No one is denying that Aslan himself holds moderate/liberal views, or even that he’s personally opposed to the human rights abuses carried out by his coreligionists. And I support his project of demystifying the lives of everyday Muslims in the US.

Whether or not he’s trying to “steer the debate to the central issues as he sees them” is another matter. I’m of the opinion that Aslan’s insistence that religious belief doesn’t inspire action is a dodge. It seems to me that he’s so biased in favor of religion, and of Islam in particular, that he’s obfuscating some of the central issues.

People are not complaining that Muslims are not peaceful, they are complaining that Islam has terrible ideas, like men having dominion, practically ownership over women. Being able to beat their wives. That people use the religion to keep certain people down. This is wide spread in the Islamic world.

Beliefs inform action. We see this in the Japanese death cult that tried to murder subway patrons with nerve gas. We see it in Christian cults that cut off their testicles, or another cult that cut off their testicles and killed themselves. They didn’t do this because it was Cut Off Your Testicles Tuesday, they did it because of beliefs. Beliefs inform our actions. Many Muslims believe Muhammad was a perfect person, anything he did was right because the Quran says he was perfect. So it’s not a surprise to find the same Islamics believe if Muhammad said stoning is the punishment for a crime, then that is the most perfect punishment possible. Don’t believe me?
What Normal Muslims Think – And Europe Fails to Understand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYAcLudBbhg

Slavery is slavery. It is wrong, no matter what the circumstances.

That’s hilarious, Brain. Almost ALL sites censor comments; the ones that don’t end up inundated with work-from-home, internet-diploma, and penis-enlargement spam.

You just seem to be miffed that our host here expects you to act like an adult, and support your arguments with facts. And for failure to do so, BTW, she’s not proposing censoring at all…but banishment. If these rules seem too onerous, perhaps you should launch your own site and see what kind of readership you get. Me, I’ll keep reading this one.

Yes, Ant, definitely. I should have made that point myself.

I don’t participate in sites that censor comments.

Agree. But even more fundamentally, apostasy isn’t even a thing without religion, let alone a thing deserving of punishment.

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Jerry’s comment doesn’t need scientific evidence – if you’ve watched the interview you’ll see he’s correct.

Your comment is rude, insulting, and you are making generalisations about atheists. If you cannot learn to express yourself without attacking others you will be banned from this site. Jerry has obviously already banned you from his.

Also, I’m not saying that everyone acts on every idea they have – that would be ridiculous. What I’m saying is in most cases people don’t act without having the idea to act first. As I’ve said over and over as an example, those who do not think death is an appropriate penalty for apostasy, do not kill people for apostasy. Put another way, all murders for apostasy are committed by people who think murder is an appropriate response to apostasy. That is why the leaders of those religions that teach apostasy are responsible for all deaths because of apostasy – those deaths would not occur without the teaching within that religion.