[AndyKelley]

After looking over the counter-arguments you have provided and talked a Muslim friend of mine, I have come to the conclusion that like many other religions, it is possible to "interpret" out of the holy book pretty much whatever you want to interpret.

I think that the way the Qu'ran words it, you could legitimately interpret it the way that that blog post did, and I think that you can legitimately interpret it to be peaceful. (Not that that makes the Qu'ran legitimate. I hate that religious books aren't perfectly unambiguous.)

Based on this I think that we should judge the individual, not the religion.

However, based on statistics, it has been members of this religion that perform terrorist attacks, so profiling makes sense. I just don't think it needs to be done in the manner described in this story, especially for U.S. citizens.

In my ideal society, we wouldn't even have airline security for U.S. citizens, regardless of religion. This means that every once in a while, a terrorist would slip through the cracks. But such is the price of freedom. Perhaps even the good guys on the plane would be armed and take out the bad guy before he could cause harm.

[meelash]

(a) I'm afraid you missed my point. I purposely stayed away from all matters of interpretation, and only replied to factually incorrect statements. None of the counter-arguments I presented were matters in which interpretation could be done, they were all factually incorrect statements, on whose basis that video was making interpretations. Now if the basis of an interpretation is a bunch of factually incorrect statements, then what need is there to argue further on the validity of the interpretation of those statements? It is meaningless.

(b) Now addressing interpretation, you cannot legitimately interpret the Qur'aan either the way that video words it, nor "to be peaceful". Rather, as appropriate to its claim of being a complete life-guide, it will necessarily contain the laws, morals, and motivations of both war and peace.

(c) "Religious books aren't perfectly unambiguous"-- have you done an exhaustive survey of all "religious books" to be able to make such a bold, broad statement? It seems likely you're relying on very limited information regarding a few religious books and abstracting, without any possible justification, to all religious books. This seems likely to be more based on personal dogma than rational thought.

[AndyKelley]

I think you've correctly called me out on all three points. It looks like I have some studying to do before responding to you intelligently.