Ok, Nicholas...if by extremist Christians you mean people who read the bible literally, you will find that Christianity is just as violent and ruthless as Islam. There is punishments by stoning, a huge lack of respect for women and hatred for select groups of people. The Bible also condones enslaving your fellow man and killing any one in the name of God.
You are talking about the old testament where christianity plays no role. Only the new testament applies to Christianity... Jesus, who in the new testament is the founder of christianity, taught his followers (and future followers) not to kill but to forgive your enemies, love your neighbor as yourself, and treat other people how you wish to be treated. The laws of stoning sinners were no longer valid when Jesus payed the price for our sins by giving his own life on the cross. He in fact even stopped a women guilty of adultery from being stoned for her sins... Jesus never did a bad thing or got anyone killed, and Christians are to follow HIS example and not the old testament.
And last I checked, the Bible is what determined whether you were a Christian or not. You cannot simply discard anyone who follows the entire bible literally as non-Christians and then call yourself a "true" Christian because you read only the good parts. Islam was inspired by Christianity and Judaism if you didn't know .
The bible determines who is a real christian and who isn't. And clearly so-called Christians who kill other people are not Christians because they don't obey the teaching of their own scripture. It's as simple as that. Christianity itself doesn't have to suffer a bad reputation thanks to a bunch of wolves in sheep's clothing in the past who pretended to be christians while they were serving their own greed.
