(Part 2)

> I'll just leave the general argument as to why Islam does a particular bad job as a reference frame from which to perform critical thinking.

Ok. But I am sure we are not going to enjoy where this is going.

> First up: do not interpret what I'm saying next as any sort of defence of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism. Religion is a bad place to start building a society from in the first place. I'll limit my commentary to mainstream religions as they tend not to affect geopolitics.

Haha. So Christianity Judaism Islam Buddhism and Hinduism do not cause geopolitical issues? I point to the Middle East (Judaism and Islam: Palestinian conflict is unavoidable in any issue of any size in geopolitical negotations in the region, and has been so since the 50's), South Asia (Islam and Hinduism, specifcally Kashmir, beyond the whole Parition and Pakistan-Indian aggression at large since the partition), Buddhism (Japan, Aum Shinrikyo for specific example, but I will admit Buddhism has far fewer occurrences and I have always been intrigued if there is a really observable reason as to why beyond my bias, I am sure someone here has better examples) off the top of my head. Do you know of any place where religion is no co-opted that does not cause geo-political instability? Because, again, I believe that is the shitty nature of hunanity rearing its ugly head.

> Islam does a worse job of building an effective critical-thinking society than other mainstream religions. Some things that are uniquely combined Islam are the following:

That is not Islam, that is the respective governance and culture of the regions where Islam is the majority faith. I can go into the history of the regions, specifically the Middle East (you do remember the Wikipedia article that this discussion is tied to, yes?) but the "Islamic Empire" (and I mean when it defined itself as a such, during the Ummayad, Abbasid, etc. Caliphates) saw great strides in intellectual development. The bulk of education you likely received is built on critical thinking you honed through Phillenic knowledge inherited and improved upon by Caliphate's acquisition and funding of foreign scholarship and translation. But, I digress.

> - Islam has a text that is the literal word of God; not "words inspired" by God as is the case in many others. Since the word is taken to be literal, it is easier to commit apostasy as it is more difficult to hide behind interpretation.

This is not a definitive thing. As a matter of fact, the reactionary nature of post-modern Muslim socieities is rooted in rediscovering the people (Hanbalis) who followed Ibn Hanbal, the guy who asserted it was the direct word of
God, and that reasoning about it or analyzing theologically was heresy. The other view, that of 3lm-al Kalam, Science of Discourse (notice the name) were the dominant camp supported by the Abbasid Caliphs when he came to being. Hanbal and company were able to find themselves politically convenient and then removed any Kalamist opposition.

I will let you guess what happened to the Kalamists politically and socially over time as they were targeted by the politically expedient Hanbalists? As you might guess from my opinions of religion and politics mixing, this was detrimental and lead to serious decay in Kalamist and Mutazlite scholarship on Islam.

This is historical, of course. You will say it does not matter. My point is that this is a majority view, and was not always. Political circumstances allowed people in power to change the popular view in religion and then interpretations changed and you see the reactionary Islam you are familiar with in the Gulf and with nutjobs in Iraq and Syria. That is a problem. It was not always that way, and I hope this brief history analysis will clear some of that up. If you do not care for it, it is ok. But you should read about the Hanbalis and Kalamists if you want to know what happens when politics controls intellectual endeavor. Spolier alert: it is a sad read.

> - The penalty for deviating thought is death in all schools of Islam. Other holy texts also claim this, but certainly not all schools of other religions claim the same.

Do you mean bid'a when you say deviation? Deviation from what? These terms were not made concrete way outside the scope of the Quran and this is all based on socio-political developments that are far more about Arab and Turkish history than specifically with the religion.

Again, you need to read the texts. The Quran, the one that matters, does not mention the word from a quick search. Also Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid%E2%80%98ah) has a citation needed point on the page of this concept in Islam, but no citation in the Quran can be offerred. With any treatise on Islam, no quote to the Quran = dead end. I would not even read it, personally, as I know the source is iffy at best. I understand if that is not good enough for you, but this socio-political manipulation of the religion at its best. Bidah was ued to shut people up, and it worked. This is not only a universal thing, Wikipeda also hints that no one group can agree on what it is, what it means, and how to handle it.