A lot (and this is with any religion), boils down to whether or not you *actually believe it*.
Daniel Dennett made an excellent point that there’s a clear divide between religious people who ‘believe’, and those who ‘believe in belief’.
The latter, don’t *really* believe the claims of their book, but believe that faith, religion, tradition, the community spirit of getting together on Friday/Saturday/Sunday and the general idea of believing in something ‘greater than you’ are all jolly good things. As such, they take a whimsical approach to religion, go to church or wherever for Christmas, like the idea that their loved ones are in ‘heaven’ and so on, but outside of their religious bubble, take an entirely secular approach to life, politics, and ethics. They don’t believe that religion should play a part in politics, they don’t try and convert people, they have no problem with abortion/sex before marriage and so on.
The former however, *really do believe* the claims of their book (and this is the group that we in the West are far less used to as they’re far rarer).
Example; my aunt and uncles family are very religious - they’re into a fairly cultish baptist sect of Christianity that’s frankly, warped their kids completely. Their oldest (daughter, 20 years old now) was in and out of mental hospitals after cutting herself and suicide attempts, their second oldest (son, 16 now), literally doesn’t speak. Ever. Go up to him with a direct question and he’ll smile and shrug or look away. He’s got a brain the size of a planet but if you try and engage with him you’ll be met with nothing but silence and a smile.
Anyway, they’ve been encouraged to try and get their kids some kind of help, but my uncle insists on dealing with it inside the church. They have a completely blase ‘God-will-sort-everything-out’ mentality which (as you can imagine), has absolutely appalled my mum and sister (aunt is dad’s sister).
The trouble is however; they actually *believe* the Bible. Just let that sink in. They actually believe it. It sounds like an incredibly simple point to make but its actually the crucial factor in why they behave as they do. If you really do believe that all the claims of the Bible are true and that the Christian God is a real, existant thing, then what they say, do and believe makes perfect sense. Of course neither of their kids need help/serious medical attention/lifesaving medication for an obviously severe mental condition - God really will look after them and protect them!
A similar example is that I have an ex-Muslim friend of mine, who at the age of 20, was disowned by his parents for leaving Islam. He had to drop out of uni because they stopped supporting him, which meant that after 18 months of getting great grades and being on course for a 1st in Biology, he had to drop out and work at Sainsbury’s to pay off his rent. He obviously now doesn’t have a degree but actually managed to still do quite well (he works as a flight attendent for Virgin Atlantic (support their strike btw))
Anyway, his parents’ final message to him was not one of love, but for him to stay away from his younger brother (who was around 3 years old at the time).
That might sound horrible, evil and impossible for you to understand, but if what the Qu’ran says is true, then it makes perfect sense. Sultan (no harm using their real names here I guess) is going to spend eternity immersed in torture and the best option for his parents is to make sure he doesn’t sway Saqib away from the path of Allah and to eternal paradise.
He really struggled to get the support he needed as people are so scared to criticise Islam for fear of being accused of racism.