Top US evangelist targets Islam

[Oneironaut]

Right. It all depends on which passages you choose to read, and which you choose to ignore. Christianity and Islam aren't inherently "peaceful" or "hateful". If you look through their holy books, you'll find messages of peace alongside messages calling for genocide. It's just proof that the authors of those books were not divine.

For example, looking through the Christian Bible, it's not hard to find passages telling you to be peaceful.

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.

But then we find God calling for or causing the deaths of adulterers, gays, believers in other gods, children who make fun of bald guys, and anyone who happens to have been born into the Amalekite tribe:

And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;

(For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.

And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

As long as such statements continue to be printed in Bibles everywhere, it's clear that Christianity cannot be a peaceful religion. I suppose it's good that most Christians either ignore those passages or don't bother to read their own holy book. But Muslims tend to live in very religious surroundings. They read the Koran and they take it seriously. That's the only reason there are more people willing to kill and die for Islam than for Christianity, since the Koran contains a similar mix of peaceful and hateful statements.