Recommended reading: "The Phony Islam of ISIS", http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/wha..., on the dangers of believing there is a literal, undilluted interpretation of a contradictory holy text.
(I'm an atheist, by the way. Not a Muslim.)
What "this" you mean? What I've written is true, specify what you doubt. Now...
> Or maybe they modernized their religion
There's no "modernization" as such but not every branch is as fanatic as the Wahhabis, the official branch in Saudi Arabia, and the direct religious base for ISIS. Saudis Invest billions in spreading their fanatical Islam branch.
> Why aren't they killing infidels left and right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Ar...
"The death penalty can be imposed for a wide range of offences[4] including murder, rape, false prophecy, blasphemy, armed robbery, repeated drug use, apostasy,[5] adultery,[6] witchcraft and sorcery[7][8][9][10] and can be carried out by beheading with a sword,[11] or more rarely by firing squad, and sometimes by stoning.[12][13]"
> Recommended reading: "The Phony Islam of ISIS"
Balderdash, the whole article. One more writer speaking from his ash instead of reading any primary source. How do I know? Because "the Quran is" "a complex and nuanced text that deals with legal, moral, and metaphysical questions in a subtle and multifaceted way" can be claimed only somebody who never read it himself. Nuanced my foot.
I've given one link (Sura 9). Read it and say what's nuanced there. Here another, Sura 111:
"The power of Abu Lahab will perish, and he will perish. His wealth and gains will not exempt him. He will be plunged in flaming Fire, And his wife, the wood-carrier, Will have upon her neck a halter of palm-fibre."
That's the whole Sura 111. What's nuanced about that? Reading Hadith, you can find that Abu Lahab was Mohammad's uncle who didn't believe in Mohammad's "I've received the message form god" pitch.
And that Sura was from the "peaceful part" of Quran(!). Fire of hell for unbelievers is preached in almost every Sura! Almost only those which are bad retellings of some less drastic Old Testament stories can happen not to mention at least "fire" or "hell" for "unbelievers." I don't care how nuanced is if they should pray five or 18 times per day, the view of unbelievers, Christians and Jews is very clear and repetitive.
> 27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
For another,
> 20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
...I'm afraid that your crusade of trying to prove Muslims violent by reading passages from Quran is not terribly persuasive, to anyone who have read the Old Testament. If you really want to persuade others, you will have to search harder.
Or read the "Gospels" from New Testament for the "deeds of Jesus" especially related to stoning:
http://biblehub.com/niv/john/8.htm
and compare with the "deeds of Muhammad" as told by Hadith:
http://quotingislam.blogspot.co.at/2011/06/muhammad-ordered-...
Yes, many Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia support ISIS; it's well-known this is a major source of funding. But how is this a counter to the fact the vast majority of Muslims -- are you aware that not all Muslims are Wahhabis, live in Saudi Arabia or, for that matter, are Arabs? -- are NOT trying to murder nonbelievers?
"Balderdash", you say about the article "The Phony Islam of ISIS". But what you say flies in the face of everything we know about religious texts; that they are anachronistic and self-contradictory in multiple places, and there is NO single interpretation of them. Evidently most Muslims choose not to acknowledge the part about spreading the word of Mohammed by the sword, or maybe you secretly believe they do -- all of them! -- and that they are biding their time?
The author argues that some parts of the Quran contradict other parts; that there are treatises and purported quotations of Mohammed that are meant to explain the Quran, but themselves are subject to interpretation and to varying degrees of reliability. I don't know about you, but I tend to trust the word of someone who studies religion for a living and specifically Islam to have read the Quran. Are you sure it's all "balderdash" and that this professor who teaches religious studies at college "has never read [the Quran] himself"?
But mostly I trust the reality of a world in which most Muslims are not trying to murder non-Muslims. I don't even need to appeal to authority here, just to reality.
After you read enough to have your view based on your own experience, also try to find out how many of those who believe claim those aren't the actual words of god but "some old contradictory texts." (As far as I know, only "apostates" dare to do so, once you read the original, you'll know why.)
http://www.ibiblio.org/britishraj/Jackson5/chapter09.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur
Wrong again. You're not actually comparing. Go to the sources. It's not about "looking hard" it is on almost every page of Quran. Please try the reading sample, Sura 9:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/pick/009.htm
All those are considered to be the direct words of god by Muslims. As long as they declare them so, the problems will remain. But suggesting them not to declare that is probably worse than suggesting to the Catholics to give up having the Pope. They surely need some kind of reformation. Unfortunately, "back to the original texts" can't be the basis of reformation as they are really filled with violence and intolerance. The only reformation that isn't disastrous for humanity can only be "don't take these original texts too seriously." Other Abrahamic religions managed to move in that direction, for Islam it's going to be much harder.
What I don't understand is that effectively not a single person of those who claim that there is equivalence in the holy texts of different religions try to read them themselves, because once they'd read they would not be able to even say such sentences like "if looking hard enough."