The only non-violent religions I know of are Jainism and Theravāda Buddhism. The holy books of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all contain passages encouraging their followers to torture, kill, and otherwise harm non-believers. Mainstream adherents followed these directives for millennia. It's taken centuries of conflict with enlightenment values to relegate such views to extremists.
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.
I've studied Quran too and a bit of comparative religion and nowhere did I find any instance where it preaches violence.
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?
This is just outright disingenuous. Both books have ample violence and the Quran specifically commands followers to chop off the body parts of the infidels. I can quote you the verses if you'd like. The Bible has its share of violence and gore too. What game are you playing at?
>never you'll find any instance where he punished someone just because he ridiculed him.
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.
> I've studied Quran too and a bit of comparative religion and nowhere did I find any instance where it preaches violence
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.
Give any religion enough uneducated, miserable, humiliated young people and you will get the same result. The world, unfortunately, is not in short supply of such. Even buddhists can become rabid.
Actually, no. Jains simply don't use violence, even in self-defense. It would take quite a literary gymnast to get violence out of commands such as, "Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being."[1] Jain protests can involve fasting[2], but never violence. Other forms of Buddhism (such as Zen) can be violent, but compassion is at the core of Theravāda. This is why there are no Tibetan suicide bombers, despite a brutal occupation by the Chinese government.
Religions really do cause their hosts to have different propensities for violence.
It's too easy to completely dismiss the effects of a particular religion or group. There are uneducated, miserable, humiliated young people from many groups in the world, yet only those from some of those groups kill comic writers.
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.