David f,

"My reading of history leads me to regard the Christian record as far worse than the Muslim record." Ok, that's your opinion, in what ways is the Christian record "far worse"?

"I am neither a Muslim nor a Christian. That does make me objective but does mean I identify with neither." It doesn't necessarily make you objective, we all have prejudices and pre-conceptions. I'm not a Muslim or a Christian either-- that's a far too simplistic division of categories, in the final analysis we're considering civilisations, not just religions.

"That does make me objective but does mean I identify with neither." -this sentence is ambiguous, is there a typo?

Dear mac, The sentence should be: “That does not make me objective but does mean I identify with neither."

Civilisations are greatly affected by the dominant religion of those civilisations.

Many regard the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire as the beginning of the Dark Ages. Those who dared to differ were silenced, and the spirit of enquiry current in the ancient world was crushed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_I tells of the intolerance immediately after the empire became Christian. The Christian attitude toward learning and science were exemplified by the murder of Hypatia, a female astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who refused to become Christian, by a Christian mob in 415 CE, the burning at the stake in 1553 CE in Protestant Geneva of Servetus who discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood, the burning at the stake in 1600 CE in Catholic Rome of Bruno who speculated that there were other solar systems and worlds besides ours and the house arrest of Galileo who was confined for the rest of his life. In contrast the Islamic world at that time respected scientific learning and produced such great minds as Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides. Maimonides was Jewish, but he was free to teach and learn in the Muslim world.

During the Muslim occupation of Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims were free to interact, follow their own faiths and live peacefully with each other for the most part. When the Christians reconquered Spain the Inquisition with its extreme intolerance of other faiths and non-Catholic Christianity followed.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism) In Germany Martin Luther wrote vicious anti-Jewish diatribes in 1543. These diatribes were published in the Nazi papers to justify the Nazi treatment of Jews. I regard the persecution of Jews under the Nazis as accepted by most people in the Nazi-occupied areas because the centuries of Jew-hatred promoted by Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox churches had provided the groundwork.

With the Enlightenment and the rise of the secular state the intolerance and anti-scientific attitudes endemic in Christianity have been curbed. However, it still exists as you can see from the postings of evolution rejecting fundamentalists on olo.

Antiseptic:
You have a point in that Islam did have a summer between 800 and 1200 AD, It was a period of enlightenment for Islam while the Christian world was consumed by ignorance and superstition largely generated by church leaders. Christianity was used to subjugate women and the population in general. Christian kings used religion to empower themselves. It was not until this power was taken from the kings that the west entered a period of enlightenment which continues today with the complete separation of church and state.
Sadly Islam has never achieved much since 1200 AD and remains basically a political system based on religion. Islam would seem unsustainable in its present form and is locked into an Islamic version of medieval Europe.

David f,

I should emphasise that I'm defending Western civilisation not Christianity, I have absolutely no sympathy for the religion.

(1) "Civilisations are greatly affected by the dominant religion of those civilisations." yes of course, and religions are often greatly affected by the civilisation in which they flourish, that is particularly important when considering the West.
I'm well aware of the appalling record of the Christian theocracy, particularly the Catholic Church and its totalitarian grip on Western societies. Remember that the 17th century was the start of the Scientific revolution, followed by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution-- all that occurred in a Christian nation.

As to the so-called "Dark Ages" in Western Europe, at least some of the region's cultural and economic decline can be attributed to Moslem attacks that started in the7th century.
Both the Western and Islamic cultures inherited Greco-Roman civilisation, however while the West produced the Renaissance, the Islamic world, after a brief "Golden Age' entered its millennial torpor.

(2) "During the Muslim occupation of Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims were free to interact, follow their own faiths and live peacefully with each other for the most part."

No, that's an overstatement, sometimes Christians and Jews were persecuted, the situation depended on the Islamic sect in power, non-Moslems were penalised by the Jizyah tax to "encourage" conversion to Islam, so "free" is a relative term. There was no toleration in the modern liberal democratic sense.

The West's history of anti-Semitism is an atrocity. In the past, generally Jews and Orthodox Christians were safer in Moslem countries than in Western Catholic societies, though that's certainly not the situation now, e.g. many anti-Semitic incidents in secular France are attributed to Moslems. Modern Moslem countries are by far the most intolerant and oppressive of non-Moslem minorities, the despised "Kuffars".

So, no matter how bloodstained , brutal and oppressive, Western civilisation's history might be, it escaped from theocracy while Islam did not, perhaps the change was triggered by the Reformation, I think it was.

Davidf
<<During the Muslim occupation of Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims were free to interact, follow their own faiths and live peacefully with each other for the most part>>

You must have missed this bit of "Golden Age" tolerance:

<<Yet, despite the Jews’ success and prosperity under Muslim rule, the Golden Age of Spain began to decline as the Muslims began to battle the Christians for control of the Iberian Peninsula and Spanish kingdoms in 722. The decline of Muslim authority was matched with a rise in anti-Semitic activity. In 1066, a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. Accounts of the Granada Massacre state that more than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, were murdered in just one day. The conditions of Jews living on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) steadily began to worsen again. As a result, many people started fleeing the Iberian Peninsula to neighboring nations.>>
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/spain1.html

"Following the fall of Toledo to Christians in 1085, the ruler of Seville sought relief from the Almoravides. This ascetic sect abhorred the liberality of the Islamic culture of al-Andalus, including the position of authority that some dhimmis held over Muslims. In addition to battling the Christians, who were gaining ground, the Almoravides implemented numerous reforms to bring al-Andalus more in line with their notion of proper Islam...

Wars in North Africa with Muslim tribes eventually forced the Almoravides to withdraw their forces from Iberia. As the Christians advanced, Iberian Muslims again appealed to their brethren to the south, this time to those who had displaced the Almoravides in North Africa. The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews emigrated..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Spain

It was lucky you tacked on: "for the most part"

Siller is right. Islam had an early period of fostering creativity in science, philosophy and mathematics. After that period it went into its own Dark Ages. However, Christianity never had a period where it fostered creativity and questioning. It was only the Enlightenment which led to the secular state that freed western civilisation from the grasp of Christianity. I don't maintain Islam is good. All I maintain is that it is not as bad as Christianity. Islam has been oppressive and stultifying but not as oppressive and stultifying as Christianity. It has had a period of several hundred years of fostering knowledge as against no similar period in Christianity. European civilisation dominates in the world today through timing. While Europe was leaving their Dark Ages Islam was entering theirs.

Unfortunately barbarians sometimes win. The Christian barbarians managed to beat off the Muslims at the battle of Tours or Poitiers in 732 CE. This preserved the European Dark Ages for several hundred years. The Christian barbarians later reconquered Spain ending a Golden Age.

All religions are delusional systems. I believe we would be better off if they all disappeared. They vary in virulence from time to time. However, they only vary in degree of virulence. They remain virulent.

I heard the religion report on ABC tonight at 5:30. The program mentioned the religiosity of Rudd and Abbott. Both are devoted to religion, and I fear for Australia. Both are trying to get the votes of those subject to the delusional systems. There is one party in Australia that is for separation of religion and state.

http://www.secular.org.au/ is their website. From that site:

"The Secular Party of Australia is the first and only Australian political party whose chief objective is a liberal, secular democracy for this country. We want all Australians to enjoy freedom of and from religion."