Tom, thanks for bringing this topic up.

Being first generation Egyptian-American, born to parents raised in Egypt, in the midst of discrimination by the imposed Muslim society against their Christianity, I will admit I personally have strong, biased opinions towards the religion.

But having said parents, I do have some knowledge that most Americans or other westerners may not. The Quran is used as literary text there, from which to study the formal, written Arabic, and so, both my parents know the book very well in its original language.

My mother has shown me the specific Sura in the Quran, read the Arabic to me (of that high speech, I cannot understand much) and given me the conversational Arabic words. There is a specific part that says to crush the nonbelievers under their feet or to make them pay with tribute. There are also stronger sentiments than this which advise specifically, explicitly to kill the nonbelievers. There is controversy over the word translated as "kill" there- just as there is controversy over the meaning in English of "Islam". I think it stems from the vast differences between the high, formal Arabic and the conversational one.

Last note, I did read a book- but this was at least five years ago, and goodness I cannot remember the title or the author's name, but I'm not lying really! lol- that exposed Islam as a cultist ideology rather than a true spiritual religion. For example, the "burka" is taken from the harem times of Saudi Arabia.

Tom- I don't know what translation you read, however, we have to admit that translations can be quite skewed. I do believe that any Muslim translator would certainly rewrite the book in English to present Islam as a peaceful, loving religion. Because of the language differences I referred to above, it would be easy to do so.

Now, yes, I have not read the Quran myself in Arabic, but either my mother is lying or does not understand. Well, certainly anything's possible. However, she is not the only one to believe as she does.

So, yes, this is only my two cents' worth of input that may even be worth less... but I would just like Americans or English-speaking westerners or anyone who really cannot read and understand the Quran in the original language to think about the possibilities I presented.

I mean, if it's true- that the Quran does advocate violence against nonbelievers of its faith, it would make smart sense that its followers would not share this truth openly with the world. Certainly, they would want to fit in with the other big two monotheistic religions as another "peaceful" religion so they could have their isolated fanatics doing all the dirty work with the religion not getting blamed.

***ok last note for real-- total side note, it irritates the shit out of me when Americans say "Allah" when talking about Islam, like it's another name of another god, but it simply _means_ "God" in Arabic. You can go into a Coptic Orthodox (that's a Christian sect) church, and hear "Allah" many times- because they are praising or thanking or worshipping or whatever they do to/ for God.