I read Jack's post. All I can say is that it did not match what I saw in my informal study of the Quran last night. I did not find the book to be blunt and clear. In fact, I found it to be vague and fluid. Although there was a general notion of struggle with nonbelievers, I saw very few explicit calls to violence.

I think both of you are discounting the intuitive capacity of people. One of the things that I find brilliant about Judaism is that it puts the violence and ugliness of the world right up front in its scripture and God image, and forces you to look deeper and to interpret in order to find truly divine revelation. I believe that there are such deeper meanings in the Quran. I don't believe that it would have such a following, and it wouldn't be the world's 2nd largest religion, if there wasn't something real there.

As for the rules and regulations, I tend to see notions of divine law as attempts by people to ritualize their whole lives, and to make every waking moment a prayer or act of communion. Us Gnostics aren't into that, but if others are, so be it.

P.S. - I didn't take offense at your comments re Gnosticism.

The peace Islam offers is the peace of surrendering yourself, and your ego, to a higher power. In Muhammad's time, Arabia was riven with tribal violence and an endless stream of vendettas. Muhammad sought to end this by uniting people under just such a personal surrender. This involved a disavowal of tribal loyalties, and the forming of a new polity. When this new polity was attacked by said tribes, Muhammad fought back. This is the historical context of the Quran.

Like I said many posts ago: statistics are what matter, not anecdotes.

I don't recall you asking me a question regarding that report, simply pointing out that it exists. However, since you brought it up:

Of course gender equity is a problem in Muslim countries. I suspect it has to do with the fact that they are Theocratic regimes run by fundamentalists. I suspect it also has to do with the fact that they are poor. There are factors at play here other than religion. I believe my initial request was for reputable statistics, presented in context, in comparison with other reputable statistics.

Regarding anecdotes: they are important only in terms of the specific instance in which they occur. When speaking of global social trends, they don't add up to much. Sorry, the world is a big bucket, and anecdotes are tiny drops.

My defense here is not of Muslim countries. It is of Islam, and of those individuals who choose to practice it.

for speaking on my behalf in my absence. I had a very important dodgeball game to attend to last night, so I could not continue this conversation.

I came into this discussion a little late. Hadn't read your initial post until now.

I stand by what I say about the use of anecdotes when discussing broad social or cultural trends, but if I was a little insensitive to you in the process of making my argument, I apologize.

Hope this isn't too late to reach you.

Kos gets way too many passes from his devoted followers. That tin-eared arrogance that you sense in him is real, and it has come out recently on many issues, from primary schedules to Dennis Kucinich to people "whining" on his site. He needs to be made aware of it if he wants to maintain his credibility and influence as an opinion maker.

The celebration of mediocrity that Maher bemoans in this article (and that I completely agree with him on) has been institutionalized in a number of states, and in the Presidency, in the form of term limits. If it wasn't for them, we would probably be living through the fourth term of the Clinton administration, instead of the fifth year of the Iraq war. Think about that.

Term limits were enacted in the wake of the Roosevelt presidency, apparently to ensure that the White House is never again dominated by a President as competent and skilled as he was. The same early nineties orgy of class resentment that saw the rise of Newt Gingrich also saw the spread of these horrible laws, which require us to regularly purge our elected institutions of all of their accumulated wisdom and experience, to state and local governments all over this country. We have been stuck with them, and their anti-democratic mandate of change simply for the sake of change, ever since.

If you are sick and tired of living in this idiocracy that Bill Maher so vividly describes in this essay, and want to see the grownups and professionals back in charge, OPPOSE TERM LIMITS.

...dropping gun control as an issue has the added virtue of being constitutional. The 2nd Amendment states, unequivocally and absolutely, the right of the "the people" to keep and bear arms. The much debated preamble to it, while it does mention the need for "a well regulated militia," places no qualifications on the right that it later establishes as unabridged. If liberals want to be consistent and avoid hypocrisy, they need to take this amendment just as seriously as they take the First Amendment.

I am all for reasoning with gun owners instead of insulting them, but the positions of recent Democratic presidential candidates on the issue have been anything but reasonable. Both Kerry and Gore's public statements on guns essentially reduce the 2nd Amendment to a guarantee of the rights of rednecks to go duck hunting. Does any reasonable person really think that that's what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they enacted this right?