(I never admitted what you claimed I did)

You never admitted you were no expert on Islam? Of course you did. Every reader here who followed the thread read it. Yet that didn’t prevent you fr. pontificating about a religion for which you knew practically nothing. Then when I asked you to tell us what sources you did use as yr basis for understanding Islam, you conveniently neglected to answer.

Islamic sources are seen as Islamophobic and anti-Muslim

No, the sources aren’t the problem. It’s the ideologue who exploits & manipulates them that is the problem–that would be you.

I wish you all well.

Even now as you leave you can’t be truthful.

I did not call you any names, but you have said plenty to deride my religious faith and you have refused to budge from your erroneous idea that Islam is what made Hasan into a killer. You are an Islamophobic, close-minded bigot and for that reason no one wishes to engage with you.

You cited what you thought was authority on Islam without understanding that all writings are open to interpretation, and that you cherrypicked and took out of context those passages you wished to misinterpret to support your position. This is not effective and meaningful debate; it is merely the equivalent of diatribe and name-calling.

I will close by telling you that Islam was an active choice for me; I was not born into it. I have learned about Islam from some of the most learned people in the Muslim world, and I will tell you now that there is NOTHING is the beautiful Islamic faith that supports or exhorts its adherents to commit mindless acts of violence against innocent people. It is incredibly offensive to me that you kept up with this tack in this discussion despite being advised by the owner of this blog that it was unwelcome.

Until you open your mind and accept that mental illness can find its voice in religious extremism, and that the religion itself is not to blame for the mental illness, you are the one who remains in the dark ignorance so favored by the news media and others who still scapegoat Islam for crimes committed by the US government. There is nothing “reverse” in this world. You just simply refuse knowledge when it is presented to you.

You don’t have to worry about moderating my comment privileges; I won’t be returning. It is obvious to me that you cannot show in any real way how Mr. Hasan has twisted his religion.

It has been very frustrating when I have been threatened with banning for making unsupported assertions, when I have been the only one who has actually attempted to back up my assertions by referencing sources; orthodox Islamic sources at that.

All I have gotten in response from you and Mary is denials without counter evidence, unsupported assertions, derision, name-calling, outright lying (I never admitted what you claimed I did) and even arrogant refusals to back up your claims. Joachim has been the only one to actually back up what he says with anything resembling evidence.

We are in some very bizzare reverse world when Islamic sources are seen as Islamophobic and anti-Muslim. It seems obvious to me that I have questioned some very sacred cows and that there is no progress to be made here.

I wish you all well. Goodbye.

So, based on that, I believe it is actually true that the only PROMISE of Paradise in the Koran is to slay and be slain for Allah.

Before I only believed you were a stubborn and ignorant person. But now I think you’re an utter fool. You can’t be serious that you’re prepared to say w conviction that a tenet of Islamic theology is so because you did a Google search on two terms & they only produced a single verse that confirms yr claim? Are you indeed serious? If so, I’m spluttering with a combination of righteous indignation & laughter.

I’m sticking to my story.

That’s yr story & you’re sticking to it. It is indeed a “story” & you’re little more than an anti-Muslim hoaxster.

The first part of the verse through al-jannah says that the believer gives his life/soul and everything he owns to God in exchange for paradise/eternal life.

The next part says: When/If you do battle in the path of Allah, you will slay or be slain — Quranic Arabic like Biblical Hebrew uses parallelism where contemporary Arabic might use subordination, but even contemporary Arabic to my mind uses more parallelism than most European languages.

The next part asserts the promise that God has placed upon himself in the Torah, the Evangelion, and the Quran.

What is that promise? That the believer has eternal life in paradise while the unbeliever does not. Thus the believer always triumphs while the unbeliever does not even if the unbeliever slays the believer.

In other words, the Quran is merely restating standard Rabbinic and Christian doctrine.

“Reliance of the Traveller”; which is a widely distributed manual of Islamic Law

You’ve referred to this book at least 5 or 6 times. This is the last time. You have no idea what this book is. You read about it on some anti-Jihadi website or publication & you’re learned whatever you think you know about it fr. entirely tainted sources. I’m simply not prepared to accept anything you have to say about this book since you yrself admit that you have no personal expert knowledge of Islam. Everything you know about comes once again fr. tendentious sources.

You have something to prove about Islam. You have an agenda. You don’t really want to learn about Islam. You know all you think you need to know about it, which really is nothing. Lord protect the world from fools like you who think you know something. It’s the ones who believe in themselves but know nothing that are the most danger to the world. You’ll never become president, but if you did you’d be George Bush all over again. And you’d do precisely as bad a job or perhaps worse since if possible you’d be even more ignorant than he.

I have been as candid as I can and truthful too

You have not been truthful at all. You’ve been a demagogue & ideologue. You hate Islam. You only dig to find evidence that suits yr prejudice. Yet you can’t admit that.

If you ask me again any question which I haven’t answered the previous 4 times you’ve asked your comment privileges will be moderated. It is not my job to prove anything to you on any subject unless I choose to do so.

I just did a search of the Quran (at http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/search.html ) with the search terms “promise” and “Paradise” and the only verse that came up is 9:111.

So, based on that, I believe it is actually true that the only PROMISE of Paradise in the Koran is to slay and be slain for Allah.

It is also called (in 3 translations) a “achievement supreme”, a “supreme triumph” and a “mighty achievement” to be “rejoiced” in. So, the Koran looks at this very, very favorably.

So, I’m sorry for your outrage, and lost patience but, I have at least found some evidence for it and I’m sticking to my story.