Well, Hirsi Ali addressed my point, but that doesn't mean it's moot. If I understand her response correctly, she's saying that she admires her interlocutor, Zeba Khan, for assimilating into the West -- but that she doesn't speak for the true version of Islam in a way that, say, Faisal Shahzad does. In essence, she's writing Khan and millions like her out of their own religion. That seems to me like a wrong-headed way to approach Islam.

@ EW66: I wonder if any Tamil Tigers have ever justified violence with Hindu principles?
.........................................

Tamil Tigers are a Marxist group which they have proclaimed proudly for ages.

They are culturally Hindu, but more precisely Tamil.

The dream was to create a Eelam, comprising of Tamil Nadu in India and Sri Lankan North/North East territories.

And no, they never justified violence using Hindu principles according to my sources. Kindly share yours.

regards

PS Nonviolence is not precisely a HIndu evocation, but a Jain/Buddhist one. Having said that the most prominent successful proponent of non-violence was MK Gandhi. However he was never considered good for a Nobel Peace prize. Funny that.

as everyone knows gujrat, ayodyha,Kashmiri and the partition was all the fault of those dastardly muslims. they are like chinese food, kill one and 30 min later you feel like killing another....

hirsi ali is a radical of her own kind. she uses her personal dysfunctional family experiences to make judgements on a religion preached by 1.5 billion people in the world. let's fae it, she is from Somalia, not exactly a country that is some sort of a intellectual breeding ground. even christians and many other local religions there are some of the most uneducated and savage people in the world. Can anyone even remember when Somalia was a stable country? she even claims in her book that her hatred for islam began because of an abusive father and bad family members. not to mention the fact that she is a dutch MP, which is becoming more and more racists by the day. either way, some of the other points in here being made about hinduisim or christianity or islam being a religion of peace or violence is completely useless. Hindus are not are more peaceful them muslims, and muslims aren't any more peaceful then hindus, and no one is anymore peaceful then christians. even jews., aren't as peaceful as they would like us to think (see palestine) so let's cut all the crap here. its not the religions that are problem here, its the people. we might all have different beliefs but the one thing we all do share is a tendency for violence.

It is a misleading question - the real question should be: does religious fervor lend itself to large scale aberrant behavior given certain circumstances? Yes. At this point in history is Islam more liable to fall prey to those circumstances than the other major religions? Yes. Is it therefore reasonable to conclude that Islam consequently represents a more dangerous belief system relative to its competitors? Yes. Is it also therefore reasonable to conclude that Islam is inherently dysfunctional relative to its competitors? Possibly - that may be to suggest a logical fallacy - but neither can one rule it out.

If anyone had asked my vote, I would have told them that it's a stupid question.

You're kidding, right?

Please show us where in the Talmud, the New Testament, or the Hindu or Buddhist religious texts where any of those faiths advocate war against other religions until they either submit, are conquered, or are killed.

Islam is not a religion of peace: it is aggressive, chauvinistic, and supremacist, all of which is hardwired into it via the Qur'an and the hadiths. There is no rational comparison to other faiths.

Didn't the Israelites wipe out to a man, child the Canaanites? Didn't God smite all in Gomorrah.
The debate is stupid. Statistically the max number of failed states is in Africa and most crime in the US committed from men of African American descent. Does that mean pigmentation is to blame? Its a stupid argument. Islamic nations have an issue - sure I agree. Is it the religon or the economics and odd power structures in place in most of them. Considering many of teh commentators advocate eradication of 1.5billion people if they don't convert away from Islam - I wonder who the radicals really are.

Audiences can vote for the wrong side. The question is whether the premise is true or not. The violence in the world today is because of Islam. Moderates may wish it not to be so, but with the Koran as the sacred text, militants will always be uprising.

Well, i hv read most of the comments ..

most of them are attacking Islam on no basis .. everyone is forming his own statistics, and please dont tell me that i get my info. from TV .. coz this is just absurd..

if u read well enough about religions u will find that they all call for peace .. and Islam not only calls for peace .. it also calls for justice and human equality, ppl are now very ignorant .. yet they act smart asses.., ppl tend to agree with what they hear .. they hv become accustomed to certain stuff that hv been fed to them and they do the same by feeding them to their children.

Islam now is the most propagating religion world wide .. and dont tell me that this is just a coincidence, those ppl who join Islam .. they are putting themselves at a stake .. so that should ensure to u, that those ppl are opt to withstand the suffering and the discrimination because they know it is true.

All in All .. just read.. and follow your own mind .. god gifted us with it to work it out .. not to fill it out ..

Thnx all hv a good day