many muslims come out to decry those acts. It is just that our media fails (or deliberately refuses) to report on it.

declining in membership. Won't be long. It's the popularity and influence arc of Christianity in fast forward.

which, according to all the "laws" makes me a Jew. As a "peaceful" Jew, I want to renounce Netanyahu's war mongering speech to the Congress along with his war against Palestinian children, and my new "peaceful" Muslim friend wants to renounce ISIS.

Well, glad we settled that!

if you read their holy books. Cherry pick from the Koran or from the Bible, and you will be able to prove anything you want to prove. You can pull out all the verses that related to peace, or you can pull out all the verses that relate to war or retaliation. The problem is in the books themselves, and the people who think that they are words from above.

The key issue, I think, is that every religion and every god was created by humans. Therefore every religion and every god can contain the best of humanity and the worst of humanity.

The unique aspect of religion, though, is the notion that it is ABOVE other ideas and philosophies. That it is special and can't be criticized. (Lest you get "punched" as the pope says.) That it is derived using "other ways of knowing" that cannot be challenged or questioned. All these things combine to make the bad parts of religion very, VERY bad. The moderate/liberal believers want to protect the notion that their religion is special, and shouldn't be criticized, but at the same time want to denounce the religion of the fanatics. So all they can do is say "they're interpreting it incorrectly." Which gets nowhere, since that's what the fanatics say about them.

is that after many, many centuries of "theologians" and apologists going all out on this, "they're doing it wrong" is STILL the best they can come up with. That's the depth of their intellect on the subject.

Are not vehicles for peace and love but political cover.
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"The Koran itself tells us how to interpret it" And does it also tell us how to interpret the passages that tell us how to interpret it??

Sheesh, but religion makes people think and say stupid shit. And yes, sorry, for the yacht clubbers reading this (and wanting to post that it's exactly the same for atheists, but can't because they're banned from here and can only alert troll)...much stupider shit and much more of it than lack of religion.

That's just great, isn't it?

So interpret it...and the Bible and Vedas.... knock yourselves out!

We interpret Greek and Norse myths all the time... but we don't live by them. And we don't insist others live by them.

There's the rub.


Why treat the Koran any differently than one would treat the Iliad, or La Morte d'Arthur?

Sure, studying these works is great and a window into past times and past thinking. But to hold that there are any reasons for giving these ancient fairytales any gravity other than interesting ancient lit is absurd.

And theology is as useless as arguing over the details of the StarTrek universe and learning Klingon. It's like arguing over whether Santa come down the chimney head first or feet first.

Well shit. I guess a whole lot of Muslim theologians will be needing new jobs, now that the proper interpretation of the Koran has been declared crystal-clear.

That's after somebody passes this news along to...

--the 32 different theological schools (at least) of Sunni Islam
--the 5 or 6 different schools of Shi'a Islam
--all the Off-Brand Islamic sects like the Sufis, Alawites etc. who have their own special interpretations.

And that's not even counting the minefield of the hadiths. Depending on your Islamic belief, the hadiths are...

--as valid under Sharia law as the Koran, and to be strictly obeyed unless they conflict with the Koran. And how TF could THAT happen, since the Koran is so clear and all? There shouldn't be any conflicts.
--heretical, since the Koran is complete and needs nothing added to it
--some hadiths are OK but others are heretical

"No True Scotsman. The end."