Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Bible:
Deuteronomy 7:1-2: "... the seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them."
Joshua 6:21: "And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
Joshua 10:40-41: "So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon."
Numbers 21:33-35: Land of Bashan "...they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land."
Deuteronomy 2:26-35 - Land of Heshbon "...we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain."
. . . and so on. The point being that all of the monotheistic religions have sacred texts justifying hate and murder. They also -- and this most definitely includes the Koran -- have other texts preaching peace and tolerance. The Koran praises peace, forbids attacks on civilians and proscribes tolerence for Jews and Christians.
There are two other points I would like to make. First, it is a waste of time to denounce a complex text which you know only by having it quoted to you by people who despise it. We can play that game (selective quotation) all day.
Second, if you look at the places where tens of thousands of people are being murdered because they are the wrong religion, you will find that they are usually (not always) Muslims, not Christians or Jews. Anti-muslim pogroms have swept India and Israel, Christian Serbs have murdered tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, Russian and American security forces have killed thousands of civilians in Iraq and Chechenya.
Which is not to say that Muslim extremists do not also murder innocents. Rather, that the chief difference between a Islamic extermist and a Jewish or Christian extremist is that the former kills with roadside bomb and suicide belts whereas the latter enjoy a broader and more lethal range of options. Neither has a monopoly on evil.
origin posted by rsfarrell.