It doesn't matter if you're a Christian or not, you're giving Christianity a pass because it's the dominant religion of the western world and you happen to have been born into a society dominated by it, even though it's been brutally violent throughout the majority of its history. The "us" v. "them" mentality cited in the previous post in action.
but..
?
Compare Christianity before the enlightenment and modern Islam and see how they stack up. To be clear, nobody is defending Islam. Like I said before, the flavor of the drink (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.) isn't the problem, it's the drink itself (organized religion), the deeply held religious belief that every religion requires of its followers that they are God's 'chosen people', that they are somehow special as ordained by God himself and that their belief in him grants them moral authority. Christians, Jews and Muslims across the world are infected with this - they all believe they are right, and all of them have a holy book that's centuries old to prove it. It's all circular logic that devolves into bullshit when examined, but not to any of them.
Mormonism originated out of post-enlightenment western society
You're delusional.
70% of Americans claim to be Christian and the overwhelming majority of elected American government officials are Christian. Christians make up ranking members of important committees that deal with things that conflict with their religious beliefs that affect every single American in the US. They've even used Christianity to justify taking no action against climate change, argue against abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage, and in support of the war on drugs.
See, here you are defending the atrocities of Christianity again. Let's recap;
Thirty Years War
French Wars of Religion
Second Sudanese Civil War
Crusades
Lebanese Civil War
Spanish Conquests of the West Indies, Mexico and South America
The Ku Klux Klan
The Inquisition
Support for Slavery
The condemnation of science and scientists
etc.
So I'd say they're all equally as capable of inspiring barbarism. Why don't you just condemn them both as they've both clearly led to the untimely death of millions of people? You say you're an atheist, so why the constant kid gloves when it comes to criticizing Christianity and holding Christians accountable for things today that affect every American regardless of whether or not they believe in Christianity?
There seem to be at least two things going on here.
You seem to think a religions age is somehow determine to how violent it is. As if it has stages to go through. While there might be parallels you can draw you basically debunk this with your own claim about how Mormonism was born post enlightenment.
Second, we seem to mean different things when we talk about what Christianity is or what Islam is.
I can't make any comparison to the Christians today and the Christians from the 1600s. Why? Because the societies they have lived in are so different.
There was a period of time when Islam was very enlightened and interested in learning and advancement.
Those times are gone.
Christianity has gone through many epochs too. But it has lost so much power because of the textual criticism of its holy books, the same book that inspired Europe to burn witches today inspires soccer moms to get pissed when the teacher talks about evolution.
No where on Earth right now to my knowledge are there large groups of Christians wanting to kill people for lifestyle choices.
In living memory, Christians have fought each other over what type of Christian they were, but these aren't purely religious divisions.
Man, if you can't see that modern Islam and modern Christianity present two entirely different types of problems you're blind.
If you ask me, could the bible or the quoran both inspire violence at about an equal rate. I say yes. But Christianity isnt just the book and neither is Islam. They're also the societies in which they live.
They evolve through time. Right now, Christians aren't committing atrocious acts en mass. Even in recent flareups like northern Ireland, the worst days there were a calm day in Syria today.
Christianity and Islam neither exist in a vacuum. They have to be examined in the societies they live in.