Just to beat my head against a wall one more time, yes, bigotry against Islam is racism.

[Shoulders of Giants]

125. The Koran is supposed to be the word of God.

Sorry but saying that the violent verses in the Koran (nevermind the terrible anti women stuff in the Koran see here http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/women/long.html ) just applied to the times doesn't fly with me. The Koran is supposed to be the word of God, and therefore, Allah is advocating violence, even if only for a short period of time. He is also advocating sexism against women. That means he is at best, a reformed violent deity (but not a reformed sexist deity because those verses have never been rescinded). This is similar to the arguments in the OT, that God only meant the Jews at the time to engage in those barbaric acts during that time period. Well, its still wrong that God requested these in the first place, and therefore God isn't pure and perfect, if he existed. Its like people want to give God perfect morality, but then make his morality relevant to the times. All the Abrahamic faiths commit this fallacy. This is having your cake and eating it too. By not being religious, I don't have to worry about this problem.


If you have a problem with the phrase infidel, make it "disbeliever" then, which the Koran makes sure to let know will have "doom" multiple times. It doesn't make a difference. Neither terms are accurate anyways, because neither or the original Arabic.

I know you are trying to bring context in to matter, but I don't have to worry about that, because I don't live my life worrying about what centuries old imaginary deities think (I include the God of the Bible in this list as well, so I'm not singling out Muslims). In general modern morality is superior to holy books.

And for the record, even in the context you posted, it still says to convert non Muslims to Islam "And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God". Other translations of the book though are more clear in saying to forcibly convert non Muslims to Islam. This is wrong, even if in the context is says to stop after "hostilities are over." This essentially makes war religious war, which most modern societies should try to move away from. To be fair, most religions have something similar, and this is why I'm not into religion.




For the record, I didn't support the Iraq War, I support leaving Afghanistan, and I support drastically reducing the military. Its possible to have these opinions, and not think military force is the answer. I think secularism and education are the answers. And I agree that we have oppressed Muslim societies. But that doesn't make the religion good. I've read the entire Koran before, and I will admit you can probably quote it better than I can. However, I remember it being a never ending barrage of threats of hell for the disbelievers, intolerance towards women and gay people, and occasional calls to violence. You can cherry pick out the good parts, but you can't deny that stuff isn't in it. To be fair, its in the Bible as well, which is why I'm not a Christian.


I'd also like to point out I became an atheist at age 12. I started my religious criticism by criticizing my former religion, Christianity. I didn't even learn the basic points of Islam until much older. It wasn't until I read the Koran, and found out what was really in it, (And also learned about the Prophet Mohammad) that I started my dislike of Islam. And I can dislike the religion without hating the people, or supporting the oppressive policies against the people. I don't support the oppressive policies keeping people in poverty in the American South (even if they vote for these policies against their own interests) for example, despite the huge amount of fundamentalism there. But that doesn't mean I like the religion of Christianity though.