[Willd]

I'm a Christian who went to a Catholic school and as far as I'm concerned the major turning point in any form of Christianity is that Jesus was the son of God and that knowing Jesus is a requirement for heaven. The whole reason for this is that heaven is a perfect place, there is no sin. The only way Christians believe a person can become sinless it through belief that through Jesus' death on the cross he took away our sins. I don't know as much about the exact Catholic teaching as I probably should do having come from a Catholic school but I do know that the church I currently belong to fully belief that noone can enter heaven without knowledge of Jesus.

As far as Islam goes I only know a little, but the major aspect that I think extremists and liberalist differ on is their interpretation of jihad. Extremists take the idea of jihad literally, and see it as a calling to take part in Holy Wars, whereas liberalists see jihad as an internal spiritual battle, rather than physical battles.

In the early days of Islam the religion was spread by holy war, Mohammed leading the first of these. The later suras in the Qur'an have phrases such as "fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them" and "fight those who do not believe in Allah". These contradict the earlier phrase "let there be no compulsion in religion". Liberalists may use that earlier phrase as justification as Islam being a peaceful religion, however in cases where there is contradiction in Qur'an Islamic teaching instructs Muslims to obey the later command. From what I personally understand of Islam and the teachings of the Qur'an I don't see how it could be construed as a peaceful religion.