If people actually want to know what is in the Koran, buy one, a penguin paperback version is available. I read the Qu'oran before travelling overland to Europe. The most noticable thing was how similar to the Bible it is. Ofcourse Judaism, Chrisianity and Islam have common roots. Chrisianity and Islam represent a refreshing of the common roots bringing it more up to date. For instance Islam allowed women to own land before Christianity. I think that all the older religions need refreshing to make them relevent in the post-post-modern era.
As for the alledged friction between Islam and Christainity I think that is down to other cultural differences, Moslem immigrnats tend to come from clan based cultures. Don Beck with his spinal dynamics is doing very good work in Holland. Accepting cultural gaps and mutual respect is the path to peace.

Nice try, Boazy - but the closest ideas I've seen enunciated here to those expounded by the National Socialists (e.g. in the Holocaust, Final Solution etc) are those that you continually spew forth in this forum. Pericles has appositely drawn parallels between your odious ideas and modus operandi and those of Oswald Mosley, which you have obdurately refused to acknowledge. However, like his, your excuses for spreading hatred are both disingenuous and vacuous.

Like Mosley, you are intent on fostering hatred in our society towards people of Semitic ancestry - the only difference is that your rabble-rousing is directed towards Muslims rather than Jews, as Mosley's was.

I think that the quote from which this article drew its title would be absolutely correct, if people like Boaz were typical Aussies. Fortunately, however, they're not - and thank Christ for that! :P

Are Australains 'the worst Muslim haters in the world'? No, the French are;

'As religious strife grows, atheists seize pulpit.

CAEN, France (AP) - With 40 minutes to go before show time, the 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium was already packed. A fan set up a video camera in the front row. A sound engineer checked the microphones.

The star: Michel Onfray, celebrity philosopher and France’s high priest of militant atheism...

Mr. Onfray, 48 years old and author of 32 books, stands in the vanguard of a curious and increasingly potent phenomenon in Europe: zealous disbelief in God.

Passive indifference to faith has left Europe’s churches mostly empty. But debate over religion is more intense and strident than it has been in many decades. Religion is re-emerging as a big issue in part because of anxiety over Europe’s growing and restive Muslim populations and a fear that faith is reasserting itself in politics and public policy. That is all adding up to a growing momentum for a combative brand of atheism, one that confronts rather than merely ignores religion....

Mr. Onfray argues that atheism faces a “final battle” against “theological hocus-pocus” and must rally its troops. “We can no longer tolerate neutrality and benevolence,” he writes in “Traite d’atheologie,” or Atheist Manifesto, a best seller in France, Italy and Spain. “The turbulent time we live in suggests that change is at hand and the time has come for a new order.”

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17971/atheism

Don't worry Mr Boaz and other Christians, we atheists are not really worried about contemporary Christianity which behaves itself for the most part.

Instead, we know a dangerous opponent when we see one and have our sights firmly set on a totalitarian and anti-human ideology called Islam. Quite frankly, Christianity is no match for Islam and is easily outgunned by its monotheistic cousin. However, secular humanism founded on science and rationalism is an opponent that Islam dislikes and cannot defeat.

The Enlightenment has just lit up again!

I'm going to go against the trend here, and agree with my old mate BOAZ_David (to an extent). Don't know whether it is the fault of the Quran or its interpreters, but have a look here http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/fatwah_story.asp?service_id=449 This Fatwah finds one pro-Jewish quote in the Quran and twenty anti-Jewish ones. It concludes, in part, that the Jews "have revolted against the Divine ordinances, distorted what has been revealed to them and invented new teachings..." More of the same may be found here http://www.submission.org/jews/ These look like quite legit Islamic sites to me, (IslamOnline is backed by AlJazeera) and contain all manner of interesting Quranic interpretation (Islamic Creationism anyone?). I'm not going to read the Quran to explore this issue, I'll let the believers argue this out. Ultimately, it seems not to matter what the book says, the interpretation is all.

On the other hand, I suspect that a fundamentalist reading of many religious texts could be used to justify intolerance and hatred of non-believers. My view is that a secular state is our great protection, so that we may think and practice as we wish (subject of course to the rights of others). Many people in Turkey have rallied in support of their secular state http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6598561,00.html I don't understand the intricacies of Turkish politics, but if I were Turkish I suspect I'd be marching with them.

Hey Gang, Chances are you've read Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". At the start of ch 2, he says -

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully". This is typical of his tone: he’s not taking prisoners.

He's a brilliant man and a magnificent writer. On the other hand, he's extremely angry. He may not INTEND to hurt people who are attached to the God of the Old Testament - Jews and Christians (and, I expect, Muslims), but he's certainly prepared to risk it. He's that angry. All that said, I’d be taking a slight leap if I accused him of hating theists. He might, but he might not.

Sam Harris, who wrote "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" is another feisty atheist. He admits he is strident, and explains it as impatience with the fate of the world being largely in the hands of people who run their lives in accordance with the wishes of someone who isn’t there. Given his atheism, he’s understandably in a panic. But, I don’t think he hates.

The second reason I mention these characters, Pericles, is to make the point that atheists are not neutral observers and are not always composed and civil. I can also imagine a passionate agnostic writing in a similar tone against both theists and atheists - because "they're both so sure they're right". After all, the agnostic cops it from both sides. Welcome to the fray!

Can we clear the air a bit here? It would appear that the Q'uran does have some bits that appear anti Christian and anti Jewish and Mahommet seems to have been involved in actions against Jews. But that is all history and all religions evolve. Christianity has some nasty skeletons in its cupboard. Judaism is too small to have done much harm, but atheists of the Communist variety have certainly done their share of evil as did the Nazis.

Could the Muslims amongst us give us some indication of their many views, only the extremists seem to get any publicity? The Muslims I see around me are all rather nice.