Comments on: Comparing American conservative Protestants & Muslims

By: Dan H

Dan H — Sat, 05 May 2012 12:07:17 +0000

These are softball questions for the Muslim societies. The real questions that show how illiberal many Muslims really are, are not even asked in the World Values Survey.

Questions such as: should someone face death for leaving the faith (Islam or Christianity, respectively)?

Results you get are 76% in Pakistan, 84% in Egypt and 86% in Jordan, three illiberal countries.

http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1184

Maybe these results by Pew overstate things a little, but Pew has no history of right-wing bias, and there are presently people on trial for apostasy in more than one Muslim country and facing death.

In America I have lived 33 years and interacted with tens of thousands in my lifetime and never known of anyone who believed in death as punishment for leaving the faith.

By this measure, ~80% of Muslims are less liberal than the most illiberal American. The most illiberal Christian I can think of Terry Jones, the illiberal pastor in Florida, has not gone as far as 80% of Muslims.

Stoning for adultery? Similar result.

And isn’t tolerance of other faiths what liberalism is really about?

By: Doug S.

Doug S. — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:46:22 +0000

For abortion, “never justifiable” would also mean no abortions in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother – which would be further than many conservative U.S. Christians would want to go.

By: Emil

Emil — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:26:18 +0000

#2
Razib, i think he meant that with regards the to “the man beating his wife” question, that that is the question where the americans are the closest to the muslims in % of the “never justifiable” column.

By: Josh Rosenau

Josh Rosenau — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:02:30 +0000

Haven’t played around with WVS much, so I’m curious how you subsampled conservative Protestants. Seems surprising that they’d be so comparatively open to abortion, given that that’s one of the major political issues motivating conservative Protestants.

By: Dynotec

Dynotec — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:23:01 +0000

It would be interesting to throw in Orthodox Jews if there’s a large enough N from the Israeli WVS sample

By: riaz

riaz — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:55:22 +0000

Homosexuality, maybe, but abortion is not that a hot button in Muslims societies, as in the US. I guess, it has become a hot one , in the US, because of more women in work force and women lib. But thats not the case, YET, in the muslim world

Right?

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:48:10 +0000

Really this is the most important thing for American conservative Protestants?

what the hell does that even mean? future non sequiturs will result in banning.

By: True_Q

True_Q — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:37:52 +0000

I didn’t realize Jordanians are so conservative while having a trekkie king;)
What’s more surprising are the views on beating wives… Really this is the most important thing for American conservative Protestants?