[Sloth]

To transpose the commands of God for ancient Israel into the present is to completely rip them out of historical context.

That is exactly correct. To use such passages to paint Christians (or Jews) as violent or terroristic is a complete misapplication of them. But why am I not seeing any desire to treat the Koran similarly? Why is context relevant in interpreting the Bible but not in the Koran? It's meaningless to pick out individual verses and try to build a case on them if no attempt is made to show that they are representative of the overall theme. If we Christians do not want people to twist or abuse the Bible, we should reciprocate by being honest in our approach to others' beliefs.

[Diamond]

So then we would agree that context determines meaning, and that a text without a context is a pretext. I would only say that it is present day Islamists themselves that interpret such passages of the Koran as their instruction manual. There are probably hundreds of thousand, if not millions of Moslems who interpret such passages strictly and very literally. So why is context relevant in interpreting the Bible but not in the Koran? Ask the violent Islamist that question. (But stay far enough away from him when you ask that he cannot kidnap or kill you.)

Cordially,

[a_witness]

we should reciprocate by being honest in our approach to others' beliefs.

Precisely, now why do Islamic states support terrorism ? Is the Islam they preach and practice a cause or simply a contributing factor ?