Geert Wilders' new movie paints a bleak picture of the Koran. You know, all those nasty verses inspiring the terrorists. He wants Muslims to tear out the offending pages:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020472.php

Initially I thought "you're dreamin Geert, ain't no Muslims gonna tear up the word of God". But the more I read Irfan, the more I realise that very few Muslims actually read the Koran. So few, in fact, that it looks like none of them will object if we go ahead with Geert's call to ban the Koran:

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3094

Admittedly I haven't read all of Irfan's words (and hey, who can?) but, if he and his ummah never discuss anything inside the Koran, then it looks they won't mind if we ban it in the West. So we've found a way to avoid world war 3: ban the Koran! Irfan, you da man!

OK, I'll bite. Geerts is a right wing extremist whose raison d'etre is to stir up racial trouble.

Ban the Koran. Wow.

Perhaps the same logic could be applied to the Bible, which also has some particularly nasty pieces in it.

I thought the piece was essentially saying that Muslims are just like the rest of us. That sounds eminently sensible to me.

Unfortunately there are politicians who benefit from creating a false dichotomy between people. One former one comes immediately to mind.

John..(Passy) err..'no' you cannot ban the bible because it has 'distasteful' bits in it.....

HOWEVER..IF..the Bible has something like this: (A modified quote of Jesus.. may the Lord excuse me..he knows my reasons)

Matthew 10:

7"Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19But when they arrest you,......

This now(the following) is the 'NON-Biblical' version which would see ME agreeing to ban the Bible. (but it is actually a paraphrase of the Quran)

"Fight them, with all your might.. fighting is obligatory for you disciples.. even though you don't like it. Take swords.. take weapons of all description and fight in the way of God.. to defeat them...then make a great slaughter among them..tie them up.. and carve off their heads"

NOW..THE REAL BIBLICAL CONTINUATION.....

"...do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."

WOW! now 'that's dangerous isn't it ? "talk"... you will be given what to..."SAY"

Any reasonable man or woman who does not see the STARK contrast between these approaches to those who would fight against us because we are Christians....is to be kind.. 'retarded'... and I'm not joking...

Jesus mention of him bringing a 'sword' was in connection with the above... the swords were those of the persecutors..NOT the Christians.

As I've always maintained...always.. but ALWAYS assess and evaluate the behavior of 'Christians' in the light of their Biblical foundation!

Dragging up historical events from the Old Testament simply does NOT apply to today in the way that the life and teaching of Jesus do.

(so, any critic..don't even bother to drag up the Midianites, Amalekites or any other 'ites')

With all due respect to all.....in reading comments here, not just on this thread, but older ones on Islam as well, with few exceptions, all I see are spiritually bankrupt people, who cannot discern right from wrong, or good from evil. There is not, and never will be, anything good, or "equal to all others," about Islam. If you cannot see this with your own eyes, then I am afraid there is no hope for you, and no point in discussing this.

Passy, stereotypes and equivalence arguments are useful if all you are seeking is reinforcement of prejudice. The issue is not that "Muslims are just like the rest of us", the issue is the ideology of Islam (ideology being the better predictor of Muslim behaviour in the long-term).

Robert Spencer on the Bible:

http://tinyurl.com/35pjsl

In short, the consensus view among Jews and Christians for many centuries is that unless you happen to be a Hittite, Girgashite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, or Jebusite, these biblical passages simply do not apply to you. The scriptures record God’s commands to the Israelites to make war against particular people only. However this may be understood, and however jarring it may be to modern sensibilities, it does not amount to any kind of marching orders for believers. That’s one principal reason why Jews and Christians haven’t formed terror groups around the world that quote the Bible to justify killing non-combatants.

http://tinyurl.com/2wylat

Certainly Christians have committed violent acts in the name of Christianity. But have they done so in obedience to or defiance of Christian scripture and the teachings of the church? During the Crusades, it became customary for those who joined the effort to be referred to as "taking up their cross," echoing Jesus's statement: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).

But this admonition says nothing about war or violence and has always been understood as a call to conform one's life to the demands of the Gospel. And so it is with all biblical passages that the Crusaders and Crusader theologians invoked: they took clearly spiritual passages and applied them to warfare ...

... The fact that he [St. Bernard] must instead resort to passages about spiritual warfare only makes more obvious that Christianity lacks a martial tradition in the New Testament, just as it lacks a New Testament doctrine of warfare against unbelievers.

In Islam, however, the situation is quite different.

Boaz: "Dragging up historical events from the Old Testament simply does NOT apply to today in the way that the life and teaching of Jesus do.

(so, any critic..don't even bother to drag up the Midianites, Amalekites or any other 'ites')"

Cool. Online_east says that muslims don't read the qu'ran so we should be able to ban it.

Clearly, the old testament stuff ain't relevant to jesus's life, as you just said.

So we can ban the old testament then boaz?

Actually, I hate censorship, but I'll be amused to see how you justify this one...

"Christianity lacks a martial tradition in the New Testament, just as it lacks a New Testament doctrine of warfare against unbelievers."

Of course. But Judaism has a martial tradition. The Old Testament God calls upon the Israelites to slaughter women and children and destroy all living things of the enemy.

So yes, with Islam and Judaism, it's different. When people like online_east have finished murdering the Moslems, their next target will be the Jews. Then the world can witness the true absence of a non-martial tradition.

Boaz_David's evangelical Christian God will send his son for a second coming. Jews and Moslems and Hindus and Buddhists and Parsees and Shintos etc etc .will burn while Boaz and his mates are protected and saved by their divine rapture.

Godly genocide. Praise the Lord!

BOZO... please refer to the middle paragaph of ONLINE-EAST's post ..the quote from Robert Spencer.

TRTL.. you don't 'ban' something because it is 'irrelevant'..you ban it because it is destructive or seditious.

Please also refer to the paragraph I drew BOZO's attention to. It's key.

If a person is convicted of murder, and they are executed by the State, it is hardly logical to then claim the 'State' is out to 'get' everyone else. This simple analogy explains the judgement on the various 'ites' in the Old Testament.

BOZO..back to you. The new Testament absolutely does NOT have a 'doctrine of "Christian" warfare against unbelievers'.
BUT..it does have a recognition that the Emperor has a sword and on occasion needs to use it against 'evildoers'.. Romans 13:1-5

The principle of War is not part of the 'Church' although Christians may have to serve in the Military at times when the Emperor legitimately calls for it.

"Murdering the Muslims" ? I didn't find a shred of suggestion in OnlineEasts post about that...did you? really?

Christians claim that their religion is completely secular. Yet as Boaz has shown, Christians can and will fight aggressive war on behalf of a secular government.

This is becoming so tedious. I am so sick of hearing about the dogmas of Muslims, and the "revelations" of their 7th century charlatan "Prophet". Why, in the name of common sense, are we allowing these "fifth column" zealots into our western societies and giving them citizenship . . . even though many of their leaders and clerics preach Jihad and treason against us from inside the Mosques they have built in the very democratic countries which have given them refuge? Does that suicidal policy make any sense? These people think in the LONG-TERM. We natives of complacent democracies do not.
They do not care if it takes 200 years to achieve their agenda for Islamic rule. How many times does it need to be said? "Orthodox" Islam is not just a religion. It is also a specific political ideology that does not recognize any legitimate separation between the power of the institutions of religion and the power of the institutions of government. None of the historical crimes that have been committed in the name of "Christianity" can be justified by anything Jesus HIMSELF is reported -- in the Biblical scriptures -- to have said. Can the same really be said of the contents of the Quran, and the statements of Muhammed . . . as reported from Islamic sources . . . in relation to the historical crimes committed in the name of Islam?
I have a degree in Mediterranean history, and am probably one of the few non-Muslims who have actually read the Quran in its entirety, more than once . . . something I know even many Muslims have never done. The Bible does not specify what kind of government people on Earth are supposed to create for themselves. The Quran most certainly does. There are Muslims who consider themselves "moderate", but the Quran itself is not moderate or sympathetic toward secular democratic government by any stretch of the imagination. And, it is manifestly NOT the moderate Muslims who are setting the agenda for world-wide Islamic expansion.

Sonofeire - I could not have put it better. I've long said that to avoid being anti-social in the extreme, a Muslim needs to ignore quite a bit of the Koran. I've started reading it myself, and am pretty shocked. And as for long memories, none have longer memories than radical Muslims.
The Christian New Testament does not have the same violent material as the Koran. (Except for the fanasies of power, the Apocalypses found in the gospels and the Revelation of St John.) The violent material in the Jewish scriptures is out of date, as it was aimed against a specific set of people. all of whom have long since disappeared. (In fact, the jews failed to carry out this violence, as they were frequently criticised for failing to kill all the people who lived in the lands they occupied.)
An idea has come to me. What about producing a copy of the Koran which has the extreme anti-social material removed (the violence, the mysogeny and the rantings against Jews)? The Humane Koran, although it will probably get known as the holey Koran (Koran with holes). And just to make it easy, we could put all the material we are leaving out in an appendix, with explanation as to why it has been removed (referrences to Islamic sources).
Right now, the world is seeing something new. Muslims are moving to non-Islamic countries out of preferrence to living in Islamic countries. Because many of the receiving countries have adopted some form of 'multiculturalism' these Muslims are being encouraged to keep their culture, which for them means their religion, and the host country makes no criticism of that religion - it even encourages it. Islam being a political program, it is very hard, to impossible, for those Muslims who do not want to live under the Sharia to successfully resist their co-religionists who do wish them, and everyone else, to live under it. I say, we need to break Islam, and my project is one way to start.
Anyone interested in joining me?

"The Bible does not specify what kind of government people on Earth are supposed to create for themselves. The Quran most certainly does."

You should talk to the people at Salt Shakers, Danny Nalliah's mates. They say that the New Testament provides clear guidance of government structure and policy. But where in the Koran does it say exactly what sort of government Muslims should have? If this is the case, why do you see so many different kinds of governments in Muslim countries?

"And, it is manifestly NOT the moderate Muslims who are setting the agenda for world-wide Islamic expansion."

Which agenda? The one of evangelical Christians in the US who have taken over the Republican Party? The agenda of Franklin Graham who urged Bush to invade Iraq as it would weaken the Muslim world? Or is it the agenda of Opus Dei who want to push the Vatican toward supporting another crusade?