I don't hate Islam, at all, but lived with 3 Muslim boys as well as a master's degree theologist last year so know a fair amount on this. Islam is definitely more violent than Christianity, but that point is irrelevant in my opinion because Judaism is also very violent and Christianity is hardly free of ethical problems. I simply don't think you can follow any of the Abrahamic religions without either coming up with ridiculous secondary interpretations of the information (e.g. claim it's metaphorical), or flat out rejecting what I think to believe is too much of the core teachings. That said, Islam suffers inherently because the holy text is supposedly the direct, word for word transcript, of teachings from Allah himself. Thus to reject any of it is impossible as you're refuting God. Thus it's difficult to be a 'moderate' Muslim. The standard response is either a logically unsound argument on interpretation (a classic I saw last year), confusion about actual beliefs (another classic), or that it's not the Arabic version of the text. This ties in to a second problem Islam has, especially in the West. The 'true' version is the Arabic version, even thought the English translation is pretty much the same. Yet very few Muslims can read Arabic at the same level to which they can read in other languages. Regardless, the main method of deliverance of messages is through select readings of passages at Mosque by Imans. So here's the issue: you're basically hearing whatever the Iman wants to tell you. in much the same way that certain bible verses are avoided at church, Imans often avoid the more undesirable elements of Islam, thus a lot of Muslims don't even know about them. But download an English translation and have a brief scan, you'll see the issue. E.g. According the the Quran (and therefore Allah), a man can marry one or more wives and impregnate them whenever he wants. That said he has to provide for them and treat them to a certain standard. If, however, the man cannot be certain of his behaviour to the woman (whatever that means) he should take a captive himself, because he can treat her how he wants.

Things like that are clear as day in the Quran, thus the likes of Isis can just pick them up and run with them. The rest of the peaceful Muslims are then in a shit situation because you can't refute the fact that it's supposedly the direct word of God. Whereas Christians just cop out and can blame the disciples for getting the context wrong, or blame their writing, or blame their memory being vague (as it was written well after the event), Muslims can't do that.