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You do of course understand that not all Muslims are intolerant, and that indeed not all Arabs are Muslims. Right?

Name one (that isn't practicing taqiya) when he preaches tolerance. Any religion that has lying as a core belief is not to be trusted.

For more information read Understanding Dishonesty and Deceit in Islam.

That's interesting. The Jews expected that, and Satan (or was that really Judas?) tempted Jesus to do just that. My brother quoted an esoteric scripture stating that if Jesus rejected being a political leader, people would turn against him. Which is sortof what happened.

All speculation of course, but just wonder if he had accepted that challenge...? Would have been an extremely interesting twist of history. Jesus (IMO) had the compassion to become a great leader, had he bothered to get his hands dirty. Then perhaps there'd be no opening for Mohammad to set his bloody precedents, either.

OK, that was pretty hypothetical :)

There is not a single verse in the Qur'an that prohibits making or having pictures of Muhammad or people or animals or trees.

[...]

However, the vast majority of Muslims are Sunni Muslims, who regard six authorized collections of hadiths as the highest written authority in Islam after the Qur'an. The hadiths are records, often very detailed, of what Muhammad taught and did. [...]

Where multiple trustworthy hadiths agree, Sunni Muslims will take this as binding. [...]

Pictures of Muhammad are "not exactly" forbidden in the hadiths either. The hadiths do not single out Muhammad's picture. Rather, in the hadith we find the prohibition of all pictures of people or animals [...]

I sure won't have to look hard to find another faith that condones genocide (verses 10-12) repeatedly (15.2, 15.3), or moving into modern times (as opposed to holy doctrine) bombing clinics and gay bars...

I think that the Religious Reich has a lot to answer for, but when you compare attitudes among evangelicals in America with regard to what they regard as blasphemy to those among Dutch-born Muslims regarding Theo van Gogh, you cannot honestly say that the latter are even remotely as tolerant and fit for membership in a pluralist society. As van Gogh found out, that mistake can be fatal.

... and murdering non-believers.

Say what you will; no Christian society has been that bad for at least a century. As an atheist I would much rather live in the increasingly intolerant USA than in any Muslim country.

My initial aim was to show the differences and fundamental distinctions between the Bible and the Koran. I hope I succeed in this.

Yes, different Muslim sects have different characteristics. The Sufis place an emphasis on mysticism and are relatively liberal compared to the Wahabis and other mainstream Muslim sects that place emphasis on literal enforcement of the Koran and the Hadith.

As you pointed out, this leaves us with the question of whether the Wahabis and their ilk are as wrong, as say, the Roman Catholic church was found to be in the enlightenment.

To answer this, I'll just point you to the fact the Koran encourages war and killing under certain circumstances. The New Covenant, which Christians are bound to, has no such encouragement - rather the encouragement is to "turn the other cheek". For instance, Paul and the persecuted Christians could have aimed to form a guerilla army to oppose Roman and Jewish persecution, but didn't - they decided to suffer persecution and left it to God to pay the persecutors back.

Mohammed on the other hand had no qualms about spreading Islam by the sword. Unlike the New Testament which is only concerned with spiritual matters and not with temporal power, the Koran and Hadith require the setup of an Islamic states with Islamic laws.

To see the fruits of this belief, consider that there are today no Jews in the Arabian peninsula. They were "cleansed" in Mohammads era. As this source reports, this violence is held as a sign of machismo in modern Muslim belief - here a modern Indonesian Islamic terrorist on trial taunts Jews about this historical battle from Mohammed's era.

This is responsible for outrages in this day and age like:
-- terrorist murders and bombings (like the Indonesian one above)
-- suicide bombings
-- murders and the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Hindu Pandits from Kashmir valley
(which used to be a stronghold of Sufism)
-- 9/11
-- Beslan
-- decapitation of aid workers and other non-combatants in Iraq

Let me leave you with these quotes from the Koran sourced from here. I'm sorry, I do not have a copy of the Koran easily available now, so I cannot verify them readily. However, they tie in with what we discussed this far.


Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme." (Koran 8:37)

The Koran instructs not to make friendship with Jews and Christians (Koran 5:51) but to war against them: "When the Sacred Months are over, kill those who ascribe partners to God wheresoever ye find them; seize them, encompass them, and ambush them; then if they repent and observe prayer and pay the alms, let them go their way (Koran 4:5). "Fight against those who believe not in God nor in the Last Day, who... refuse allegiance to the True Faith from among those who have received the Book, until they humbly pay tribute out of hand." (Koran 9:29) Note: These verses distinguish between warfare against pagans, and against Jews and Christians.

"...kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (Koran 2:191); "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (Koran 9:5); "murder them and treat them harshly" (Koran 9:123).

"Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (Koran 69:30-37)

"Strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (Koran 47:4).

"Instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers"; "smite above their nec

Thanks for the correction, it's the Hadith (sayings and teaching of Mohammed), and not the Koran, that seem to mention stoning. However, both comprise Islamic law.

For adultery, the Koran says:
Chapter 24 of Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, explicitly instructs believers to whip those found guilty of adultery.
quoting from here

As for apostacy, here's quoting from Answering Islam website

A. The Proof from the Qur'an for the Commandment to Execute the Apostate

Here I wish briefly to offer proof that will quiet the doubt in the hearts of those who, for lack of sources of information, may think that perhaps the punishment of death did not exist in Islam but was added at a later time by the "mawlawis" (religious leaders) on their own.

God Most High declares in the Qur'an:

But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion. We detail our revelations for a people who have knowledge. And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief -- Lo! they have no binding oaths in order that they may desist. (9:11,12)[1]

The following is the occasion for the revelation of this verse: During the pilgrimage (hajj) in A.H. 9 God Most High ordered a proclamation of an immunity. By virtue of this proclamation all those who, up to that time, were fighting against God and His Apostle and were attempting to obstruct the way of God's religion through all kinds of excesses and false covenants, were granted from that time a maximum respite of four months. During this period they were to ponder their own situation. If they wanted to accept Islam, they could accept it and they would be forgiven. If they wanted to leave the country, they could leave. Within this fixed period nothing would hinder them from leaving. Thereafter those remaining, who would neither accept Islam nor leave the country, would be dealt with by the sword. In this connection it was said: "If they repent and uphold the practice of prayer and almsgiving, then they are your brothers in religion. If after this, however, they break their covenant, then war should be waged against the leaders of kufr (infidelity). Here "covenant breaking" in no way can be construed to mean "breaking of political covenants". Rather, the context clearly determines its meaning to be "confessing Islam and then renouncing it". Thereafter the meaning of "fight the heads of disbelief" (9:11,12) can only mean that war should be waged against the leaders instigating apostasy.[2]

B. Proof from the Hadith (Canonical Tradition) for the Commandment to Execute the Apostate

After the Qur'an we turn to the Hadith. This is the command of the Prophet:

1. Any person (i.e., Muslim) who has changed his religion, kill him.[3]

This tradition has been narrated by Abu Bakr, Uthman, Ali, Muadh ibn Jabal, Abu Musa Ashari, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Khalid ibn Walid and a number of other Companions, and is found in all the authentic Hadith collections.

It's not Sharon, but Lebanese "christian" militia who were arguably responsible for Sabra and Shatila arguable massacre. It's very typical: arabs kill other arabs and the jews are at fault.

Israeli court found him responcible for political reasons because of the bunch of leftist who run the Supreme Court of Israel. Sharon did not order killing innocent people in Sabra and Shatila, Israelis did not kill innocent people in Sabra and Shatila. period. Sharon did a lot of wrong and despicable things, but this is not one of them.

There were no such thing as Palestinian civil institutions. Judea and Samaria were annexed by Jordan before six-day war. So they probably were Jordanian civil institutions. BTW, Israel built a lot of social infrastructure for palestinian and israeli arabs, scools, universities, hospitals, etc.

Yes, funding Hamas was a bad idea. That days it looked ok (ala divide and conquer), but, unfortunately, it did not worked out. Probably modern Islam is a wrong religion to build peaceful society on.

There we no massacre in Jenin, it's a recent scam of leftists, see http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=33562 , even palestinians agree there were no massacre.

There were no massacre in Deir Yassin. Read wonderful book of Menachem Begin "The Revolt. The Story of the Irgun". Yes, he was leader of Irgun, not Stern's group.

Zionism is not colonial ideology. It's abound building Jewish country on jewish land. Zionists do not want to conquer say, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. They want their land, Land of Israel. On contrary, Islamism is a kind of colonial ideology. They want to expand rule of Islam all over the world, don't they? Read this article on subject http://answering-islam.org.uk/NonMuslims/rights.ht m

You are not in a position to state that Zionism contradicts Jewish theology, there is a big theological argument over Zionism. There are a lot of perfectly kosher observant Jews who are Zionists and support Israel (Kipot Srugot, CHABAD, etc).

hag sameakh!