[churchill]

Radical Islam for one is rabidly anti-intellectual. The only conservative Muslim countries that are anything to write home about are oil-rich and have extremely small populations.

As a result, it's easy for the government to subsidize their citizens heavily and build lots of shiny skyscrapers to attract western tourists without developing human capital significantly.

Call me Islamophobic but I say this as a Nigerian, living in a country with the largest Muslim population in Africa (second-largest in the world after Indonesia) where people still get lynched and burned for "blasphemy."

[Karrot_Kream]

Radical religious groups are always rabidly anti-intellectual. The better question to ask is why there are so many more radical Muslims than radical Christians. That's where I think a wider view is important.

[mrkstu]

The main difference is that you can fully implement a 'Christian' values state and it isn't going against the grain to base it on mercy, equality, and not 'othering' those who don't agree. In other words a fully Christian society can fully implement the teachings found in the New Testament and not be considered 'radical' in any sense by a non-Christian living in that society. While it may be 'missionary' oriented it also wouldn't require exporting its philosophy. It also is comfortable separating civil and religious law - 'render unto Ceasar.'

Islam, fully implementing the Koran, is basically the opposite.

It requires fidelity at the threat of death and the forced conversion of outsiders. It requires civil and religious law to be the same.

Iran for instance instantiates the tenets of Islam in fact.

The Christian theocracies are basically historical dead letters at this point- and were mostly overlays on existing government structures:

The Roman Empire for instance continued to be Rome after the Emperors became Christian- it never really, despite the Pope's best efforts, become more than a light overlay on existing government structures, with King's utilizing theories of 'Divine Right of Kings' as a useful way to perpetuate their existing hierarchies. Even countries like Armenia that claimed explicitly to be Christian states aren't actually ruled by the priesthood- they have established national religions in many historical instances, not a truly religiously run state like Iran where the mullah's are the ultimate authority.

Rome/Papal States, Peter the great, Geneva/Calvin, some slice of the Byzantine empire, along with pre-United States Utah (and in a smaller scale the city of Nauvoo,) where you have had the clerical and government structures completely united in a Christian state that I can think of off hand. England in a much looser sense qualifies. And in these cases you generally again have, relative to Islam, a non-radical, especially as it relates to outsiders, experience.

[Aerbil313]

Muslims are 'radical' because they stick to Qur'an, their book. Christians should also be sharing most of the same principles, if they are honest about following both Testaments. But hey, apparently they are mere "tales" nowadays if you ask a self-proclaimed Christian and you can see churches with pride flags. Christianity is dead because there is no one left who lives as per their book. It's arguably not very possible too, given that it is self-conflicting in many instances. Muslim view on this is that Jews tried to kill Jesus, weren't able to, and then corrupted the original Bible in an attempt to divide Christians.

> It requires fidelity at the threat of death and the forced conversion of outsiders.

Islam does not require forced conversion of outsiders. It can be said to require dominating Earth as a goal, but Christians and Jews lived peacefully under Islamic rule for millenia.

Fidelity at the threat of death is only if the person committing adultery is married and at least 4 people witnessed the incident. This requirement is rarely satisfied, while being enough too deter people to stay away from this act.

> Iran for instance instantiates the tenets of Islam in fact.

Iran is Shiite. They are a deviant sect. Doesn't mean all their practices represent Islam. There will be multiple deviant sects in any religion with billions of population. Vast majority of Muslims are Sunnis who are following the original teachings.

Important to note is all Islamic punishments regarding sins apply to Muslims, not people of other religions. They are (and historically were) free to do whatever they want, barring things like insulting people and betraying the state, which are also punishable under current secular law.

Christianity got killed first in the hands of St. Paul who basically changed Bible to his liking - and then by the Roman emperor whom I forgot his name who selected 4 out of the 400 Bibles available at the time in that famous meeting.