[Priorities]

I think that they are correct, Islam is compatible with freedom, it is the tribalism of certain Arab sects that is not compatible.

[gandalftb]

Keep going, you're right about the tribalism. All middle eastern ID documents list the tribal affiliation. How would tribalism work in a voting democracy? Would there be similarities to the bundling of union voting here? How will the tribal sheiks hold onto power? Will they also be voted on?

[GoLightly]

About 80% of Moslems are not Arabs.

[nuconvert]

Agree - that's a major obstacle.

[watchin]

History and the qu'ran are against your opinion. On what do you base it?

[expatguy]

I think that they are correct, Islam is compatible with freedom, it is the tribalism of certain Arab sects that is not compatible.

With all due respect, I disagree with this. Islam is not compatible with neither freedom nor democracy.

The Quran itself instructs the followers to Islam to judge unlike Christianity who's prophet tells us 'not to judge lest we be judged'. The Quran is many things including a war manual that explains how infidels are to be dealt with.

Every Muslim on the planet will tell you that Islam is not only a religion, but rather a 'way of life'. The Quran is the manual on how to live that life. Everything is adressed on every aspect of one's life.

Unlike the bible, Muslims beleive that the Quran is the word of Allah. It is this one thing that many Westerners tend to overlook when making an assessment of Islam.

Imagine if you will that Christianity had instead of 10 commandments direct from God but rather 10,000 commandments that addressed each and every aspect of your life.

[broadsword]

I think that they are correct, Islam is compatible with freedom, it is the tribalism of certain Arab sects that is not compatible.

Then explain why non-Arab muslims are killing folks all over the world and why nearly every major conflict at present is because of Islam trying to take over and subjugate everyone else to Islamic law.

[Valin]

I think that they are correct, Islam is compatible with freedom

Better be careful. The nuke Mecca crowd will not be happy.

[Huntingtonian]

I believe the relationship between religion and democracy to be somewhat paradoxical:

1) Religious fundamentalism of any stripe is incompatible with democracy be it Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc since the respect for difference and debate needed for democracy to function is incompatible with a fundamentalist belief in inalterable truth.

2) Purely secular democracy is equally impossible because pure democracy devolves into rule of the masses, lowest-common denominator morality, and nihilism.

We can only hope there are 'moderate' Muslims and should be equally concerned about fundamentalist Christians here in the USA.

[wtc911]

"....it is the tribalism of certain Arab sects that is not compatible."

Then please explain the islam inspired conflicts in Indonesia, Thailand, India (Kashmir), Malayasia, China, Nigeria, etc...

islam is at the core of all these, nothing arab about any of them.