http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafa_Sultan

What an interesting lady!

Her argument that Muslims see people as Muslims or nonpeople was verified when the Islamic expert on the video asked, "Are you a heretic?" and then let it be known she was beyond hope--not worth talking at.

I'm not willing to go as far as she goes: that Islam has a violent foundation that cannot be avoided or overlooked.

Christianity also has violence in its scriptures and message--and yet can also be an extraordinary message of peace.

Judaism has a God who asked for human sacrifice--and then changed, maybe just a test? Maybe not.

And a God who was going to wipe out Israel in the desert when they worshipped the golden calf, until Moses talked God out of it. "And God repented of the evil He had thought against Israel." And a God that said kill every living thing among the people in the land given to the Israelites.

So i don't go as far as she does. Islam has the same capacity as Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism to bring order from a chaotic life, and to bring peace to a chaotic society.

I agree with everything else she says, but for a little different reason. Fundamentalism is not a return to the original followers and their practices and beliefs. We don't have good enough histories for that--neither Islamic, Christian nor Jewish. Can't get back there. And I haven't met any fundamentalists who actually want to go back. No, Fundamentalism is a reaction against Modernism.

Modernism is an approach to life that looks for what is good and bad by "what works" not by "what did the Prophet say."

(By Prophet, I include Mohammed, the Mormon prophets, the Pope, Orthodox Jews' rabbis).

Modernism answers the question, "What is the role and the value of women?" by looking at women. What have they accomplished, contributed, what do they want to be and do? Do they have any natural limits? Fundamentalism sees that that kind of answer destroys the Quran, the Bible, the Torah. Fundamentalism rejects that answer and asks, What did the Prophet say about women?

Modernism answers the homosexual question by asking, "What have they accomplished, contributed, what do they want to be and do? Do they have any natural limits?"  If we leave them alone and treat them like everyone else, does anything bad happen? Is that result better than what happens when we put them in jail, or punish them? Fundamentalism sees that that approach would destroy the scriptures--and hates it. Must destroy that approach. Must destroy modernism.  

Thus there is something inherently self-destructive in Islam: by having the fundamental tenent that Mohammed was God's last Prophet, and that God spoke directly thru him, Islam must always, in all ways, be threatened by modernism. Islam inherently draws the believer back to literalisms, legalisms, and "what did the Prophet say on the subject."

Mormonism would have the same weakness, except their belief that there will always be a contemporaneous Prophet.