Originally Posted by The_Jazz

I was right there with you until you got to the Old Testament. Let's keep with your analogy of a 15th Century devout Catholic man who you've told that the Bible is "wrong". I completely agree that this hypothetical guy would probably keep his kids away from you at the very least, especially considering that the 15th Century was the beginning of the Reformation and the Protestant churches. There may be one passage in the Old Testament that obligates him to kill me, but there are other passages that prohibit him from eating pork, and we know that there was certainly no such ban among Catholics at the time.

Let's look at that guy's neighbor, the devout Jew, who is going to ONLY subcribe to the Old Testament including Deuteronomy 13. Now, when you tell this same individual that you don't believe in the Bible and more specifically the Old Testament that he subscribes to, are you going to fear for your life. The obvious answer is no, and I don't see any reason where it would ever be yes except in circumstances that are outside the religious aspect (he wants to kill and rob you, he's a psychopath, etc.). Your basic premise is that the Old Testament commands death to nonbelievers, and the historical record just doesn't support that arguement. There is no record of Jewish armies wrecking havoc on their enemies and committing genocide against the unfaithful in the 15th Century or otherwise.

I don't see where you've faulted my logic or my arguement. There are certainly competing passages within the Old and New Testament concerning the treatment of nonbelievers, but individuals interprete them and discard the ones don't seem relevant. I don't think that there's been any sort of historical genocide, before or after the word was coined after the post WWI slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks, that was solely motivated by Scripture. Please point out what I've missed.

As far as the Crusades go, most of them were pretty blatant attempts to either annex territory from the Byzantines, go on plundering expeditions, defend the Byzantines or recapture territory lost from previous Crusdades. The men involved were most certainly considered "defenders of the faith", but that had little or nothing to do with why they went in the first place.

Suicide bombers typically aren't out to acheive martyrdom - that's a fringe benefit. They're out to inflict injury on their enemy. That's why the translation for "jihad" is "holy war". It's a war with motivations rooted very firmly in the secular world.