Comment Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... (Score 1) 319
Actually, an indictment of all fundamentalist religions isn't unreasonable. Anybody who believes that their religious belief gives them the right to control your actions is not sanely civilized.
It is unfortunate, but to believe that this applies to a greater percentage of Muslims than of other religions is not unreasonable. The Koran is much more explicit that followers of their prophet must enforce the belief upon others than is any other scripture that I am aware of. Therefore people who take it seriously will seriously believe that they have the right to enforce actions upon others. Most things in the Old Testament can be worked around. The New Testament doesn't really say anything that directly claims that one has the right to coerce someone else to behave as claimes. Hindu writing are contradictory, speaking for several different dieties, only some of whom believe that one has the duty (or that some people have the duty, it's not clear that, e.g., anyone besides Arjuna as the duty to kill all their cousins) to control the actions of others. And nothing in the original writings of the Buddha even seem to imply such a duty. Now there may be other religions with those values, but I don't know of them.
OTOH, many Muslims are quite willing to give a mystical or metaphorical interpretation to those sections that are most repellent to me. (Personally, I don't understand how they can justify both beliving in the Koran and allowing people who know of the Koran to live without obeying is, but I'm quite happy that they are able to do so.) OTOH, I can't read Arabic, and I've only read one translation. Perhaps if I studied it more this would make sense.
Still, to me it seems that the Muslim religion is unique in requiring that everyone be coerced into following its teachings. Some other religions promise eternal damnation if you don't, but that's not the same thing as requiring change right now.