These threads always go this way. "Is islam evil? Is islam good? Is it a perfect life system? Is it intolerant? Is it tolerant?"
Well, yes, to all the above. It can be any of these things. It has as much good in it as evil, I'm sure. It's just that there's a significant minority opinion that is not particularly tolerant, both in the Middle East - where such intolerance carries the weight of legal support - and outside, where conservative opinion may be enforced by the community itself. This isn't to say that it is uniformly intolerant, which would be absurd. But there is a significant minority opinion that desperately needs to be addressed. This would almost certainly be a long-term trend, but it's unlikely that it will be addressed, of course, either in the long term or the short term, because of the intimate associations of the religion with politics and society and sociality. There's a need for its adherents - as reformers are doing, at no small risk - to recognize the issues and errors of islam, much as Christians have been doing off and on since the Enlightenment and since Judaism has since the Judaic Enlightenment (I forget the proper term) in the 1800's. Yet, the self-labeled "moderates" here - Sam, for one - regard any criticism as a paramount evil (apologies to Zak et al).. So, what to do?