Bill on the INDC Journal has a post comparing a post from LaShawn Barber and an article in the NRO from Jim Geraghty.
LaShawn Barber's post has 4 updates, and the INDC Journal's post has 32 comments at this point.
Read at least the posts, then come back here - I don't think I can summarize everything accurately.
There's a problem with the comparisons between the Bible and the Qur'an, and Islam and Christianity. The Bible contains the Old and New Testaments, and it is clear that the New takes precedence over the Old when there is a conflict. Which parts conflict is not clear, and can be interpreted differently by different sects and individuals. This is, as far as I can tell as an outsider, not the case with Islam. As far as I can tell, Islam, the religion itself, has goals that are inconsistent with my existence. There are individual Muslims who undoubtedly feel differently. However, they cannot publicly proclaim that the Qur'an is wrong in certain passages without opening themselves up to charges of apostasy and an at least theoretical death in some countries run under sharia.
As Bill says, Words matter. Distinctions matter. Little Green Footballs documents words coming from sources within Islam, that seem to be supported, not downgraded, by Muslims worldwide.
I want a world where Muslim kids don't play Jews and Arabs, in which the goal is to be an Arabic martyr, and which is then praised on Arabic TV. I want a world in which psychiatric residents from Arab nations don't tell me that there are no homosexuals in their home country. [yeah, just transexuals]. I want a world in which the Arab nations produce something besides a culture of death, and have something besides solid gold toilets for tyrants paid for through dollars for oil pumped with western technology.
I want a world in which we don't nuke Mecca in response to a crater in New York. I want a world without some idiot releasing a homegrown, weaponized version of rabies, smallpox, or the black plague.
Freeing 2 countries is a start, and has made other changes in the world. Where it will end, I don't know.
By the way, to change Bill's question: Just how many Muslims does Owlish know? Over the years I've known a fair number. None of them were evil. None of them were saints. They were just human, like the vast majority of the rest of us.
Update: see also One HAnd Clapping. [H/T: Mudville Gazette].
Posted by Owlish at June 6, 2005 10:36 PM