My point was that all religions, when read honestly and fully, tell their followers to kill infidels/non-believers/improper worshipers. The bible is quite clear about it. I'm less certain about the Tora, but since it's allegedly the basis for the old testament, it certainly seems so.
That's where my fundamentalist argument comes in, there are more fundamentalists in power, or feeling powerful, in the Muslim culture today than other religions, but that's just today. Given enough time and influence, any other religion could or has been as bad or worse when taken completely literally, like fundamentalists do.

I think the problem is ultimately a political one.

There are absolutely social issues in Islam (similar to every religion, but marginally more repressive), but the terrorist angle is there because of geography. Most of the adherents to Islam live in the third world and yeah, they absolutely have genuine, legitimate grievances with the west. Not because we're secular godless infidels, but because of the way we've exploited people.

And these people are exploited by their religious leaders.

Look at Northern Ireland. You had Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other, but because both were Christians, it was framed as a political struggle. If the republicans had been druids or something, then it would be recast as a religious issue.

If most Christians were living in the third world, we'd be looking at the exact same problem. The only reason Christianity is any less problematic than Islam is because it has had to live in an affluent education demographic who increasingly won't put up with it's original treatment of women, homosexuals, etc.

In poorer areas, (southern US, South America, parts of Africa) Christianity is indistinguishable from the Taliban.

Gorillaman-'People who believe in different things than I do are sub human and should be killed.'

Do you feel the same about Christians, who's holy book endorses rape, torture, misogyny, and slavery, and commands Christians to follow strictly the example of their prophet who preached inclusion and tolerance, but also commands them to kill any infidel or those who worship Jesus differently than they interpret the 'proper way to worship', and to wage holy wars?
How do you unthinking animals go on the internet and write such nonsense? Religious people are fundamentally broken, they can't reason. Their brains are not alive in the same way thinking humans are.

"teaches right behavior"....
Do you mean like owning slaves, murdering infidels and heretics, raping women, crusading, inquisitioning, conquesting, etc.... Yeah, great book of morality, and wonderful moral behavior exhibited by it's believers...not.

It's only because people fail to follow the religious ideas wholly that religion is tolerated at all. If people acted like the fanatical Muslims, taking every word as law and acting on it, Christianity would have been outlawed in the US at the inception of the country (indeed, many of the founding fathers seemed to want this, at least in part). The 3 major western religions all require 'holy war' to spread the belief system if read honestly.

What he said is that only psychotics need religion to restrain them from immorality. If you aren't psychotic, religion harms you more than helps you.

Any catholic hospital would qualify as one opened by psychotics, since one of their 10 important rules is "no statues of anything", yet they do nothing but worship statues and icons. They institutionally ignore any 'rule' that's inconvenient, and insist on absolute adherence to any that further their current goals, which may change 180 deg tomorrow. Sure sounds psychotic to me.

@billpayer The distinction is how direct of a line you can draw between belief and behavior. All religions are certainly not equally guilty.

Judaism is not an aggressively spreading religion, in that while the old testament is fairly horrible, the main purpose is to sit around and wait for the messiah to return to smite all of us. The action this leads to is sitting around and waiting.

Islam, on the other hand, is to be spread by the sword, so the action lead from that is to aggressively spread it.

The whole problem of Martyrdom changes the rules for everyone as well. If you want to die and genuinely believe that you will go to heaven if you kill yourself if you take infidels with you, then we have to stop you. This glorification of death is disturbing.

Rewatching it I still get the exact same feeling. Cenk is flaundering and Sam is trying hopelessly to explain his points to him.

Agreed, if the 'word of god' is debatable, it can't be infallible, can it?
Once you think for yourself, you have suddenly become philosophic, not religious, in my eyes. For some, many don't realize the transition happened and continue on with the trappings of religion while not really 'following' it.
It's those (and they are many) that look to religion for their moral compass that bother me. Since it is interpretable to mean near anything, it can't be a moral compass (or it's the kind of compass that Jack Sparrow had, that just points to whatever you want at the time).
I find it funny that many are called 'fundamentalist Christians' yet I haven't heard of a Christian stoning for a while now, and it is the clearly prescribed treatment for infidels. Clearly even the fundies pick and choose what to follow.

The word of God is infallible but human beings are fallible. We all struggle with a sinful nature and are subject to futility. There is one truth, and many flawed individuals trying to grasp that truth through their own peculiar biases and weaknesses of character. No scripture is of private interpretation, but holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches men to understand the word of God, but since men are imperfect and ignore or suppress the truth, they will not always listen to the Holy Spirit and come to differing interpretations. There is only one true interpretation, but often that in itself has various facets as you examine the text for different contexts, such as spiritual connotations and applications.

I stand corrected.
I do recall reading that he did say, at one point, that aside from 'putting God above all else', the golden rule (treat others as you would have them treat you) is the most important thing to learn from religion...this seems to be at odds with supporting the bigotry and hatred of the 'law' (of god), although as I read it (what little I've read of it) the bible should be for telling the reader how they should act, not how they should force everyone else to act. I guess I ignored those parts that said you have to stone the infidels and such. :-)

There are three parts to the Old Testament law, civil, ceremonial and moral. The civil and ceremonial laws were given to nation of Israel only, not to Christians. The ordinances God gave to Israel regarding civil judgments, food and drink and the like are not applicable to Christians.

EDIT: And what happened to 'he died to absolve us of our sins'? If that's supposed to work, then there's no sin after the crucifixion, no? Is that something else I'm mistaken about, or was it a one time absolution only for those present at that time, with everyone else still hosed? If sin is gone, why care if your son is 'doing it' wrong, he'll still go to heaven, right?

Jesus provided what is called the "substitutionary atonement". Meaning, that Jesus took your place (and mine) on the cross and received the punishment for sin that we both deserve. He took the entirety of the punishment on Himself and through His sacrifice we can receive forgiveness for sins. He suffered and died vicariously for us, and through faith in Him we receive a blank slate and attain a perfect standing before God. His righteousness is credited to our account as if it were our own, though there is nothing we could do to earn it; It is only received through faith.

Jesus provided the atonement for all sin, but it isn't universally applied; It must be received by faith. When you stand before God and account for your life, you will be judged for your sins in one of two ways; either by your righteousness or Christs.

Agreed, if the 'word of god' is debatable, it can't be infallible, can it?
Once you think for yourself, you have suddenly become philosophic, not religious, in my eyes. For some, many don't realize the transition happened and continue on with the trappings of religion while not really 'following' it.
It's those (and they are many) that look to religion for their moral compass that bother me. Since it is interpretable to mean near anything, it can't be a moral compass (or it's the kind of compass that Jack Sparrow had, that just points to whatever you want at the time).
I find it funny that many are called 'fundamentalist Christians' yet I haven't heard of a Christian stoning for a while now, and it is the clearly prescribed treatment for infidels. Clearly even the fundies pick and choose what to follow.

I stand corrected.
I do recall reading that he did say, at one point, that aside from 'putting God above all else', the golden rule (treat others as you would have them treat you) is the most important thing to learn from religion...this seems to be at odds with supporting the bigotry and hatred of the 'law' (of god), although as I read it (what little I've read of it) the bible should be for telling the reader how they should act, not how they should force everyone else to act. I guess I ignored those parts that said you have to stone the infidels and such. :-)

EDIT: And what happened to 'he died to absolve us of our sins'? If that's supposed to work, then there's no sin after the crucifixion, no? Is that something else I'm mistaken about, or was it a one time absolution only for those present at that time, with everyone else still hosed? If sin is gone, why care if your son is 'doing it' wrong, he'll still go to heaven, right?

"ALLLLLOOOOAHHHHHHHHHH AKBAAAAAAAAAR! (translation: "Wake the fuck up and grab yer rug ya fuckin' infidel!!)"

You shouldn't worry about racist words, you should worry about racists. I don't have to use the word "nigger" to be a racist, I just have to be one. My favourite Ice T song is "Straight Up Nigga", am I a racist when I quote it's lyrics?
Everybody throws a hissy fit about famous people using the wrong words but we accept intolerant douchebags on TV all the time as long as they watch their language.
You see the same thing with homophobes all the time, it's actually worse regarding this issue. Say "fag" and the internet is up your ass in no time, say the shit Palin and Santorum say and it's just an opinion or believe and you get to be on TV.
Fuck that. I don't care what words you use, if you're an ally, you're on my side. Rude assholes who are on my side are better than nobody, I take what I can get. And my side is the one that that doesn't care about your pigmentation or who you love.
That nigger in the video isn't a racist and you wasting your time worrying about his choice of words, take it from the infidel, fat, cisgendered kraut-breeder. That man is on our side. He's just not politically correct.

Infidelity in T-minus 5 years.

Hear the one about the blonde who sued her husband for divorce on the grounds of infidelity?

She had proof! Both their children looked nothing like her.

Hmmm, interesting. Is the less threatening, comedic approach, a clever way to instruct the infidel in the practices he will have to adopt in the near future?

Yes, it does. The members of the Taliban aren't born into it. They sign on, they join up, they make a choice to follow the Taliban leadership. Every day they continue to identify themselves as Taliban is a reaffirmation of that. We don't have to kill every last one of them to eliminate them. If they all renounced the group and ideology it'd be gone just like that. You need to understand, the regions the Taliban are thriving in are filled with people readily joining them NOT to get back at the west, but the whole package. Men are superior to women, the true believers are superior to the infidels, killing those that disagree and taking from them by force is not only acceptable, but noble. Those core 'values' hold very large appeal to the tribal youth in those areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's ugly, it's brutal and trying to call it something else is ignoring the real depth and heart of the problem.

The Taliban are a minor irritation for us outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the moderate muslims and secular populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan that are the real victims of the Taliban thugs. Failing to call them thugs and to condemn them is doing nobody any favors.