Atheists don't critique gods, although they will critique incoherent descriptions of them. And yes, we make judgments on how the religion affects its adherents by looking at their behavior. You seem to think that these topics should be off limits to unbelievers. Why should they agree with you?
OK, but your judgments about what Islam is and does are not useful to somebody who considers Islamic terrorists Muslim.
The topic is that Muslims in Iran sentences women to death for violating what they believe is Allah's will, and the Quranic basis for such beliefs. What's the positive side of that topic?
If only your opinion carried weight. Your ethos is shot due to your posting behavior, which you have been criticized for many times by many posters. Ethos is how the audience perceives the source of a message. Does he seem knowledgeable and qualified in the area he is speaking in? Does he seem honest? Does he appear to have an unstated agenda?
His credentials are not damaged at all by your judgment, because your own expertise and motivation for posting that are in question. And KWED is dancing circles around you regarding Islam. Also, his ethos is exemplary. He comes off as knowledgeable, honest, fair, and with no other agenda than to determine what is true and teach it.
Your trick is to try to minimalize the significance of the story, first by calling its accuracy into question by pinning it to one news source and adding the word supposedly, then with some semantic quibbling about the meaning of the scriptures that support these killings, and then trying to minimize what those words and acts say about that religion.
You don't want it to, but you have no say in how others judge such atrocities. I understand that much of the Islamic world is peaceful. I also understand that much of it is unsafe for Jews, atheists, homosexuals, and others.
Like another poster here, your effort is to deflect from these things. You don't want to discuss the warts in Islam or for others to do so.
Nope. Not agreeing with anybody's assessment but my own. I'm going by the news and my own sense of right and wrong. How much analysis is needed here? Muslims executed homosexuals according to their understanding of their religion and the will of Allah. I disapprove. This is an aspect of Islam, and perhaps the most important one to non-Muslims.
I can't think of any other aspect of Islam that would affect me apart from instituting Sharia law where I live. That's the entire significance of the religion in my life. Before I retired, I worked with many Muslims in rural America, where they kept pretty silent and socially isolated. I had no ill will for them.
For me, that is most of Islam - neutral, no benefit or harm. The best of Islam was a tour of Tunisia I took during Ramadan just after 9/11. The people were friendly. One group of men invited me to share a hookah with them one evening. We were actually under a crescent moon that was beside Venus. I loved the painted doors and the mosaics, and the narrow city streets and their architecture.
My wife's baggage didn't make it to Tunis, so she had to buy clothes when we arrived. They wouldn't sell her pants or shorts, so she ended up dressing in foreign looking clothing. The tour guides were friendly despite fasting in the days as we ate. This was tourism and commerce, but the Muslim people were great.
And who's belittling a billion people? If anybody, it's the Muslims killing in the name of their religious beliefs that demean their fellow adherents. Nobody has to see anybody else's analysis to make such judgments. It's enough to learn the facts and apply one's moral code. Nobody had to tell me what to think about the Muslims I worked with or the ones I visited in Tunisia, either. Some is good, most is neutral, and some is bad.
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