Evil Muslim conspiracy...

Dr Adequate, the passage is an open-ended command to return violence and continue violence until there is no more of it and they convert to Islam. The history of it does not matter, because Muslims are obliged to obey the Koran, and they see the passage as a command to all Muslims, not just to the Muslims who lived at the time of the writing. That is the pattern throughout the Koran. It is not like many of the commands to violence in the Christian Old Testament, where they are merely accounts of God commanding war, which don't have much relevance to a reader.What this passage means is that a Muslim merely has to perceive a threat from the Christians. It can be a myth that churches are stockpiling weapons for a war against Muslims. Such accusations have been made. There was another allegation that a Coptic priests wife wanted to convert to Islam and she was kidnapped for it. Guardian.co.uk. If such allegations are true, then every Muslim who follows the Koran must fight against Christians until they surrender and convert to Islam. If such allegations are false, then it hardly makes a difference to those who believe them. Either way, it is a command to overreact in violence.So, when you say it has nothing to do with the Copts, that doesn't matter. What matters is that it has everything to do with the people who assault and kill the Copts.Edited by ApostateAbe, : Islam, not ChristianityEdited by ApostateAbe, : left out a word

jar, what matters most is what is going through the heads of people who believe the Koran. The whole of it was written at an entirely different time and circumstance. Does that make the whole of it irrelevant? I would hope so, but... when the Koran makes commands to violence directly to the reader, then there are going to be problems for anyone obliged by their religion to believe it. I love it that you discriminate which parts of the Koran you should follow, regardless of your reasons, ad hoc or not. I think all Muslims should do that. The unfortunate thing is not all Muslims do that. And, the tragedy is that it is not all about power, land and wealth. The religion of Islam feeds very strongly into it. When you pour gasoline on a campfire, then the conflagration isn't all about the firewood.Would you seriously believe that Sura 8 verse 39 does not help to feed into the violence of Muslims against Christians? I ask because that is my explanation for why a Coptic Christian wearing a neck brace was asked to spit on a cross and convert to Islam. I would like to know your explanation for what motivates such actions.

Yes, but it's not a command about all non-Muslims. As can be seen by the fact that Muhammad did not in fact wage war against the Christians in Arabia until they all died or converted. Yes, we all remember that war the Muslims started recently over the mythical stockpiling of mythical weapons ... oh, wait, that was someone else.Yes, if people believe that they have the right to self-defense, then they will defend themselves against threats that they only imagine to exist. There's nothing particularly Islamic about this, is there? Not unless Bush is one of those "stealth Muslims" we hear so much about nowadays.

It would seem that fundamentalist Muslims misread the Koran the same way fundamentalist Christians misread the Bible.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Dr Adequate, when most of us hear of possible threats to our lives from people of a different religion, there are a number of things we can do.1) Call the police and have them investigate.
2) Stay in hiding.
3) Carry a gun.
4) Hire security guards.
5) Get protection from a gang of neighbors.
6) Flee the area.
7) Fight them until they are no longer a violent threat and they convert to your religion.According to Sura 8 verse 39, there is only one thing you must do. It is only one of those seven options. Do you see how that may be a problem? Even if you can draw an analogy to Bush?Edited by ApostateAbe, : misspelling

There's nothing there that says you must start a holy war in circumstances in which it would be more reasonable to call the police, and in fact you will note that Muslims do not do so.Muhammad was in a particular situation. The conservative polytheists were trying to wipe out Islam with the sword. Phoning the police wasn't an option. Nor was fleeing the area and hiding --- he was doing that already.Note also that this is an ultimatum --- he's warning the polytheists what they will do if they can't manage peaceful co-existence, which is what he evidently wanted. And this after the heigra and after hostilities had been ongoing for some time. It's not a first response, it's a threat of a last resort.

Dr Adequate, it is great that you can read between the lines and you have knowledge of historical context that puts it into the correct context. It is great that you can exclude the commands to excess that may seem to exist within the Koran. That is wonderful. But, the issue is whether or not such passages in the Koran help to explain the violence. I don't want to convince you of what the Koran actually says or intends to say. I am making my case for why Islam is not, in practice, a religion of peace.

Oh, but it is all about power, land and wealth.Yes, it is possible to quote mine the Qur'an just as it is possible to quote mine the Bible.Yes many if not most Muslims are as ignorant of the actual history of their religion as most Christians.But the problem is NOT Islam or Christianity, it is the ignorance of the people that allows the leaders to use quote mined passages.If that actually happened, and I have real doubts that it did, then I would say the explanation is really simple.It is ignorance.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

You seemed to be try to make a case for why, in theory, it shouldn't be a religion of peace. In practice, some Muslims blow people up, but most of them don't; and the Muslims protecting the Copts are sweet, and the Muslims who they're protecting them from aren't.

Oh you have pictures. Whoopee. Ever see pictures from a teabagger rally?I am too ashamed as an American to look for them and post them.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"Teabagger" is a very insulting sexual reference when applied to members of the Tea Party.And don't bother looking for pictures. A lot of the disgusting signs at those rallies were brought by leftist infiltrators trying to discredit the Tea Party movement.But why does an opposition movement designed to counter the left's ideas bother you so much? Don't like the competition for ideas? Don't like the competition? You guys thought you had the protest field all to yourselves?Reply in a new thread, as this is off-topic here.

Because if you disagree with the left, then there's something wrong with your brain!Oh wait, I see there that you already knew that

Can you point out this Tea Party? What is their organization? Who is their head?
The Tea Party is nothing more than right wing organized and funded astroturf. There is nothing grassroots about it. You might want to look up the Koch Brothers Any evidence for this assertion? I ever say I have a problem with the Tea Party as an idea? I don't think so. They are very welcome to press for and protest for their ideals. They can protest all they want and here is a surprise I can say what I want to about them to. You see that is how it works. The Tea party as it is is dominated by those that espouse hate. Do you really want me to bring up all the statements of hate by some of their so called "leaders". Lets start with Mark Williams.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Dr Adequate, yeah, all kinds of things go on in practice. The issue on the table is not whether or not there are some Muslims who are violent and some who are not. On that point, we all agree. The issue is whether the religion of Islam contributes to violent tendencies among Muslims. My conclusion is that the religion of Islam causes significantly more violence than if it were replaced by a more peaceful religion (such as Christianity or Buddhism). My argument is that the commands to violence in the Koran, like Sura 9:39, are a direct causal link to the violence of Muslims against Christians. If you have a different interpretation, then it hardly matters, unless you can show your interpretation is obvious enough to almost all Muslim readers that the passage does not contribute to violence. It won't be easy, I figure, because the interpretation gained from the plainest reading of the text (favorable to jaded Islamists) very much seems to command violence of the Muslim reader with a few conditions, and your interpretation requires historical knowledge that is not plainly on the face of the text. If the issue were about the best interpretation from a scholarly point of view, then you may have the upper hand. But, the issue is about what Islam causes among the masses.

Name the Muslim Nation that invaded a Christian Nation?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!