Believing that your holy text is the exact, immutable, uncontroverted word of God does not render you incapable of critical thought and the capacity for interpretation. Muslims are just as capable of recognizing allegory and symbolism in their undiluted sacred text as Christians and Jews are. This is not the nail-in-the-coffin argument that you think it is. Conversely, Jews and Christians don't take their sacred - and often bloody - texts any less seriously than Muslims do. I don't know why that's so hard for you to get.

I commend you on your recent admission that you have "given short shrift" to the homegrown Christian variants of theocracy and the very real and immediate dangers that they pose. I will happily agree with you that all forms of fundamentalism, and their common drives for theocracy, are creeping evils that enlighened liberalism must be vigilant against. That being said, I submit to you this quote:

"My honest take on it is that I feel less threatened by Christian theocracy than I do Islamic; I suppose I feel that the Christian flavor of it is more familiar, and it seems that I can 'deal with it'easier."

This, I think, is the bottom line. You just don't like it.

P.S.: I think that a big part of the problem with Islam and the Muslim world doesn't have to do with Islam itself, but rather with the fact that, by accident of history, Islam has become the defining characteristic of middle eastern culture. It is what differentiates the Middle East from other regions of the world. This fact has made it easier for fundamentalism, and its creeping drive for theocracy, to take root there. The success of the Enlightenment as a philosophical movement in the west rescued "Christendom" from a similar situation, and created the modern western world that we know today. I remain hopeful that Muslim interaction with the West, and their exposure to western ideas and ways of life, can have a similar impact on the "Muslim World."

(1) The source for this is not the Koran, but rather a hadith - the second person reports of the words and deeds of Muhammad that make up the basis for Sharia. Hadith, unlike the Koran, is not viewed as the perfect, undiluted word of God.

(2) According to the Wikipedia entry on the wife in question, apparently this particular hadith - and its assertion that he married her at 6 and consummated it at 9 - is not universally regarded as accurate, as this time frame does not fit within other timelines relevant to the story of Muhammad and Aisha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha

According to the Wikipedia article I cited, it is apparently also stated in Hadith that Aisha converted to Islam of her own free will prior to the migration to Ethiopia, and married Muhammad after his first wife died - a space of 8 years. The "free will" part means that she was not an infant, which puts it at at least 12 or 13 when she married Muhammad. This timeline, as you see, contradicts the claim that she was married at 6 and consummated her marriage at 9. The Bible has similar contradictions in it - one book says David slew Goliath, another credits someone else. Its the kind of a grab bag, smorgasbord approach to writing history that was prevalent back then.

The Quran says a lot of different things, and exhibits a lot of different tones and spirits. What passage are you referring to with regard to fighting the whole world? "Fight" can mean a lot of different things, not all of them explicitly violent. Is Jihad the term in question? If so, Jihad is not necessarily a violent concept. In fact, it is often used to refer simply to struggle against worldly obstacles.

While the Jews never had ambitions of world domination, the Old Testament God does in fact exhort the Israelites to violence against other peoples. In fact, God commanded King Saul to slay every last one of the Amalekites. When Saul takes pity on the Amalekite king, and spares just him, God becomes irate, and punishes him by withdrawing his divine mandate for his reign.

As far as murder is concerned, the Bible records that both Moses and David were murderers. In neither case is the killing a semi-justifiable act of war, or political/legal punishment. Moses kills in anger, and David kills out of lust and jealousy. What are the circumstances of this act of murder on Muhammad's part that you are so happy to assert?

The Koran is quite long, and covers a number of topics. You have cited 6 passages. Several of them appear to be in the specific context of battle or war, and not in an everyday context. I remain unconvinced that violence towards others is the sole message of the Koran.

As for 8:39 - as I said in my previous post, "fight" can mean a lot of things, not all of which are violent. For that matter, "war" can be taken metaphorically, as well. The fact that Islam is the worlds second biggest religion, and that the vast majority of Muslims live ordinary, nonviolent lives, is evidence to me that most Muslims are, in fact, capable of seeing these passages in this light, and perhaps taking them in the greater context of the whole Koran.