instead of arguing about whether christianity or islam has historically inspired the most violence, i think it's more interesting to consider whether the two of them are identifiably more violent than all other extant religions (at least major religions). my sense is that they are, but i haven't put any effort into confirming or refuting that thought.
afaik, they are the only two extant major religions that are determinedly evangelical in nature. my sense is that violence is correlated with that characteristic.
I'm not arguing that one is more violent than the other, my argument is that nether religion should be identified by an extreme minority of people practicing the religions. If anything I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of Christians that want extremism and Islam tied together. I'm sure there are plenty of Islamic hypocrites making the same arguments as Christian hypocrites but I don't have to deal with them everyday. The ironic part is that both groups of hypocrites give birth to the extremism the two sides want to label the other with.
As far as why these two religions appear to be the only two with a taste for violence, I think it's an issue of the sheer number of each and that they appear to be the more mobile of the two religions. When talking about world religions we only have a big four; Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Buddhism and Hinduism haven't had to deal with turf warfare as much as the other two, I'd be willing to bet that if Hinduism and Buddhism weren't so globally contained there would be more violence committed under the guise of those religions. I would assume that the Indian/Pakistan conflict has some elements of this, and of course Buddist links are historically violent with each other and with governments so there's no reason to believe they won't fight for land if need be.
