I think that it is very easy to judge Islam. Take a look at the countries where Islam is in the majority!! There is no peace there. Repressive goverments must suppress the religion and keep it from governing (Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria..)or it governs with repression of the people and the brutality of the Dark Ages (Afghanistan, Iran, Saudia Ariabia etc...). It is our duty to learn and keep evil far from us.
I agree with every word you said. And I absolutely love the conclusion you reached: it is our duty to learn and keep evil far from us. Indeed, we refused to look this evel in the eye as it was staring at us for a few decades, and in September paid dearly with the blood of our fellow Americans.
The point I was making in previous posts is what you said, too: "the brutality of the Dark Ages." Our Dark Ages. These countries a simply behind us in separating religiousity from nation-making. As a result, they are as brutal, theocratic, and authoritarian as we were long ago.
Observe that our own brutality and lack of democracy in the Dark Ages did not follow from the Bible. It would have been wrong to say even then that Christians are brutal, although some of them were. It woudl be wrong to say that Christians are inherently authoritarian, although all of them were.
(I said that all Christians countries were rather authoritarian because, ironically, it was the pagan Germanic tribes that brought the democratic idea of representation into the Western World. This idea took root in England, resulted several centuries later in Magna Carta of 1215, English Parliment of 1265, and blossomed fully here in America. As you can see, teh way from darkness to light was long and had nothing to do with religion: it started with the pagan Germanic peoples.)
So, just as it would have been wrong to claim that Christians are inherently brutal and their brutality stems from the Bible, it is wrong to say that Muslims are inherently brutal and this trait stems from Koran.
Instead, we observe that brutality is a way of life in the part of the world that is also largely Muslim. We should not forget (and almost all posts ion this board do) that Turkey is a Muslim country but has a tradition of democracy going back to 1920s. This is not little: Christian Russia thus far had just a few yeuars of democracy in all of its history. The Arab Muslim world is, however, still in the Dark Ages. We have been attacked by the Arab Islamic clerics and their bandits, and we should deal with them without mercy. We've got to protect our children, families, and each other.
I am just against attributing savagery to holy books, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.