This is what happens when tyrants seize control of a religion. As with Christianity, Islam has been corrupted. Mainstream Islam is not as violent and oppressive as these regimes make it out to be. For instance, fasting during Ramadan is not supposed to create a hardship, and the face veils are not supposed to impede safety. What happens is tyrants add these things, make things more rigid, and enforce them with death and by blowing things up. The Taliban and Sharia Law are actually perversions of the Islam that was supposed to be peaceful. Even the parts of the Quran that contradict other parts of the Quran may well have been written or influenced by tyrants that were trying to seize control of the world. This is what ruins education.
And Christianity is at least as bad. When Jesus first created his original message, it was far from the oppressive form of Christianity we all know today. As with Islam, people twisted the meaning of the message right at the source, creating a system of laws that Jesus never approved of. It was pushed deep into the Middle East and parts of Africa--Paul had the share in doing this. Then tyrants seized Christianity to impose their own agendas, and we all know the devastation that resulted. Bad education (worse than today--even worse than Islam) resulted, and the world was plunged into the First Dark Ages. Science was stifled under threat of burning at the stake. Crusades pushed into the Far East, forcing people to abandon native religions in favor of an oppressive version of Christianity. I believe those Christian crusades did Islam more good than Islam itself because of the oppressiveness of Christianity.
The Washtowel is a prime example of how oppressive Christianity can be in the wrong hands. Seize control and threaten people if they look elsewhere. While the witlesses don't blow things up to spread the message, they do threaten with everlasting destruction and use promises of seeing dead relatives to recruit. And occasionally, you do find a witless doing something extreme--kidnapping and murdering, molesting children to ruin their lives, and doing other rubbish you might expect from Muslims.
Yes, the Taliban and Sharia Law are oppressive. But so was the first Catholic regime (that seized Christianity and created a Dark Ages with it). And so are the cults and scams, washtowel included, that use Christianity as a platform to ruin lives and keep people in spiritual darkness. Better to simply cut as many ties as possible: Go by mainstream Christian or Islam groups instead of high-control groups, by the Bible or Quran instead of mainstream Muslim or Christian groups, by what Mohammed or Jesus said instead of the Bible or Quran, or what would Mohammed or Jesus would have wanted you to do instead of what they themselves did. By trying to do it yourself and getting the actual message, you bypass the groups that will tyrannize whole regions.
As for missionary or evangelist works, they only spread mistakes and bad doctrines. By holding individuals responsible for their own spiritual direction, you prevent them from copying your errors. Sure, they might make even worse ones. But in the end, those errors cancel each other out and tend to correct themselves. And the bad ones do limited damage. By spreading your religion region-wide, you spread whatever errors you yourself have, allowing whole regions to suffer and a tyrant to use them to hijack the whole thing. Besides, damning a whole group to whatever spiritual damnation might be out there (in this life or not).
