[browardchad]

It's the lack of exigesis, or evolution, of Islam that makes these passages you speak of so dangerous. For centuries, Islamic scholars who sought to bring the religion into the modern era, by putting the Koran into an historical context -- and thus debunk its absolute orthodoxy -- have been persecuted and banished from Islamic society, since they were a threat to the abolute power of the Mullahs. Rather than editing the Koran, it needs scholarly and open interpretation for what it is: the work of "holy" men over a period of time, and not something to be taken verbatim as written by the hand of God, and thus not open to interpretation by mere mortals.

The same slavish devotion applies to the Sharia, or teachings, that accompany the Koran, and not least to the Mullahs who perpetuate this "surrender" of the mind to a totalitarian religion by teaching followers that they can make no moral or religious decision, however insignificant, on their own.

[Post Toasties]

Regardless. I'm simply not of a mind, period, to dally for an indeterminate, but certainly very long, period while naively hoping Islam gains the maturity it has stubbornly resisted for 14 centuries.

My point is that, without violating any commonly accepted religious tenets, we can strip Islam of its hate speech and incitements to violence. Many of us are quite comfortable with interfering more than that to Christianity, as I've pointed out. Therefore,I see no good reason not to excise this, as you point out, dangerous cancer from Islam in the US and other countries.

[Post Toasties]

Rather than editing the Koran, it needs scholarly and open interpretation for what it is: the work of "holy" men over a period of time, and not something to be taken verbatim as written by the hand of God, and thus not open to interpretation by mere mortals.

There's simply no viable candidates for this approach; therefore it's not any sort of real world solution to the problem.

[Post Toasties]

Another thing. What I'm proposing is to bring Quran and other Islamic texts in line with the Bible wrt the rights of nonbelievers. Until we accomplish that, Islam will always be behind the religious curve regardless of how many millennia we wait, and stripping the evilness from the Quran is a process that can be started tomorrow, if we gave a damn.