Perhaps someone who knows more about Bahaism (without being one of them) could tell whether promoting Bahaism might be a way to stop violent Islam.
I was raised Bahai and used to consider myself one when I was younger, before discovering rationality, so I will give my perspective. (If you're wondering, I'm a white American just like many of you. If anyone else was Bahai and converted to atheism feel free to message me, it would be interesting to talk to someone else).
I don't think this is a viable solution to ISIS, at least within any timeframe less than centuries. Converting people to a different religion is very hard, they've already been trying for the past 150 years, so they aren't going to suddenly succeed just because we want ISIS to go away. An easier short term strategy might simply be to support non-radical elements within mainstream Islam, and support economic growth and education in the region, trying to prevent the populace of the area from being influence by the more radical elements. But that was probably a strategy to use prior to ISIS taking over large parts of the region. At this point the best strategy is probably to contain them and stop their military progress, and then wait for them to crumble and weaken internally.
If one did somehow succeed in replacing violent Islam with Bahaism or another peaceful religion, it would probably be preferable to violent Islam, as you noted. I don't believe the religion will ever not be peaceful, since that is very much at the core of the religion. While Bahais are persecuted in the middle east (considered apostates by Islam), in most of the world they are not oppressed. (Over the course of many centuries however, anything could probably happen).
I do agree that peaceful religions are preferable, but I do worry that if they are successful it might create a greater opponent to rationality and transhumanism in the long term. Fundamentalist religions appear very obviously wrong to reasonable people, its not that hard to realize that evolution is true and that new earth creationists are wrong, for example. But it is much more difficult for a reasonable person to realize that religion is untrue when it claims to be allied with science, and tries very hard to not make claims that are disprovable. Many newer religions (created after the development of the scientific method) do this, and they promote the view that science and religion are not incompatible, that science is correct in everything we have discovered, but that God, souls, afterlife, etc, exist but cannot be tested by science (separate magisterium).
This is a harder premise to show to be true than those of fundamentalist religions, and still lead to the ultimate problem of people accepting death, not seeking to end death and aging, and believing that no matter what happens, nothing truly catastrophic will happen to humanity, leading them to ignore existential risks. (Though the sequences are still effective in refuting these ideas as well, imo).
On the other hand, maybe more liberal religious ideas are actually easier to break people out of than fundamentalist ones? I am not sure. While they don't tend to be militant like ISIS, they still oppose transhumanism and thus must be defeated in order for us to build a world without death.
Politics is the mind-killer. Politics IS really the mind-killer. Please meditate on this until politics flows over you like butter on hot teflon, and your neurons stops fibrillating and resume their normal operations.
Preface
I've always found silly that LW, one of the best and most focused group of rationalists on the web isn't able to talk evenly about politics. It's true that we are still human, but can't we just make an effort at being calm and level-headed? I think we can. Does gradual exposure works on group, too? Maybe a little bit of effort combined with a little bit of exposure will work as a vaccine.
And maybe tomorrow a beautiful naked valkyrie will bring me to utopia on her flying unicorn...
Anyway, I want to try. Let's see what happens.
Intro
Two recent events has prompted me to make this post: I'm reading "The rise of the Islamic State" by Patrick Coburn, which I think does a good job in presenting fairly the very recent history surrounding ISIS, and the terrorist attack in Tunis by the same group, which resulted in 18 foreigners killed.
I believe that their presence in the region is now definitive: they control an area that is wider than Great Britain, with a population tallying over six millions, not counting the territories controlled by affiliate group like Boko Haram. Their influence is also expanding, and the attack in Tunis shows that this entity is not going to stay confined between the borders of Syria and Iraq.
It may well be the case that in the next ten years or so, this will be an international entity which will bring ideas and mores predating the Middle Age back on the Mediterranean Sea.
A new kind of existential threat
To a mildly rational person, the conflict fueling the rise of the Islamic State, namely the doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shia Islam, is the worst kind of Blue/Green division. A separation that causes hundreds of billions of dollars (read that again) to be wasted trying kill each other. But here it is, and the world must deal with it.
In comparison, Democrats and Republicans are so close that they could be mistaken for Aumann agreeing.
I fear that ISIS is bringing a new kind of existential threat: one where is not the existence of humankind at risks, but the existence of the idea of rationality.
The funny thing is that while people can be extremely irrational, they can still work on technology to discover new things. Fundamentalism has never stopped a country to achieve technological progress: think about the wonderful skyscrapers and green patches in the desert of the Arab Emirates or the nuclear weapons of Pakistan. So it might well be the case that in the future some scientist will start a seed AI believing that Allah will guide it to evolve in the best way. But it also might be that in the future, African, Asian and maybe European (gasp!) rationalists will be hunted down and killed like rats.
It might be the very meme of rationality to be erased from existence.
Questions
I'll close with a bunch of questions, both strictly and loosely related. Mainly, I'm asking you to refrain from proposing a solution. Let's assess the situation first.