In Our Modern World Fundamentalist Christianity is More Dangerous Than Fundamentalist Islam

“Look I'm sure you can accept that all the damage done by Muslim extremists isn't all done in the form of terrorism (unless you have an unusually broad definition of the word terrorist.)”I thank PRO for starting round 4 by arguing for CON. He is right, Muslim extremism is not all in the form of terrorism; Muslim Fundamentalism is dangerous in many ways. As I said in round 3, the governments who enforce Sharia law cause immense damage to their own population, especially women, I’ll give you a handful of examples:-A Sudanese woman who was sentenced to 100 lashes and death by hanging by the courts.Her crime? Converting to Christianity to marry her husband (she was also pregnant). [1]- A Sudanese woman who was fined 250 Sudanese pounds and sentenced to 40 lashes. [2]Her crime? Wearing pants.- A Pakistani Christian woman who was sentenced to death by the courts.Her crime? Drinking water from a Muslim well and accused of insulting Muhammad. [3]Of course it doesn’t have to be governments who do this because it is often the womans own father or husband who sentences these women in the name of honour (how killing your own daughter is honourable I don’t know). The code is simple: Any contact, even just communication between a man and a woman outside of customary wedlock is considered a breach of the honour of the woman's family, and gives it the right to seek bloody revenge. None of this is considered terrorism but if you did “have an unusually broad definition of the word terrorist” then you could say that these governments terrorize their own people by having these types of laws which enforces corporal punishment for such matters. Laws which deny women education, the right to drive and deems them second class citizens. You could say family members terrorize each other , when you don’t have the right to choose who you’ll marry, what you can wear and who you may talk to. The fact of the matter is, in the world of Fundamentalist Islam, people terrorize each other.Would a group equivalent to ISIS exist without Islam?The answer is no, and here’s why:-Though it is true that people eventually rise up against tyrannical governments, how they behave whilst doing so is very different when religion isn’t involved. As we have seen with the Arab spring many countries have (or attempted to) overthrown their governments. ISIS is the only one doing so in the name of creating a new caliphate and the treatment of the people is by far the worse. They are, as I’ve already said, killing men, women and children in the most barbaric ways and it is in the name of Islam. Other uprisings have been in the name of democracy and have very different results. Granted things are not ideal in these places but compare it to Syria and Iraq there is no comparison. Would the US have invaded Iraq and set off the chain of events that lead to the rise of ISIS have occurred without fundamentalist Christianity?I’m not sure that I understand the grammar of your question but I’ll try and answer it in two parts.Your implied belief that the US invasion of Iraq set off the chain of events that led to ISIS.This is a much more complex issue than it seems at first glance but I’ll try and simplify it the best I can. ISIS in a way started with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who had met Osama Bin Laden and set up a terror training camp as early as 1999. He went to Iraq in 2001 and at the time of the invasion in 2003 he set up, what was then called, Jama’at al-Tawhid w’al-Jihad which targeted mostly other Muslims (mainly Shiites) and was made up of mostly none Iraqi’s. Sound familiar? Zarqawi eventually died and was succeeded by Baghdadi who continued the suicide bombing campaign even after the American withdrawal. During the uprising in Syria against the al-Assad regime, Baghdadi decided to expand his targeting of the Shiite population in Syria. Bashar al-Assad and his government are Shiites. [4] So who is responsible for ISIS? A combination between the invasion of Iraq, the hatred of the Shiites, the Syrian uprising, Bashar al-Assad’s answer to the uprising by using chemical weapons against Sunni villages.Your implied belief that the “Christian voting block” bares the responsibility for the war in IraqFirstly I’d like to remind PRO that Fundamentalist Islam was a threat before Iraq was invaded. The events on 911 killed almost 3000 people and it was not the first time the world trade centre was targeted by Al-Qaida.Secondly I like to remind PRO that the “Christian voting block” did not decide to invade Iraq, the Bush administration did. There are many theories to why Iraq was invaded.There is the official line that they believed Saddam Hussein to have weapons of mass destruction.Some believe US oil interests are the reason.Maybe America wanted to show willingness to use force after 911.Some even believe that it was to have a base in the region. None of the above have any Christian motivations behind them. Your theory that the whole Iraq war was because George Bush wanted a Christian/Muslim war is beyond a fringe theory and you’ve based it all off some vague reference to “gogin magog” (I assume you meant gog and magog).Thirdly I’d like to remind PRO that the Republicans have not been in power in the USA for nearly 6 years. Your argument is, in the Modern World these Christian voters are more dangerous than all the Islamic Threats in the world because of their ability to vote for right wing republicans. The republicans are increasingly unlikely to come back into power anytime soon unless they change. The reason is that the USA is changing.[5] With the growing Hispanic population in America the Democratic vote is also growing, the youth vote is mainly a Democratic vote also and with the Republican vote dying off and a Democratic vote getting larger the situation will become very one sided (unless of course, the Republicans change).I don’t buy for one second that peaceful voters are a bigger danger than violent extremists. Hypothetically however, if they were so dangerous (which they’re not), in our modern world their influence is getting smaller whilst Islamic extremism is getting worse.I'm very interested now to hear PRO's conclusion now that his sole remaining argument is shown to have massive errors in calculation.1] http://uk.reuters.com...2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk...3] http://en.wikipedia.org...4] http://www.theatlantic.com...5] http://www.nationaljournal.com...