[Edit & repost #15]

 

Islam defines merely being non-Muslim as an insult to Islam. [Post #13]

 

Generally agree with you there – in effect anyway. Seems that all Muslims – at least to the extent that they accept the literal truth of the Quran – are going to be buying into – tacitly or explicitly – its command to “kill all unbelievers” and into its rejection of the Christian Trinity and of any pagan deities – along with an expectation that those people are going to be tortured in hell forever. It really is a particularly savage and barbaric religion.   

 

This is part of what I call "religionism" (the worship of religion itself instead of God).

 

Not quite sure what you mean by “religionism”, although I’ll agree that many of them seem to be heavy on the idolatry even if that presumes the existence of God to begin with – which seems to be the point in question. But there is sort of a group dynamic, a group-think in play in all or almost all religions – a case of “in-group morality and out-group hostility” that serves to define the groups themselves. Ibn Warraq in his Why I Am Not a Muslim [highly recommended] quotes a number of sources who argue – somewhat credibly I think – that Muhammad simply chose the restriction against eating pork, largely as a method of differentiating his “gang” from the Christian one.