Batou667 said:
That one's easy to address: Christianity is by and large a reformed religion, Islam isn't.
I realise this is a terminological error and that you probably meant to secular, but eh..
The reformation was an apocalyptically violent time in which the whole of Europe was torn apart by religious wars and pogroms which killed a significant proportion of the population of many European states (particularly the German states). It was a time of unprecedented fanaticism. It created biblical literalism as we understand it now. The entire ideology of the reformation was an attack on what was then the law of the land.
Secularism is not a feature of Christianity, it is a reaction
against Christianity. Christianity has never been inherently or implicitly secular and has never become so.
Batou667 said:
Everyone from the Pope downwards acknowledges the figurative nature of Biblical language and the requirement to square personal faith with the secular law of the land. Islamic theology and Shariah law do the opposite in stressing the origins of the Koran as the literal, original and unaltered word of God and the enduring nature of its obligations of its adherents.
The pope is the leader of the catholic church, and one of the official doctrines of the catholic church is the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, that the Bible is without error in its teachings. Catholic doctrine still holds that the Bible is the literal word of God as received through divine inspiration. The difference between Catholic inerrancy and the fundamentalism more typically found in evangelical Protestantism is that Catholics believe that the meaning of Biblical statements is not necessarily literal, even though they cannot be factually wrong.
Until very recently, the concept of Koranic literalism has been quite alien to Islam. Traditionally (and unsurprisingly to anyone familiar with history) Islam is more like Judaism in its approach to religious texts than any Christian denomination. Like Muslims and the Koran, Jews also believe the Torah to be the literal word of God. Like Muslims, Jews also have religious law derived from the teachings in the Torah. However, like Muslims Jews view the interpretation of the Torah as a task requiring philosophical and theological expertise, since the meaning of the Torah may be unclear and may indeed be unknowable to human beings. While Muslims do believe that the Koran is the word of God, orthodox Muslims also believe that only God knows the ultimate meaning of the Koran, which is why the Koran requires interpretation.
Koranic literalism, where it exists, is purely a feature of those "reformed" Islamic traditions influenced by Protestant Christianity, it just happens to be important in the present day because it's most visible example has been the rise of political Islamist movements. Remember what I said about the reformation not necessarily being a good thing..
Batou667 said:
Compare the frequency of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the West, versus Christian fundamentalist terrorism anywhere in the world.
Have you considered that this may have something to do with the existence of major conflict sites in Muslim majority countries in which Western countries have intervened, and thus the emergence of large scale paramilitary forces dedicated to fighting asymmetrical warfare against what they see as both domestic and overseas enemies? Do you think it might have something to do with the emergence of organised recruitment programs designed to covertly radicalise people into terrorist action?
Remember, the definition of terrorism usually specifically excludes acts of violence by isolated individuals. To be a terrorist, a person must be in contact with some form of non-state political organisation.