How do you argue with this?

Me: Islam makes people do bad things. People do bad things and then justify the bad things by appeal to Islam. Examples proliferate by the hour: Boko Haram, IS, Hamas, Hezbollah, The Iranian Islamic Republic, Murder of journalists in Paris. Islam is a bad ideology. Since 9/11 there have been upwards of 24,000 Islamist attacks.

Him: But Christians have done bad things in the past, the Inquisition and the Crusades (and clerical child abuse). Duh?

Me: I am against Nazi ideology: it led to the holocaust.

Him: But Christians have done bad things in the past, the Inquisition and the Crusades (and clerical child abuse). Duh?

Me: I am against Communism: it led to the murder of tens/hundreds of millions.

Him: But Christians have done bad things in the past, the Inquisition and the Crusades (and clerical child abuse). Duh?

Me: You are a Christian?

Him: Yes.

Me: So you are in favour of the Inquisition and the Crusades (and clerical child abuse)?

Him: Obviously not.

Me: But these evils were perpetrated by Christians.

What he does not say: Christianity does not sanction violence and abuse; those who claim it does are distorting Christian teaching.

His position is incoherent. It boils down to this: No ideology can be criticised because all ideologies are imperfect. Nazism cannot be criticised because democrats are not perfect. Aztec human sacrifice cannot be condemned because Shintoism was violent. Pol Pot was a murdering bastard – but Pinochet killed a lot of Chileans. Islam is an intolerant violent ideology – but Christians had the Inquisition and did bad things during the Crusades (and some priests have been paedophiles). There is not even the pretence of logic. There is not even a name for this fallacy; it is so self-evidently fallacious. Henceforth we shall call it the ‘total bollocks fallacy’. TBF is also evident in the politico-economic realm. If I point out that Socialism depends upon coercion and violence (self-evidently true), TBF refutes me by saying that some ‘entrepreneurs’ got rich by getting into bed with governments – puhleeze!

People do bad things. Only Christianity has a satisfactory explanation – Original Sin. I want to be allowed to say that some ideologies promote bad behaviour. TBF says, ‘No, every ideology is defective’. Apparently, this means that no comparison is allowed. I am not allowed even to think about comparisons.

He is a cradle Catholic – studied for the priesthood. I am a late convert; I want every human being to be a Catholic. He doesn’t. Wow! All Socialists want universal Socialism. All Muslims want universal Islam. With friends like him…

To return to my original assertion: Islam is a bad ideology because it leads to evil actions. Defenders of Islam, naturally, wish to say that Islam does not justify evil actions. But it does!

We are lucky to have, on the Christian side, Robert Spencer, David Wood, Jay Smith and others who know the Islamic texts very well. One of the things they point out is that Islamic texts are x% theology and y% condemnation of kaffirs, unbelievers, us. Y is a lot bigger than X.

What do Islam and Catholicism have in common? Some important stuff: monotheism, for example. Catholics surely should be allowed to maintain that Catholicism is superior. Muslims do maintain that Islam is superior. My friend happily maintains that theism is superior to materialism.