Islam is a peaceful religion

[The Omnissiunt One]

Muslim's aren't specifically a race, but it is true that most Muslim's tend to be Middle Eastern. Calling Muslim's disgusting is not a valid criticism against Islam, but more a generalized attack on the people, hence my comment. I'm very critical of the religion of Islam, but I draw the line between criticizing the religion and criticizing the people, especially when such criticisms can be construed as a racist attack on the Middle Eastern people themselves.

Exactly my point, Eilonnwy. You put it much better than I did, though.

If you look at the Bible and the Qur'an side by side, neither is much better than the other. Both endorse slavery, genocide, violence, etc. It's just that the West has had the calming influence of secularism and post-Enlightenment values for several hundred years, whereas the East, despite being at the forefront of progress a few thousand years ago, is now where we were, ideologically, in about the 12th century. They invented algebra, and now just blow themselves up, in order to get (4x+2) young virgins in paradise. My hypothesis: there is a correlation between the direction in which a culture writes, and its intellectual progress, as shown by this graph:

I'm submitting it for peer review on these forums. I'm quietly confident that it'll mark a great advance in anthropology.