<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jul 23, 2010, at 5:54 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">These things are only problems in the eyes of fundamentalists.</blockquote><div><br></div>And in Islam fundamentalists are the only ones that matter. I don't understand why some people feel it is their moral duty to make excuses for thugs. <br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"> There are reform/protestant Islamic groups </blockquote><div><br></div>If so they are being extraordinarily quiet, they don't demonstrate, they don't speak, and they don't write, or if they do they must live their lives in hiding even if they live in a western country. <br><br><blockquote type="cite">there are reprehensible passages in every bible. </blockquote><div><br></div><div>True, but most christians and jews have the good sense to ignore the more repulsively ugly parts of their holy book. Even most fundamentalist christians, although they say and I think really do believe every word in the Bible, don't really believe every word in the bible, like the parts about stoning or that say you should kill your children if they disobey. This is a rare example where doublethink is a good thing. </div><div><br></div><div>Both species of fundamentalists take it as an axiom that every word of their respective holy books are 100% true, therefore I conclude that the Islamic variety is the more logical of the two; the Islamic fundamentalist not only believes every word is good and is divinely inspired but they are prepared to act on it, every part of it, including the hideously cruel and medieval parts. Especially those parts actually. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite">If you want to blanket all followers of a religion</blockquote><div><br></div><div>And I do pretty much.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"> by the specifics of their texts</blockquote><div><br></div><div>But not for that reason. I don't care what's in their book, I don't even much care what they believe, I care what these gangsters do; and I fear in that comparison I may have just maligned the Mafia. </div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>