A central question?

[Berati]

Religion is not race.

No matter how often this gets repeated it seems many can't help but fall into the trap.
The only reason we, as non believers can't have a dispassionate comparison of Christianity and Islam is because Islam is seen as the religion of brown people of another culture and Christianity is seen as "our" white peoples religion.
If you believe that  the admission that Jesus is a less violent character than Muhammed is culturally or racially biased then you are incapable of rationally comparing the two and the religions they represent.
This is not in any way a defence of Christianity any more than recognizing that different virus's have different symptoms.

I also think part of the problem for western atheists in particular is that we have spent much of our online debates with Christians. We constantly remind them that their religion is no better than others and so we are predisposed to continue this mindset even when attempting to weigh the differences between these various ideologies among ourselves. As Hitchens points out in the video, all religions are bad in the same way (they place faith above reason) but that doesn't mean they are all equally bad in the same way at the same time.

I still believe that the question I posed in the poll is the dividing line that prevents any other agreement on the subject of religion. It's the starting point, the lens through which we look at all the other issues surrounding the subject and those who conflate race or even culture with religion must automtically assume that religions are all equal because people are all equal.

[the_antithesis]

All religions are the same in that they are all grown up people who take made up bullshit way too fucking seriously. They are like comic book nerds. 

No wait! They're worse. They're like an anecdote Harlan Ellision told about his friend Dan Blocker, who played Hoss on Bonanza. The old lady came up to him and spoke to him as if he were his character (she also told him to tell his daddy to get rid of that awful Chinaman and to marry a nice woman to cook for his boys, because old ladies are nothing if not racist and sexist) Blocker politely explained that he is an actor and that Hoss is just a character he plays on television. The woman acted shocked and insulted. Did he think she was an idiot? But she admonished him to tell his daddy to get rid of that yeller bastard and walked away.

That's the religious for you.

I find putting one religion in front of another based on a % of problematic behavior stupid and dangerous because the problem with adults who take childish make believe seriously is that they are unpredictable. You never know when they are going to let their bullshit make them do something truly terrible.

And don't tell me Islam is worse. It's only worse because it comes from the Middle East. Have you seen that place? It's terrible. A fucking desert and shit. It looked awful before people started dropping bombs everywhere.

[Berati]

All religions are the same in that they are all grown up people who take made up bullshit way too fucking seriously. They are like comic book nerds. 

No wait! They're worse. They're like an anecdote Harlan Ellision told about his friend Dan Blocker, who played Hoss on Bonanza. The old lady came up to him and spoke to him as if he were his character (she also told him to tell his daddy to get rid of that awful Chinaman and to marry a nice woman to cook for his boys, because old ladies are nothing if not racist and sexist) Blocker politely explained that he is an actor and that Hoss is just a character he plays on television. The woman acted shocked and insulted. Did he think she was an idiot? But she admonished him to tell his daddy to get rid of that yeller bastard and walked away.

That's the religious for you.

I think everyone here agrees with this, but as Hitchens pointed out, just because all religions are bad in the same way (they place faith above reason) that doesn't mean they are all equally bad in the same way at the same time.

I find putting one religion in front of another based on a % of problematic behavior stupid and dangerous because the problem with adults who take childish make believe seriously is that they are unpredictable. You never know when they are going to let their bullshit make them do something truly terrible.

This would  only make sense if they were all reading from the same unalterable source material, if all religious people believed the exact same bullshit book. Then we wouldn't know which part they were going to follow.
The idea presented in the quote below hasn't been rebutted yet. It appears that the things crazy people are taught have an effect on how crazy people behave.

Sam Harris:
"Now Jainism actually is a religion of peace. The core principle of Jainism is non-violence. Gandhi got his non-violence from the Jains. The crazier you get as a Jain, the less we have to worry about you. Jain extremists are paralysed by their pacifism. Jain extremists can't take their eyes off the ground when they walk lest they step on an ant... Needless to say they are vegetarian. So the problem is not religious extremism, because extremism is not a problem if your core beliefs are truly non-violent. The problem isn't fundamentalism. We often hear this said; these are euphemisms... The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of Islam."

And don't tell me Islam is worse. It's only worse because it comes from the Middle East. Have you seen that place? It's terrible. A fucking desert and shit. It looked awful before people started dropping bombs everywhere.

Islam is worse. Sorry, but that's what all the facts point to. I can't ignore the exportation of violence based on religious ideology that other poor people don't do.
Again, this has nothing to do with putting down middle eastern people, and it doesn't mean I'm promoting the western religion of  Jesus as a savior.  They are the unfortunate victims of a dangerous ideology that infected their particular part of the world. Muslims are the biggest victims of Islam.

Admitting that Islam is worse is not equivalent to saying Western people are better because the religion that has infected this part of the world is somewhat less dangerous. I think that this false equivalence is the driving emotion behind refusing to admit that there is a more dangerous aspect to Islam.
It's simply a more effective set of memes when it comes to spreading bad ideas.