Dear David,

<<Who else should we blame?>>

The ones who sell their political agendas as "religion".

What is of course needed is a project to deconstruct the Koran (the so-called "holy" book of Islam-ism) or subject it to the same kind of comprehensive critical scholarship that has been applied to the Bible (the so-called "holy" book of Christian-ism)over the past 100 years, especially in recent decades.
The website Deconstructing Koranology is a good place to start

"We should instead concentrate on demythologising Islam and all religions."

Yes, indeed, however we should also set some priorities, the demented followers of Islam are currently the main threat to liberal democracy.
Any argument with an Islamic propagandist over the meaning of verses in the Quran is a waste of time, except perhaps for theologians. Majority Muslim societies are misogynistic, violent, oppressive and authoritarian, who needs to read the Quran?
The truth that Muslim apologists will never admit when they're trying to schmooze the naive and ignorant Kuffars is that ISIS are in fact imitating their prophet's behaviour-they're true Muslims.

This author wrote a good article that not only includes Islam as having some followers who take their ancient religious book too seriously, but other religions as well.

"Unless and until we can start to consider the benefits of reason, rationality, and secularism, especially in relation to Islam, we will continue in a downward spiral of disharmony and conflict that will ultimately threaten civilisation itself."

One only needs to read about the 10 plagues of Egypt in the Bible that a Christian God violently used against the Egyptions for daring to upset god's 'chosen people' , to realise that all religions are similar.
Wasn't it this same God that supposedly drowned the whole human civilization on earth except for one boat load of humans and animals?
I doubt the Koran could beat that death toll?

We need to weed out the radical violent offenders of any race, culture or creed (or no creed at all) and ensure they don't secure any more followers of these crazy thoughts and violence.
I agree with the author that we may not be able to do that if this government drives them underground with the new laws.

Daffy,
The problem is that Islam holds the Koran to be incontrovertible, it can't be de-constructed because it's the literal word of god and Mohammed is his prophet, nothing can contradict the Koran, not even the Hadith.
The New Testament on the other hand is open to interpretation because it's made up of allegories, parables and anecdotes, Jesus it seems wanted people to think for themselves whereas Mohammed demanded total submission to Allah on pain of death

Dear Jay,

<<Islam holds the Koran to be incontrovertible>>

Yes, if Islam were a person, but in reality there is no entity named "Islam": in reality there are just that many people who consider themselves Muslims - and most of these people turn the blind eye on the aspects of the Koran which they do not like. Some for example turn the blind eye on the prohibition on alcohol, some ignore the Fajr (pre-dawn) prayer, preferring to stay in bed (2/3 of Muslims pray each day, but only 48% say all five prayers), some ignore the injunction to travel to Mecca on Hajj and MOST ignore that Jihad thing.

You may complain that this is inconsistent, irrational or illogical, but how many people do you know - theists, atheists, whatever, who are always rational and logical? They are extremely rare. I know none who completely answers that description, but I know someone who comes close - and as a result he is heavily depressed!

Nothing can contradict the Koran - according to the Koran's own cyclical injunction, same for the bible (Deuteronomy 12:32), but such blind observance to cyclical commands is only attributed to Asimov's "I, the robot", not to real people.

Of course there are those born-terrorists who won't listen to anything because they like chopping heads: for them the Koran is but an excuse. However, the vast majority of people and of Muslims too, don't like chopping heads and will be relieved to find the theological support for this humane quality of theirs.

It is imperative on us to help them if we can. If we can prove that they can continue to love and follow Muhammad without having to follow the Koran, then we can do them a great favour - and ourselves too!