Glorfindel wrote, "Modern Christianity doesn’t apply violence to sects similarly 'outside the canon', like Mormons and JWs. Why the *&^% can't Islam grow up and be tolerant too?"

The irony is profound. Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity, and what were Chrsistians doing 600 years ago? Rampaging around the globe killing unbelievers for god's glory, of course.

This why Christians are regarded as hypocrites when they condemn Muslim violence - the two religions are all but identical, and differ only in vintage.

Claims to Christianity's maturity are equally risible. It didn't grow up and become tolerant; it got castrated by the Enlightenment and had to reluctantly adapt or fade away. If the church had crushed the Enlightenment - and god knows it tried - we'd still be burning witches and trying to cure the flu with leeches.

Islam will only drag itself into the modern world the same way Christianity did: by enduring a triumph of rationality over superstition and accepting a diminished role as a twee source of reassurance against the human fear of death.

Waging wars and persecuting immigrants doesn't bring that closer to reality, and very effectively pushes it further away.

Sancho.

"The two religions are all but identical" ?

Two issues here. First is the GAP between the actual teachings of the religions - what Jesus and Mohammed said, what's in the New Testament and the Koran and Hadiths - and what the professed followers of each religion actually did. In relation to Christianity, deplorably much has been done in the name of Christ that is far from reconcilable with what Christ taught. Why? Human nature finds it much easier to be evil than to be 'good' - people have abused power to pursue personal and institutional agendas absolutely incompatible with the theology. No excuse for it. We see the same awful corruption in the practical implementation of just about every supposedly altruistic political theory.

Second issue is the actual THEOLOGICAL CONTENT of the religions. Here there is a vast difference between Christianity and Islam, firstly on relations with people of other faiths, and secondly in teaching on how people should live.

The Koran is a selective, poor and hopelessly garbled plagiarism of much content of the Torah. It gets facts, dates and essential points wrong. It claims Jesus as a major prophet, yet reflects zero of his teaching. 600 years after Christ, it is straight back to Leviticus :

2.180,181,194 and 4.124 and 42.42: Believers, retaliation is decreed for you in bloodshed: a free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, and a female for a female. ... If anyone attacks you, attack him as he attacked you. ...He that does evil shall be requited with evil…. Those who seek to redress their wrongs incur no guilt.

Compare Jesus (Matthew 5:38-48):
"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. .....You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ... "

Glorfindel, the theological minutiae of Islam versus Christianity is only of signficance to theologians. To everyone else - who only want to live in peace and don't care whose god is the "true" god - they are both ideological monstrosities from the Middle East, making the same backward claims about the natural world, talking about the same historical figures, and endorsing mass slaughter in the name of god and the prophet.

In 600 years there will be some Glor bin Findel claiming that Islam has always been peaceful, the violent bits in his holy book aren't important, the violent Muslims in history don't count as real Muslims, and that Hindus (or whoever) should grow up and stop being violent.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, safe bet it's a duck.

Teuku writes:

“Since the first arrival of Muslims in western countries, they have been struggling to find their place in the mainstream society either by assimilation, integration or in isolation."

But the historical record does not support your claim:

“What many history books miss is that the only armed hostilities to occur on Australian soil during World War I happened in a most unlikely place, Broken Hill….

On New Year's Day 1915 a trainload of picnickers was attacked by a rifle-wielding ice-cream vendor. The assailant and his accomplice were variously described as 'Turks' or 'Afghans'..

In fact, ice-cream seller Gool Mahomed and butcher Mullah Abdullah were neither Turkish nor Afghan, but members of a camel teamsters community that had originally been brought to the Outback from northwestern British India, today's Pakistan. As Moslems they were sympathetic to Turkey, which was at war with Australia.

http://www.travelintelligence.com/travelwriting/1000030/australasia/australia/new-south-wales/broken-hill/of-art-and-war-on-broken-hill.html

Several were killed and wounded, the youngest was a 17-year-old boy going to a picnic.

Teuku wishes to:

“enrich the understanding of non-Muslims in western society and elsewhere on the nature (of) Muslimness or Muslim identity.”

Then why resort to the propagandist’s tool of historical revisionism?

Why rely on a distortion of facts, such as:

“September 11 has had a profound impact on Muslims around the world.”

Surely not so profound as the impact on the people and families directly affected? Not a word for the real victims of 9/11!

Teuku we do want to understand Muslims better, but you need to maintain your credibility by not embellishing the facts.

As I've shown, your claims lack integrity and the "ring of truth":

1) Historically: by changing the facts to suit your argument

2) Theologically: by attempting to gloss over the Qur'anic truth

3) Ethically & Morally: by claiming victimhood

4) Sociologically: by attempting to cover the socio-pathic violence of the "Radicals" and the "Neo-fundamentalists" under normative human activity.

If Muslims are "shrouded in mystery", then a puff piece such as this makes me think that that mystery is deliberate, and that your real aim is to disguise the truth of Islam.

“Other commentators, by resorting to anti-Christian polemics, are not helpful to the cause.”

Polemics relate to refuting a situation, position or theory widely accepted as beyond reproach. With christianity the only thing beyond reproach is it's verifiable history, just as it is with all factions of Abrahamic religion. I watched a program last night on the ABC, which death with the killing of children in Africa by christians because they believed them to be possessed, according to the program more than 15000 children have been murdered. One christian priests, was happy to claim more than 100 children's lives he had taken, which is no different to Christianity's past or islam.

Islam is just another faction of the violent Abrahamic cult and I agree it should be kept out of this country, but then again I also believe people have the right to believe what they want. But they have no right to force or impose their beliefs and practises upon others, in that there is no difference in any ideology. Muslims like christians are easy to understand, it is they who lack any understanding of reality and fact. People may wish to separate themselves from other factions, but when the crunch comes they all band together against any opposing them, we see it all the time around the world in the collaboration they indulge in, then turn round and attack each other, very sane loving belief indeed and all over the same mythical god.

Exclusivity does not partner easily with compromise. The older religions were much more tolerant Gods were melded to achieve civility:e.g., Amon-Re.

Moreover, the exclusive religions (especially Islam and Judaism)have tribal foundations, making it hard for adherents to accept "other gods" in a society. Ironically, it would be the Secular Humanist who would be happy with Muslims living next door, whilst many a Christian would not do like-wise.

The Christian-Judaic-Islamic triangle is an adversarial form. All believe their relationship with their god to be special and that their knowledge of scriptures is true above all the others. It is hard to conceive a supreme being, being the force behind such an out-of-tune orchestration.