Bruce In Bangkok wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:35:29 -0800, Stephen Trapani
[...]
The Christians? Well, maybe start a new sect?
The Christians have no monopoly on sects. The Shia and Sunnis are both
Muslims and kill each other over their differences about what the Koran
says. Moderate Muslims also live in free societies without clashing with
the laws like extremists do. I'm not sure what you're not getting here.

True, but they are all Moslems when it comes time to dealing with the
Infidel. The Shia and Sunnis are divided by who legally inherited
Muhammad's authority not by interpretations of the Koran. Cultural
differences also interact here as the main Sunni grouping is Saudi
Arabian while the Shias are stronger in the old Persian areas. Iraq
is, of course a mixture with the resulting havoc. and of course there
are a number of sub groupings like Wahabis, et al. But he fact remains
that they all believe the Book.

That's the beauty of it. Once they accept the principle that the book
contains some metaphor, it's all the true word of God, but you can still
make it say just about anything you want because God isn't crystal clear
about everything. It's mysterious, don't ya know. *All* denominations do it.

Personally I believe people gravitate toward what they want to believe.
There are so many different denominations and religions conveniently
designed for any and all psychological weaknesses that finding one that
fits ones own is usually easy. The extremist murderers have murder in
them already and find a religion that encourages it.

So the solution is as I said at the beginning of this discussion, and
exactly as Israel, the US and all true democractic societies have done,
put rationality in charge of the country as best you can and make
religion conform to rationality. This is *exactly* why supporting
Israel is so important. We have to fight for this important advancement
in humanity everywhere we find it. If we don't we will lose it.

Incidentally, rationality will eventually destroy religion entirely,
given enough time, because of course, no religion really makes sense.

As far as Moslems living among the infidel without clashing with the
law see the recent Dutch legislation emphasizing that Moslems must
obey Dutch laws; the Moslem youth burning cars in France; the Moslem
youths bombing subways in England. I suggest that it isn't a marriage
made in Heaven.

These are still the extremists among them. There are millions of
"moderate" Muslims living in the US and other democractic countries that
never create a stitch of conflict.

Stephen