Is the proportion of violence committed by a religious order related to the amount of violence in their book?

Question

In other words, if I create a religious book and wrote lots of passages that refer to violence in some way, will my adherents be more likely to committ violence than people from other religions with less references to violence?

Many people dismiss the amount of violence mentioned in the Quran, based on many theories of apolgetics, but what they forget is the simple fact that the more violence is discussed among humans of varied ways of thinking, the the more likely you are to get violent interpretations.

If all humans thought the same then we would either have all Muslims engaged in or supporting jihad, or none of them would. But since we know humans can think differently, although less so when they are poorly educated as in all islamic countries, we know that there will be different interpetations, Jihad or mind and fist vs Jihad of just mind.

Thus, because the Quran has so much violence, will will always have many Jihadists so long as we have a "preserved" Quran

Answer 1

Thus, because the Quran has so much violence, will will always have many Jihadists so long as we have a "preserved" Quran

YEP!

Answer 2

It's a good argument you make, but as some of the other answerer's point out, the Christian bible is also a work of extreme violence and other forms of human behavior which serve as a negative influence on our species' progression. I've had a similar train of thought relating to the Quran - I thought that maybe when the Quran was being written, the people of Islam were in a war with their enemies and this influenced the wording. For soldiers are far more likely to fight to their death if they believe in paradise for their undying souls. This still makes sense to me, but when I asked a question relating to this, I didn't get very good answers. Muslims are too quick to think that us westerners are bashing their culture.

Answer 3

Well I'd say the Old Testament is probably the most violent book of all, certainly more so than the New, yet throughout the last 2,000 years I'd say Christians have the edge on Jews in violence?

Answer 4

You seem to be answering your own question. However I am not sure it follows, necessarily. For example, there is a lot of violence described in the Bible, yet some of the groups who follow the Bible (Mennonites, Amish, etc.) are totally pacifistic.
Others, who may not be pacifists, are quite non-violent.
Those who claim to be Christian who are violent, in most cases are not great Bible students!

Answer 5

I think you would be right. If the holy book advocated violence and people followed the book.

Answer 6

So what was Stalin's excuse for trying to kill my parents and grandparents?

Answer 7

yes...all the way.......