There are degrees of observance involved and this isn't unique to judaism

I'd say you're probably missing out if you haven't spent at least one year on intensive study though

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5881017&forum_id=2)#49988146)

now let me in

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5881017&forum_id=2)#49989486)

People in the middle east (some Shiites, Alawi Shiaism, Sufis) who downplay the more expansionist elements of the religion tend to get massacred by the muslims who go all in on it. The Quran isn't violent per se but it does have fairly militant verses and common interpretations are more fundamentalist/textualist and often eschew a contextualist approach to understanding the literature. I do find it odd that American foreign policy demonizes Shia islam (which I tend to find more tolerant) while supporting states and movements in more conservative Sunni camps but that arrangement was long standing for decades and came around in an era where Western policy planners had no real idea about the actual substance of the religious topics involved. Shia Iran gets a whole agitprop movie about Mahmoud beating his wife after one day in the magic dirt of Tehran while Hollywood openly ignores rampant enslavement and sexual abuse of SE asian labor in the Gulf states. Doesn't make a lot of sense

On average it is far more prescriptive and prone to religious violence than its other 2 Abrahamic partners though. It's an issue vis a vis the secularism of the West I guess

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5881017&forum_id=2)#49989613)