Islam: An intolerant, inconsistent fallacy, page 2

Some of you are painting with very broad strokes and are borderline bigots. You talk about Islam as if it is this homogenous unit, us vs. them. Islam is very diverse just as Christianity is and you have different sects and different perspectives. Unfortunately at least in most Arab countries, control has been seized by the most extreme, fundamentalist factions who could care less about the Koran and are simply using Islam as a political tool to oppress and control the people, the country (and most importantly the oil $$$). However, by talking about "them" you ignore many moderate Muslims in the U.S., Turkey and all around the world.

Also as someone else stated earlier, if you read the Koran (which I have), it is not much different than the Old Testament of the Bible. People usually pick out certain versus to support their idea that Islam is violent or barbaric but if you read the whole thing it is pretty clear that this is not the case. Islam as practiced is very oppressive to women, but that is a cultural thing more than a religious dogma. We must remember that it is only recently that the status of women in "the west" has been elevated and some christian churches still won't allow women to become preachers or pastors.

Yes terrorists are dispicable, yes the Islamic governments are opressive, and yes many Islamic people have bought into the extremeist rhetoric and are ignorant to the fact that their real enemy is not America but their own corrupt governments. But Islam the religion is not to blame as it is practiced peacefully by millions around the world, its just the extremist get all the attention. Christianity at different points has been used to justify horrible attrocities and institutions in (slavery, mass killings and persecution of so-called heretics, anti-semitism ect.). However the fact that the majority of American slaveholder were Christian does not refelect what Christianity is about, but rather the political and cultural landscape at that time. The same is true of Islam. All the problems mentioned in this thread do not reflect on the religion but rather on the political and cultural landscape that Islam is currently operating in.

This is my first post by the way . I am agnostic and like to look at all religions as objectively as possible, and see a lot more similiarities than differences especially in the big three (In theory, If not in practice).