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“Perhaps the reluctance of Muslim clerics to promote Koranic translations stems from the general commands in the Koran… to impose Koranic religious law on their non-Muslim subjects.”

That sounds characteristic of Arab culture.

“Granted, the Jews were commanded to exterminate the Canaanites in a ruthless manner. However, this was a one time event and reflected God's judgement on a particularly wicked nation. The methods the Jews used to conquer the land God had promised to their forbear, Abraham, were basically the same as those the Angles and Saxons used in Britain, or the whites used in America. The Mosaic law also required the Jews to be just and fair to the foreigners who resided in their nation.”

I’m sure that a Muslim would view your rationalization much in the same way that you would view his. This is an excerpt from this month’s Soldier of Fortune. It is an interview with Aukai Collins. He was a mujahideen who fought in Chechnya and trained in Afghanistan:

“SOF: You have a good definition of jihad in the introduction to My Jihad. “To put it simply, when a Muslim land is being attacked and Muslims are being killed there is the need for jihad. In this case it becomes a duty for all able-bodied Muslims to come to the aid of the people being attacked. But even then jihad has many rules. It is forbidden to kill non-combatants…” According to this definition the 9/11 suicide bombers weren’t carrying out a legitimate act of jihad as it violates the basic tenets of Islamic jihad.

Collins: Oh 100% - There’s no way an Islamic scholar could begin to debate whether it’s correct or not, or permissible. Not only that, but none of these people – the WTC terrorist bombers – none of them were mujahideen. It’s a fact. None of them had any front-line experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, or Afghanistan, or anywhere else. So it’s disturbing how they’re making this connection between jihad and terrorism and mujahideen and terrorists. When, whatever these guys claim their affiliation was, the fact is they were not mujahideen. That speaks for itself right there. I would have serious problems with any mujahid who tried to conduct an operation like this.”

See my prior post for definition of jihad.

“That there are those, such as the Serbians (who, FWIW, are Eastern Orthodox and not Roman Catholic) who tortured and murdered in the name of the Christian faith, is shameful. But the Serbs, in their actions, defied the teachings of Scripture. The Bosnian and Albanian Muslims who inflicted similar death and misery on the Serbs were in conformance with the Koran's teachings.”

You do realize that people on the other side of the argument, who are of Islamic faith, will make the same exact argument that you made, but with the religions reversed, right? Furthermore, they will explain why their religion is the peaceful one, not yours. Why can’t people be content to worship their own religion, rather than demonizing the others?

With respect with my comments regarding the reluctance of Muslim clerics to promote the translation of the Koran into non-Arab languages, you state that it is "characteristic of Arab culture." Is secrecy a characteristic of the Arab culture that was essentially forged by Islam? How much this differs from the position of the Christian faith! "For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad." (Mark 4:22) Christians may talk of mysteries such as the Virgin Birth, but this is not the same as secrecy.

Then there is the issue of moral equivalency of Christianity or Judaism with Islam. You take issue with the Jewish conquest of the Holy Land and the extermination of the Canaanites. Yet this is a unique situation in Scripture; the Jews were not commanded to spread Judaism throughout the world, killing Egyptians, Babylonians, and whatever other infidels were in the way of Jewish world dominion. As for the Canaanites, they were an especially wicked people and the Jews were the instruments of God's justice. If the Bible is the infallible Word of God, then the extermination of the Canaanites was the act of a just God. Justice, in order to be just, is not always gentle.

If you reject the infallibility of Scripture, consider that the Soviets and the Allies imposed great cruelties on the Germans (the Red Army's orgy of murder, rape, and looting in eastern Germany) and the Japanese (U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima). Yet the Germans and the Japanese started World War II and were guilty of horrible atrocities. It is certainly possible that God may have even used the atheistic Soviets as the instruments of His wrath on Germany.

In any case, as I pointed out, the law code of Biblical Israel called for the fair treatment of foreigners within their nation. The Christian faith regards all those who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior as brothers. "But ye (Christians) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." (I Peter 2:9) But it is not an exclusive "nation," but one chosen of all peoples of this earth, to whom Christians are to witness by word and example.

Consider this: you will find mosques in New York, London, and Paris. You will not find churches in Tehran, Baghdad, and Riyadh. Members of all faiths are welcome at Vatican City; Muslims alone are allowed into Mecca and Medina.

Christianity and Islam are not morally equivalent, and to claim otherwise is to deny the theological and historical facts.