This might seem a daft comment, but what actually does Islam teach in terms of being honest, concerned about one's neighbour, not being angry and vengeful?
Being a bear of little brain, is not religion meant to inculcate standards of honour decency trustworthiness and humanity?
I cannot see the structures and systems in Islam that do this.
For example "love your neighbour as yourself" Is that taught in mosques?
This comment prompted this thread
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/01/31/eikenberry-assesses-u-s-role-in-afghanistan/No, religions are usually tribalistic in their standards-psychology shows that human beings are hard-wired to be tribalistic, and religions are a product of the human condition. Obviously some areas of the world are more fiercely tribalistic due to dynamics, history, fragmentation, number of tribes etc-so that's why you'll see different levels of tribalism-but it's a common them in all. You have to remember that the Middle East is a particular example of this due to it's diversity and geography.
The biblical morality of treating your neighbours right and not stealing was pretty much limited to other Isreaelites, everyone else can fuck themselves as far as the old testament was concerned-go read about how the Israelites would treat heathen tribes.
The new testament is not much better (other than a few vague allusions, but it was written when the Israelites lived in a subservient position to the roman empire).
It's funny, people often go around and talk about how the Quran is divided into Meccan and Medanian versus and how the Meccan versus are peaceful out of necessity. Well, the old testament and new testaments are similar, only in reverse order. Islam is no different to any other religion when it comes to tribalism and xenophobia (outer group prejudice), this exists in all humans, even today-the boundaries may change but the principle doesn't.
The only difference is that the early Muslims were a constantly warring army, therefore the tribalism and xenophobia is very explicitly commanded as one would expect at a time of war.
You have to remember that common morality is evolutionarily important, nearly every society in time has outlawed unjustified murder, theft, etc and recognised women and children as more worthy of mercy than men-these are natural human instincts-but these rules are usually limited to one's in group or tribe.
Topic: Islam and morality