> But you could make a strong case that the groups most bound to that vision of the future are the extremists from the three Abrahamic religions, to whom life is to some greater or lesser extent disposable in service of "wholehearted conversion".

I'm not a religious person but your message is very misleading and unfair to christians. Seriously: in the last 100 years how many terror attacks have been committed in the name of the christian god?

Even if, in the past, we've had stuff like the crusades and the dark ages it's hard to deny that Jesus brings a message of peace and forgiveness.

Save from a very few incidents with rare extremist christians fighting against abortion, the worst we've seen from christians are basically "people praying in their head in front of abortion clinics" (and the UK arrested christians for doing so btw: you're not free to "pray in your head" in front of an abortion clinic in the UK anymore).

While we could talk about tens of thousands of deaths in terror attacks from religious cracknuts who love to kill as many non-believers as possible.

"extremists from the three Abrahamic religions" doesn't hold up to scrutiny when christianity today has something like 0.01% of extremists while another religion, according to the latest published World FactBook from the CIA, has as many as 30% of its followers worldwide approving sharia laws.

> Even if, in the past, we've had stuff like the crusades and the dark ages i

It is interesting that both those examples (which are the "obvious" ones people pick") was really anything like what people imagine then to be like. The "dark ages" were dark in terms of a lack of records in western Europe as the Roman Empire collapsed and the imperial systems disappeared. Many historians argue that life mostly improved for ordinary people, the status of women improved, slavery was replaced by serfdom etc. The crusades started in response to a call for help from people who were being invaded, and were at least partly defensive: at the time they started the Arab Empires had occupied most Spain, most Mediterranean islands, parts of southern Italy, had invaded France etc. While they were not entirely virtuous they were not without reason either.

> While we could talk about tens of thousands of deaths in terror attacks from religious cracknuts who love to kill as many non-believers as possible.

A pretty small proportion of Muslims support religious violence. The extremists exist and are powerful or widely supported in some countries, but its no usual.

> while another religion, according to the latest published World FactBook from the CIA, has as many as 30% of its followers worldwide approving sharia laws.

What do they mean by that? It varies. Survey wording can mean it can even include following rules of personal conduct. It often means religious rulings over religious matters - not very different from Catholic marriage tribunals. Even where people want it to have the force of law, they may want that only for Muslims. While the extremists exist, they are far fewer than 30%. Most of that 30% is concentrated in a few countries, although the fact that some of those countries are very wealthy has meant they can fund the spread of those ideas.

The War on Iraq may not fit the definition of terrorism, being government actions, but it killed a shit load of people and was driven by religious convictions with flimsy or non-existent evidence:

https://san.com/cc/george-w-bush-saw-iraq-war-as-crusade-dec...

https://www.thirteen.org/worldfocus/blog/2009/05/27/religiou...

Be honest, please; the arrests were not for "praying in your head" they were for repeatedly breaching a buffer zone and actively refusing a request to move on.

eg: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo (and one or two others)

"in the last 100 years how many terror attacks have been committed in the name of the christian god?"

Depends how you count, the war on terror, that in reality mostly just brought terror to blow up weddings etc. was and is justified as a crusade by certain christian politicians. And quite some other wars had those elements as well, even the Nazis claimed they officially fought in the name of god against the atheist communists (and many did believe that, viewed Hitler as doing god's will).

Apart from that, check out The Lord's Resistance Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army

Or just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

Why focus only on big, showy acts of violence? Christian-influenced violence happens countless of times everyday, such as a gay kid getting beat up because some other kids hear their pastor maligning him every week. Christian violence happens every day.

I'm cushioning my statements as much as possible, if you read my other post here.

I'm aware of where most of the zealotry comes from at the moment.

I'm not trying to be unfair to Christians or to Christianity, which in large part has renounced violence as a means of converting people.

Most Christians from before the early-20th century, would consider your interpretation of Christianity as mostly heretical. They very willingly forced Christianity into anyone who wasn't, as well as into anyone who wasn't of their particular branch.

The text is the same, as is, presumably, the Jesus, so either they had understood it all wrong and current Christians understand it correctly, or the other way around. Which is it?

IMHO, those are two distinct religions. Actual Christianity is the old one. The modern one isn't Christianity, but European Enlightenment in Christian clothing. And yes, the later is much better than the original.

EE also provides Judaism clothing, Buddhist clothing, and other such clothings, which is why it works so well. In fact, it also has a relatively recently developed Islamic clothing, though adoption is still limited. Hopefully it'll expand over time.