Regarding your Post #9. You misstate the issue. Yes, men by nature are evil, and evil acts have been committed throughout history (at least since the Fall in the Garden). And, yes, it is true that men have committed heinous acts in the 'name of - fill in the blank -'.
But in the case of those that have committed evil in the 'name of Christianity' -- they clearly did so without Biblical support (unless you happened to be one of those heathen Canaanites back in 1400 BC). As one illustration on how to confront unbelievers, I'd ask you to remember Jesus' words to His followers:
52 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.
53 And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.
The distinction between Islam and Christianity is that one Holy Book instructs its believers to lead a Holy life whereas the other book instructs its believers to kill the infidel.
And therein lies the inescapable problem.
Say it, and say it again when people compare Christianity's
'dark past' with Islam past and present.
The DIFFERENCE is the evil Christians did/do is AGAINST the teachings of their religion. It is a SIN.
The evil Muslims do isn't evil to their 'religion', it's sanctioned and encouraged. It's GOOD to kill all non Muslims.
You DISobey on religion to do evil.
You OBEY another to do it.
Islam is, from it's birth, a cult of death murder and terror and the only way to change that is to REVISE the Koran. But that cannot happen, because every word is HOLY LAW. Including the commands to kill and destroy.
Few want to deal with that ugly fact.
I think we're in agreement about the basic problem, Islam is in need of a dominant, moderating interpretation of the Koran. If, as the article suggests, the more recent, violent passages from the Koran are the tool of Islamists, then the rest of Islam needs to push for a different reading of the book. It's their book, and that's not going to change in the near term. It would be better if they read it back-to-front, rather than how we read the Bible front-to-back. Abrogation is a problem that might be addressed, converting them in the next 20 years is not.
Much of the anti-semitic pogroms and discrimination over the centuries by Christians exploited only a verses from the New Testament. The actors claimed Biblical support for their actions. Islam's current state of affairs is easily reached in troubled lands where relegion is used as a tool to manipulate the masses. It doesn't take much to awaken the evil within men.