[Skybird]

I know that Islam is much more than raw violence and oppression of women, but it is now such that it is these monstrosities that dominate Islam.

"Now"...? When has it ever been different froim Muhammad's days on?

Why should a few grotesque violence men sully an otherwise fine and meaningful religion with intolerance and terrorism?

Ehem, just a guess - maybe becasue it is the will of God that thy do so, his revelation to be read in the Quran - could that be, maybe...?

And when considering the massive racism present in Quran as well as in all Islamic history, the antisemitism that is rooting so deep in islam that you would reach the centre of the Earth if you follow it to the very tip of it, when you think of the barbaric suppression of women and the denial of basic rights for them that gets also accused, and demanded, by scripture, the explicit descriptions of discriminating infidels to make them feel suffering and experiencing inferiority due to their resistence to Allah, then I wonder what could be meant by "an otherwise fine and meaningful religion".

No , Mr Khader, by the posted excerpts I do not buy what you have to say in them. Cannot say whether you are just deceiving us and yourself over the dark and inhumane nature of Islam, or whether you indeed defend the values that you maybe imply in your vision as hinted at in these quotes and that then would qualify you as something more valuable indeed than just a blind barbar. But then I would ask you to have the graciousness and admit that the vision that you may have on mind is valuable maybe indeed - but has nothing to do with the message of Islam. Have the greatness, therefore, and leave your loyalty to this darkness that Islam is behind. To put it in Pat Condell's words: "there is too much at stake to be polite anymore, and there is too much at stake to be afraid anymore." And as long as Muslims stick to their perceived superiority as earning them the right for special status, and as long as they insist on the Quran being the perfect and infallible word of God, any declaration of how Islam could be reformed and how beautiful it really could be if only the dark and shabby bits in it would not spoil the impression so fundamentally, are just hot air and narcissistic babbling lacking any real substance.

Not directed against you, mapuc, I have heard such talking like quoted by you just some times too often now as if I would easily believe in it anymore. There is a reason why not any attempted reformist but conservative Islam is spreading in the world currently. The four gospels obviously are not the word of God, but man's attempt to describe the biography of claimed God'S son - that opened the option to put up questions on interpretation, and asking for validity, and in general: reflect about it. The Quran is not seen by Muslims as man'S work, but the original revelation of God's word, not man's description of it, but the original word by God himself. That is what puts it beyond reforms by humans. We know for sure that historically the Quran of course is man-made, and that many different versions of it existed in the early three centuries - but for Muslims, this is invalid and also uninteresting, for as a believer you must not know, but can simply chose to believe different. It's all heavenly magic, you know.