this book he could promote his political agenda. What he doesnt know that even we, conservative Christians who vote for republicans are intelligent and devout enough not to be provoked of his hateful speech. Me and a muslim colleague could share the same values about how much we against liberalism, big goverment, communism and terrorism, without attacking each other belief. This book convinced me that the author has exactly the same belief with an extremist moslem terrorist : They both believe that quran prominent message is all about violence and hatred to non believers. And they will use that wrong belief to justify all of their political movement, make this world 'a better place' by spreading terror and hatred.

[Steven H · Rating 1 out of 5]

THE CONTROVERSIAL AUTHOR COMPARES THE TWO FAITHS, AND THEIR RESULTS

Robert Bruce Spencer (born 1962) is an American author and one of the key figures of the ‘counter-jihad’ movement. His website, ‘Jihad Watch,’ reports on purported ‘Islamic extremism.’ (He is also a Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and has written several politically conservative books.)

He wrote in the first chapter of this 2007 book, “the truth must be told about Christianity and the Judeo-Christian culture. Americans and Europeans---as well as Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere---need to stop apologizing for all our forefathers allegedly and actually did wrong, and for the culture they built … and remember what they did right, recognizing what Judeo-Christian civilization has brought to the world. We must look honestly at Islam and Christianity and recognize how they differ… telling the truth about Christianity and Western civilization… is essential to the defense of the West against today’s global jihad.” (Pg. 3-4)

He notes that Washington Time editor at large Arnaud de Borchgrave referred to “‘the nine Crusades, or religious wars’ that were waged by Christians ‘from the eleventh to the thirteenth century…’ De Borchgrave did not mention that they were defensive wars, seeking to reclaim lost Christian lands and defend Eastern Christians… [But de Bouchgrave asserted] ‘Islam’s promise of seventy-two virgins to suicide bombers is very similar to church leaders in the era of the Crusades that promised eternal paradise in return for martyrdom against Muslims.’ He took no notice of the crucial distinction here between being rewarded for killing innocents… and suffering death at the hands of persecution or in war…” (Pg. 20)

He asserts, “We fool ourselves when we imagine that the problem is a localized ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’ a ‘hijacking’ of an originally peaceful religion, such that the great majority of its adherents not only do not participate in religiously sanctioned violence, but also actively disapprove of it on grounds derived from the religion itself. In reality, active jihadists, while a minority among Muslims, base their actions in Islamic theology and are in the ascendancy throughout the Islamic world… Most Muslims won’t join the jihad, but not because they don’t approve of it. In Islam, as in every other religious tradition, the number of the actively devout (not to say fanatical) is always much smaller than the number of those who identify themselves as members. A smaller number of Muslims actively reject the jihad and Islamist ideology but retain a cultural Islam; these moderates, however, are much more marginalized and less influential than most Westerners imagine.” (Pg. 25-26)

He argues, “if the Chalcedon Foundation does envision a Christian theocracy in the United States, it is a voluntary one that results from Christian evangelization and society-wide conversion. Under these principles, it is hardly at odds with the Constitution… Much of the ‘evidence’ that radical right-wing Christians want to impose a theocracy on the United States is actually evidence only that Christian pastors and leaders have reasserted the right and duty of Christians to participate in public life.” (Pg. 36-37)

He continues, “It seems absurd that liberals downplay the threat posed by Islamic jihadists. Jihadists are forthright about their plans and have executed terrorist atrocities around the world including the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history. But liberals dramatize a supposed threat from domestic ‘theocratic’ Christians, who … have no record of doing anything more dangerous than trying to elect people who share their belief in the importance of reflecting Christian principles in American laws.” (Pg. 45)

Of abortion clinic bombers, he says, “no larger Christian group supports the killing of abortionists. No Christian churches endorsed the actions of Paul Hill and the others… To Christians, killing an abortionist is… murder, and to be condemned as such. But Islam takes a different view… Islamic jihad terrorism … furthers the overall effort to ‘strike terror into… the enemies of Allah,’ thereby leading to the demoralization of those enemies and their ready conquest by the warriors of Allah.” (Pg. 51-52)

Of the Old Testament texts commanding violence, he comments, “there are no armed Jewish or Christian groups anywhere in the world today who are committing acts of violence and justifying them by referring to these texts… While interpretations of these passages differ widely among Jews and Christians… one understanding has remained dominant among virtually all believers: these passages are not commands for all generations to follow, and if they have any applicability, it is only in a spiritualized, parabolic sense.” (Pg. 63-64)

He points out, “Christopher Hitchens, in his [book] … ‘God is Not Great’… titles [a] chapter ‘The “New” Testament Exceeds the Evil of the “Old” One.’ When it comes to backing up this assertion, however, Hitchens offers thin gruel… after that buildup most of Hitchen’s New Testament chapter is taken up not with allegations of iniquity, but with disquisitions on the historicity, or lack thereof, of various portions of the narrative… This is not accident. Those who comb the New Testament searching for incitement to violence come away disappointed. The best that can be done is point to two passages… Luke 19:26-27 [‘bring them here and slay them in my presence’]… the problems with this passage is that these are the words of a king in a parable, not Jesus’s instructions to His followers… The second is Matthew 10:34-35: “…I did not come to bring peace, but a sword…’ To interpret this text literally as a call to familial violence rather than as allegory is not only to misunderstand Jesus, but also the poetical nature of the Bible.” (Pg. 86-87)

He argues, “One of the principal differences between Christianity and Islam is in the concept of martyrdom… in Islam there is an aggressiveness to this concept that is lacking in Christianity. The Qur’an’s only absolute guarantee of a place in Paradise is given to those who ‘slay and are slain’ for Allah (9:111), whereas there is nothing in the Christian concept of martyrdom about martyrs receiving a reward for killing unbelievers.” (Pg. 90)

Turning to slavery, he states, “The prophet Muhammad owned slaves, and, as does the Bible, the Qur’an takes the existence of slavery for granted… One may exercise the Golden Rule in relation to a fellow Muslim, but according to the laws of Islam, the same courtesy is not to be extended to unbelievers. That is one principal reason why the primary source of slaves in the Islamic world has been non-Muslims, whether Jews, Christians, Hindus, or pagans. Most slaves were non-Muslims who had been captured during jihad warfare.” (Pg. 94-95)

Of the Crusades, he says, “The crusaders… never resorted to forced conversions or even extensive missionary efforts. Missionaries did join the Crusades, especially the later ones, but their efforts were never large, and were certainly not supplemented by force. The Spanish Muslim chroniclers Ibh Jubayr even noted that some Muslims preferred to live in crusader territories rather than in the neighboring Muslim lands.” (Pg. 101)

He summarizes, “there is simply no group anywhere in the world today that is committing violent acts and justifying them by quoting the Bible and invoking Christianity. But there are many, many groups committing violent acts and justifying them by quoting the Qur’an and invoking Islam.” (Pg. 109)

He points out, “It is also worth noting that while Hitler may not have had a pope, he did have a mufti: Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, met with Hither and made plans to work with the Germans to exterminate the Jews in the Holy Land. He also worked during World War II to form Waffen SS units among Muslims in the Balkans.” (Pg. 125)

Of the controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammed, he comments, “the cartoons themselves were inoffensive… three made a connection between Islam and violence. The one that became the mor notorious depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban---but the Muslims driven to murderous rage by the incident were never driven to such paroxysms by the alleged ‘hijacking’ of their religion by Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists… As it grew into an international cause célèbre, the cartoon controversy indicated the gulf between the Islamic world and the West in matters of freedom of speech and expression… Islamic organizations around the world tried to use the cartoon controversy to place Islam off-limits not just for ridicule, but for discussion of those elements within it that encourage violence and oppression.” (Pg. 145-146)

He summarizes, “Today’s jihadists are making recruits among peaceful Muslims worldwide by appealing to the teachings of the Qur’an and Muhammad, and on that basis portraying themselves as the exponents of ‘pure Islam.’ … If Islamic scholars and authorities… want to combat this, then need to address it… To defeat the jihadists, we … need Islamic scholars … to lecture Muslims about why traditional Islamic teaching and jurisprudence on jihad must be reformed.” (Pg. 151)

He concludes, ‘Whether one believes in Christianity or not, it is necessary now for all lovers of authentic freedom to acknowledge their debt to the Judeo-Christian assumptions built that built Europe and the United States, and to acknowledge that this great civilization is imperiled and worth defending.” (Pg. 210)

This book will be of great interest to those seeking critiques of jihadist Islam, and to Christians seeking apologetic responses to such critiques.

[Brittaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt like I learned a lot from this book. It definitely was leaning toward Islam not being a peaceful religion, as shown in the title. However, I think that it was fairly balanced in also illustrating Christians who have acted not in peace.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Spencer knows his stuff about Islam.

[Shaikh Mubin]

my one quastion to all of you, which sword was the first muslims on the hand of the prophet (s.a).

[Zi-Xiang (Zack) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive book on why Christianity is so very different from Islam.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

pg. 203 Roger Scruton quote, "70 percent of the world's refugees are Muslis fleeing from places where their religion is the official doctrine. Morever, these refugees are all fleeing to the West, recognizing no other place as able to grant the opportunities, freedoms, and personal safety that they despair offind at home."

He continues, "equally odd, however, is the fact that, having arrive in the West, many of the Musli refugees begin to conceive a hatred of the society by which they find themselves surrounded, and aspire to take revenge against it for some fault so heinous that they can conceive of nothing less than final destruction asthe fitting punishment." (footnote included in book)

pg. 205 serveral sections of the UN 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights were fought; article 16-men and women have equal rights in marriage; article 18- freedom of conscience, and article 19-freedom of expression. Sheikh al-Munajjid declared Muslims and non-Muslims should not enjoy equality of rights before the law. "These so-called rights and freedoms which they call for all people to enjoy regardless of religion make the monotheist and the polytheist equally entitled to these rights and freedoms, so the slave of Allaah and the slave of the Shaytaan are placed on nthe same level, and every worshipper of rocks, idols, or people is given the complete right and freedom to enjoy his kufr and the Hereafter." (footnote inc. in book)

I find this argument fascinating since they worship a man named Muhammad, and a rock called the kaaba, and satan they call allah.

Women are third class citizens; muslim slaves are second class. They claim to follow allah's laws, but a lot of their laws are created by man, the burqa and hijjab for example. They enforce this, because they blame the female for being nake meat without the covering and the cats that eat of the meat cannot be blamed. pg. 193

Is islam a religion of peace? Of course not. pg. 178 We cannot assume, in the teeth of the centuries of evidence, that islam will suddenly change its character and become compatible with demomcratic society as we understand it in the West. Such a trasformation might be remotely possible, but only if Muslims explicitly reject sharia and the islamic view of the state. So far they have not done so in ay significant numbers.

The book is a wealth of information for anyone who doesn't know much about islam or has believed the lies fed to the American people since 9/11. Listen to the imams themselves when they are talking to their own people.

pg. 177 CAIR's board chairman, Omar Ahmad, in 1998 "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." He now denies ever saying this, but at the time it was printed no one challenged it.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune something very similar in 1993: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future." (footnote incl in book)

pg 148 The choices for unbelievers are thus either conversion, subjugation as inferriors with the obligation of paying the tax, (jizya) and submitting to inferior status under the rule of Islamic law, or war. "Peaceful coexistence as equals in a pluralistic society" is not an option. (islamic hadith)

Robert Spencer gives the historical background for those that try to argue Hitler or Timothy McVeight were Christian, as well as the facts of the crusades.

The one issue I had with this book was the use of Christian being used when Catholicism was being discussed. Also, for anyone thinking the Judeo-Christians are to be feared more than islam, just remember, Christians do not have jihad. It's easier to criticize a religion knowing they won't hang you, burn you, or chop your head off for having a differing viewpoint.

I do recommend this book, because looking at the state of the world, people need to get educated in facts.

[Node · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Spencer deconstructs the myth that Christianity itself is an anti-scientific, anti-rationality, and anti-freedom religion that seeks to impose dominion in the state inseperable from the church. In reality, Spencer states that while Christianity in the past used its text for atrocities, it never held weight because it went against the teaching of Jesus and eventually the Bible left the realm of strict literalism.

In contrast, Islam is intrinsically violent and is an anti-scientific, anti-rationality, and anti-freedom religion. In regards of Western ideas of human rights, Islam is entirely incompatbile. When it's text explicitly denounce the freedom of conscious, subjection and call for violence against non-Muslims, and draconain punishments that refuse to evolve, the incompatiblity becomes apparent.

Spencer argues that our modern tradition stem from our Judeo-Christian tradition and those tradition that have allowed men to be free, have created the most innovative and greatest civilization on the planet. And our tradition because of that, is worth defending.

[Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some very good criticisms of Islam and good comparisons to why such things are not necessarily equal with all religions. It also has some criticisms that are obviously shallow and unfair. I wish it didn't have some of those mixed in, because it allows critics to attack about 1/10ths of the points they make and ignore the more substantive and difficult 9/10ths of the problem.

I also wish they had a few more voices for Islamic reform, which are out there, although the author is right that those voices are not very powerful in the Islamic world right now.

Anyhow, I'd give it 3 1/2 if I could.

[Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always thought that the radical militant Islamists were on the fringe of Islam. They really are not from the facts of the 3 holy writings of Islam.

The more peaceful passages in the Qur'an are in the beginning. It gets more militant as it goes on. Further, the later material is interpreted by mainstream Qur'an scholars and religious as superseding the former. Therefore, Muslims, according to the ones in the know, are to invite non-Muslims to Islam. If they do, there is peace. If not, they are to (1) put them in dhimmitude or (2) fight them to the death or submission. This is in contrast to Jesus who says to love your enemy and pray for them, not fight them into the Way.

[Sheridan · Rating 1 out of 5]

It took until the last 2 or 3 chapters for anything that this guy said to make sense. His arguments lack any backup other opinion. The research is good, and he attempts to give a balanced argument, but saying that the Bible doesn't mean all the ugly things it says, but that the Quran does just isn't worth anything. I could say so so much more, but it's too much of a controversial subject for me to bother. Ultimately, if you are intereste in the question posed by this books title, my recommendation would be for you to read up on it somewhere else!

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book that provides a good insight into the background of Islam and compares the current events occurring in the Islamic/atheistic world view versus the Christian world view. I recommend it for all the read, regardless of the difficult realities it will present to them about the problems we are and will continue to face with the Islamic faith unless and until there is a radical attempt to reform it and reject any interpretation of its revered texts as justifying violence or insistence on only an Islamic religion existing on earth.

[Randy Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

A multitude of historical events and quotes from people past and present along with present events explain how different Islam is compared to Christianity and all the other religions. All recognized religions today except Islam have at their heart and base equality and individual freedom. Islam is to me more of a form of rule much like Communism or a democracy than a religion. In a Islamic State there is no equality in religion or gender and there can never be according to Islam itself.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and a half stars.

[William F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must Read

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spencer offers many anecdotes as well as analysis of the Bible and Koran to show that Islam is not a religion of peace.