Seriously, for all those who think that fundamentalists have the only true interpretation of their holy scriptures, think again. They are picking and choosing which parts to apply to their lives just as much as your “moderates”. When did you last meet a Protestant fundamentalist who had sold all his possessions and had a joint bank account with all the other members of his/her church? Those are pretty clear commands in the New Testament. So please, no more of this tired old chestnut, “at least the fundamentalists follow their holy book.”

Every decoding (of any text) is another encoding.

My statement stands true. He is not a true Muslim, he disregards the extreme teachings of the koran, just as moderate christians disregard the extreme teachings of the bible. They cherry pick the good they find and disregard the bad. True followers of either faith who do exactly as their books tell them, thus the word of god, are violent and intolerant. He’s just a religious guy who uses a little bit of reason to ignore the violent commands from Mohammed.

Again, why do you CARE? you should be glad. once they start to cherry pick and disregard some parts, it gets easier to eventually realize it can’t be anymore than a human book. that’s what happened to me and several people I know. would you rather they all took their books totally literally? I sure don’t I think I would. If it’s between cherry pickers and literalists I’ll take the cherry pickers thank you very much.

Argument by assertion.

just as moderate christians disregard the extreme teachings of the bible. They cherry pick the good they find and disregard the bad.

So I guess that rules out most Catholics and most mainline Protestants–in short, any Christian church that does not adopt a strict literalist interpretation of the Bible is, by your definition, not Christian.

Now all you have to do is tell me why I should accept your definition of what constitutes a TrueChristian(TM) or a TrueMuslim(TM) as authoritative.

That should read: doesn’t sound like a true Scotsman.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2072587.ece

It concludes:

I disagree with those who say the pressing problem is simply how do we deal with an aberrant, extreme minority who have unleashed a reign of terror on Britain — rather, I believe the heart of the matter is Islam itself and how its teachings are interpreted. If we isolate the problem to that of the extreme fringe, then we are merely skimming the surface.

What we Muslims need to do is go back to our books: we need to debate the teachings that are used to radicalise young men and legitimise the killing of innocent people. We need to discuss and refashion the set of rules that govern how Muslims — whose homes and souls are firmly planted in the West — live alongside non-Muslims. Only when we do this can we successfully dissect the radicals’ interpretation of Islam and fight back against terrorism.

We can no longer turn a blind eye to the driving force behind terror attacks both at home and abroad. It should not matter how painful or embarrassing this admission may be, and nor should it matter how taboo this subject is.

I was in London a couple of weeks ago when the failed car bombs were discovered and I saw a few headlines in the paper that said Muslims were speaking out against the terrorists and Islamist extremists. I didn’t get to read the whole stories because I was looking at the paper over other people’s shoulders on the tube. Does anyone know anything about this?

There was definitely an outcry from moderate Muslims in Britain and here in the U.S. condemning that attack, more so than I’ve seen before. Which may mean that the response simply got more publicity this time around. I believe I also read a statement of condemnation released by a U.S. Muslim physicians or health care association.

Re Ellison: Some political adviser needs to put out a blanket warning to everyone in the public eye never to reference, analogize, mention or compare ANYTHING to the Holocaust, Hitler, the Third Reich, etc.

It seems like that entire topic has become so incredibly sensitive in the past decade or so that even bringing it up – in any context – is akin to stepping into a sh*t pile five feet deep. And once the reference is out, it gets twisted, misunderstood and repeated ad infinitum until it’s outraged anybody who hears it. Eventually, the person who made the statement has to apologize – not because they originally said anything offensive, but because some people, somewhere, were offended anyway.